Thursday, August 21, 2008 by Vaal.

It’s sort of a tradition in speculative fiction especially, and even more especially in comic books to toss in homages, injokes and just plain nods to other works. I guess some people do it to show how clever they are or how big a fan they are, but for me, at least, it’s because I’m a huge damn nerd and it amuses me.

Hopefully, it amuses you, the reader as well, but the reason it’s there is entirely selfish. And in that spirit, this blog entry is just as selfish; I want to talk about some of my favorite meta moments thus far in the series. As always, I hope this amuses you too.

It starts under the cut:
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Friday, February 1, 2008 by Vaal.

Descendants as you know it wasn’t the first incarnation of the story of Chaos and Darkness. In the Reflection article, I talked about how C&D arose and evolved, and eventually crumbled to dust. This article will talk about what it was reborn as and how that became Descendants.

As already related, Marvel’s Civil War event set me on the path to writing my personal ideal comic-verse. The problem was that the venom and spite I currently form into minor jabs (Wartorn’s motivation and dialogue, Laurel’s ‘deal with the devil’ line in A MagiTech Crisis) completely took over when I first put fingers to keys.

While some of the above jabs may be overt, the very backstory of Elementals was the vitriol equivalent of blasting across the alkali flats in a jet-powered, monkey navigated… *ahem* you get the point.

The Elemental-verse was set fifty years after America had built a super soldier army, which triggered a biological arms race, whose cascade effect was pretty much Armageddon. Halfway through, a group of soldiers (the experiments gave them varying control of the four classical elements) tried to rebel and convince their super-brothers to stop working for the government and work for the people. They were slaughtered. When the war ended, the nations exterminated their elementals.

See? Subtle.

Flash forward fifty years and we learn that elementalism ended up being hereditary. No one had thought to check this (this trope still stands in Descendants, except Tome knew it was hereditary and covered it up) and suddenly, we had super soldier teens running around.

It also turns out that some of the ‘good guy’ elementals we thought were destroyed are still around and they take in some disowned elemental kids to teach them how to use their powers for the benefit of mankind and prevent attempts by the still-in-turmoil government from instituting super slavery again.

Again, Subtle.

But that wasn’t the only thing wrong. To make this work and have a ‘modern day’ setting after the end of the world, and to have the elementalism evolve over generations, I needed a fifty year gap — which left my ‘mentors’ in their late sixties, early seventies. Kinda makes the Ian/Alexis relationship squik, eh?

The second problem had to do with the powers themselves. I’d made up some bullshit about multiple levels of control in the four elements leading to different powers. But this left my shapeshifters (yes, plural) totally out of place and reduced my wiggle room for new powers. That had to go.

Finally, the actual story was too much ‘legacy characters’ and not enough ‘family’ for me. I wanted the mentors to be able to relate on a level that would either be rare of forced with the current age gap. (How many Gen-Xer’s do you know who are genuinely friends with members of The Greatest Generation?)

After writing up the plot, I realized that that wasn’t what I wanted.  It wasn’t a comic world or a story I loved, it was just an emotional lashing out at something I didn’t like and in that way, it wasn’t any better than the deconstructionism I’m opposed to.

So I went to re-writes. This time, I started with what I wanted to do; a love letter to what I love about comics. Somewhere between the silly Silver Age, the Character driven Bronze Age, and the dramatic elements of the Post Modern I saw what I wanted.

What I wanted was a central set of characters who would eventually function as a family (though many of its members would have real family). They would have pure motivation and while they weren’t drama/character growth immune, they wouldn’t wallow in it and drag down the comic. The relationships between the characters would be showcased just as much as their awesome powers and fight scenes.

Teen drama was a big part of it, in the vein of Kim Possible or early Buffy. Showing that the kids weren’t little soldiers, but people that wanted do do good in the world for whatever reason.

The mentors would also be able to relate to the younger generation; to guide them, clash with them and complement each other. Eventually, Chaos and Darkness landed here and I resolved to make the mentors just as much main characters as the younger generation.

