The Fallen Angel Series. Linda Lee Danvers

Fallen Angel (2003) #2.

The head devil is Juris Magistrate. This is curious. Peter David is an Englishman, so I don't know if he knows how such a "petty official" evolved in the United States and is different from the English version. To us, he is more commonly known as the "justice of the peace" the dispenser of "small justice", while "great justice" is the parvenu of actual judges. An English magistrate is actually more restricted in power, believe it or not, as an American magistrate has the power to issue warrants equal to that of a full judge. That makes a Justice of the Peace incredibly dangerous on a mere whim. I wonder if Peter David will write to that tradition and effect? It has been a couple of decades since I read this series, so I will rediscover it.

For the rest of it; there is Asia Minor and the jokes in the art. For example, the dead Martins in the mausoleum?

Jane Martin → en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Martin
Anthony Martin → www.italyonthisday.com/2017/05/anthony-martin-sinatra-father-of-frank.html
Peter Martin → en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Martin_(actor)
Aston Martin → en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aston_Martin

-dead Kentucky playwright.
-dead Italian father of a dead American singer.
-dead British bit actor.
-zombie British car company known for its shitty cars, faked up behind a reputation based on baloney marketing, sort of like GM in the United States.

POW.

Asia lives there in the crypt. He reads a Pirate Comic when we first meet him in the art. He keeps a library of romance novels and female superheroes? That could be a clue. Lee can pop in anywhere past guards living and dead, we see. The interplay is minor drug dealer to whatever Lee is in this iteration. We get the impression that this not PG-13 interaction at all. Blow job requested? Nope. Asia offers a hit. Nope. Asia asks a favor to repay a favor. He wants Lee to overwatch a heroin shipment. Why? His goons tried last time. They are dead on the deck. Asia needs heavy muscle. Hers.

Why? Thomas Graymalkin is why.

Graymalkin and Lee have a chat at "Dolf's Bar". There is a minor episode with a pickpocket, which is supposed to show us that Graymalkin is clever and physically very powerful. Moral question; do you repay a favor by overwatching a drug shipment of a piece of manure who helped you save an innocent, or do you allow those drugs to ruin thousands of lives? Our "angel" has a curious answer. The drug addicts are already ruined. Graymalkin and Lee will meet again.

Interlude.

Juris Magistrate receives a function check from his chief investigator, Slate. Is the boss boinking the Fallen Angel? Nunya.

That second meeting between Graymalkin and the Fallen Angel clinches the sheer power of Lee. She won't go down to poison gas or be clubbed down by a steel bar. She dumps a forklift on Graymalkin easily. Graymalkin doesn't get the shipment of "heroine novels", either. Whoops.

Did Asia Minor fool Lee, too? His heroin is coming in by ship. Lee was to be a distraction to Graymalkin. Lee shows up again. KABOOM. Lasers? Lee gave Asia Minor his blow job. That clinches her intellect and morality.

THIS is the Supergirl, I wanted.

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DC Fallen Angel (2003) #4

Yikes! Round 2.

Lee has been thrown through a building, tossed down an elevator shaft and had a 3 ton elevator car from 10 stories up dropped on her.

Do that math.

Velocity over time is 9.8 m/s^2.
Distance is 40 meters.
Time of fall is 2.856 seconds.
She hit at 28.0 m/s or 62 mph.

KE = 21,560 J of kinetic energy impacted her after the fall down the elevator shaft.
KE = 1,176,000 J kinetic energy hit her after the elevator car was dropped on her.

For grins and giggles; I can tell you that Lee suffered about the equivalent of a mortar shell effect when she was thrown through the walls INTO the elevator shaft, so that was about 250,000 J of kinetic energy worked upon her. Having the elevator car dropped on her was equal to being hit by a howitzer shell. Merely falling down the shaft was equal to being hit by a 20 mm autocannon shell. These are non-trivial events, even if you are inside a TANK. You get a much better appreciation for the issues at hand, when you can quantify some values.

Now that over-muscled goon watchman, guarding Black Mariah's domicile, is going to try to take on our pissed off angel after she walked away from that above?

That is why I wrote "Yikes!" in part 1. Let us go to Yikes, Part 2. Lee is after some witch named Black Mariah, as the specific person responsible for Theresa Knight's death. Our aforementioned goon guard, Shadow Boxer, attacks Lee from behind. He tosses her across the room and flings her into a bookcase, which falls over on her. He then uses her to bodily smash a stout table to flinders. (KE = 25000 J kinetic energy x 2 which is about equivalent to falling down that elevator shaft again (twice).) How does that go for him? He taunts her to try to use her telekinetics on him, or does she have the stones to fight him, "Bitch to Man"?

He masses (art guess as drawn; 2.2 meters tall and 165 kg?), huge by even gorilla standards; so Lee will be out-massed by 3x. Figure he can generate 750 watts or 1 horsepower, or 4x a normal human's strength. She takes him, "Bitch to Punk". She defenestrates him. Easily.

What follows is a classic Batman interrogation as she catches him mid-toss and hangs him upside down over a balcony. I would have sympathy for Shadow Boxer as being a puppy in the clutches of an enraged 50,000 ton hydraulic stamping press, if I had not done the math on that "stamping press". MARVEL used to do a hero calculator scale where they ranked their heroes by dead weight ton lift capacity. You would get heroes like Thor and Iron Man rated in the top tier in the 100 ton + category. Captain Lost Her Marbles was rated at about 80 tons. Can you guess what the estimate on our Fallen Angel is, from what we see here? Let us say that Captain Lost Her Marbles, would have a very stiff fight with Lee. Carol would probably lose.

