AD ASTRA BEGINS!

Set more than 500 years in the future of the HeroBlog universe, Ad Astra is an online comic that tells the story of a team of young supers in the future.


Take a look.
First strip went up on Nov 5, 2007.

West Coast

Headed out to the west coast to see what the Guardians are up to. Haven't seen them since they moved out there to start the team with Centurion.

I heard that Adler is having a baby, soon. She's been seen all over Europe with another winged hero, Gyrfalcon. Little winged babies sound cute, but my mind drifts to the horror of poopy diapers from above.

The interstellar intrigue is getting a little weird. With the Overguards rendered inactive, there's no interstellar organization to keep one star empire from devouring the neighboring star republic, etc. We got a report from the lunar base that said the M'wann were making moves on the Kuldar. Neither have been very friendly to Earth in the past, so it's hoped we won't have to take sides in the conflict. We're lucky in that the solar system is kind of a galactic backwater, and we don't really impinge on interstellar politics in a big way.

Well, I'm headed west. I got clearance to go super-sonic once I'm clear of the city. Looking forward to some sun after this winter. Cold doesn't bother me so much, but the gray days get to me, after awhile. I'm thinking I should move my base of ops, but I like being in Pinnacle City, so close to Legacy HQ. Something to think about.

Back in business!

Okay, I know, it has been a long time, but I'm finally back in action.

I've worked out with Omega Unit's training bots so long, now, I can tell them apart by the dents and scratches. Once we figured out why my powers were acting up, it was just a matter of retraining my energy absorbing ability, by exposure to a variety of energy sources. It was tedious, but I'm back to my old self.

Went out on patrol last night, it was cold and snow had fallen earlier in the evening. About 2 a.m. I found this guy in clunky armor trying to break into an office on the 31st floor of the Morrow Building... from the outside. He was trying to be sneaky, obviously, or he woulda just punched through the glass and gone in. The office belongs to Aldrich Innovations, a consulting and design firm. Norm Aldrich made a name for himself, a few years back, by bringing two floundering software companies together to form Awestruck Inc., the 3rd largest PC game maker.

No idea what they'd be doing that would interest a super-villain, but hey, when you catch them in the act of B&E, the why is less important than the stopping them. Or something like that.

Anyway, I plucked him off the side of the building and he kicked me with his boot jets. It was obvious he hadn't heard of me, because he kept tossing plasma bolts at me and flashing me with those jets. I was eating it up, charging up for my attack and all. I realize I'm laughing, like a kid, with the excitement of the chase and all.



So, there we are, twisting and turning our way over downtown, between buildings and such.

I'm laughing, and I can hear him shouting angrily, but his helmet is muffling his words and I just don't care about his plans being folied or whatever. I'm the good guy, he's the bad guy, there's the jail cell.

We were nearing the edge of downtown and he kicked his jets on high and boosted out ahead of me. I let him go for a bit, pull away, until he's just a speck on the horizon, but when I look at him in the infrared he's a flare, a bright beacon. So, I roll and shoot up into the sky, gaining a few thousand feet and then pour my stored energy into speed. Like a rocket I'm streaking across the sky, just like I've practiced and the flare of his jets is getting so big I switch back to normal eyesight. I'm doing nearly mach 2, in my dive and I flash past him almost bfore he knows I'm there. As I close, I focus a beam of microwave energy on his back-mounted jets. One of them blows almost instantly, sending him into a tumbling spiral down to the snowy passes of Overlook Mountain. He's got just enough control to make a hard-but-safe landing and I expend some more energy in braking.

I had him pretty much stripped of armor by the time the Special Services transport arrived.

Oh, he was ranting about Aldrich taking over the world with some kind of new cel phone. I don't know what he was talking about, but hey, I'll look into it. Villains aren't completely mad, like they are in the movies, there may be something going on that needs a look and I know some people who look for a living.

On the mend...

Well, well...
It looks like I was right. The Overguard device I carried was one of the set usually carried by an Overguard to channel the power of the Crimson Flame, the sentient quasar that powered and directed the Overguards. It's power is manifest as a psionic plasma that is shaped and controlled by the wielder's thoughts. Sort of artificial telekinesis.

Even without the full set, I was channelling energy from it all the time. I didn't even know it, but I was becoming dependent on it, even when there was other energy I could use. I'm on Citadel Island, now, working out in a special environment gym. At random intervals, the background energy spectrum in the room changes and I adapt to it, to fuel my workout. Part of the workout has me converting energy from one form to another, with instruments to help me refine my control. I should be stronger than ever, when we're done and capable of finer control that ever before. That's the hope, anyway.