For the setting, I decided to bridge the real world with the fantastic. I’d read about Project Montauk,  carried out at the appropriately named Camp Hero, where urban legends say psionic powers were tested and facilitated and other otherworldly things happened. I picked up the ball and ran like hell. In the Descendants-verse, those legends aren’t only real, but happened all over the world during and after WWII.

Not only that, but I exploited one odd flaw in sci-fi and old school genetics thinking: people expected that manipulation they did to people to happen instantly, in that person. Genetics do not work that way. It would take many, many generations before the results bore fruit.

Genetics don’t work the way they do in Descendants either, but bear with me.

This put the setting in the range of the fifth and sixth generations (2070+) where a population explosion of powered people would take place. Conveniently, it also set the whole thing twenty minutes into the future and nicely around the time of America’s tricentennia.

Tome was created as the new enemy (more on this in another article) to take advantage of the ’secret testing’ conspiracy I’d created. I haven’t fully revealed their goals, but sharp eyed readers can guess.

Well, I think that’s enough for now. Next time, I’ll pick a couple of Freeland Housers and discuss how I created and am treating their characters. Until then, ciao!

Posted in the process, Meta, Descendants | 1 Comment »

Friday, February 1, 2008 by Vaal.

It occurs to me that unless they’re just personal blogs, most blogs attached to sites like this (web serials, webcomics, design sites, et al) are generally dedicated to talking about the how and why of the story. Sort of an equivalent to those ‘behind the scenes’ things you see on DvDs.

Well, a couple of people have expressed interest in seeing more stuff like what I was talking about in my Reflections Post. So I’ll oblige by creating a new section on the blog dedicated to just that.

In the future (starting with the next post), I’ll talk about the process behind things like arriving at the Descendants story, the various characters, and eventually individual storylines. I hope you enjoy it!

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Tuesday, January 15, 2008 by Vaal.

For the hell of it, while I put the touches on the beginning of Issue #23, I’d like to offer you a preview of what the next twelve issues of Descendants has in store (minor spoilers, subject to change, but I’m keeping the big aces up my sleeve, of course). A good bit of this year will take place between the end of June and the beginning of September, which is why it’s the Bright, Bright Summer.

Conceptual spoilers follow

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Friday, January 4, 2008 by Vaal.

How will I mark success in 2007? Well, it’s pretty easy, considering that almost all of Descendants to date happened over the course of that year (Descendants #1: Life Savers, Inc through Issue #21: Come the Black Clouds), I can say it’s been good for Descendants.

From a much snarkier perspective? Well…

- None of the heroes made deals with the Devil
- No heroes covered up accidental deaths
- No lovable D-listers died for no reason
- No children were killed or pressed into military service
- And no ’silly’ characters went insane

I know I’m ragging on Marvel here, but seriously, what was up? Is that what people really want to see? Am I so out of touch that I just don’t *get* how awesome it is to have a cartoon clown beat the shit out of someone for calling him names or see a multiple teenaged girls burst into tears (multiple times!) over the fact that their friends were killed/they were made to kill?

I don’t know, man… But to be fair, despite some things that made my brain hurt, Marvel did give us some good: World War Hulk: X-men was a masterpiece  superhero throwdown I’ve missed so badly in comics. Messiah CompleX, while making Cyclops out to be an Iron Man level wang (sure, shooting someone with your optic blast for disagreeing is a wonderful idea!), is a fun read as long as I can ignore the lame, lame deaths. The Holiday Special was awesome and is probably still on the shelf if you want to get it.

Over at DC, I only read Blue Beetle but I’m glad I do. Buy that too.

And just say NO the New Warirors vol4. It really is that bad. The first 6 issues use the fact that you have to guess who the main characters used to be as a point of suspense. DO NOT WANT.

With that off my chest, I can talk about my own work on Descendants.

To be totally honest, I’m not where I wanted to be at this point in the project. Not that I’m not happy with what’s been written and maybe I’m asking too much after only 21 ‘issues’. You decide:

1) Alexis Keyes, Darkness
I really think I’ve failed Alexis as a creator as of right now. The younger generation sort of stole the show since #13 and I haven’t been able to develop her and her relationship with Ian as much as I’d like. My hope for Year 3 is more Alexis, maybe even a solo adventure for her. It seems that all her character stuff keeps getting bumped, so hopefully, if I log jam it in, I’m bound to get one soon.