"You have zero idea of what I could do to you. How much I have been holding back."

"You might as well drop me."

"Okay."

How brave is Shadow Boxer?

Right into a manure truck. Moving at 9.8 meters a second/second, from 10 meters up, he falls for 1.428 seconds and hits the shit at 31 mph or 14 m/s.

How much work was done on him? KE = 16170 J kinetic energy. You need to divide that in 2 by the splosh, because shit is elastic, with a deceleration function akin to a trampoline pulse. 8,085 J kinetic energy. I made some assumptions on this, but I think I am within 10%. Our gorilla could survive a rifle bullet... maybe. Going the other way, Lee had to drop him into the shit hauler as a moving cross target pickle barrel (drop basket) target window no wider than 2.5 meters by 4 meters by 2 meters tall, full of shit, moving at no more than 14 m/s, 30 mph, at a moving bombing altitude of 10 meters. She had to predict her load's fall of drop ~1.4 seconds into the future, not to miss the shit. How hard is that to do?, 1.7 truck lengths predict lead. "I" could do it, after a prior setup, like I just did with time to work the problem, but no human could make those calculations, instantly on the fly and be more than 50% certain. I therefore presume that Lee has a genius level calculation / estimator skills, as well as being equivalent to a 50,000 tonne stamp press in strength and physical endurance. She can bend and deform an elastic steel plate 20 centimeters thick, minimum. I will PROVE that assessment in a brief while, when we discuss the bomb shelter.

Who shows up to bother Lee next after she jumps one story up from the balcony to the roof? Slate, the Examiner, waits for her to finish playing with Shadow Boxer. He bums a cigarette. Lee has bad habits? For what she is?

"Truth to Tell, I like you, Miss Lee. ...very impressive how you timed his fall into that truck."

"What truck?"

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Peter Allen David has taken the hinders off. He wants to rip out a "story".

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Next we have Juris Magistrate and Azmil in a limo discussing Azmil's runaway son. The issue of contention is "Dolph's Bar" which is a watering hole and neutral zone for all kinds of riffraff and passers through in Bête noire. Juris wants to ensure that Azmil understands the "cease fire" situation is delicate and could be easily disrupted by any 'shenanigans'.

Azmil's boy's name is Ezil. The extractor, Azmil will use, is one of his slave women, a functionary named Lani. This will NOT end well.

Back at the rooftop, Slate and Lee discuss Black Moriah. Now, I get the feeling that David either had a story about Black Mariah not quite ready when this series was started, or there must have been a DC story elsewhere which I missed with this version of Supergirl, because we have hints again, that Lee and Black Mariah tangled before and that Black Mariah lost badly, and that Black Mariah wants Lee dead, badly. In this discussion, Slate clears Black Mariah of this incident. He then tells Lee of an incident he had in a small town in French Africa, called Maristan. A girl stole his gun. He chased that girl. Lee has never heard of Maristan. Slate, as a witness to that other young girl's death in an alley, survived exactly what Lee fought. Nice story, henh?

It is apparent that Slate, a servant of evil, knows what "it" is; what it can do (Erase cities.), and wants Lee to fight and kill it. Coincident interests, we call it in my trade. The enemy of my enemy is my friend for now. Or, to put it another way, "You think that I am evil? Let me introduce you to "fill in the blank.".

"How do I fight it?"
"You don't. It kills you."
"Find me a way."
"Yes, Miss."

Slate, the investigator, sees Lee fly off the roof. One more datum about our Fallen Angel fills in.

At "Furor's"

Well, Ezil and Lani were betrothed. Azmil and the Magistrate are at the bar. Lani is sent in. Ezil explains why he ran away. Azmil goes all Arab drug dealer and arms merchant. "Dolph" introduces Azmil to WWII reality Beer Hall Putsch style. It is about to get Custer's Last Stand UGLY. Enter Lee. I was surprised that she came in with a brace of guns. Azmil's bully boys soil their underwear, 'cause they are GOOD evil Muslims and this is the Angel of Death soaked in blood, which they understand theirs will join. Clear the Bar! In the panic rush, Dolph puts Ezil and Lani in his H-bomb proof bunker. He checks in with Lee, all covered in fresh blood.

What happened? Not the time for that, she tells him, as a young woman's scream pierces the bar. "The door is bolted, my angel. It is too strong, even for you!"

I did the math on that one.

Length of plate (L) is 2.5 m
Width of plate (W) is 1.5 m
Plate area 3.75 m^2
Thickness (t) 0.5 m
Volume of the plate 1.875 m^3
Weight 14,700 kg

15 ton steel door with lock bars 10 cm thick. She tears it out, Supergirl style, without any trouble. She would have to be able to stab her fingers into Molybdenum Steel hand deep to gain purchase to snap 4 inch forged bar steel lock-bar stock and then brace herself under that weight to tear it out of the frame. Never mind the buried hinges! How would she do that? Where does she get the friction purchase? She does not weigh more than 120 pounds or 55 kilograms as drawn!

Lani has been erupted like Theresa Knight had been. The "monster" left a blood scrawled message for Lee. "Too Late."

Part Three is coming up. The physics should be "interesting".

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DC Fallen Angel (2003) #6

Yikes! Round 4.

