Our Heroes, Full Members of the Team:
PLAYBOY, Jack Diamond, charismatic head of Diamond Industries, instant expert and unofficial team leader. (Blake Hindman)
Rebel, super strong, flying spokesman for Black Label cigarettes. (Daniel Shiu)

Probationary Members:
Jet-Man, high flying, high tech super-hero armed with his electric gun and all too willing to use his EMP missiles. (Played by Paul Patino.)

Introducing:
Askar the Untamed, amazing physical specimen, raised since childhood in (wait for it) . . . The Valley of the Dinosaurs! (Blake Lemoine)
The Doctor, master of the mystic arts. (Bryan York)
Human Jackrabbit, bounding battler for justice, a former protector of upstate NY. (Tom Michaud)
White Knight, chivalrous hero, attempting to be a knight for the modern age. (Lawrence)

Day of Destiny

Cover: The silhouette of the New York city skyline with a large shadowed figure leaning over it against a pale violet background. Small figures of Jet-Man, Playboy and Rebel lay unconscious at the bottom of the page. The figure has a speech balloon that reads, "The United States are mine!" Three yellow circles in the bottom right-hand corner contains three silhouettes with white question marks within them and underneath is written, "Can these new Heroes save the day?"

Opening page: The skyline of New York City in the early morning as Jet-Man returns from a test flight of his new armor, a purple mist is beginning to envelope the city.

Jet-Man radios Jack (waking him up) and Heroes Inc begins to investigate. Meanwhile in an apartment building on the edge of the Village, Vincent Dominicus (aka The Doctor) awakes with a premonition of dread, first checking to make sure that his sister is safe in bed, he then checks the wards on his building, by a strange coincidence this is the same apartment building (The New Amsterdam Arms) in which the Human Jackrabbit and the White Knight live.

Jet-Man cruises around New York, trying to decipher what is happening. The Doctor dons his Trench-coat of Flight and does the same. The Human Jackrabbit awakes and looking out of his window, sees a strange figure flying away (the Doctor), he speedily dons his costume and follows. White Knight awakens soon there after and, noting the violet mist, ties a makeshift gasmask around his nose and mouth, dons his helmet and sets out to investigate. Jack, Rebel and Askar watch the mist cover the city, floor by floor, from the towering heights of the Empire State Building.

Flashback to Askar (the Untamed) and Jack, the day before. Askar was found at an American research station in the Antarctic, flown to Washington, D.C., debriefed and then turned over to Jack. Jack is trying to acclimatize Askar to the modern world outside the Valley of the Dinosaurs. So they have a long talk about how the world works (including such lines as: "Normal modern-day dinosaurs" from Askar and "Our world is not as peaceful and civilized as your land" from Jack) before going out for a nice steak dinner.

As the heroes try to figure out what is going on, they notice that the new Yorkers are a bit listless as they go about their morning commute, not rude and rambunctious at all. The Human Jackrabbit notes that all of the newspapers on the stands have the same headline "United States Governments fall to Doctor Destiny." Scanning the story, he sees that according to the newspaper President Kennedy signs over control of the US to Dr. Destiny at 9:00am, it is 7:14am now. The Human Jackrabbit realizes that this is too big for him to handle alone and he dashes off to the Empire State Building to try and contact Heroes Inc.

Arriving at the Empire State Building, the Human Jackrabbit (henceforth H-J) sees Jet-Man flying about and tries to get his attention. Jet-Man sees him and calls Jack wondering if it is some sort of joke (H-J's costume has floppy ears and whiskers). Jack looks at the (newly installed) video monitors and sees H-J, identifies him and tells Jet-Man to invite him up to the HQ. Jet-Man does so, offering to carry H-J but he says, "No thanks, just open a window." And runs up the side of the Empire State Building.

