It’s as if–in fact, I’d be willing to bet it’s that–once he got taken down by Paragon, nothing seemed to matter. He could fight the Beacon from here until the heat-death of the universe, but in the grand scheme…Paragon would be able to stop him even if he stopped everybody else.

And given Beacon’s reluctance to let Paragon fight her battles, and Paragon and the Ancient Mariner’s conversation, especially the bits about Freya…

Well, in the current backstory, Paragon was the first super hero — the first costumed vigilante of any kind, really — and he started in 1982.

So what’s Chattergun Calhoon’s story? I’m not entirely sure. He may have been trapped in some kind of suspended animation until the eighties or something. Or he might simply have had a gangster motif.

As for the “Shroud?” I have absolutely no clue.

Just the kind of thing that shows up in these things. It’s worth noting, however, that the SF Con I first came up with this story had, rather inexplicably, a Godfather theme. So I had Mob connections on the mind.

Elle Chemical, the lascivious Lady Velvet, finds her comic book antecedents somewhere between Catwoman (particularly the 60′s television version) and Poison Ivy. In one sense, she also brings to mind a beautiful science fiction actress I had the pleasure to meet — in extreme passing — at a convention once. Said actress was warm, and friendly, and beautiful, but there was also a certain air of inevitability to her. Her show was long off the air, B movies and conventions were paying the bills and this was, as Elle says, business. This story took its shape almost entirely at that con.

Refraction was in the prologue, as you’ll recall. He doesn’t have a direct antecedent in the comics, but one does recall that the Mirror Master was a prominent member of the Flash’s rogue’s gallery.

The Cipher, or Clinton Potipher, brings to mind both the Riddler and, to a lesser extent, the Penguin. Batman’s rogues are grotesques in the tradition of Dick Tracy’s enemies, punnish names and all.

Jack O’Knaves should call to mind the dark side of Batman’s rogues — the ones born in the 40′s, evolved into the goofy side of 60′s camp, and then came out on the other end brutal and psychotic. Obviously, the Joker heads that list.

One other bit of Batmania is sort of implicit here. One of my favorite classic Batman stories — this is from the Giant Typewriter era comics, mind — featured Batman noticing the Jokermobile driving by. Robin wants to go after him, but Batman says they can’t — he ‘paid his debt to society and has been released as a free man.’ Which means he’d done his prison time (this was during the time he was more gangster than insane) and was free to go, despite the number of recent crimes Batman had foiled. And despite the fact that even this relatively innocuous Joker had multiple murders in his background. The idea that he would be released from prison after a few months or even years is preposterous, but the story needed him free so he was free. This happened to Lex Luthor a lot, too, as I recall.

Well, obviously if Refraction, having been to prison multiple times and escaped multiple times, took over an entire sports stadium in 2003? There would be no chance in Hell he’d be free to go on the retired Supervillain’s con circuit in 2005. The Service is good but it ain’t that good.

But the story requires it, so here he is. You can No-Prize an explanation if you wish (more than one lawyer reads these stories), but as for me? It’s a part of the world that superheroes and supervillains inhabit. Maybe there’s a Suicide Squad analogue he did a mission with. Maybe there was some kind of technical misfeasance. Maybe the governor was mind controlled into pardoning him. I dunno, myself.

There aren’t direct analogues or antecedents for Leatherwing, the Hook, Titan James, Madam Hypnos or Fletcher Joan in the world of comics. I’m sure you can find appropriate counterparts if you look, though. As for “Walabyne, the alien with the Australian Accent,” that’s kind of a nod to one of my all time favorite Superman villains: Terra Man. Terra Man was the adopted son of an alien high tech wild west cowboy. Named after our planet, no less. ALIEN HIGH TECH COWBOY.

I don’t begin to have the sheer capacity for that kind of crack-laden unmitigated joy. The best I can do is make oblique reference to Australian alien retired supervillains. I imagine his head looks sort of like a Koala, though.

(I think the only one at my store with the sheer presence to match Cipher’s is the guy who does toddler storytime. He spends his spare weekends dressing in period pirate garb and singing sea shanties. He’s also a retired elementary school principal.)

(…damn it, they already think I’m weird enough over there. I should not write crossover fanfic about my coworkers.)