Lee makes a bad mistake. The gunman, who tried to assassinate her, that she laser-blinded in his right eye, in the first book, she sploshes now with that same heat energy. She previously smoked the hookah mix Asia Minor uses to get himself drug high, to alter her own consciousness, so as to see the monster. The gunman had a pair of Dirty Harrys (Smith and Wesson Magnum revolvers, as drawn. Eta.), pressed against her skull, while she was drugged, high and helpless. Something, a voice, a "persona" in her mind, called to her and urged her to use her power to rupture the gunman. It could be claimed as "justified", or as self-defense, but the ambiguity is serious enough that the reader cannot be sure, in the moment; if Lee has not broken the Sixth Commandment?

www.bibleinfo.com/en/topics/ten-commandments-list

It looks, to Asia Minor, like the Angel is the monster. He accuses Slate of having fouled up, by allying with and helping the Angel. Who could say? The sploshes are identical, to limited character point of view inside the story. The reader knows more; about the voice. The reader knows about Cu Ba Mynah's warning to Lee that there is no telling what the drug cocktail will do to her, since she is a telekeet,^1, but it is still murder when you premeditate and kill. When you have a clear choice to disable, with high chance of success, and you choose to kill, Human law calls that premeditated murder.

^1 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Comet
Captain Comet seems to be the most likely model for the Lex Luthor created Matrix [supergirl]. He has telekinesis / telepathy / teleportation / teleview and telophase defense.

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Something funny occurs with Slate, the examiner. First, he shows up. Second he explains to Asia that it could not possibly be the Angel. Asia Minor (I was, too.), is a little slow on the uptake, as he digests Slate's negation of Cu Ba Mynah's theory that the Angel and the monster are identical. Asia Minor suddenly accuses Slate of telling the monster where the Angel was.

"Testing a theory."
"What theory?"
"I'll let you know, when I formulate it."

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"Dolph handles Ezil. Sad, it is, that the boy is in psychosis. Odd it is, that a genocidal maniac sympathizes. Daddy issues brought them both into hell? If you are an objectivist, or an empiricist or just Human, you sympathize with the innocent boy. You do not sympathize with 'Dolph. He made his choice.

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Lee and the monster have an internal monolog. She sits atop a cathedral. She overlooks Bête noire. It is drawn as a beautiful city. The monster shows the Angel the citizenry as the monster sees them. Fellow Monsters, that the entity, their shepherd, will gather unto himself as a damned flock.

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Azmil has his goon army. They are about to storm "Furor's" 'Dolph's bar. How does that one go? Well, we get a quickie dead goon on the deck. Who shot him? Shadow Boxer of all people did it to preamble Juris Magistrate's warning to Azmil, "Leave Town."

You have already seen that Azmil is "vermin". Like most "vermin"; he refuses to take good advice. But let us leave that one, alley fight, for a moment.

The monster manifests as a man to Lee. She had seen him in his human form as an online pornographer in Book 3 when she fought and lost to the monster the first time. Now she fights him atop the church. He taunts her with his victims. He claims he will take her as his, as he took the other girls.

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The monster tempts Lee^2. He kills Azmil as an offering, to make her come over.

Orgasm is "the little death".

"You want the little death? You got it" They tussle, Angel and Monster. The monster might win.

But our Fallen Angel is Maid of Steel.

"Pipe Dreams." The pornographer is "pitched" onto a pipe organ. The glory shines down.

Make of that ending, what you will.

^2 Lust is the sin personified in the monster.



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Fallen Angel (2003) #8

From last time, we saw Lee abduct Black Mariah, that is just grab the woman out of her home. Lee takes her, Black Mariah, to a torture chamber, where our Fallen Angel is prepared to vivisect the Succubus, to find out where Black Mariah keeps a stolen section of the True Cross.

Is Lee justified in what she does? Does Black Mariah deserve it?

This was a time, in comics, fresh off the turbulent 1990s; when writers, artists, editors of publishing houses, and comic book readers were willing to take the medium seriously, to approach it as a form of literature. It was perhaps an Iron Age. Religion, politics, philosophy, basic morality, was all fair game. The sidewalls of censorship, were still there, but between the barriers of what was not allowed, the creatives and their minders wanted to ask questions in the medium to make their readers think.

Now, to set the stage for the moral argument, the reader is supplied with some background. We have seen that Lee offended in some fashion that caused someone or something to tear out her wings, to pin her to this place called Bête Noire. We could speculate, but these are facts we see and know. This event turned her into a cynic and a self-starter when it comes to applying “justice” to offenders (Like she is.). She has become an avenger of the last recourse of sorts.

Her latest selected victim, Black Mariah, is a human trafficker, and a Succubus. Okay, that is two strikes on Black Mariah, but those strikes are based on what Black Mariah is, not what she does?

Uhm. Black Mariah sucks the life force out of people to keep herself alive. She sells Human beings into slavery to earn money. That is what she does. Add to these community CRIMES, that she murders, that she steals holy relics and that she tried to kill Lee by dropping a forest onto our Fallen Angel.

If we compare that set of data with Lee, we have to ask the question on her, this way, “What did Lee do that put her where she is?”

Get the point? What you are, is your condition. What you do, is what makes you guilty. That is not just theology, it is settled physics.

What does that mean?



YIKES!

Now do you see why Lee and Hitler are "allies"?

In physics, that is: in the way the universe is put together; we have two stark, deadly to us, observations. The first one is, that right down to the quarks and leptons, we cannot know their position and direction together.in TIME. That is the Principle of Uncertainty. Without that ability to know, all of the present, until we choose to measure it, (And we only get partial information from the measurement, you will notice?), we thus have variance or a choice in our local future.

