Tales of the Parodyverse

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HH
Fri Sep 02, 2005 at 11:01:19 am EDT
Subject
I sent it to you on 23rd August. However, here's a repeat of what I said (text within)
Originally
Hey Hoody, you owe me a care package! grammarchick@hotmail.com :)
In Reply To

Whit, wondering
Thu Sep 01, 2005 at 12:12:54 pm EDT
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Hello Whitney. Here’s the summary of what your character has been up to while you were distracted having a real life:

Poor Sorceress has had a rough road these last couple of years.

The problems started when the Legion were on a dangerous and lengthy mission in Faerie. Hatman was separated from the rest of the group, and was finally captured and imprisoned by a Faerie Changling. Jay was frozen in eternal torment and the Changeling took Hatman’s shape and announced his intention of taking his place in the Lair Legion – and in Whitney’s bed.

However, before the Changeling has any chance for any of his planned mischief, he was killed in battle with the adamantine robot Ultizon. The Legion didn’t know it wasn’t the real Jay. Hatman was assumed dead.

Whitney didn’t take this well. She decided to try and use forbidden magics to bring Jay back to life, and borrowed power from the demon Blackhurt, Prince of Fibs to do so. The deal was that in exchange for the power, Blackhurt could possess Whitney’s body for 24 hours at some time of his choosing in the future, and do whatever he liked with it so long as he didn’t harm anybody else. It was a proper devil’s bargain though, because Jay wasn’t dead and Whitney was trying to bring the Changeling’s spirit back.

She almost succeeded, despite the unpleasant necromantic side effects of ghosties and things plaguing the city, but when “Hatman” stepped through the doorway to death it was actually the Changeling, who then attempted to attack the Sorceress. De Brown Streak was watching out for her, though, and he sent the false Hatman back to death, breaking the spell. Whitney had entered into a binding pact with Blackhurt for nothing. And it seemed as though even the noble Jay Boaz had become corrupted beyond redemption by his death. All of this was in Untold Tales #131.

Blackhurt chose the worst moment possible to demand his possession of Whitney’s body, at the point where some of the legion were trapped and only Sorceress could get them out. Instead Blackhurt had her walk away and leave them. However, his very nasty plans for what he was going to make Whitney do in her 24 hours under his control were severely curtailed by the intervention of Mumphrey, Xander, Hagatha and De Brown Streak, who arranged for Whitney’s spirit to travel back in time and witness Xander’s meeting and romance with Whitney’s mother Vervain. Whitney was able to take on Blackhurt back in that time, and so defeat him. Hagatha turned down a tempting deal from Blackhurt to swap her mind into Whitney’s body, in a rare show of affection for her estranged granddaughter. Whitney kicked the psychic crap out of Blackhurt, and was freed from her bargain. This happened in Untold Tales #148.

Later though, Whitney discovered that her grandmother knew that Jay was alive and imprisoned in Faerie. Hagatha had concealed the truth because she felt Whitney needed to stop “playing at superheroes” and “playing at girlfriends” and become the witch she had the potential to be. Whitney and Hagatha quarrelled bitterly, a rift that has never fully healed.

So Whitney made her second pact, this time with the Hooded Hood. The Hood arranged for Jay to get free from his imprisonment, and he brought Hatman back to a retconned version of reality. In the Hood’s revised continuity the fake Hatman thing has never happened. Instead, Finny, CSFB!, and Dancer had died in battle with Ultizon so Hatman had become leader of the Lair Legion. He married Whitney, and their first baby was on the way. Although saddened by the loss of their friends, Hatman had everything he wanted in life; his happy ending. Whitney was aware of the Hood’s reality changes but concealed them because she too had the things that were most important to her.

Then Jay worked out what had happened, and that the world had been retconned. He realised that he had to choose between his own happiness or the wellbeing of his Legion comrades and the whole world. Sorceress realised that if Jay chose to have the Hood reverse the retcons he would lose her marriage and her baby, a baby that symbolised her future and her freedom from the ancient breeding-curse that had made her line brood-mares for the Demon Lover.

Jay chose to revert reality to history as it should have been. He awoke in Sorceress’ bed in regular continuity. But the choices Whitney had made appalled him, and his election to sacrifice their potential child appalled Whitney. After all she had done to bring Jay back to her, Sorceress and Hatman parted. And in accordance with her agreement with the Hood, since Jay had chosen not to stay in the retconned world with her Whitney had to quit the Legion and go to serve the Hooded Hood at Herringcarp Asylum. The main story took place in Untold Tales #161.

The Hooded Hood was plotting, as usual. He knew a powerful unknown enemy was working against him in his plans to secure the Starseed, the power source that would allow him to identify who his hidden enemies were (they were a number of Hell-Lords, including Blackhurt). The enemy had anticipated all the usual means by which the Hood might thwart their plans, so the Hood assembled a very atypical group to act on his behalf – Sorceress, the super-villain Killer Shrike, Blackhearted, a disillusions alternate-reality Goldeneyd, and Keiko Chinato, a marital arts assassin from another universe.

