Capeworld Comics

The Space Patrol Universe

 

The Space Patrol Universe, better known throughout the multiverse community by its Fox harmonic Mu-Eta, follows a pattern of hyperstatic development familiar to students of analog universes known as the Thomas pattern. From the dawn of human civilization into the 18th century, superhumans are scarce. Then, there’s a brief “pre-shock” expansion of superhumans in the late 19th century followed by a proper expansion in the 20th century, often accompanied by a global war. Superhumans then kick-off a massive expansion of technology. Age and sickness are virtually eliminated. Needs are met. Humanity leaps to the stars.

 

Mu-Eta is a peaceful, low-powered (their superhumans are almost exclusively mild enhanciles), well-developed world where the Space Patrol protects mankind’s gradual expansion across the stars. It’s known throughout the multiverse community as a “vacation” spot, a world that’s boring for adventurers and thrill-seekers but perfect for people that just want to visit a place where dark gods don’t threaten reality and the stars are never in danger of going out. 

 

To keep themselves peaceful, Mu-Eta enforces a strict immigration policy. Planets are routinely scanned with Fox Tuners to identify anyone not native to the universe and automated calls are made to the Warp Authority to remove any detected syncopations. Mu-Eta works with the multiverse community to find a way to accept as many refugees as possible while keeping their universe safe, but they’ve made it clear that they will always lean on the side of safety. It’s hard to blame them when people from, for instance, the C-series knock on the door. “Hey my universe just exploded for the fifth time, can I come over?” doesn’t inspire much confidence for peaceful cohabitation.

 

Mu-Eta’s Space Patrol is infamous for being dismissive of the wider multiverse. There’s even a movement within the Space Patrol government to seal itself off completely from the multiverse. Many in Mu Eta see the multiverse as a huge liability. So many dangers can come from it. And what does it give them in return? Nothing that they need. Technology? Why would they need anything beyond their rejuvenation treatments which keep them young and healthy? Knowledge? Why know anything outside their paradise planets? Adventure? That was another word for danger. Culture? What could barbarians that make war within their own universes have to teach them about culture?

 

You can probably tell why many members of the multiverse community hate Mu-Eta. Keeping the multiverse safe for everyone is a group effort, yet Mu Eta regards those that foot the bill to place barriers between them and danger with contempt. They only have token respect for ARGO and the Warp and Weft Authorities. ARGO Commander James Victory once caused a meeting between ARGO and the Solar Patrol to be canceled by suggesting they change Mu-Eta’s official designation to “Universe Pissant.”

 

But there is a strong counter-cultural current that wants Mu-Eta to boldly explore the multiverse and take responsibility for their protection. This current is headed by the Faces of Space, a superteam formed of men and women inspired by 20th century superheroes. The Faces work with the Space Patrol who are sometimes accommodating, sometimes not, but the rank-and-file patrolmen are always appreciative of the Faces. ARGO and the Warp and Weft Authorities are also appreciative as it’s not just their universe the Faces work to safeguard, it’s the multiverse. By the standard of other superteams, they’re small, inexperienced, and weak, but they make an effort, and their enthusiasm for the multiverse warms the hearts of all they meet.

 

The Old West

 

The first recorded superhumans on Mu-Eta were old-West outlaws and vigilantes. The Red Mask, alias Frank Bolle, alias Ray Krank, alias Tim Holt, was a Californian lawman who was inspired by a legend told to him by historian Don Vincente Gomez. According to Gomez, a masked vigilante known as Mascaro Rojo once protected the priests and natives of Alta California from persecution by the government with the whip, the rapier, and the gun. Was there an older Red Mask than Tim Holt? Was Don Vincente Gomez the first Red Mask? Some mysteries remain mysteries forever. But whether or not Mascaro Rojo was real, his legend had a strong impact on Tim. He donned a red bandanna and began fighting crime anew not as a lawman but as a vigilante.

 

Not only did the Red Mask sharply reduce crime in whatever territory his rumor spread, Tim noticed something strange about himself whenever he was in costume. He noted in his diary, which now rests on display at the Smithsonian, that he never got tired, that he always outdrew his opponents even if their guns were in their hands and his were in his holsters, and that his wounds, what few he received, never suffered infection and closed in a matter of days.