But... and here is the kicker to our philosophical rears, once we measure, we know the outcome of our choice. That is even pre-determined by probabilities, which we can measure, have measured, have tabulated, and which we know with CERTAINTY.

There are predetermined consequences. You could call those, rewards and punishments.

Mix and match, reader. Lee is not all Deontology in her failure of choices. Black Mariah is not all Teleology in her predetermined being. Both of them are still guilty as Hello, which is where they are. Subject to your point of view on the matter, Lee is the more guilty. Dolf knows it. He is the one who calls her; "My Fallen Angel." If you do not recognize, by book eight, that Lee has seriously screwed up not only in her acts, but in her choices; you need to examine the foundation of your own philosophy. Peter Allen David shows you in her evil acts, that she deserves her removal from the glory. Black Mariah, oddly enough, is being unfairly punished unjustifiably, in David's showcase, for her being, not in her doing. Black Mariah IS an evil being. Her choices are fair-laned in. She will do whatever teleology demands of her to make her life the best it could be, for her.

So...

You, as the outside observer, have your own choice. Where do you fit? Do you have sympathy, or do you have callous judgement? It is, after all, a sliver of wood, that is at issue for which Black Mariah is to be vivisected. Remember Becky, the girl, the soccer goalie, hit in the face by an aimed shot? What did Lee promise? To be there, as a 'guardian angel' of sorts, for the girl? What choice did Lee make when she saw Black Mariah arrive? She dropped Becky's problem and chose to go after Black Mariah and a sliver of wood.

Not so clear or obvious, is it? Actually, from my empathic point of view, it is. Duty. Oath. Obligation. Lee can still attack, but to protect the child. The sliver of wood can take care of itself. Motive. Choice. Foundational ethics.

=====================================================================

Now we can turn to Book Eight.

We are shown that Black Mariah is about to sell some Human beings into slavery. Evil act by an evil being. The victims are gypsies, a long persecuted tribe of Humanity, generally despised as thieves and con artists. (Hey, I am just giving you the bigotry and the prejudices as they are. If you do not like them, readers, because I called you out on the prejudices within you, then CHOOSE to do something about it. Change yourselves. Eta.).

One of the gypsies is a witch and a princess of the tribe. A little more persecution bigotry fuel for the fire is added. Black Mariah claims that the princess, Tshaya, about to be sold into prostitution, will have a better material future than the one she has now. Teleology is invoked. Yeah, about that one, what about the dignity of the Human being?

Who interrupts the transaction? Lee. She kicks in a hand-carved door.

"You know. That door was hand-carved. Despise me as you wish, but have some respect for art."



Respect for Art.

If you think about the choices, you understand why when art gets in the way of what has to be done to prevent evil, the art has to go.

In this flashback, did you notice that Lee's feet did not touch the ground? Black Mariah did. Why was Lee there? For the gypsies? They are incidental. Lee is there to rescue Sister Mary Catherine, who Black Mariah has mixed into the batch to be sold into slavery.

Duty. Oath. Obligation. It appears that Lee is on the right of it? Save a nun, (I suspect it is Tshaya. Avatar.). That is her duty, oath, obligation? She, Lee, is an angel, right, even if fallen?

That does not meet the Human Standard for Conduct. Lee should have been there for any person, Black Mariah was about to sell into slavery. We do not, as Human beings, get to choose through our bigoted prejudice of preference. If we mean what we claim, as Human Beings, then we have to be for all and do for all. We do not get to pick and choose, except for the needs and limits of our means to choose. Devil or saint, it is not for us to decide. The act is the choice decider as to motive for us. What can I write else, except that is how the Universe works, and is the only way to operate within it.

Lee is there for the right reason, but not for the whole right reason. She floats then. Does she float now?

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Now...

Wakee, wakee.

"Why don't you touch the ground? Afraid you will become contaminated by our Earthly concerns?"

"How can you stand in judgment over us, if you're down in the "

I actually have an answer to that one, from my days as a young hoodlum. It seems that in Christian legend, that the reason god became Human, was so he could justifiably throw that accusation back in our face. He came down into the muck, lived among us, as a Human being, was judged by us as a Human being, punished by us as a Human being, and so forth. So as you judge, so you will be judged.

We should have been smarter. We were told by the worst of us, that it could happen to any of us, that we would make a serious error, if we failed to show mercy or just good common sense. You know, for all of his hypocrisy and evil in the doing, Pontius Pilate did have a point, about it.



Lee applies the standard approved battery cable attachment method for boosting a Human being who needs to be charged, to Black Mariah. If you need pointers, I will NOT supply them, but Iraqis, Argentinians and incompetent Germans of the past and the !@# !@#$ed Russians of the present know the methods. Learn from those bastards. Our methods are gentler, but far more effective. I will NOT discuss those in detail, either.

Questions; where is the shard? What is the extortion over Black Mariah? Lee has an obligation to the nun, to recover the shard. Lee is curious about the extortion.

Black Mariah answers "uck ooo."

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Then...

Black Mariah uses Tshaya as a hostage to Mexican stand-off our Fallen Angel.



“Oh now what sort of Romani trickery is this?”

This was HARD to translate. In essence, Lee throws a stunner/sleep grenade at Black Mariah (Flash bang, with gas.). She invokes; "Change her fortune to bad, in the name of Gajengi, the prophet, God wills it!"

