If you were kidnapped by a floating ball and then appeared on a platform floating in mid-air, facing a huge being that's basically a floating mask…would you REALLY accept it as real? Half of the original CRISIS should have been spent convincing each hero that he hasn't finally gone crazy….
Ultra is from POINT GUARDIAN and used with the permission of Ultra's creator, Ben Carver. Flickerflame needed a fairly noble, old-fashioned hero-type for a straight man, and I've long been an admirer of Ben's traditional take on the super-hero, so retro as to be refreshing— in these days when pathos and gore is the norm in most comics. There's something to be said for recapturing the original archtype of the superhero. Ultra is perhaps a little tesiter than he is in his own comic, but I could see a reasonably noble hero taking an instant dislike to a sarcastic, self-serving antihero like Lafferty.
The floating mask-guy has been dubbed “Ringo” in THE CROSSOVERLORD and Flickerflame was named on a page. This is sort of an offshoot of CROSSOVERLORD, but Lafferty will soon be returning to his home reality.
And no, I couldn't resist Lafferty commenting on Mindmistress' name. There are no plans for my two main characters to ever meet, and I wanted to establish that the Next Level exists in a world where no other superhuman heroes could help Lafferty—but they exist in the same multiverse, as it were.
More on the Smiling Man's agent in Flickerflame's reality next time.
Honestly at this point? He's probably better known as Raphael Jacob Lafferty. At least in his home universe.
How he got himself a multiversal reputation already, well, I'm not entirely sure.
Videospirit at 5:46AM, July 13, 2013
Honestly at this point? He's probably better known as Raphael Jacob Lafferty. At least in his home universe. How he got himself a multiversal reputation already, well, I'm not entirely sure.