 

“I’ve always been rather hale, but when I wear my mask, I’m something else.” he wrote in his diary, “My face is anonymous, my name an enigma, and my body justice itself, fast, strong, invincible. Can I die?”

 

It turned out that he could. After a lifetime of bringing lawbreakers almost as eccentric as himself to justice, including the Iron Mask and Black Phantom (who he reformed through his charisma and married), Red Mask passed away from old age surrounded by friends and family. The great gunfighter himself, perhaps the greatest gunfighter, did not die with his boots on and was glad for it.

 

There would soon be another old-West superhuman, this one an Arizonan, and his name was Rex Fury, but the world would know him better as the Ghost Rider.

 

Rex Fury was a federal marshal who operated undercover as “The Calico Kid,” a cowardly but well-meaning gunfighter whose aim was far better than his reputation would suggest. He developed a taste for misdirection and deception while in the role, and after reading about the exploits of the Red Mask decided to try disguising himself as something more than a bumbling cowboy.

 

He learned prestidigitation and stage magic from a friend of his named Song, a Chinese railway worker who performed magic under the stage name Sing-Song to supplement his meager income. 

 

Song made for his friend Rex quite the supply of white phosphorescent paint to slather on his costume and loyal horse Spectre. With the paint on, Rex looked like a ghost riding the night, and with some tricks picked up from Song, he knew how to sell the illusion. Rex wore a cloak with the outer side covered in paint and the inner side black which allowed him to make it look like he could vanish into darkness. If he placed the inner side between himself and his opponents, he could appear as a floating head with a pair of floating hands. He also carried black lariats so he could move objects seemingly by magic.

 

Rex was just as effective as the Red Mask in fighting crime, and toward the end of his life took on a man named Jeff Grant as a protégé who followed Rex into superheroing as the Presto Kid. The Presto Kid learned every trick the Ghost Rider knew, but he was far from a copy. Jeff hated violence and refused to ever use a gun even if his life was in danger. He fought crime using only his wits, his fists, and theatrical tricks. He also put his own unique spin on the “masked mystery man” tactic pioneered by the Red Mask. The Red Mask fought crime by using mystery. Criminals didn’t know what to make of the mysterious man with no name and no past. But the mystery lost its power when the Red Mask became a known figure throughout the old West. Toward the end of his life, Red Mask had to dodge gunfighters who sought to start their reputation by ending his life. The Ghost Rider fought crime by using fear. He made them believe he was dead. But the fear lost its power when people saw the Ghost Rider bleed and limp from his wounds, few as they might have been. But the Presto Kid decided he  would fight crime by using awe. He would make them believe he was magic, that he could control reality with phrases and gestures. And as long as he performed his illusions perfectly, the awe would maintain its power.

 

Jeff’s mentor believed that Jeff would one day meet his end against the very firearms he refused to carry, a sentiment that Jeff himself shared. Any common thug that saw through his tricks just once could have finished him with the pull of a trigger. And yet, they never did. Jeff survived his career as a superhero without ever having to pick up a gun. Heart problems exacerbated by more adrenaline than is good for any one life forced him to retire sooner than Red Mask or Ghost Rider, and many assumed he perished in some long-forgotten ghost town and buried under a nameless tombstone. But he lived, and thought the Presto Kid was no more, Jeff Grant would still have a hand in his world’s superhero development.

 

World War 2

 

There was a lull in superhero activity for the early part of the 20th century. Perhaps there were superhumans, and perhaps they put on costumes to fight evil, but they are unremembered by history. The next superhuman to enter the historical record would be The Masquerader. In the late 1930’s Hank Smith made a living imitating the superheroes of the Old-west not as superheroes but as showmen. He was fast, agile, and could contort his body like no other man. He was the theater magician of the 20th century. Houdini, Thurston, and Herrmann combined had nothing on him. He even independently duplicated Song’s phosphorescent paint. But there were stril tricks that he couldn’t perform–the tricks of the Presto Kid. 

 

To master them, he tracked down an elderly Jeff Grant to a secluded mansion in New Orleans, Louisiana and proved himself worthy of learning Jeff’s skills by being the only man in history to track him through his smokescreens of aliases and red herrings. 

 

Jeff agreed to teach Hank on one condition–that if the world ever needed his skills to be used as they were by Ghost Rider and Presto Kid, he would put being a showman aside and become a lawman. Hank agreed.