2) George
Regardless of if you noticed him,  George has been in this story from the beginning. If this were a real comic, I imagine he would be seen in crowd sequences all the time just so fans could find him. I planned to reveal George and his situation by now, but not so much.

3) Tome Checked Out
I didn’t mean to go a whole year without running into Tome, but it looks like we will. But don’t worry, there’s no way I can ignore them for year 3.

4) Secrets
There are a lot of things kept secret that I’ve meant to reveal or at least drop bigger hints about by now. These include Juniper, The Brazil-American War, and Arjun Ravi. God willing, Year 3 will have a place for them.

Otherwise,  I’m very happy with Descendants as a body of work right now. I have all sorts of new things in mind and just can’t wait to get to them and I hope you are too!

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Thursday, December 20, 2007 by Vaal.

We’re now three issues (about 13 chapters) from the the close of Year Two of Descendants and it’s come up once or twice that people wonder how far ahead I plan for stuff and how far back I’ve gone back and laid the ground work from some things (I mean, Issue #19 tapped something form #3, you can see how some people start to wonder how on the ball I am with all this.

Well here’s the truth: I plan as much as a year ahead. I plan and I plot and I play act scenes I think will be awesome and I compile a big ‘ol text file with nothing but plot arcs…

Then the characters walk all over them and push me in directions I never considered. Sometimes, things I’ve planned for months goes of without a hitch, except its happening to another character. Sometimes a new element that came while I was writing dovetails into something I wrote but never fleshed out waaay back. And sometimes, ideas just choke and die.

From time to time, I’ll bring up a few ideas that  were changed or are gone forever in a little segment I like to call ‘got it all planned out’. CAUTION: SPOILERS FOR EVENTS THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN

Juniper, Cyborg Judas
I never wrote it like this when I was devving it, but I wish I had because that would have proven how stupid a concept this was.

Basically, Juniper was originally slated to be a clone cyborg of the ‘real’ Juniper (deceased) created by the Academy via biomapping and planted as a sleeper. ‘Cluniper’ would have been a major rival for Cyn over Warrick’s affection and emerged the victor, only to separate Warrick from the others during Siege. In he end, Warrick would have been forced to destroy her after trying every trick in the book to attempt to appeal to ‘Cluniper’s’ feelings for him.

Obvious parody of part of Civil War? You bet! A worse story than Civil War? Possibly! A horrible, horrible idea! Completely.

To start, it was much too dark for Descendants. Things can get dark sometimes, but the specter of killing a character, even one that was a Judas, and making the light hearted character be the one to do it was way too much, especially after I started working with the relationships of the characters and realizing that ‘Cluniper’ wouldn’t be lightly forgotten.

At the same time, I myself became loath to lose Juniper as I loved her personality. So, by the time Siege rolled around, Jun’s Dark Secret ™ was something completely different.  And you still don’t know what it is

Posted in All Planned Out, Meta, Descendants | 2 Comments »

Thursday, December 6, 2007 by Vaal.

Sorry it took me like a month to get back to this, but to be perfectly honest, I don’t like blogging. I have no idea why, but I just don’t and really can’t keep a blog going any more than sporadically. I hope to change that with this one as it gives me a chance to talk about my projects the way I ramble about them to my friends.

But anyway, back to the story I was telling.

By the time high school rolled around, I was exploring a return to my ‘roots’ as it were with the character of Chaos. I also had two new inspirations; Digimon and teenage hormones.

The hormones explain themselves really; I discovered girls like guys that do creative shit and played it to full advantage. I included all my female friends as characters in my new work, Chaos and Darkness with the girl a fawned over taking the role of Darkness.

The Digimon thing is harder to explain. For those that haven’t seen the show, Digimon is about kids and teens from the Real World traveling to the ‘Digital World’ and fighting baddies with the help of pokemon ripoffs called, you guessed it, digimon.