Mere Human weaponry would have sufficed, I think. The invocation could have been a distraction, but the result is the same. Bad luck!

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Now...

"You keep passing out. i keep finding ways of waking you up."

"You little asshole> You are enjoying this."

We get more details about Black Mariah. She is a spy and information broker. She works for the Magistrate, but has a side hustle of Sadism in her spidery works.

Black Mariah accuses Lee of dehumanizing her, so she can be tortured without Lee suffering qualms, kind of ironically, since that is Black Mariah's stock in trade as she sells human beings as if they were commodities. Lee rectifies that accusation by throwing it back in her face, sort of like Pontius Pilate did to the mob, above and god / the Universe, does to us. "... you're no victim. You are the oppressor."

If you could just see the circular logic?

Anyway, Black Mariah breaks. First she gives up the name of the person who extorts her.

"Wilde."

The art is subtle. Lee looks at Black Mariah through a glass darkly, that Lee pours for herself. Torturing victims, innocent or otherwise, is thirsty work, what with all the dust, screams, burnt flesh, ozone and such.

"Shadow Boxer was right. I should have killed you at first opportunity." The song and dance session continues. Black Mariah found the one Human being her Succubus abilities were useless against. Shadow Boxer became her battery, then her lover, then her love.

Then we have the morals dance again. Black Mariah claims she is guiltless because she knows what she is, a leech, and is proud of it in that she does not deny her nature. She IS. As for Lee, Black Mariah accuses her of the manure-rolls-down-hill hypocrisy / fallacy. Having been righteously judged, Lee is hurt and angry. So she passes the grief and pain unrighteously downhill, upon "vermin" she thinks deserves it.

"You're pathetic."

Oh, by the way, that Holy Hand Grenade, Lee threw? It was indeed a bad luck bomb. Black Mariah was cursed. Black Mariah fled Bete Noire to find someone who could neutralize it. Obviously, that removal did not work.

Anyway. Black Mariah reveals some more truths. Her succubus powers not only rot Human beings, but all organics. Wooden chair? Oops. Succubus to Angel again is the fight, which Black Mariah compares to a sexual act of consumation. Black Mariah takes the hot poker that Lee was going to use to flay her skin and she stabs herself through the chest just below the heart. Ouch.

She does not die. Why? Wilde holds the "essence of Black Mariah's death", as a griimoire threat over the Succubus. And the sliver of wood, is in the mansion where the Fallen Angel broke up Black Mariah's slavery hustle.

"Whatever ill fates have befallen you, Black Mariah, you are getting what you deserve, and merit no help.'

"And when you get what you deserve, ma petite, will you merit help, I wonder?"

The Fallen Angel answers: "Yeah, I often wonder that, too."

Shakes head.

You know that crowd, that Pontius Pilate allegedly addressed when he allegedly caved and judged Jesus of Nazareth in their name?

Mathew 27;25.



Believe it or not, the religion is not what is important. That is legend. Look to the history. The attitude, the motives, is what mattered.

Learn us, we STUPID Human beings.




Avatar.

DC Fallen Angel (2003) #10



What is sin?


If you accept that definition, then you have not reckoned with the other religions embraced by Humanity. Even communists have a concept of “sin”.

They, that is all of we, know about “Thou shalt not murder.”, as a matter of universal principle. Some disagreement exists about the definition of “murder”. That matter of opinionated difference, among us, could also be a sin. 

Black Mariah flips off the Supreme Being. A creature of evil, she knows she is evil, but she says to Shadow Boxer: “Apologize to God for me, for flipping him off.”   

A Succubus knows she has sinned. She wants to apologize for it, but since she cannot do it directly, she roundabouts it. She does raise the question of why a supreme being would let his creations suffer.  

I have a most unpleasant answer for why suffering is necessary. How can living creatures learn to survive in an entropic environment, if not through feedback? But why should Human beings need feedback? Why should we be punished, we Human beings? I have a much worse answer for that one, than the one for why Parameciums must suffer.  We deserve it, because we know better. 

If the supreme being wants us to choose freely, and if that being wants us to choose good, then the supreme being puts in pain as a teacher. Or the universe simply organizes that way; your choice. Of course, if you pick the wrong answer, even in that matter of choice, you receive pain.   

There is a lot of pain written into this issue, and a lot of that pain was unnecessary. 

=======================================================

So let us unpack that pain.

Black Mariah, Lee allows, to leave the place, where our Fallen Angel tortured her. BM is one tough Succubus. Yet, she asks, no, she prays to god to send her some help to ease her pain. That prayer, as Peter David crafts the story, will have an unusual payoff. Keep that prayer in your hip pocket, because the “answer” goes beyond Shadow Boxer driving up the road to stop at her knees to her rescue. (Why is every car David Lopez draws, a piece of General Motors junk?). Boxer stops for Black Mariah, who is drawn in a standing crucifixion pose. 

I have already covered Black Mariah's request to Shadow Boxer to apologize to God for her. He drives her to his place. 

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In Massachusetts, at an unnamed convent, Our Fallen Angel tends to business with Sister Mary Catherine. Much of what I write, here, is my opinion, about the situational ethics. Maybe there is some psychology, too. 

Mother Superior wakes up our little nun in her cubicle. The reader discovers that Sister Mary Catherine has created problems before in other venues with her “quest” after the shard. Now Lee is here. Mary Catherine races to dress and to meet the Fallen Angel in the commons room, where Lee warms her cold self by a roaring fire. 