 

The world would prove to have a considerable need for a new Presto Kid during the second world war.

 

Hank applied to the FBI by stalking and ambushing J Edgar Hoover. It was one risky audition, but it proved how capable he was as a stealth agent. The FBI didn’t bother with training Hank, he was so beyond them that he actually taught their greatest undercover agents a few things about misdirection and moving unseen. One such agent was Starr Flagg (actually her birth name, not an alias) who was known around the FBI simply as “the Undercover Girl.”

 

Taking the name Mr. In-Between and the alias Carter Mason to separate himself from his jovial roots as Masquerader the entertainer, Hank and Starr helped the FBI bust spies and saboteurs before being sent overseas as the United States entered the war proper in 1941. Together, the two brought the war to an end in 1945 by capturing Emperor Hirohito. After the war, Hank and Starr would wed and retire from the world of superheroes and superspies, but they would continue to influence the superhero community as mentors and government liaisons for the superteam known as the Powers.

 

The Cold War And The Powers

 

People like to think that the post-war explosion in superheroes was caused by Jet Powers, leader of the Powers and most brilliant mind in the world. Jet being the tip of the spear in 1950 makes history very neat and symmetrical. However, sometimes history is anything but neat and symmetrical. This is one of those times.

 

In Mu-Eta, the first superhero of the post-war period started as a joke–literally, a joke.

 

In 1948, television comedian Larry Davis was convinced by his girlfriend and manager June to try a “superhero thing” to push his publicity. Superheroes had been making a surge in the public’s mind due to the publication of the Red Mask’s diary and June wanted Larry to strike while the iron was hot. The plan was simple–Larry would dress up as the ridiculous “Funnyman” and catch a criminal in front of a live audience played by his friend Happy. The audience would get a little excitement, a few laughs, and the papers would talk about the stunt for at least a month. The problem came when Larry accidentally saw a real crime in progress and intervened thinking it was part of the act. 

 

June was horrified when the truth was revealed, but Larry was emboldened. Superheroing wasn’t so hard! And it was kind of fun, to. Maybe those old cowboys were onto a good racket?

 

Over June’s (many) protests, Larry became Funnyman full time, and, as strange as it might seem, he actually was good at being a superhero.

 

Funnyman was not only a unique kind of superhero for Mu-Eta, he was rather unique in the multiverse. Superpowered clowns have a certain stigma attached to them due to so many being supervillains. Take, for instance, the Clown of Universe Alef-Chi-Epsilon who worked for Adolph Hitler or the cosmic clown known as (of all things) the Smile that Slaughters who ate most of the W-series. Superhero clowns are, by comparison, a rare breed.

 

Funnyman was effective at turning crime into a joke whose punchline was always jail time. His flippant attitude and refusal to take any criminal seriously infuriated the underworld–which was the point. The Red Mask fought crime with mystery, the Ghost Rider with fear, the Presto Kid with awe, but he fought crime with comedy. “To treat criminals and their actions with anything but a condescending smile emboldens them.” Funnyman once said, “Laughter lets them know what they really are.”

 

In 1950, the Earth’s hyperstatic climacteric finally arrived as Jet Powers (Yes, that was his birth name. As Starr Flagg demonstrates, what is considered a normal name is culturally relative), the smartest man in the world by several metrics, announced two inventions–a rejuvenation treatment similar to our own that restored youth and vigor to worn bodies and granted virtual immortality and a “Power treatment” that enhanced the supernatural gifts of superhumans like himself to new heights.

 

Jet Powers used his discoveries as leverage over the USSR. Together they made quite a carrot and stick–virtual immortality for the USSR’s population as a reward for compliance and the strongest superhumans on Earth as a deterrent against noncompliance. Internal pressures gradually built up behind the Iron Curtain and little by little the Kremlin made concessions to Uncle Sam, the first of which being a full withdrawal of North Korean troops from South Korea in late 1950. The planet could see the writing on the wall–the people of the free world stayed young forever, the people of the USSR grew old and died. One would, by nature, have to bury the other.

 

Vigilant against desperate counter-plays from Soviet spies and saboteurs, Jet Powers assembled the Powers, a superteam composed of himself, Funnyman (who constantly butted heads with his dour and serious boss), and FBI agent Tex Mason all enhanced to never-before-seen degrees of physical aptitude and prowess through his Power treatment.

