The Cutting Room

After the private security firm Armed Response was exposed as fomenting gang violence to boost its clientele, it’s own — Lotus Newmark — has hired Splice to eliminate the Crazy 8.[1] His first target is the Crazy 8’s Glamour Girl — aka Gloria Angel —- a retired actress who now owns an apartment complex. Breaking into one of the apartments and learning which unit Gloria lives in, Splice murders one of the tenants and crashes in on the old woman as she watches television.

Backing Splice up is the armored mercenary known as Rampage. An anti-capitalist that lost his business after an economic recession, Rampage sees his employment with Lotus Newmark as a means to an end and looks forward to tearing down the establishment.[2]

Inside, Splice tries to attack Gloria, but she keeps using her time shifting powers on him, disorientating the assassin by pushing him backward and forward in time. Losing track of the old woman he spots his future self running upstairs and assumes it is an impostor and follows after him. Upstairs, Splice runs into Attractive Lad and Buff who are able to hold their own with their powers. That’s when Rampage comes crashing in through the wall to lend his ally a hand.

Not far away, Alex Flores and her daughter Jamie — aka Auteur and Dreamer — are driving home after their mission with the Crazy 8. Now that they have done the task of exposing Armed Response, Alex wants them all to retire while they’re still alive. Jamie still things they can still do a lot of good. That’s when she gets a distress call from Visionary.

Back at the apartment complex, Visionary finishes sending out his distress when Splice uses his new ion-dampener weapon on him. Seeing how this incapacitates Visionary, he then uses the same weapons against Buff and Attractive Lad next. Watching from the sidelines, Glamor Girl tries to use her time jumping power to reach Wonder Man again and try and convince him to help his former friends. However, when she uses her powers she discovers that she has sent herself back 4 years into the past.

In the present day, Auteur and Dreamer arrive on the scene. Alex uses her illusion casting powers to make it appear as though Wonder Man has arrived on the scene. Unfortunately, this doesn’t fool the villains for long. Determining that Auteur is the source of the illusions, Splice throws a dagger that strikes Alex in the center of her chest.[3] Splice is about to kill both Alex and Jamie when Stat arrives with an army of duplicates. While Splice and Rampage are distracted the real Stat helps the others escape outside where Snap is waiting in her car. Snap agrees to drive Auteur to a hospital and orders Dreamer to send her dream form to find Wonder Man at the MacBeth shoot. Although she is in a state of panic over her mother, Dreamer is able to calm herself down enough to fall asleep and dream, allowing her dream form to fly free from her body. As the others race to the hospital they are unaware that Splice is tracking them with his ion-tracer.

As the others are ambushed outside the hospital, Jamie pushes herself beyond her limits to reach Wonder Man’s trailer out of town. Losing her cohesion, she can barely explain to Simon what’s going on before she fades away.

Recurring Characters

Wonder Man, Crazy 8 (Attractive Lad, Auteur, Buff, Dreamer, Glamour Girl, Snap, Stat, Visionary), Splice, Rampage

Continuity Notes

1. Lotus Newmark has been fomenting gang violence in order to trick people into hiring Armed Response since Wonder Man (vol. 2) #16. The Crazy 8 exposed this last issue.

2. For more on Stuart Clarke’s financial downfall and transformation into Rampage see Champions #5-8.

3. Splice states her that Alex Flores was the only person to ever beat him. When Splice fought Wonder Man in issue #4, it was Alex who brought him down by shocking him with an exposed wire.

Topical References

• Gloria Angel is depicted watching Alfred Hitchcock Presents on a CRT television. It was a anthology series hosted by Hitchcock that ran from 1955 and 1965. It was revived in 1985 with colorized introductions from the late Hitchcock with new stories. The TV’s depiction should be considered topical as it is an obsolete technology. Gloria watching AHP wouldn’t necessarily be considered topical as she could be watching a rerun.

• Attractive Lad says that nobody wants him to get near their video tapes. Video cassettes were the common media format at the time this story was published. You could erase the footage on a tape if you had a powerful enough magnet, hence the line. References to video tape should be considered topical as this is an obsolete media format. Still, since most electronics are sensitive to magnets, you still wouldn’t want Aundray near your media.

• When Buff ambushes Splice, Attractive Lad quips “Who says white girls can’t jump?” This is a reference to the 1992 sports comedy White Men Can’t Jump. The filmed starred Wesley Snipes and Woody Haralson as a pair of street basketball hustlers. The running gag in the film is about how white guys aren’t as good at basketball as black guys.

• In this story, the Crazy 8 uses beepers to send distress signals to one another. These devices were commonly used in the days before cell phones. Their use here should be considered topical since the devices are pretty much obsolete, particularly for personal consumer use.

• When Glamor Girl travels into the past she overhears the winning hit in the 1988 World Series playing on the television and realizes what year it is. Since she has traveled into her own personal past, the year and the details around the World Series (such as the mention of Kirk Gibson) should be considered topical. Modern readers should interpret this to mean that Gloria went back 4 years into the past instead of a specific year.