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Past…

Jump-cut to where the nun speaks to the Angel about the shard at “Furors”.

“What does it do? Heal like the Holy Grail?”
“When you find it, then I will tell you.”

Some vanity, pride, and ignorance is on full display in Sister Mary Catherine. Our little nun has asked the Fallen Angel to risk her, Lee's life, for a sliver of wood. 
     
===================================================

Present…  

We can expect the same vanity, pride, and ignorance. Lee came to Sister Mary Catherine for answers. It does not go well. Lee demands her answer. The nun counters with a demand to know if Lee held it. Lee admits that much, but claims nothing happened.

I do not believe Lee believes, she lied. The nun knows she did. 

“According to all my studies… the shard is supposed to provide whoever's holding it, with whatever they need most.”

Lee probes that meaning with a materialist interpretation. The nun corrects; “No, it emotionally completes you.”  
 
I do not exactly agree with either interpretation. What happens to lead me to that conclusion is that Lee accuses the nun, of that vanity, pride, and ignorance. “It's your obsession, simple unholy obsession. You're hoping to bask in reflected glory.”

Sister Mary Catherine does not get it. She probes Lee further. “How did you find it, finally?”

So, Lee tells her the complete truth.  :”Well, you could say, 'Thank you.' “

Ouch. 

Then Sister Mary Catherine tosses the shard into the fire place. Lee dives for it. It has cost her, dearly. Of course, SHE dives for it.

Lee asks the nutty nun, why she did it. “Because I'd know” 

“Know what?”

“That you, a force for good, debased yourself to obtain it.”

“Could you be any more holier than thou?” 

The nun remonstrates, that the shard did as was intended. It completed her, by showing her sin. She gave it up, as was required when her greed to have it was expiated. And in so doing, it sacrificed itself. I am not sure, if David, at this point is laying down a marker on Lee, herself; but what comes next, inclines to make me think that he wants the reader to believe that the shard worked on her. 

More from the nun: “You committed a great sin, Lee. A terrible one.”
“The bitch had it coming.”
“That's not for you to judge, and you know it.”^1
“You must expiate yourself. Atone for your sin.”
“Or what?”
“Or I'll come back to Bête noire, and make you!”

==================================================

I will have something to write about it in a moment.

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Back at Boxer's; the Succubus and the Battery have their strange love dependency in action. A phone call from Wilde interrupts this interaction. Wilde demands the shard. The rendezvous discussion is not as important as the revelation that Wilde is the same kind of monster Black Mariah is. Worse, he is a voodoo shaman who has plucked Black Mariah's death out of the aether.^1 This is the Damocles, Wilde holds over Black Mariah. 

==================================================

“Furor's”

Ezil takes out the trash, spots something and gets Dolf. Who is sitting next to the garbage in her street clothes? Lee it is.  

“All right, Lee. What's wrong? I'm your bartender. You know you can tell me anything.”  
 
“What's good, Dolf? And what's evil?”

What follows is a strange lecture on “Greater and Lesser.” Dolf is the last monster, you want to ask about good and evil.^2 Lee reveals an extraordinary event, which if you remember the lust demon had revealed to her. Juris Magistrate was the only “pure” being in the city. “Pure good.” Lee identified him. Dolf points out that Juris runs the rackets.  If Juris is “good”, and Lee is his opposition, what does that make her? Again, Dolf is not the person you would want to ask such questions, when you try to sort the nun's accusation of you out, but this is where Lee is at.

Dolf's answer is moral relativism applied to politics. “Order and Chaos” in that milieu is repression and freedom in operation. You see that I wrote that Dolf was the last monster to ask that question and expect a straight answer?  

“The only sin is waste. Wasted opportunities. Wasted Dreams.”

“What about hurting people? Isn't that a sin?”

Dolf gives an interesting answer. It is the wrong answer, and it shows why he is a monster. “Depends on what you get out of hurting them.” 

Lee had best learn that subtle error, if she wants her wings back. 

===================================================

 
Well. Wilde meets with Black Mariah at Bumper Ruggs' Establishment. Bumper Ruggs, a dissolute trans-sexual Human (It is set in the days when moral judgements were different, not that I have a NON-Darwinian viewpoint on the subject, NOW.), warns Wilde about an “idiot”, the Fallen Angel.       

Wilde scoffs.

Black Mariah and Wilde banter a bit, about the shard and BM's death. Black Mariah tells Wilde that she gave up the shard to Lee. Wilde proceeds to torture Black Mariah the voodoo way, because that is who he IS.

Crash. Dramatic entrance. Ruggs complains; "Would it kill you to use the front door?" 

Wilde taunts Lee. 

"I'm here to help Mariah. Give her what she wants and I'll let you live."
 
"And if I don't" 

"I won't."^3 

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^1 First, do no harm.

Seems simple enough. That is basically what the nun accuses Lee did. However, the nun came to Lee with an avaricious request, her avaricious request. Lee, being who she was and is, went to the absolute limit, to get the shard. The shard, once Lee held it, hammered her down to her knees in prayer. She, Lee, did not let the shard complete its healing effect upon her, and it rejected or recoiled from her as much as she recoiled from it.          
 
=================================================

^2 Means and Ends: Moral Relativism.

The problem with what Dolf tells Lee, is that you do not get justification through quantification. If you did, then Hitlerism would be just as valid as Christianity or Islam. Patently a "religion" or moral code that puts a material value on Human life, which sets up selected Humans as judges over other Humans as to what the other Humans' lives are worth for materialist reasons, kind of is evil incarnate. 

