Freshman Year Summer Break

1. RAMPAGE! (5/88) (double sized first issue)

After a power struggle that leaves the previous leaders (Alexi Hamptington and Devlin VelJohnson) dead, the mysterious variant known as Baron Mind assumes command of S.H.R.I.M.P., planning to use the criminal organization as a power base for his mysterious ends. Mind's first command is to recruit a new Stryke, SHRIMP's variant arm, which was disbanded under Hamptington and VelJohnson. Until this team is organized, they will depend on the powers of the mercenary Silence to augment S.H.R.I.M.P.'s arsenal of cutting edge weaponry and variant technology. Silence's first task is the kidnapping of Lancaster student Simon Barr.
    Section Eight is celebrating the end of the semester with a Beer and Pizza party at Talon's room. During the usual rowdiness, they notice a Giant Gorilla attacking the Brandt dormatories, which are large towers suitable for Giant-Gorilla-Climbing. Not surprisingly, they enter into combat with the creature, trying to drive it off.
    Simultaneously, Silence and some S.H.R.I.M.P. goons are kidnapping Simon Barr from his room at Brandt. Barr is a variant genius and an expert on the theoretical and physical principle of time travel. Death penalty encounters Silence and his men during the abduction, but is unable to stop them before they escape, turning a corner and vanishing with a scream.
    As the exterior fight continues, Excellent Woman is able to track the creature's origin to the Lancaster Game Room. She sprints down there to discovers Daniel Wilson, a high school Junior enraptured with the RAMPAGE video game. She breaks his concentration and the Gorilla fizzles, seconds before its four story plunge would have flattened Warped Warrior.
    With the gorilla dealt with, our heroes turn to tracking the kidnapped student. Excellent Woman succeeds in tracking Barr through his aura to Tremayne, a suburb of Harborview. The group finds him abandoned, disoriented and unable to recall any events of the last 30 minutes. There is no sign of Silence. The team convinces Wilson to enter variant study classes at Lancaster part time, learning to control his powers.
    Eight weeks later, S.H.R.I.M.P. finishes the recruitment of a new, four-man Stryke team: Core, a wrestler whose body houses a continuous fusion reaction, giving limited regeneration and force blasts; Menagerie, a genetic anomaly with the combined abilities of humans, bats, skunks, moles and porcupines; Airborne, owner of a meteorite fragment that grants him limited invulnerability, flight and weakness detection; And Frigia, able to generate extreme cold and masses of ice. Baron Mind is satisfied, and claims that he has dismissed Silence, but meets the variant mercenary later, refers to him as 'Brother' and toasts to the continued success of their plans.

| Top |