Pretty standard fare, really. But what set digimon apart for me was ‘digivolution’. Basically, when stressed or trying to protect someone, a digimon would ‘digivolve’ into a tougher, more awesome form. I was enamored with the idea instantly and the new Chaos and Darkness reflected this.

In that work, the main characters (each with base powers of Chaos, Darkness, Water, Wind, etc) had he ability to ‘megaform’ in the same way Digimon did. It was even a key plot point, as some characters could do it at will and others were jealous because they couldn’t at all.

I fairly quickly became obsessed with my mega-form concept, the same way the makers of Digimon did as the base megaforms (Warlord Chaos, Fallen Angel Darkness, etc) soon branched out into Corrupt megaforms (Black Magic Chaos), Hyperforms (War God Chaos), Trip Megaforms (Deamon Darkness) and eventually Fusion Megaforms (Dreadlord [a Chaos, Darkness combo])

It got really bad, as the new baddie I’d created, Viral (oh, we’ll be seeing him again, I’m sure) got in on the act, both creating corrupt megaforms and becoming Ultra-Viral. Eventually, I wound up spending more time coming up with megaforms and their concepts than actually writing the damn books.

By that time, I was starting college and with a wealth of new things to do and people to know, I almost gave up writing completely.

Then I was saved by DnD.

My new friends knew I liked fantasy video games and invited me to try the granddaddy of them all; tabletop DnD. Now, I may be a sci-fi writer primarily, but my first lady love is sword and sorcery. And sword and sorcery that I had a stake in making the story in was like a religious experience for my inner writer.

Sure, my first character, a sorcerer named Magik (I didn’t pick the name. Seriously.) didn’t last very long, but my gaming continues to this day. Along the way, I used techniques I learned form RPing characters to flesh them out in a written setting. Gage Infernus, Hechubhan Soturai and the ubiquitous Coulmni Agni (who pops up in everything I write and at this point, games I don’t even play in) all spawned form this, as did the source of my internet persona, Vaalingrade Ashland. You may have seenpart of one of his adventures in my nanowrimo.

And so, Chaos and Darkness returned to the depth, replaced by the Ere Series, which I someday wish to finish. It seemed that the may have been gone forever. But this wasn’t the first time they were lost. All it would take would be a little nudge int he right direction.

That nudge was a Marvel Superheroes game using the HERO system (seriously it’s a great system and you should by the fuck out of it). At the time, I was off X-men comics, having quit Marvel altogether in disgust at Heroes Reborn. Proving that I don’t learn, I went back to Marvel to research the game’s setting (New X-men: Academy X) I became enamored all over again with a tale of high school with super powers.

So I built a character who personality I felt was missing from NXM: a metal controlled at the time called Miles Cain. I had no idea how the system worked at the time, so I just came up with cool things to do with metal control (including metal sense, the ‘armoring up’ by destroying nearby objects and a pair of tentacles ala Omega Red.).

But when I got the book and saw the options, I got giddy. In Hero, things like extra limbs can be built with ‘extra limbs’ but if they’re going to diverge a lot from your character, you can buy them as Duplicates and as it turns out, there is no penalty for making them sapient. Isp and Osp were born, named both in and out of character in homage to the webcomic Sluggy Freelance.

After the first game, with my reservations at playing in a comic style game ebbed, Mile Cain became the more four color friendly Warrick Kaine (K’s are inherently cooler than C’s).

By this time, I was back deep into comics and Marvel was about to take a deep wallow into the twin blowful events: Decimation and Civil War. Decimation screwed Mutants royal 90% of them lost their powers deus ex machina style and the rest went all mopey and emo. Over in the New X-men title, the new writer rubbed it in readers faces by killing off 45 student characters including a number of those who still had powers.

The light and fun school book was no more and Civil War arrived to ensure this happened to all characters in Marvel. I was horrified. It was like I’d come back to the circus after five years and now all the clowns had cancer.

Sure, some of the titles were still decent, but what little four color flavor had survived the terrible 90’s was dead and gone. And all the ‘new’ fans mockingly suggested that if I didn’t like it, maybe I should do my own.