Dolf claims that is what Human beings, in their governments, and religions, and economics and wars; do. That statement is very true. Insurance actuary tables are based on the principle of quantified estimates of what groups of, and individual Human beings are worth.

^3 But you can choose not to live that way.



Bitter is THAT choice.

Learn us, we STUPID, Human beings.



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DC Fallen Angel (2003) #12

Peter David and David Lopez



How did Lee and Juris meet? And who hooked who?

Set the spacetime back a year to Mardi Gras. The setting is an open air bar. Juris discusses Mardi Gras with another man. The piece of manure is named Sam Grant. How do we know Sam Grant is a piece of walking manure? Well, the hint is that Sam is one-laned on picking up women. But that is what males do at Mardi Gras? Hook-up is one social activity, that is, meet others and consensually socialize. But Sam is after drunken women to prey upon. Notice what is set, here? I spoil nothing, when I point out that Juris plans the same exact predation. It is no accident that he met Sam Grant.

Enter Juris' prey, Lee. She hunts, or so she thinks. She is in an avenging mood.

The Darth Vader entrance is no accident. She choke-holds Grant (Boomer.). She clearly dislikes Grant for reasons quickly revealed. But for now, the bar fight brings in the cops. Juris cools off the bartender with the shotgun with a drink in the eyes, and then the bartender's shotgun in the nose. Lee, still doing the Darth Vader choke on Grant, wipes out half the scum in the bar with a leg sweep. The cops, she feeds a Faraday torpedo. Grant scoots out from under the torpedo. Lee pursues Grant. Juris pursues Lee. This is A→B→C. You get the daisy-chain effect, but you should pick up that Juris has his prey in sight. He is not about to return to Bête noire, without her.

Back to Lee. She jumps rooftops and flies above. She looks for Sammy boy. Not only that, but she finds the jerk. It turns out that Sammy raped a girl named April. Then he murdered her. Lee has some Mardi Gras beads she wants to apply to Sammy's throat to encourage him to breed, Er, breath out a confession. Sammy boy tries to bluff out our Angel. He taunts Lee.

“Do it, you psycho hose beast. You freak! Followin' me, chasin' me, making my life a living hell. So;l if you want vengeance, kill me right now, if you got the guts.”

Careful, what you wish for, Sammy.

“Kay.”

A couple making the beast with two humps are interrupted with an arm smashing through a brick wall.

“Why did you do that?”

For, Juris pulled Sammy out of the way. “I didn't want you to become a cold-blooded murderer.” Hook.

Juris asks Lee out for a date. Lee flexes her bicep and the section of building wall that was stuck to her arm falls off. This woman tore a 15 ton safe door off a bomb shelter, remember? Sammy is not long for this Earth, but he can wait until Juris has his date with Lee.

The cops that were at the bar finally catch the two in the alley. Lee might have to use the Faraday again, but this time Juris commands them to leave. The cops leave. Auto-suggestion?

Juris and Lee have dinner. We find that Lee has been living the hobo life. Juris gives a little about his life as Hell's petty functionary in Bête noire. He does not come out and confess it, but the reader is supposed to pick it up. Lee and Juris dance around about how bad they are, or maybe they are creatures of justice, or whatever, but the point is that Juris distracts lee, until she mission orients on Sammy.

“You want Grant?”

“Yes.”

“Very well, I'll take you right to him.”

And so they go to Sammy's flop. Lee kicks in the door. Sammy overdosed on rat poison. Why did Juris arrange it? So Lee would not commit murder, or so he claims. Line.

Lee plonks Sammy in the bedroom. Then she jumps Juris for “pleasure”. Cinderella before midnight? Bong-bong, etc.

Juris leaves behind his card in the morning. Sinker.

===========================================================================


And there is how Deontology shatters. Lee fell, but Juris made sure she stayed fallen.

Moral: the road to Hell is paved with Quantum mechanics. So Learn US, we, STUPID Human beings?




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DC Fallen Angel (2003) #14

Peter David and David Lopez



Lost in Math

You have wheels within wheels in the mess that is our reality. The idea that simple is good and observation is the start of wisdom has to be relearned, in fiction, too.

Prelude:

A boy, who wears a Boston Red Sox hat, is lost upon the streets of Bête noire. He collides with a man named, Benny, who promises to help the boy, to find “Furor's”. This is Bête noire. If you are lost, if it is obvious that you look for Lee, if you bump into someone who promises to help you find the Fallen Angel; then you are screwed, blued, tattooed and snafued. Dead meat, you are.

=======================================================================

“Everybody Comes to Dolf's”

Party List.

1. Lee, the Fallen Angel, is there.
2. Black Mariah and Shadow Boxer sashay in.
3. Bumper comes around.
4. Slate, the Investigator, shows up.
5. Cu Ba Mynah, (Asia Minor), is present.
6. Of course, Dolf is present. He owns the place.

Lee expects our boy from Boston, but the kid is overdue.

Asia Minor expects someone, but he is not in good shape for that meeting. He is all raw nerves.

Slate, the Investigator, shows up at the bar and orders a drink. Usual rate per shot is $2.00, same for everybody?

Black Mariah and Shadow Boxer hide in the shadows. There has to be a reason they are present.

A lot of what transpires in sequence revolves around Lee. Shadow Boxer has a hot lit cigar. That screams McGuffin and Chekhov's gun. Black Mariah waits for the Benny who met our boy from Boston.