 

Tex Mason (who indeed was from Texas) was a little past the time of his cowboy idols when he entered the scene in 1950, but it didn’t stop him from donning a bright lime green and lemon yellow cowboy costume which earned him the name Lemonade Kid. When he wasn’t making his way down the FBI’s most wanted list, he spent his time perfecting the archaic arts of ropin’ and shootin’ and ridin’ as foreman of the B-Bar-B ranch, arts which served him well against modern gangsters and mad scientists. Tex was a laid-back, cavalier hero with a confident swagger that matched his cool head and steely aim, and yes, his favorite drink was in fact lemonade. Polite, professional, and gifted with the inexplicable ability to balance ranch work, FBI work, and Powers work without one blond hair getting out of place, Lemonade Kid was Jet Powers’ right-hand man.

 

The Powers originally operated in a secret basement of the Smithsonian museum, an old secret of the WW2 spymasters introduced to them by their mentors Hank and Starr Smith. But in 1952 they moved to a base Jet Powers created on the side of a mountain in an undisclosed location in the American southwest. This “Power Base” would one day become the headquarters of the modern Faces of Space decades later

 

In 1955, the Powers were joined by a fourth member, Roger Wright, the second smartest man in the world and rival to Jet Powers. For most of his life, Roger had been a jealous, critical thorn in Jet Powers’ side. He criticized his rejuvenation treatment for opening the door to a society of bored, aimless immortals. He criticized his Powers treatment for creating a super-powered elite who would no doubt rule over humanity in the future as god-kings. But really, he criticized these things because he wasn’t the one who got to invent them. When Jet Powers created the Powers in 1950, Roger tried to one-up him by creating the Red Avengers, as in those that avenged America against the Reds. The Red Avengers had a knock-off version of the Powers treatment, which made them secondary-Powers. They also had secondary security, which was how Soviet spies were able to infiltrate the team, steal a sample of their treatment, and destroy the Crimson Avengers with a nuclear bomb including their leader, Roger’s brother Steve.

 

Roger was at the lowest point in his life. His friends were dead, his company in ruins, his reputation worthless, and his fortune evaporating before his eyes. The FBI and Powers were even investigating him as a potential traitor.

 

His life turned around when he saw his secretary’s young nephew playing with a Ghost Rider mask. Roger wasn’t a religious man, nor was he a superstitious man, but he took that mask as a sign. Legacies, especially heroic ones, had a life of their own. He couldn’t do anything about being a failure. Roger Wright would always be remembered as a failure. But if he took on another identity, that identity could go on to have a legacy of its own, a legacy he could be proud of.

 

Roger swallowed his pride and called Jet Powers. For the first time in his life, he was willing to work with Jet Powers–and even work under him. He shared the notes on his knock-off formula, and with them Jet was able to create a second-generation version of the Powers treatment, he just needed someone to test it on. Roger volunteered. The risk was great, but he saw it as penance for failing the Red Avengers.

 

The experiment was a success, and Roger was reborn as The Avenger. For a time, he was the mightiest superhuman on his world.

 

The Avenger was never a close member of the Powers, but he was willing to do whatever was necessary to avenge his Red Avengers, his reputation, and his brother. He was aloof, even prickly at times to other members, but he was always reliable.

 

In the late winter of 1955, the Powers would be joined by their final member–and the most powerful superhuman in Mu Eta’s history, Bob Siegel, the Strongman. Bob was born into a family of acrobats and traveled with them as part of the Powell circus learning their trade. At the age of five, he could already outperform his father as “Bob the Boy Wonder.” When a faulty trapeze line caused the death of his family, Bob was raised by the circus. He had dozens of moms, dozens of dads, and plenty of aunts and uncles. They taught him everything they knew, and Bob copied their skills with preternatural quickness. When he was a teenager, he was an expert in acrobatics, judo, lariat-throwing, fortune telling, knife-throwing, animal taming, sleight-of-hand, and theater magic. When he was a young man, he was teaching his teachers.

 

Bob the Boy Wonder’s feats, particularly his feats of strength, became greater and greater until they entered the mythological. He picked up a car and outraced its twin to the finish line. He carried a swimming pool across a steel trapeze wire. For Christmas charities, he built giant snowglobes large enough to comfortably house crowds of people and walk them around major metropolitan cities caroling.

