by
Walter Jon Williams
This is a continuation of my last contribution, The B-List, brief biographies of some of my Wild Card characters who, for some reason, never made it to the big leagues. Sometimes they were designed as spear-carriers, sometimes they never worked out, and sometimes the tide that is Wild Cards receded and left them stranded on the shore.
Here a new set.
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General Frank Zappa, Jr.
While I can’t claim to have invented Frank Zappa, I can certainly claim to have been the person to give him a West Point education.
In our world, Zappa was an eclectic, inventive, unconventional musician who combined sonic experiments with satire and improvisation.
In the world of Wild Cards, Zappa was an unconventional career soldier who fought with the Joker Brigade in Vietnam, and who then commanded the armed forces in the siege of the Rox. He capped his career as Vice President of the U.S. in the administration of the Reverend Leo Barnett.
Zappa was an effective soldier, and quite cynical about the military, politics, and everything else— cynical enough, it turns out, to serve as veep to an evangelist and faith healer.
I once described General Zappa to a friend who knew our world’s Frank Zappa, and she told me, “Yeah, Frank would have made a terrific general.”
Occasionally I get something right.
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Pulse
Pulse was basically an ordinary guy trying to do good. Caucasian, middle-aged, with love handles spilling over his belt, Pulse could convert his body to pure energy and zip around at the speed of light, punching a hole in anything that got in his way. He worked for the Justice Department and took part in an experiment that took him to the outer reaches of the solar system, from which he returned in an extremely depleted condition.
Pulse fought hard in Earth’s defense against the Swarm invasion, fighting so hard that he sent himself into insulin shock and had to be revived with a glucose drip. He later agreed to join the government forces against the Rox.
He was a gregarious ace with the religious conviction that his power was a gift from God. He generously signed autographs and posed for photos with admirers.
These amiable tendencies were his undoing, however, and during a public photo session he was jumped by the psychotic female ace Bodysnatcher, who thereafter occupied his body and used it in defense of the Rox. She destroyed the U.S.S. New Jersey, inflicting thousands of casualties, and was subsequently destroyed while trying to assassinate her ostensible leader, Bloat.
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Phillip Baron von Herzenhagen
The cosmopolitan son of a dissolute Danish aristocrat, von Herzenhagen used his money and connections to the benefit of the International Red Cross, gaining a reputation as a humanitarian and, among other honors, winning the French Legion of Honor.
Herzenhagen’s glossy social persona and philanthropic activities disguised his true goals. He was a high-ranking member of the Card Sharks, and participated in the organization’s attempts to eradicate Wild Cards. He also took part in the assassination of Albert Einstein.
Herzenhagen fell victim to the tag team of Croyd Cranston and Black Shadow, who single-mindedly killed many of the Card Sharks as well as the Jumpers, and then framed Herzenhagen for the attempted assassination of President Leo Barnett. Presumably he spent the rest of his days as the only titled inmate in a maximum-security prison.
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The Empire State Ape
Originally I created the Ape was kind of in-jape— a giant gorilla who appeared mysteriously during the New York blackout of 1965, is now confined in the Central Park Zoo, and who periodically escaped to grab the nearest blonde and climb the Empire State Building, attracting a swarm of flying aces who tried to subdue him and carry him to his home.
The joke was good once, and I never planned to do anything more with the Ape. But Walton Simons was inspired to make use of the Ape in creating Mr. Nobody, a shape-shifter who spent decades trapped in the body of the Kong-sized gorilla, and incidentally created the blackout by absorbing titanic amounts of energy to create his new body.
Mr. Nobody participated in the Rox War, and joined the detective agency headed by Jay “Popinjay” Ackroyd.
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Flat Top
Maybe you recognize this guy:
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Here come old flat top
He come groovin’ up slowly
He got joo joo eyeballs
He one holy roller
He got hair down to his knee
Got to be a joker
He just do what he please
Flat Top is a minor figure in the Wild Cards world, but in the world of pop music he’s known— I won’s say celebrated— for inspiring two different songs by two different world-class musicians.
In his first appearance, Flat Top is seen in the bar at Aces High, where he meets Black Shadow and passes information. Flat Top is an informer by trade, and he’s clearly down on his luck.
For a description I simply used John Lennon’s portrayal in the song “Come Together.” Flat Top has weird eyes, long hair, and is clearly a joker. He goes so far as to plug a bottle of Coca-Cola into the vein on the inside of his arm.
Kevin Andrew Murphy wanted to use Flat Top for a story, and was surprised when I told him that the “Come Together” was a riff on a song called “You Can’t Catch Me,” by none other than Chuck Berry.
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New Jersey Turnpike in the wee wee hours
I was rollin’ slowly ’cause of drizzlin’ showers
Here come a flat-top, he was movin’ up with me
Then come wavin’ by me in a little’ old souped-up jitney
I put my foot on my tank and I began to roll
Moanin’ siren, ’twas the state patrol
So I let out my wings and then I blew my horn
Bye bye New Jersey, I’ve become airborne
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Kevin eventually used Flat Top in a story taking place in the Sixties, where we meet the Chuck Berry Flat Top, a young man with a buzz cut and a souped-up jitney, just setting out on a career that will lead to his appearance as the degenerate Coke-head informer at Aces High.