Once there, H-J shows the team the newspaper. Janice (HQ's secretary) comes in with coffee and doughnuts. Jack asks her about the newspaper and she says, "It's a good thing. America needs a strong leader and Dr. Destiny is a strong leader." Jack decides to question her further (while Askar and H-J demolish the doughnuts). Jack talks to Janice and finds that she wholeheartedly believes in Dr. Destiny as a leader. Jack leaves her safely locked in the medical bay.

It is determined that the mist has been making the way down the coast, though there must be a mist generator in NY itself. With its rate of advancement, Jack figures the mist will hit Washington, D.C., about 9am. [A vignette here with Askar -who can telepathically talk to animals- asking a pigeon to fly to DC. The pigeon replies, "I don't know how to get to DC" and looks as Askar. Askar says "I don't know either" and ends up sharing his doughnut with the pigeon.] The team discusses ways in which the purple mist might be fought. Various suggestions are made, including causing rain to take the mist out of the air.

Rebel says, "Let me try something" and flies off. Meanwhile, Jack calls the White House and tells them to prepare to evacuate with some effort he convinces them of the seriousness of the situation.

Rebel flies down to an apartment building with a water tower, tears it off and begins to splash the water around. But the time he has moved to a second water tower a van shows up and out of it pour a squad of D-Troopers (who look remarkably like Imperial Storm-troopers from Star Wars only with more obvious gasmasks). Rebel radios the team and they head out to help Rebel (Jet-Man flying, H-J and Askar riding with Jack). The Doctor and White Knight arrived in time to help to defeat the D-Trooper squad (with Jet-Man's EMP missiles frying the team's wrist radios again). The D-Troopers are taken back to the HQ for questioning along with the other heroes.

The D-Troopers are not very cooperative but the team does learn that the Hierophant is using Gracie Mansion (the Mayor's Mansion) as his base of operations. The team decides to use the captured vans and uniforms to penetrate the Hierophant's base and stop his evil plans. So, they pile into the van, Jack dons a suit of D-Trooper armor and they drove off to the mansion.

They have no trouble getting past the gate guards but as they arrive in front of the mansion, the van is surrounded by D-Troopers and the Hierophant appears, in full powered armor that resembles Papal regalia, accompanied by two women dressed as nuns. "So, you have arrived at last," says the Hierophant blowing open the front of the van with a missile launched from the tip of his staff.

The Doctor and H-J decide to deal with the D-Troopers while the rest of the team concentrates on the Hierophant and the twin Nuns. The Nuns produce energy pistols from their sleeves and the fight is on. The D-Troopers mostly go down like ninepins before the Doctor's magic and the H-J's jackrabbit kick. The Nuns and the Hierophant, however, are a different matter. But as Rebel said, "Nuns and guns don't mix." The Hierophant's staff proves a potent weapon, throwing staggering lightening bolts. Jack (remembering the earlier description of the interior of the van) dashed back inside, grabbed the water cooler and doused the Hierophant with fresh water to prevent him from using the lightning attack again. So, the Hierophant falls back on his secondary weaponry in the staff, almost cooking the White Knight with a burst of focused microwaves.

Finally, the Nuns are taken down and then the Hierophant. Meanwhile, panels showing: in Boston, Night Cat, Kitten and Liberty Bulldog drive off (but do not capture) the High Priestess. In Washington, D.C., the newly revived Captain Liberty, Torch, the Misfits of Science (A•C [pronounced ace], Lady Defender, the Living Magnet and Tigershark led by Doctor Grey) and the Unit Alpha team stationed in DC defeat Doctor Destiny but he flees via mystical means before he can be captured.

The team finds and shuts off the controls to the 'Destiny Mist' which disperses by noon and New York City returns to its usual noisy self.

Final page: Captain Liberty meets with Jack Diamond. [Captain Liberty is very blatantly my analog to Captain America, frozen in the ice of the North Sea since just before the end of WW2 and only recently revived. Captain Liberty knew Jack when he was 'Jack Diamond, Junior Ace'.] Captain Liberty clasps Jack's hand in a firm handshake, and says "Jack, you've grown." Jack looks to Captain Liberty with tears of joy in his eyes.

Forward to Issue 7

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