 

He was visited by the Powers and examined by Roger Wright and Jet Powers who declared him the strongest superhuman in the world by far. They briefly entertained the idea of making him stronger through the Power treatment, but decided against it. They had no way of knowing what such a treatment would have on his already superhuman physiology. It could potentially tear him apart by getting his muscles to produce more force than his body could withstand.

 

When they asked him to join the Powers, Bob wasn’t sure. He didn’t like the idea of fighting people. He learned from a young age how fragile people could be. A fall that barely jarred him broke his parents like China dolls. He was a stone in a world where everything was glass. He didn’t want to risk shattering his world by cutting loose, but Jet Powers introduced Strongman to meditation, and through meditation Strongman gained enough control over himself that he felt confident in becoming a superhero.

 

Strongman was an honest, trustworthy man. He only told one lie, though it was a big one–he lied about how intelligent he was.

 

Strongman was not only the strongest man in the world, he was the smartest, far smarter than Jet Powers and Roger Wright. But he never told anyone. He saw how bitterly Roger fought with Jet over the title of world’s smartest man, and he had no desire to bruise anyone’s ego. Besides, he thought it was fair enough that her was known as the strongest. Why did he have to be known as the smartest as well? He did everything he could to hide his intelligence and played the fool around Jet and Roger acting like whatever they said went over his head when in reality he understood the concepts Jet and Roger discussed better than they did. He only let them see him reading comic books, not the scientific journals he kept in his circus trailer.

 

In 1956, Strongman copied Jet Powers’ rejuvenation treatment and planned to quietly pass it to the Russians. He hated how people still suffered from disease and age only an ocean away. America shared rejuvenation treatments with the USSR, but only when they did things that pleased them, and only in small amounts. It was weaponized healing, and Strongman hated it.

 

After some deliberation, he decided to be public about what he was doing. He wasn’t a superspy like Jet and Roger and Tex. He was just a man, though a strong man. He told his fellow Powers that he had copied Jet’s rejuvenation treatment and planned to give it away. This led to a brawl, all the Powers against him, and Strongman won handily.

 

Jet pleaded for Strongman to stop, that if the US lost the leverage from the rejuvenation treatment, they would have to find another, more martial form of leverage. Strongman ignored him, and filled up an aircraft carrier with treatment supplies and pulled it to Russia by tying a long cable around himself.

 

He became the first superhero in the USSR. He came not as an American invader, but as a friend offering life itself. He met the people face-to-face, healed them, and entertained them in his usual style.

Stalin was pleased. At last, the one thing America had over his empire was no more.

 

But then Strongman asked the people if they liked to vote for him to be his leader, and that’s when Stalin knew he was doomed. It’s impossible for a dictator to compete with a humble strong man that gave out extra years of life while juggling tractors.

 

In the end, it wasn’t the withholding of mercy that defeated Stalin, but the giving of mercy.

 

Fearing his ouster as Strongman announced public elections backed overwhelmingly by the people, Stalin launched a final desperate scheme to assassinate Strongman with supersoldiers created from the stolen Red Avengers treatment. Strongman was nearly killed by the shear number of supersoldiers, but he was saved when the Powers showed up to protect him. Differences aside, Strongman was still their friend.

 

With the supersoldiers defeated, Strongman was voted Supreme Leader of the new Eastern Collective. His first act as Supreme Leader was to arrest Stalin, who like Hitler chose suicide over trial.

 

The Modern Era

 

The Powers disbanded in 1960 as Jet Powers ran for president as a member of the Space Party and won, creating an America with a new power to leverage over the world–space power. With a fleet of rocket ships and mining colonies, the United States offered nothing less than a future among the stars to nations that complied with their demands. Lemonade Kid became the head of the FBI and Secret Service. Funnyman and the Avenger became a crime fighting duo, the ultimate good cop, bad cop team. And after four years as the supreme power of the Eastern Collective, Strongman retired from the spotlight for a quiet life, though he would still resurface occasionally to perform charity stunts, and he never let a Christmas go by without doing his “snowglobe carolers” thing. Eventually, President Powers learned the truth about Strongman’s intelligence and made Strongman America’s secret science weapon. All bleeding-edge papers and reports would be sent to “the Editor” for review and commentary. No one besides the president knew who the Editor was, but everyone agreed that he had to be the smartest person in America, if not the world.

