July 25, 1987

Phoenix Talon had been doing some serious thinking since the team discussion the other day, about how the Toy Man was going to be awfully hard to find. He knew there was a connection to Agglomerated MegaPublishing somewhere. Between that and the looming threat of being portrayed as that idiot Shadow Phantom, he was starting to think that maybe it would be a good idea to swallow his pride go along with the AMP media plan. He could infiltrate the place and find the guy that way. It shouldn't be dangerous; the Toy Man didn't seem to want to hurt them.
    Unfortunately, his pride made for a sizeable mouthful. This was going to take a while.

Scott continued to sort through data on 1-800-HENCHMEN and their associated law firm. It was slow going. A likelihood emerged that some of the higher-ups, although not the four founding partners, had criminal backgrounds. None of them matched information he had on the various personalities who had been part of The Game in the golden era; more dead ends. He put in a call to Chicago, where a Wall, Stone, Craft and Shelley office had just opened, to see if they were having Henchman troubles as well.
    "Hello, Justice Defenders, Faith here," a calm voice answered.
    "Hello, this is Scott Silver with the Revolution."
    "Oh, hi. Yes, I've seen the reports. How are you?
    "Oh, good enough. And yourself?"
    "Doing fairly well. What can I help you with today, Scott?" he inquired courteously.
    "I was wondering if the Chicago area was starting to suffer an influx of people under the employment of 1-800-HENCHMEN."
    "Dear god, I hope not," was the fervent reply. "We haven't seen any rise in activity, why, are you having a problem there?"
    "Yes, we are."
    "Do you want us to send Powerhouse out to help? He loves those guys."
    "We're doing okay, that's not really the problem. Let us know if they show up? I'm trying to track them against a company, where their offices show up 1-800-HENCHMEN seems to show up soon after or before."
    "Who?"
    "Law firm. Wall, Stone, Craft, and Shelley."
    "Oh. Yeah. The ones who are constantly on Commander Cardboard's retainer."
    "1-800-HENCHMEN, at least out here on the East Coast, seems to be giving villain lessons," he explained. "Seminars, they bring you in, they train you, they get your shtick set up, they help provide costumes and names... it's sort of like Primerica."
    Pause. "I just want to say from the bottom of my heart that I'm sorry. Or are you one of those people who enjoys this?" he added.
    "Well, Count Bastard's sort of a pain, but the Postman's kind of cool."
    Blind Faith sighed. "I did read the write-up file from what Powerhouse is insisting on referring to as The Redwood That Walks Like a Man Incident. You seemed more in line with him than with Alchemy on the best way to deal with these people. Of course, I don't know that anyone would be in line with Alchemy on the best way to deal with these people."
    "I'm not sure I really approve of the 'wrap their legs in styrofoam and float them upside down in the water' method," he said politely.
    "No, no. Do the rest of your teammates take this in stride?"
    "Well, Phoenix Talon seems a little bent out of shape about some of it, but it's not too bad. Although I've got to admit the guy with the flying truck was a bit much."
    "I can see that. Well, tell you what, we'll keep an eye out here, and if it wouldn't be stepping on your toes I'll ask T-Bird to look into Wall, Stone, Craft and Shelley in Chicago."
    "That'd be great!"
    "Find out if he can track anything down on this end. If we start to get theme villains coming out of the woodwork, we'll let you know and you can fly out here and deal with them," the Justice Defender promised.
    "Cool.Thank you kindly."
    "Pleasure to be of service."
    Back to paper-shuffling. During the course of that, he had an idea, and kept it in mind for the next poker night. Later that evening he paid another of his regular visits to the Blobcave to make sure no further civilians had wandered in, but everything seemed to be holding up fine.

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