Star Brand Issue Guide #4

Annual 1:
Intimate Enemies

Trying to relax after all the crap that'd been happening to him lately, such as the Old Man's attacks and the death of poor Tad, Ken decided to take his old friend Tony's offer seriously. Having been in Europe for over six years, Tony decided he'd missed his old friend from high school, and as such, sent Ken two-way airline tickets to Switzerland, so Ken could stay with him and his girlfriend, Ariane.

Not liking the idea of charity, even from his old pal, Ken returned the tickets and flew there under his own power, closely tailing an airliner heading to Zurich. Meeting Tony and his girlfriend, Ken and the couple made their way to Ariane's ancestral home in Zermatt. There, the three started to talk, meet, and generally catch up, but Tony apparently didn't like the way Ariane and Ken were looking at each other.

However, over the next few days, he seemed to be going out of his way to put them together in all sorts of situations. You see, he was possessive and insanely jealous, and brought Ken to her home in order to test her loyalty to him. Sure enough, after binge drinking and pushing her away from him over the course of several days, she eventually turned to Ken for comfort.

Once he learned this, thanks to several private eyes he had following Ariane, Tony went completely over the edge, and tried to have both Ken and Ariane killed. Over the next day or so, Ken foiled several attempts on his and Ariane's life, though the last assassination attempt ended in tragedy; forced to use his powers, Ken accidentally buried Tony and his thugs in an avalanche.

Going into shock after seeing this, Ariane blanked this out for several days, during which she and Ken shacked up together in a 'secret' bungalow of hers. However, several foreign agencies caught wind of this, including Interpol and a nameless terrorist outfit - all of which wanted to investigate several similar explosions that've taken place over the last year or so, and all of which Ken perpetrated.

As these forces attempted to seize Ken for their own purposes, Ariane slowly recovered her memories about Tony's death (though as it turned out, he wasn't actually killed in that avalanche), and she finally figured out that Ken was the one that caused it. Freaking out, she tried to leave him, but never got that far, thanks to an assault by those terrorists on her bungalow.

Trying to save Ariane, Ken hid her after their car was driven off the road, but he refused to kill the terrorists after them. This enraged Ariane, who thought Ken a coward for not killing those thugs, even though he killed Tony. Resigned to his fate, Ken knew he couldn't explain this to his current love, and offered to take her home. Right after, he flew back to Pittsburgh, only to learn that she'd died a day later.

Those terrorists had tracked her down and, without Ken to protect her, she was easy pickings. Of course, there was no telling what she told them before she was killed, so in addition to feeling bad about not being able to save Ariane, Ken had yet another potential group of thugs out to kill him for his powers. As usual, this caused him to sink into yet another bout of depression...

Issue 10:
Enemies

In the background, Ted Koppel was giving a report about how Glasnost, the new Russian policy of openness, had suddenly been repealed. Ken Connell was oblivious to this, however, as his concentration on a personal project was total. You see, he was taking a blowtorch to a lump of coal he'd picked up, and once he thought he'd sufficiently heated it up, he crushed it with his bare hands!

Thinking that he could make diamonds, a'la the Superman movie thing, Ken only managed to make a sooty mess of himself. However, he felt he had to at least try it. Cleaning himself up, Ken went to work, and after that drudgery was done with, he went to go see Debbie in her apartment. You see, she'd been restricted to her bed, after Ken inadvertently broke a few of her ribs.

He accidentally did this when shoving her out of the way of an oncoming car, but with his enhanced strength, Ken inadvertently shoved too hard. He felt horrible about this, despite the fact that he had, in fact, saved her life. Debbie was simply happy to be alive, however, and didn't hold a grudge against Ken. To show him this, she went to demonstrate her gratitude... personally... but was interrupted by Myron.

Totally upset, he wanted to talk to Ken, and when Ken asked what was up, Myron laid it on him. Telling him to turn on Debbie's television, Ken watched reports coming out of the U.S.S.R., reports describing the reported use of multiple nuclear bombs within Soviet territory, apparently by the Soviet government. Though civil war was rumored to be occurring, nothing could be proven.

Thinking the world about to end in a nuclear fireball, Myron begged Ken to investigate the matter personally. Collecting his maps, his compass, his flashlight, and his costume, Ken met up with Myron and, after saying their good-byes (just in case), Ken flew off to the U.S.S.R. Not wishing to be mistaken for a flying missile, Ken swept across the south seas before entering Soviet territory.

Following the trail of destruction, Ken encountered countless corpses, arriving just in time to see yet another nuclear blast issuing forth from the land he was investigating. Watching the resultant explosion take shape, Ken found himself awed, despite the fact that he himself is immune to such force; it was the destructive beauty of the mushroom cloud that gave Ken a moment of pause.

Continuing on after the trail of mayhem, Ken encountered countless corpses and devastated military vehicles. He even met one Russian soldier, still alive, but dying of horrible 5th and 6th degree radiation burns. Ken tried to learn what was behind this mess before the man died, but the fellow simply didn't speak English, and as such, Ken had to watch the poor devil die slowly.

Eventually, Ken met the cause of all this trouble, a physical powerhouse tromping his way towards Moscow. After introducing himself, Ken learned that the guy was a paranormal, an American patriot who was growing more and more dense as time passed. Having decided to make the most of his power, this guy, calling himself the Gladiator, figured he would wage a one man war on the U.S.S.R.