Esprit has been especially attentive, I think she likes me a little too much. I mean, yeah, she just turned 17, and all that, but geez, she's like a sister to me. At least she's been getting out some, I heard she's been teaming up with the Young Guns, lately.

Dr. Omega says his interdimensional sensors are picking up some kind of disturbance in the ether. It could be trouble in a parallel reality that's causing tremors in those around it. Or, it could be something coming our way. It's impossible to tell, even for Tesseract, whose powers let her sense a lot more than any instrument humans have been able to build. Wait and see. He's called a tele-conference between the various super-teams to warn them.

I don't feel so good...

I've been under the weather, recently. A few weeks ago, my powers started acting up. I'd absorb heat and try to expel it as electricity and it would come out microwaves, or I'd try to amp my strength and stuff would catch fire around me. It's very frustrating.

I'm on the inactive reserves with Legacy, at the moment and I'm spending my time on Citadel Island, while Dr.Omega runs tests.

I think it may have something to do with the Overguards. I wore that suit for so long and had that Overguard power gem thing, I think my body got conditioned to drawing energy from it. It may also be a further mutation of the syphon virus, a kind of delayed symptom. It may be a combination of factors. We should know more when my results get back. Man, I wish we had magical labs like on TV, where all the test results come back before the bottom of the hour commercial break.

Oh crap, they want more blood. Damn, this sucks.
Later

Another new suit...

Well, my nifty alien Overguard suit finally bit the dust. It stopped self-repairing and spots where it had previously healed began tearing under minor strain. I contacted Dr. Omega and had them run off a few of our SmartSkins (TM) in my colors. They're not as adaptable as the Overguard suits, but they're better than fighting crime in my sweat pants.

The other day I was involved in a fight with Magister and his Demi-human Liberation Army. I sympathize with the demi-humans, but this guy is always trying to liberate his people so they, and everyone else, can be his subjects. Not my idea of liberty.

He attempted to breach Legacy HQ to steal something from Dr. Oblivion's stash of magical artifacts. He got into the HQ, but as far as we can tell, he didn't get what he came for.

I just realized I haven't shown my updated costume since the big cross-time battle. This is my new SmartSkin (TM) version. I made a little alteration, since I no longer have the Overguard power gem. They tell me we already have over a hundred regular customers for SmartSkins and with their versatility, we'll have more in the future. Its comfortable, too.

Good news is, I'm getting back into the hero thing...

...bad news is, there's a new Abraxas in Dynasty. He's younger, and claims to be the son of the recently deceased Dynasty leader. Valkyrie is leading Dynasty, now, and Ironsmith and I got the call about a warehouse robbery on Connor Road.

We arrived and found these two tearing through the place.



I managed to get in some good shots on this Abraxas, Jr. and he definitely doesn't seem as strong as the original. Could be a hybrid, I suppose. Still packs a punch, but I can charge up quite well from his punches. He also tosses around some impressive energy beams from the eyes that started the fire.

Ironsmith got a workout in his latest rust bucket. Why he paints them up that color, I will never know.

The warehouse was a mess, but it looks like they left without whatever it was they came for, so that's a plus.
Back in business. It feels good.

I'm still NOT DEAD...

And that's more amazing than it sounds.

Okay, I've been dragged across half the freakin' galaxy, since the start of summer and all I wanted was a nice, relaxing vacation!!!

I went with the Elysians to their orbital habitat and they tested out the ancient hyperdrive, and it worked! We jumped a few light-minutes at a time, making a circle around the solar system. It was fun and the stars were brilliant and untwinkling and all that. After awhile, it was time to go home so they programmed a jump to take us back to solar orbit, just inside Earth's orbit.

This time, the drive did something decidedly nasty. Instead of dropping us into a parallel orbit with Earth, it jumped us across the damn galaxy. Something about a fold in space-time or something, wrong place/wrong time, whatever.

We reappeared in normal space in the middle of the battle of the millenium. There was what looked like an enormous red star near us and there were thousands of space ships of different types in the space around us. The habitat reacted by erecting some pretty powerful force shields, and the battle raged around us as if we'd never appeared.

Then something strange (yeah, I know) happened. My Overguard power gem started reacting and I got this flood of information. The red star was, in fact, the massive quasar--sentient quasar-- the Overguards call "the Crimson Flame". It's the source of all their power and fuels their technology as well. The Flame was calling for help.