Relax, reader, it will settle into the usual business cycle, for the moment, when it involves Lee. Clients and supplicants will come to her booth, conduct business and be dismissed, as happens nightly at “Furor's”

First is Slate. He's healed from the face-meets-the-wall incident he had with the Fallen Angel in her apartment. Banter back and forth yields nothing obvious between them, but it appears that he fishes for information about Lee to take back to Doctor Juris. In addition, Slate, believes Doctor Juris is at high risk, so he pro-acts to enlist Lee.

“That's his problem. Besides, pride goeth before a fall.”

“You being the expert on falling?”

“You could say that.”

Dismissed.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Next at the bar, to purchase a drink from Dolf, is Black Mariah. The talk is about Lee's first customer. Dolf does not notice, or so he claims. Does Black Mariah know her place? “I've been reminded of it, from time to time.” Dolf charges her $4.00 for her gin and tonic. You cannot call it, but what it is, when Dolf charges Slate, a black man, but a power-that-be, $2.00 for a drink. “Keep the change.”

Black Mariah is Lee's second customer. What? Why? The winds from Copenhagen blow a strong odor. Black Mariah and Lee chat about Ezil, whose parents were destroyed by the Lust Demon, Lee pipe-organed a while back. I noticed that Black Mariah, the Succubus, wears a cross. Why engage in the small talk? Black Mariah wants to know, from Lee, if she has seen Benny, the Snake. Lee does not work for free, for the likes of Black Mariah, so there are cute games involving $20.00, where the bill is torn in half and its monetary value is ZERO.

“You know, for someone whose expertise is info gathering, you're doing a pretty crap-ass job tonight.”

“So, it would seem.”

“OWWW.”

“Ow. The big bad ANGEL is hurt by a stogie?”

Refresher on Lee's power set, which is identical to Captain Comet's;

Captain Comet / Power set
a. Superhuman strength
b. Invulnerability
c. Telekinesis
d. Telepathy
e. Flight
f. Super speed
g. Tremendous intellect
h. Photographic memory
i. Concussive energy bursts (Faraday torpedo.)
j. Aura vision
k. Teleportation
l. Clairvoyance
m. Post-cognition
n. Extended lifespan
o. Accelerated healing
p. Invisibility.

The problem is that Lee, like Adam Blake, has to be consciously aware, to apply her mind to her surroundings and to use her power set. Distraction can be fatal. She is a telekeet, one who has to apply her mental capacity as a human omnipotent, not some Kryptonian solar-powered whack-job. So, if she is distracted, the standing shock-wave that is her defense, goes away. She becomes “vulnerable”.

Black Mariah has found the information that she sought.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Nein, er ist genug.” Lee is about to kill Shadow Boxer. Dolf intervenes. Lee snatches the stogie from Black Mariah's battery, Shadow Boxer. She burns it out on her forehead. “Satisfied?” Too late; the secret is out. Lee can be killed. She may be the penultimate HUMAN, but she is HUMAN. Remember that one, reader. That simple banter game, Black Mariah played on Lee, should not have resulted in the distraction.

Dolf throws Black Mariah and Shadow Boxer out of “Furor's”. On their way, out, the Succubus and her battery, meet Bumper. Is Bumper here to meet the Angel?

Nope. Bumper is there to meet her supplier, who happens to be Cu Ba Mynah, (Asia Minor.). Bumper needs drugs to sell to her drug addicted clientele. Well, that supply chain has dried up. You know why? A ghost, named Tiffany, has been busy as Lee's guided missile. Asia Minor's suppliers are DEAD. Asia Minor whines:

“You should a let me die, Angel. Not leave me like this, with the screams and the… and the eyes… that just… they never stop looking at me… and… and… they never stop.” Asia Minor staggers out of “Furor's” drunk.

Lee's “mercy” can be terrible. As you are about to discover, because guess who is in the booth behind Lee? Benny the Snake picked the wrong time to show. Here, is Lee fully aware, finally using her full power set on poor Benny. If you, the reader, need to know what gave it away to the normal Humans, who look on in shock, Benny the Snake, was stupid enough to wear a Boston Red Sox hat.

“Bought it a while back. I figured, y' know, “B” for Benny.”

“Try “B” for busted. Come step into my private office.”

Ezil asks; “Why is she dragging him into the back alley?”

“Oh, to work something out.” Dolf answers.

In the alley, Benny gets a Supergirl Heimlich treatment. Our walking Human-shaped boa constrictor. I would not call Benny a Gorgon, but he is close enough for Bête noire purposes. Out of Benny comes the boy from Boston. It has been a long night for Lee.

At closing time, Dolf checks on Lee. She's “off”. Dolf has noticed it. So he asks.

It turns out that Lee may be a Human omnipotent, but she is a PREGNANT Human omnipotent. She goofed. Juris is the daddy. (Foreshadowing. Shadow Boxer is not going to make it.).

Wheels are turning.



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If you have it all explained down to the quarks, then here is what I suggest you might apply so far. Lee was cast down for "reasons". How Lee wound up in Bête noire remains to be developed. But if there was a place that was the "city that defines the world", it was Bête noire in this story. If it needed an agent of Heaven to stand for the right, but who was also to be punished for her pride, it had to be Lee.

What has that got to do with string theory, you idiot?



"IF" you hunt for God in fictions, such as string theory, you are bound to be disappointed and lose track of reality. String theorists made a religion of their idea. They did not abandon the idea, when it failed to meet the truth test.

And for that scientific sin, they were cast out and cast down.



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