The Hood sponsored the Legion into the galactic contest called the Transworlds Challenge, a cosmic race-cum-scavenger hunt. The prize was to be the Starseed. The Hell lords sent their own agents to stop the Legion winning. The Hood sent Sorceress and his other agents to stop the Legion being stopped. The “entry-fee” to the contest was the offering up of an earth-avatar, someone attuned to the natural forces of the planet. The Hood used Whitney as the Earth’s stakes in the contest; but as always everything he did was for several nefarious reasons.

Whitney worked with her unstable allies (nicknamed “The Offenders” by some posters on the board) to keep the Legion in the race. However, she grew increasingly uncomfortable with the Hood’s agenda, and when she was faced with the choice of following on with the master-plan or staying behind and saving the life of an alien mother giving birth to a breech baby that was threatened by the very personification of Death, Whitney chose to abandon the increasingly dark path and scary attitude she was following and to champion life. She harnessed her gifts to their fullest and saved mother and baby (Untold Tales #183).

And for an encore, Whitney combined her powers with the avatars of all the other planets in the Transworlds Challenge against the Gamesmaster who was forcing them all to undergo his cruel tests (Untold Tales #185).

But there was still a dark secret in Whitney’s life: her third pact, with the evil extraplanar marauders called the Hellraisers. One of their number, the sadistic Bloodreaper, was imprisoned by the Hood in Herringcarp Asylum. Whitney agreed to let the Hellraisers into Herringcarp to get the Hooded Hood! When the time came she allowed the baddies in to take their revenge against the cowled crime czar, little knowing that Lisa and Dancer were with the Hood at the time (Untold Tales #191).

However, Sorceress wasn’t the revenge-crazed witch she seemed to be. She had accepted the Hellraiser’s deal at the request of the Hooded Hood himself, in exchange for release from servitude. The Hood was running another of his Byzantine schemes, one that actually required him to be captured and tortured by the Hellraisers. Whitney escaped from the Hellraisers and trailed them back to their masters – the Hell Lords! There she joined with her father Xander, Messenger, ManMan and others to tackle the very nasty baddies. With the help of pretty much everybody, the good guys won and the Hell Lords and the Hellraisers were destroyed (Untold Tales #198-99)

And finally after all that time Whit and Hat were reunited, and Whitney was free from the dark shadows that had plagued her ever since Jay’s apparent death. She had grown as a witch and as a person. Saying a fond farewell to her dear friend and ex-lover Jay, Whitney followed the next stage of her training, delving into Faerie to learn more about her gifts. That’s the last we saw of her.

During the time since they split, Hatman has suffered CSFB! setting him up on a series of atrocious blind dates – including one with ex-Spice Girl Emma Bunting! Dancer set up one date that clicked though, with Grace O’Mercy, night nurse at the Phantomhawk Memorial Hospital (UT#190). It might have worked had Grace not been a vampire, compelled by the vampire Hellraiser Nosferos to attack Hatman and drink his blood to turn him into an undead as well. Grace, normally a sweet and caring woman despite her unfortunate condition, had to go to extraordinary lengths to save Jay, but the bad experience understandably cooled the burgeoning relationship between them.

The Lair Legion’s line-up has remained fairly static for a long time now. Under the leadership of Sir Mumphrey Wilton the team is divided into an active Field Team and a supporting set of Associate Members, all counting as Current Members of the LL. The Field Team is led by Deputy Leader Yo and includes Hatman, CrazySugarFreakBoy!, Trickshot, Dancer, the Manga Shoggoth and probationary members Mr Epitome (a government-sponsored patriotic superhero) and De Brown Streak (against his and Hatman’s better judgement). Associates are Lisa Waltz, Visionary, the Librarian, scientist Al B. Harper, and newest probationary, cyborg P.I. Yuki Shiro.

Most recently, the team prepared to celebrate the wedding of Nats to Princess Uhunalura of the Abhumans (UT#227), but things went badly wrong when Nats accidentally became the lord of hell to replace Blackhurt and had to retreat to his infernal kingdom leaving Uhuna at the altar. Meanwhile, DBS’ world was rocked when he discovered his father was Morbido the Magnificent, leader of the Botherhood of Evil Mutates, and that he has a twin sister, Pricilla DuBois, the Vermillion Vex. To confuse matters, Pricilla is dating Visionary right now, to Hallie’s disgust. It is looking as thought the heartbroken Uhuna and the distressed DBS might find unwise comfort in each others’ arms.

Oh, and the Parody Master has kidnapped Ausgard, the Chronicler of Stories, and the Austernals, and Donar’s a bit cross. The Hooded Hood has rescued Jury, Shaper of Worlds, and she’s currently living with him at Herringcarp Asylum; of which more anon.

Simple, no?

Anyhow, a good place to gently restart might be Untold Tales of the Lair Legion #230: Dear Diary, which summarises the current team through the eyes of Mumphrey’s 11-year old granddaughter.

You have been much missed, as poster and correspondent, so if you have the time to return to us – and for Sorceress to return to being active in the Parodyverse – that would be quite splendid/.

IW




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