Well fuck them, I did. Originally called Elementals, I resurrected the Chaos and Darkness characters in name and spirit to become the backbone of a new kind of classic superhero and created a world for them to populate. After several permutations (which I’ll discuss later), the Descendants Universe was born and the rest, as they say, was history.

Next Meta post will be about the first steps into the DU, specifically the original plot for Elementals.

Until then, hasta.

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Wednesday, November 21, 2007 by Vaal.

It’s only fitting that the first post on this blog be a little look back, seeing as Descendants, in its current form was born out of my inability to participate in National Novel Writing Month (http://www.nanowrimo.org).

But the history of Descendants goes back to the 80’s when I was just a kid. My mother would tell me stories she made up about a bear named Bilbo (later Beebo because I had no concept of Lord of the Rings and there was a brand of glazed donuts with a bear mascot named Beebo).

As I got older, I added more and more to those stories, including new characters and plot lines until I was the one telling the stories to my mom.

It was about that time that I discovered Dinoriders, the first science fiction show I paid much attention to. Immediately, the Beebo stories sprouted elements of Dino-riders; amulets that granted powers, spaceships, and of course dinosaurs.

Time wore on and Beebo himself dropped out of the picture. I remember actually giving him a send off in which the other members of his crew dropped him off back on Earth once he decided to retire. The stories remained ‘Beebo stories’ in name only, in the same way that the comic is called ‘Barney Google and Snuffy Smith’ when Barney hasn’t been around in decades.

Then came Power Rangers. Unlike Dinoriders, there was actually some semblance to where their powers came from ( the spirits of mighty dinosaurs, you see) and they had a mentor figure to explain their powers.) They were also differentiated in that they had unique weapons and special abilities.

The Beebo stories became the Adventures of the Kit Foxes (my then favorite animal) and the crew (of whom I now only remember Sentaria, my imaginary crush), gained their own costumes and magical powers.

A few years later, Saban released their own rip off of Power Rangers: Big, Bad Beetle Borgs and the Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog. It would change the then Diving Dolphins forever.  The Beetle Borgs and Mystic Knights had signature weapons like the Power Rangers, but they were tied to elements (Fire, Water, Electricity, etc) instead of specific creatures. their fights were based around energy attacks instead of karate. In short, they were shinier to a ten year old.

I abandoned my ‘childish’ Diving Dolphins to make my own Beetle Borg. The Red ‘chaos’ Beetle Borg; complete with his signature weapon, the Chaos Claw and signature fire attack Chaotic Incursion (Descendants readers will see this eventually in a new form).  Many a day, I played out the battles between Chaos and his arch enemy, the robot building English woman, Robata (Robin Ata).

But pop culture wasn’t done with me. The mid nineties bought animated versions of Spiderman, the X-men and Batman. All the previous knowledge of superheros I’d had was from the old Superman cartoons, which taught me to be annoyed with the man of steel.

But the animated series fired my imagination. There were so many powers other than shooting fire at things and so many more interesting things for heroes to do than react to sudden, random robot attacks.  Chaos’s repertoire of attacks increased and when I couldn’t fit them to his theme (fire and lava and probability), I made up a new character and named them after my friends.

At this time, I got into comic books for the first time and abandoned all Bettle borg pretext (ironic, considering the ‘borgs got their powers from comic books) and the Chaos team became more of a super hero team under the tutelage of the sapient computer (later, she was a dragon, then an alien dragon), Athena Max.

Middle school rolled around and yes, up until this point, all of this only occured in day dreams and private play acting. A creative writing unit showed me that I could turn my stupidly overactive imagination into good grades and  so I began writing. I was marginally aware of copyright at the time and so my written work was removed from Chaos and co. First was Angel Awakens; a story about a young man who accidentally give his girlfriend a necklace that possesses her with the power of an evil angel. The second was True Human Race, in which the forebearers of humanity return to protect us from an evil offshoot race.

Pretty terrible by my current standards, but it was middle school and I was writing this in every inch of my spare time. I went and looked at the composition books I used when I was writing this and god, was I prolific little bugger.

Actually, I’ll stop here because I want to read them . I’ll do part 2 later. Next up: How Digimon side tracked me for goddamn ever and how Table top gaming showed me the light.

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