 

Kept young through rejuvenation treatment and kept in the superhero game by an elderly sense of immutable duty, Jet Powers took the name Space Ace and created the Space Patrol in 1965 to guide mankind’s migration throughout the solar system. In 1970, Jet Powers captured a young mercenary named Harlan King while he attempted to hijack a spaceship from the Martian colony. Harlan was disgusted by the Space Patrol recently limiting migration to the inner planets of the solar system. The way Harlan saw it, if Mars wasn’t going to use her ships for exploration, he would.

 

Jet accepted that Harlan had a point, but he and his Space Patrol believed that mankind needed to put the brakes on exploration so as to create interplanetary cohesion. Too much distance created too many opportunities for rebellion and dissension. To avoid the possibility of interplanetary war, mankind had to spread slowly to other worlds.

 

Jet saw great promise with Harlan–he had, after all, single-handedly hijacked a spaceship. He remembered his old ally the Avenger and how they managed to work together for the common good despite their differences. He gave Harlan a choice between prison and working as his protégé to change Space Patrol from within. If humanity really was ready to expand throughout the solar system, Harlan could prove it by reconciling what differences and disagreements the united planets already had.

 

Harlan would go on to succeed Jet as the second Space Ace in 1977 after Jet finally had his fill of superheroics. As the second Space Ace, Harlan was far less authoritative than Jet, and he lifted many of Jet’s sanctions against travel. By 1980, mankind had spread as far as Pluto (which is still classified as a planet to prevent colonists from claiming planetoid status on their tax forms). In 1986, Harlan decided to step down, and chose for his successor Major Inapak (Major was his name, he had another of those Mu-Eta names, his actual rank was in Space Patrol was major) who proved his worth in 1985 by preventing Lunarian radicals from starting a war between Earth and the Lunar government through a false-flag attack on Denver spaceport.

 

Inapak has proved to be not only the longest-serving Space Ace but also the most controversial for his tacit approval of the Faces of Space. Some even believe he secretly created the Faces of Space, though this allegation remains unproven.

 

The Faces of Space, whose real names remain unknown to this day, are officially outlaws, unofficially the greatest heroes of Mu-Eta. Where Space Patrol observes the multiverse, the Faces explore. Where Space Patrol merely meets with ARGO, the Faces work with them. The solar system is sharply divided on the Faces. Some think they should be locked up, others hold them as Robin Hood heroes. But no one can ignore them.

 

The Faces take their names from the face cards of a deck of playing cards. They are the Space Jack, Space King, Space Queen, and Space Joker. Each of them takes inspiration from one of the Powers of the 20th century (no points for guessing who Space Joker takes after).

 

Space King is their leader, and he takes inspiration from the Ghost Rider. His identity obscured by a glowing white space suit, cowboy hat, and cloak, he pilots a stealth spaceship named Spectre. Like Ghost Rider, he is a master of making what’s right in front of people vanish. He can not only make himself and others invisible, but inaudible through a device that cancels soundwaves. Though he’s the leader of the team, he’s very quiet, and Space Jack often handles the talking for the team. Some people think he’s quiet as part of his character, that he’s trying to be the “strong-and-silent” type. Some even think that he’s not a person under the suit but the ghost of Rex Fury. But the truth is simply that he’s shy.

 

However, he has seen the ghost of Rex Fury. He’s even talked to him.

 

There aren’t many ghosts in Mu-Eta, which makes it all the more remarkable that a man who pretended to be a ghost in life would become one for real in death. Rex Fury would haunt the American Southwest during the 20th century, sometimes appearing to help those in need before vanishing as soon as he appeared. He once saved Lemonade Kid from an ambush by smugglers, and he once showed the Powers the way to a secret Soviet spy base hidden in the Sonoran. As the Archon Walls thinned around Mu-Eta as they do for every universe, Rex was able to range across the solar system. He began to be sighted by spaceships, especially spaceships orbiting the Earth. Spaceship pilots would look out their windows and see something far more detailed than the usual blobs of light that constituted UFOS–a cowboy dressed all in white galloping on a white horse. 