Straight Arrow
Straight Arrow is an ace with mighty powers and no sense of irony. Unlike so many in the Wild Cards world, he’s exactly what you see.
Born Nephi Calendar in Utah, Nephi led a conventional life of marriage, children, and work, until his family was killed by the fanatic religious leader Mormon Meadows. The shock turned his wild card, and he subdued and captured Mormon Meadows with his newly-discovered fire powers.
Nephi vowed to use his powers for justice, and made his first public appearance in a fire-red jumpsuit with a golden belt, golden boots and golden fins on his shoulders. This outfit prompted widespread ridicule, and he then chose a more conventional wardrobe: military-style combat gear when fighting was in the cards, and the rest of the time a business suit and tie.
Straight Arrow chose to join the paramilitary police under SCARE, the Senate Committee for Ace Resources and Endeavors, formerly Joseph McCarthy’s Senate Subcommittee on Investigations. This required him to police other wild cards, and he became an object of contempt or suspicion to some.
Straight Arrow fought bravely against the Swarm, and also fought the radicals in the Rox. He is gravely intelligent, but has yet to display anything resembling a sense of humor. He is quietly but fervently religious, soft-spoken and even-handed, but has no tolerance for criminals or criminal behavior. He does his best to stay within the law, and requires his subordinates to do the same.
He rose to the head of the SCARE aces, and retired in 2008.
Straight Arrow’s powers give him complete control of flame. He can hurl bolts or arrows of flame, or form a cage of fire to temporarily imprison a malefactor. He can generate fire himself, or manipulate flame already in the environment— a campfire, say, or in a burning building.
He has sworn never to take human life, and if he ever causes the death of another human being may experience a complete mental breakdown, overwhelmed by vivid memories of his family’s death.
Government Aces
I created the government aces for anyone’s use, any time a story needs an emissary from the government. They work for SCARE, the FBI, the DOD, or wherever a writer (or the government) desires to employ them.
Oddly enough I never used any of them in a story of my own, but they’ve appeared here and there in stories written by other people.
The Magus (Alan Down):
A self-hating joker, the Magus possesses the power of psychometry. Given an object belonging to the quarry, or in a place where the quarry has lived, the Magus is able to mentally pursue the quarry to his/her current location. Since even a psychic trail can go cold, it helps if the object/location was recently used/inhabited by the quarry. The Magus’s ability is quirky, and fails about thirty percent of the time even under ideal circumstances.
The Magus’s skin is a bright yellow, and his head is lozenge-shaped and roughly twice as long as the average human head. His chin stretches halfway down his breastbone, and peaks high above his ears. He hates the wild card virus and himself, and believes himself cursed by God in punishment for some unremembered sin.
Moon (Jeanne Duff)
Moon is a shape-changer, able to alter her form into any canine form from a chihuahua to a dire wolf. She is an ideal scout, and if in the appropriate form can also be a formidable fighter.
Unfortunately Moon can only maintain her canine form for brief periods, at most a couple of hours. Normally Moon is a severely disabled joker, with short flipperlike arms and a lower body that trails off into a wormlike tail. She can move only by crawling, and can’t even feed herself without aid. She hates her jokerhood and distrusts the government, but she believes that she has no choice. Only the government has the power to guarantee her survival, and so she must prove herself of value to that government.
Death (Marko Kokich)
Joker Death looks like a featureless matte-black silhouette, except for the wide mouth full of bright white sharklike teeth and the shiny talons on the hands and feet. No other facial features are visible, and anyone feeling his head will feel only a smooth, featureless, rubbery surface. He blends naturally into the night and is an expert on covert ops and assassination, preferring to kill with his bare hands (and teeth).
Death enjoys his work very much, and likes being able to do it under legal cover. His origins are mysterious, but he is believed to have previously worked for the CIA.
Justice (Antonio Echeverria)
Justice is a young Latino from the lower Rio Grande Valley. He is good-looking and unnaturally fast, with reflexes roughly four times as fast as other men his age. He is a weapons specialists, and was recruited from the Marines. He is extraordinarily accurate with virtually any weapon, and is very difficult to kill, since he’s so fast it’s very hard to track him with a weapon.
Justice considers himself a professional, and makes it a point of pride not to question the morality of any assignments or the judgments of his superiors. He prefers to solve his problems without violence, but will not shrink from violence if he considers it necessary.
So here they are, a cornucopia of aces, jokers, and sidekicks who never carried stories of their own, but who helped to enrich the Wild Cards world by appearing where they were necessary, then faded back into obscurity when their job was done.
Maybe one of them will step out of the shadows and take a major role, or maybe they’ll stay in the background.
It all depends on how the cards fall.