For those who haven’t read episode 34 of book eleven, “Sploot” is apparently the sound made when someone’s head explodes.  For reasons unknown, many people around me find “Sploot” humorous, and it became the favored word at a party Benita and I attended Friday night.  Sploot!

For those keeping track, here is the death and injury list so far in the current, ongoing scene:

• Captain Barometer: Concussed, maybe dead, or heavily injured.
• Dr. Somnambulism: Dead.  Sploot!
• Hyperspace: Most likely dead or in a coma.
• Hypodermic Man: Unconscious
• Iron Claw: Stabbed through the abdomen, dead or critically injured.
• Johnny Saturn: Arm, hip, ribs, or spine broken, not yet apparent which.
• Lacerator: Face badly disfigured, knocked unconscious.
• Quadrophonic: Dead.
• Titanium Tom: Massive concussion, potential death or brain damage.
• Ultrasonic: Dead. Sploot!

For the Iron Brigade, Skorn and Alaric are still standing.
For the Squadron Premiere, Utopian, Torch Song, Gauge, and Triops are still standing.

At the moment I would say the battle has fallen in favor of the heroes, since they have four members still standing, while the Iron Brigade has two.

There are a lot of factor that can play into how this ends, not the least of which is a ship full of B-Level villains that could reenter the fray, or, perhaps even Tactical.  (Tactical is very weak, but remember, he wears a powered exoskeleton!  Such a suit might well be able to offer him mobility.)

Scott.

PS: To my knowledge, no one has noticed that Skorn’s tatoos have apparantly vanished in episode 34–OOOPS!  Benita and I both missed it until after it was published.

This is my first drawing of Triops, a character who will have a much bigger role in future stories.  I’m not sure what I was aiming for with this sketch, but I knew one thing: he wasn’t human.  Very little else has been established about him, beyond his psychic abilities and gate powers.  He is named Triops because at the time Benita and I had a pet triops, sort of a primordial, three-eyed brine shrimp.  Life is weird like that.