>>5526212>>5526235>>5526374"Oh, let's see what's on the Flashback Channel!"
"...At the end of the 1950's, supercrime began to soar, prompting the formation of several superteams to stem the rising tide. Many debated on whether or not to ban the writings of Francis King, Frederick Nietzsche, Dwight Adams, and others, which they saw as influencing the spread of the ideas of the Brotherhood of the Lion."
"Ah, the BOL."
Sam smiles. "You know, my mom thought you were going to grow up to join them."
"Ah, really? Come on! She really saw me as supervillain material?"
"Hey, you did kind of implode out there on your island. You didn't want to go anywhere, do anything. They say that's how it starts. First you get restless. Then you get depressed. Then you get mad. Then you're wearing an ant costume and turning downtown into an anthill and making everyone wear ant hats."
The Brotherhood of the Lion. They take their name from some lines by Nietzsche, and they're probably the only lines by Nietzsche most of them have ever read.
"With the advent of rejuvenation technology, men could live forever. With the advent of teleportation technology, men could go anywhere, Yet many found life unfulfilling. Men journeyed to the stars to find races older and wiser than himself who had mapped the multiverse back when the sun was young and blue. Back on Earth, man found a wealth disparity like none before. Immortal billionaires had no need to invest in a family, and the natural churn of wealth caused by natural death froze. There was no adventure in the stars and no treasure in the Earth. And as for Earths beyond, man found an infinite multiverse, one with an infinite number of heavens and an infinite number of hells. As Francis King observed in his controversial book The Joke Of Man, no matter how many worlds were saved, no matter how many lives were touched, the amount of suffering in the multiverse remained infinite."
"I like it better when they talk about wars." Sam says.
"Many young men were left without hope, and without hope, they became without fear. The BOL told them to take their frustrations and pour them out over the uncaring world. Create value, no matter how weird, silly, or meaningless. If they had anything, they had their aggression, and aggression was enough to force attention. In a room full of helpless people trying to go about their daily lives, they could be God for a few minutes."
You change the channel. You're curious what Martin's News is like.
You see a woman made of steel standing next to a form graphic.
"...Don't forget to include your name on the form as well as your supername. We aren't going to hunt through the records to identity you. If you can't follow simple instructions, we don't want you on the team."
"Who's that?" you ask.
"One of the ERC coaches. Steel Dolly. She's old-school old-school. Fought in the Worlds War. Met the Black Terror and Fighting American."
"She's--
>Cool!>Hot!>Intimidating!>Old!>Shiny! 