Astonishing Adventures: The Golden Age

Part 1 of my intended epic takes place in the era commonly referred to as the Golden Age. The story takes place between 1938 and 1945 as the Great Depression ends and World War II begins. It is the beginning of superheroes, but ironically, also the beginning of America's status as a world superpower. It was, perhaps, the most morally unambiguous war ever fought with the world actually hanging in the balance.

It is a period that comic books were never really divorced from. Originally superhero comic books (like the pulp novels that preceded them) served as guardians of social good protecting the victims of the Great Depression. When the war started, the heroes became a part of the propaganda championing absolute good against absolute evil. It worked, but when the war ended and the Depression was over, their message no longer resonated quite so strongly. America, it seemed, didn't need superheroes any more.

But the period has always had a certain mystique and romanticism about it, no doubt in large part due to the glamor of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Cars were works of art. Men wore stetsons. Women wore pearls. You could jitterbug all night long for a nickle. It is a period of crime noir and world adventuring (i.e. Indiana Jones) before the conservativism of the fifties, the radical turmoil of the sixties, and the downright ideological clusterfuck of every era after that.

But naturally, this is where my story begins before superheroes traveled through time to parallel universes and through the depths of space. Many didn't even have powers. Those that did often had "minor" abilities such as the strength of ten men or "the ability to cloud men's minds." In fact, the term superhero wasn't even used early on. More often, they were referred to as "mystery men."

This story is essentially about the sudden sociological shift where America went from a poor and isolated land to a world superpower. Roughly stated, the theme is "Where are we going and where have we been?" As the Nazis are looking to the past to establish legitimacy for their ideological goals, our heroes are looking to the future and a way out of the current state of the world.

There are (currently) four protagonists: The Mechanic, Lady Liberty, The Enigma, and another character for whom I'm still trying to find a name. For now, I call him The Alchemist. The Mechanic is a brilliant inventor, world traveler, and natural super-athlete whose mother went insane after she was abducted by a bright light from the sky and woke up the next morning pregnant. Lady Liberty is a fast-talking, aggressive New York City lawyer who is embodied with the spirit of Athena when she is exposed to the Atlantian psycholotron (read: plot device) and is sent on a spiritual journey which changes the world as she knows it. The Enigma is a cocky, self-absorbed Los Angeles reporter raised as an illusionist/mentalist/escape artist in vaudeville who fights as a crime noir hero against mobsters, solves Hollywood murders, and frequently comes into conflict with the corrupt police department. The Alchemist (or whatever his name will be) is a San Francisco Chinese immigrant, master of "Chinese boxing" (as kung fu was known at the time) and Taoist alchemical mysticism. In Hong Kong, he was a mob boss and assassin, but after killing a holy man, he is trying to find redemption.

The villains include Dr. Josef Mueller, a German scientist and mentor of the Mechanic who became an eccentric genius when he gained the wisdom of Atlantis via the psycholotron; his daughter, Milla Mueller, the beautiful blonde bombshell who serves as a high ranking member of the SS (she wears an eyepatch over her right eye from when the Mechanic, her ex-boyfriend, shot her for taking his best friend, a talking gorilla, hostage); the Hidden Khan, the Alchemist's illegitimate father and leader of an ancient secret society of spies and assassins; Dietrich von Frankenstein, euro trash great grandson of Victor, who creates monsters for anyone who can afford it; Geist, an emotionless, German SS officer turned living ghost and assassin; Ubermench, the mortal incarnation of Thor embodying the Nazi ideal; Tokyo Rose, the Japanese sky pirate who loyally serves the empire; and the Illusionist, the Enigma's childhood mentor who killed his mother and seeks to make the Enigma his prodigal son... whether he agrees or not.

Other "Mystery Men" include Secret Agent Zero, a ruthless, white-suited master of disguise who never shows his real face; Twilight & Dawn, a husband and wife team of crimefighters mixing the adventurous athleticism of Douglas Fairbanks with the sardonic wit of Nick and Nora Charles; Tin Man, a Nazi war robot befriended by a pair of orphans wandering the dust bowl; Titan, a man who takes an experimental pill to, um... grow large (unfortunately, it's highly addictive and psychologically unstable); and Rosie Rocket, the Enigma's personal mechanic and chauffeur turned protégé of the Mechanic.

The story travels from the dirty streets of Depression-era America to a gigantic superpowered war over Nazi Germany. There will be airships, ninjas, lizard men, ancient cities, UFOs, mobsters, psychopaths, evil spirits, flamboyant tricksters, magic, gods, and, of course, lots of Nazis getting their asses handed to them.

It should be fun.