Overguards were responding, but distances are enormous on the galactic scale and there was simply no way for them all to get here. The attackers were using a power of their own, a kind of indigo/violet energy they tossed around the way the Overguards do their red energy. They are known as the Brotherhood of the Black Sun and their power source is a strange, dark quasar that radiates mostly in the ultraviolet. I'm told that violates a bunch of laws of physics, as we know them, but I saw the thing and it's real. It's also very powerful, probably as powerful as the Flame, and had all its forces concetrated to the task of capturing or destroying the Flame.

Now, there are a lot of very powerful Elysians, so it wasn't long before we had a squad or space-worthy types ready to join the fight. It took some time to get the habitat to open a window in the shield, for us, but we got out and made contact with the Overguards and their allies.

The fight was brutal. Space combat is the weirdest thing I've had to learn. No gravity to work with, so flying is always tricky. Easy to move, difficult to maneuver. At least there was plenty of energy to eat.

So, we fought. And we fought.

We lost. We were simply outgunned and there was no help for it, but to grab all the survivors we could and bug out.

The Flame, realizing it was about to fall into enemy hands did the only thing it could. It used its own power to warp itself out of normal space. Better than it falling into the hands of the Black Sun crowd, but deadly for the Overguards in the field. At least the Flame managed to send out one last warning signal. The Overguard tech holds a residual charge for a few hours, so most Overguards would be able to find a safe haven, before their power went dead.

So, the Overguards are no more. My gem went dark about 6 hours after the Flame disappeared. No one knows if the Flame is still alive, or if it committed suicide. The habitat is now a crowded place, 580,000 people of 16 different species living there. There's room enough, but feeding them all is going to take some work. They hyperdrive still works, but the jumps back to Earth took a lot longer than the one out had. We couldn't locate that ripple in space-time that vaulted us across space on the way out.

On the way back, we met several Overguard ships, running on backup power supplies. Limping home, like we were. We managed to get some of our evacuees to ships headed for their homeworlds, and by the time we popped back into orbit around Sol, we were down to 389,000, or so.

Here's the thing. The Overguards have acted as the de facto peacekeepers in the galaxy for thousands of years. Now, there is no peacekeeping force in the galaxy, and there's a new, very dangerous threat running loose. Earth's status as neutral territory may be threatened. It's suddenly a very different galaxy out there.

I'm not dead!

Wow. Summer's almost over. I never thought I'd be away from home this long, much less away from Earth.

It's amazing how something like an exotic vacation can get you swept up into large, strange events. I decided I needed a break after the last big adventure and took the opportunity to head back down to the Elysian city in Antarctica. I get there and they're having a big celebration. They've just learned how to activate and operate the propulsion systems on their space habitat, that've been dormant for millennia.

Of course, with having met some of their long lost predecessors, the true pre-historic super-beings who built the thing and are the source of most of Earth's legends and myths of gods and heroes with supra-normal powers, I was pretty busy sharing my story. No shortage of dinner invitations, you might say.

So, as these things happen, I got swept up in the celebration and accepted an invitation to visit the habitat and ride along on the first test drive.

They drive system folds space somehow, it's not entirely understood even by the Elysians, they're learning how to decipher the ancient science as their brains continue to evolve, thanks to the "upgrades" they got when they were accepted by the derelict habitat.

Here's what it looked like, on our approach.



Man, I am tired. I'll write more later.
This gets complicated and there's some pretty bad things happening out in space, right now. Earth's lucky to be in neutral territory, at present, but with what's happening, it may not last much longer.

Back from New York...

Olympia's doing well. She had a couple of broken ribs and some internal bleeding, but it's all under control, now. She can't do much with her ribs all taped up, but it's a big improvement.

Things have been pretty normal, the last couple of weeks. Caught a guy robbing Saratoga State Bank. Called himself "Thruster". He seemed to be able to generate hot gasses from his skin and direct them to provide thrust. It left a stink like burnt sulphur. Apparently, he runs out of fuel pretty quickly and his recharge time is long enough that he was easy to catch and restrain before he started blasting again.

Checking out my new place. Wish I could show it, but I'm still doing the secret ID thing, for the time being.

Well, I'm heading out for patrol. Heard there's a shipment of old Kraken League war tech being routed through town. Nobody's heard from the Kraken League since the Valiants took down King Kraken in 1996. Still, it's a good idea to be on the lookout. Later...