 

Space King saw Rex Fury years before he became Space King. He was a trader buying metals from the moon and flying them to Earth for trade. When his ship was overtaken by space pirates, the Ghost Rider walked through the walls of his ship and dispatched the pirates with six-shooters that left no wounds. Space King vowed then and there to become the modern Ghost Rider. It’s a vow that weighs heavy on his shoulders. He’s always worried about not measuring up to the legacy, even though Ghost Rider has told him that he’s proud of him.

 

Rex Fury has explained his adventures in space to Space King as him serving as a psychopomp for the solar system. Man leaves more and more ghosts every year, and as one of mankind’s most powerful ghosts, Rex guides them through the invisible trails of the afterlife be they born of Earth or Mars.

 

When Space King and the other Faces of Space are in dire trouble, Rex Fury has been known to ride to their aid. It’s a fact that both honors and discourages Space King. He’s touched that Rex is watching over him, but in receiving help from his ghost he wonders if he’s worthy to be the modern Ghost Rider. No one had Rex’s back when he was Ghost Rider.

 

Space Jack was inspired by the Avenger and the lost Red Avengers. He’s a self-admitted sucker for doomed heroes and lost causes, it was why he joined the Lunarian Independence Movement as a teenager. But when the Independence Movement was subverted from within and replaced protest marches and argumentation for bombs and terrorism, he quit in disgust. While watching the third Space Ace stop his previous allies from blowing up Denver spaceport on ansel-vision in a Lunarian bar, he was approached by Roger Wright, still in service to Jet Powers as a secret agent after so many years. Roger wanted to vet Space Jack for his connections to the Lunarian Independence Movement. The two got to talking, and it turned out they had quite a deal in common. They both understood regret and they both understood losing friends. Roger offered Space Jack a job as a secret agent, and he accepted. Years later, he would join the Faces of Space as a secret liaison between them and Major Inapak. Space Patrol doesn’t know he’s with the Faces and the Faces don’t know he’s with Space Patrol–and he likes it that way.

 

Space Jack dresses like the Avenger with a red spacesuit, mask, and cape. He is proficient in the use of a personal force field that blankets him in a red aura that makes him superhumanly strong. His personal spaceship is an agile fighter named the Blood Red.

 

Space Queen is a descendent of Strongman and has inherited his strength and intelligence. Like her ancestors, she works humbly in the shadows helping the intelligentsia help humanity. Quiet, meek, and able to lift a starship over her head, she gets along very well with Space King, much to the chagrin of Space Jack. She was the one who designed the Faces’ individual spaceships and their mothership the Abraxas and designs spaceships in her spare time. Modern spaceships owe much to her creations, but she remains uncredited and unacknowledged for her contributions. Space Jack constantly pushes for her to take credit while Space King tells him not to push her. What Space Queen wants for herself remains unknown, she’s very bad about opening up even to those close to her.

Space Queen dresses in blue in a similar pattern to her two teammates–an identity concealing spacesuit and mask with a matching cape for grandeur. Her natural abilities are beyond the ability for technology to augment, but she does use a telepathic projector powered by her superhuman mind which allows her to use telekinesis. Her personal spaceship, the Molten Blue, has a larger projector built into it which allows her to project enough telekinetic force to move entire planets.

 

Space Joker patterns himself off who you think–Funnyman. An outspoken critic of Space Patrol policies, he began as a nuisance to Space Patrol and an enemy to the Faces. He saw Space Patrol as a joke and decided to treat them as a joke, drawing smiley faces on the nose cones of Space Patrol spaceships and covering space ports with giant streamers. He even once considered joining our world’s BOL and exporting his chaos to our universe. But the Faces convinced him to try doing something constructive with his abilities rather than destructive, and now serves as an on-again off-again semi-official fourth member of the team.

 

Space Joker doesn’t dress in a spacesuit like the other Faces. Instead, he uses a “funny field” which substitutes his image for that of a randomly changing, incongruously proportioned clown. Children find it funny like a fun house mirror reflection. Adults find it terrifying. He can extend his funny field to create illusions that are fascinating, mystifying, frightening, but above all funny. His personal spaceship is the Riki Tiki Tavi, a transforming close-ranged fighter as mercurial as its pilot.

 

The Faces of Space carry their world’s superhero tradition into modern times. They’re a beacon of progress in a universe of stagnation, a light of youth in a world that’s grown old. The Faces of Space may well prove to be the faces of tomorrow, and if so Mu-Eta can expect their number of superheroes to explode.