The problem was that he was winning. You see, the Soviet nuclear strikes weren't affecting him in the slightest, and as he approached Moscow, the U.S.S.R. was growing increasingly troubled. So much so, in fact, that they were about to declare war on America - since he spoke English in an obviously American accent, the Soviets decided that he was acting under orders from the U.S. government.

When talk failed to convince the Gladiator to stop his personal War, Ken resorted to violence, but even he couldn't seem to stop the man. He even unleashed the full force of the Star Brand against the man, but he simply shrugged off Ken's assaults, and continued on his way after he thought Ken beaten. Having no other choice, Ken picked the Gladiator up and flew him into space.

At first, Ken was going to drop him into the sun, since he couldn't very well leave him on earth, or anywhere else, for that matter. However, Ken couldn't just kill a body in cold blood, so he instead accelerated him up near the speed of light, and shot him out into interstellar space. He wasn't sure if this was any better, but he simply couldn't think of anything else to do with the man.

Not that this made him feel any better, of course, as the man would suffer in solitude for all eternity...

Untold Tales of the New Universe: Star Brand:
Adventures in the Mulletverse

Far out in the solar system, well past Saturn, we bear witness to the arrival of Arden within her powerful vessel, Tangentia. Laterally shifting into this time line from her own this far out in order to avoid detection by earth-based scanners, Arden begins to scan the area for signs of her quarry: the Star Brand. While she didn't find him, Arden nonetheless found something odd: the Gladiator!

Observing him as he slowly sailed out of the solar system, Arden and Tangentia were discovered, and thus decided to question the strange gray naked fellow. Interrogating him despite his need to ramble, Arden learned the man's story... and how he was defeated by the Star Brand - or at least, the guy they assumed was such. Having everything they needed, Arden and her craft left - abandoning the Gladiator to his slow drift.

Arriving on earth, Arden and Tangentia observed Ken for a short while, though Arden noticed that the Star Brand - one Ken Connell - seemed to have a vague sense that she was there despite being ever-so-slightly out of sync with this time line. While Ken had a marathon... romance session... with his friend Debbie, Arden and Tangentia reviewed information they'd discovered about the Star Brand in other time lines.

When Ken finally stopped romancing Debbie, he went out for a flight, and Arden had Tangentia follow him. Of course, Ken's reverie was interrupted when he once again detected that he was being watched by someone (or something) invisible, and he lashed out! Grappling Tangentia, Ken caused Arden to come out of the craft swinging... which promptly caused her to fall to her doom.

After Tangentia berated him for Arden's fall, Ken flew down to save her, annoyed and confused that now even the inanimate objects were yelling at him for screwing up. Rescuing Arden before she could hit the ground, Ken touched down only to find that he was in Africa (he often wanders aimlessly when collecting his thoughts in the air), and that Arden's ship, Tangentia, seemed to be damaged as a result of their scuffle.

Giving it time to repair itself, Arden and Ken walked off to discuss just what Arden was doing spying on him. Flying off for some privacy after some natives got a bit too curious about them, Ken carried Arden on his back, at which point she explained that she's from another time line, and that she and her organization are studying the nature of variant time streams in order to better understand their own.

She also pointed out that time lines on the far end of the probability curve often reveal themselves to other earths in the form of comic books - and in response to his obvious question, Arden did indeed point out that Ken had his own series. This serial, the Star Brand, detailed all of his adventures up to that point, ending when he pitched poor Randy Kellogg off into interstellar space to save the world.

She indicated that she was somewhat confused that Ken didn't do more with his power, but revealed that his time line was on the near end of the probability curve, that the reality of his time line, earth 148611, was simply unable to abide the existence of fantastic objects like the Star Brand. Her theory was that the universe itself was trying to right the Brand's presence by anchoring Ken in the mundane.

And thinking on everything that'd happened since he was given the Star Brand, Ken couldn't help but think there was something to that... that his growing frustration over the power he held and his inability to affect real change in his life was an aspect of this strange 'corrective' mechanism. Thinking to broaden his horizons, Arden talked Ken into trying something incredible - and he then went looking for diamonds.

Digging lower than any mine could reach, Ken surfaced with several large stones, and the two then went to relax on a nude beach in the French Riviera. They continued to talk about the nature of the Star Brand later that night, and how it manifested differently in each variant earth she'd visited. Before Ken could learn more however, Arden's superior, one Dr. Lester, appeared and admonished her for her behavior!

Having collected her errant craft, Dr. Lester was there to pick up Arden in turn, since she'd so severely gone off her vows of non-interference concerning Ken in the first place. The doctor then returned the remaining diamonds to the earth, and spirited Arden away before Ken could figure out how to stop their exit from his time line. Ken tried to follow, but he was too slow and too late.

While he sulked in low earth orbit, Dr. Lester gave Arden her punishment, and told her to monitor Ken's time line for a while, to see just what she'd set in motion with her meddling. He also noted that, more likely than not, Ken would inadvertently set off some catastrophic accident with the Star Brand before too long, his frustration with the mundanity of his life reaching critical levels thanks to his expanded awareness...!

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