BEYOND
Six people awake aboard a starship which has been sent to the other side of the galaxy. They cannot remember who they are, or why they're there, but they do remember what they are capable of ... and it seems one of them may be a traitor. While they attempt to travel back to their homes, they are waylaid by problems, people, and a strange enemy with far too much power for her own good. Meanwhile, the other side of the galaxy is at war between the Solar Union and a group of slaves who are attempting to claim what they feel rightfully belongs to them. Making new friends, new enemies, and meeting old enemies they can't even remember, the crew must determine who their real nemesis is before it's too late.
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The Key to Everything - Book 1: Solace
Isaac Renco is a television reporter who loves his job. After he gets his camera-woman pregnant, his girlfriend kicks him out of the house. Having just had one of the worst days of his entire life, he desperately wants to get away from it all. Thankfully, a key helps him do just that.
Isaac winds up on an island on another world with strange people, a new friend, a computer that answers questions about anything except the rest of the planet, and an oracle who will only answer three questions each day. There is something weird going on, he is sure of it.
Preternatural buzzards, a Ghost Child with some unusual knowledge, the Tower of Babel, the Alexandrian Library, and the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World contain secrets Isaac just cannot leave alone ... and he will go anywhere, pay any price, to solve the mystery.
The Key to Everything - Book 2: Spoil Sport
Eric Mills is a senior at a high school in Minnesota. He has good friends, a wonderful girlfriend, and a mediocre life. When Elle Cramer stops her car in front of him on the sidewalk and whisks him away to Texas in the blink of an eye, Eric is sure he’d rather help her than go back to school.
After the two meet up with an ex-archaeologist named Ronald Barry, and Nathaniel Oppenhausen; an underling of Ronald’s old archaeology professor; they head for Ontario, Canada, to meet a woman who they believe may have more information about the key in Elle’s possession.
With the four of them running for their lives from two killers who will stop at nothing to find them, Elle, Eric, Ronald, and Nathaniel will try everything they can to learn the secrets behind the artifact in Ronald’s possession, and the Key to Everything.
The Key to Everything - Book 3: Still
Eric Mills is a senior at a high school in Minnesota. He has good friends, a wonderful girlfriend, and a mediocre life. When Elle Cramer stops her car in front of him on the sidewalk and whisks him away to Texas in the blink of an eye, Eric is sure he’d rather help her than go back to school.
After the two meet up with an ex-archaeologist named Ronald Barry, and Nathaniel Oppenhausen; an underling of Ronald’s old archaeology professor; they head for Ontario, Canada, to meet a woman who they believe may have more information about the key in Elle’s possession.
With the four of them running for their lives from two killers who will stop at nothing to find them, Elle, Eric, Ronald, and Nathaniel will try everything they can to learn the secrets behind the artifact in Ronald’s possession, and the Key to Everything.
Pent-M Volume 1: Prelude + Issues 1-3
"Pent" means Five. "-M" stands for "Mutants".
Blaire Damon, "Blaze", is the only female, and the leader of the team, with the ability to absorb and emit heat.
Thomas Clackette, "Tele-Cloaker", is a tall man somewhat disfigured by his mutant ability to teleport, phase, and manipulate his visibility.
Brian Wattson, "Watts", is a hotheaded man with the power to absorb and emit energy.
Chris Bradsvord, "Vicisserine", has the ability to transform any part or all of his body into any of the first 109 elements, as long as he says the element's name first.
Eugene P. Brightwater, "Perfect-Tone", can emit and manipulate sound around his own body.
A man named Clarence Whondite claims to have created all of them, and the five of them decide to oppose him, with disastrous effects, because Clarence Whondite has surrounded himself with others who have equally powerful abilities - a group that he refers to as his "World Mutants".
In these four issues, (Prelude, and the first 3 issues) we are introduced to the main characters - the players that begin the series originally titled "Pent-M".
Pent-M Volume 2: Issues 4-6
"Pent" means Five. "-M" stands for "Mutants".
Blaire Damon, Thomas Clackette, Brian Wattson, Chris Bradsvord, and Dr. Eugene P. Brightwater are sent to Washington D. C. to find a mutant team that Senator Charity Nichols needs help capturing for crimes she claims they’ve committed.
Pent-M finds them, only to discover that the real enemy is the one who wants all of them dead.
The Washington Demand Corp. for Mutants includes Tonya Molecki, Thomas Mason, Lea Calt and her son Wayne, Adam Shelt, Sheila Tressal, and Chip Dawnton, all with powers of their own. They are joined by a normal human mother with a mutant daughter named Tina Wyehurst, born only recently, but already in a teen-aged body with the mental capacity of the same.
Meanwhile, a mutant from a far-away galaxy teleports in and uses his powers to assist the team, hoping in exchange that they will come to aid his people in his home galaxy.
In these three issues, we get to see Pent-M in a new light as they learn more about working as a team while meeting additional mutants who were intended to play an important role later in the series. Jeremy Shorter weaves these characters together into a well-conceived story that will leave you with plenty of questions as to what will happen next for the Five Mutants.
Pent-M Volume 3: Issues 7-8
"Pent" means Five. "-M" stands for "Mutants".
Blaire Damon, Thomas Clackette, Brian Wattson, Chris Bradsvord, and Dr. Eugene P. Brightwater arrive in Cairo, Egypt at the behest of their computer system, the Computer of Mutant Amnesty (C.O.M.A.), to track down two mutants with some very unusual powers.
The first is a young female heir to the ancient throne of Egypt who doesn’t even know her own real name. The other is an English archaeologist-turned-treasure hunter out to find the young heiress’ family fortune – a fortune the young heiress doesn’t even know exists.
Abdan Nashur (translated as “a Man’s Thorn”), also known as “Shadow”, is eighteen years old (or so) and has the ability to become two-dimensional. The man hunting for her and the fortune is Mike Niel, referred to by his codename “the Imaginator”, who can transfer parts of his life essence into inanimate objects, bringing them to life to do his every bidding.
Included in this volume are pages from Issues 2, 4, and 6, which lead up to issues 7 and 8, where Shadow becomes a member of Pent-M, Brian Wattson leaves the team to find himself, and Pent-M tracks down Shadow’s family fortune and helps to defend it against the Imaginator.
Pent-M Volume 4: Issues 9-10
Pent’ means Five. ‘-M’ stands for ‘Mutants’.
Blaire Damon, Thomas Clackette, Chris Bradsvord, and Dr. Eugene P. Brightwater come back to Madison, Wisconsin and take their new friend, Abdan Nashur around town to acquaint her with American society.
Unbeknownst to them, a young female high school senior nearby is having trouble. She enlists their help against a woman she’s known for too long – a woman with chameleon-like abilities. The young female isn’t entirely without her own abilities, having the power to duplicate anything she touches, and as long as she eats, she can do it with pretty much anything.
Helping the woman with chameleon powers is a group of vicissitudes who claim to be from Pent-M’s future, and who want to defeat them before they have a chance to stop them later…but the real question is why?
The leader, Incessant, shows Blaire a strange and unique future with people she hasn’t met, but the meaning is completely lost. Somehow, though, this dream sets the team on a new course that only time can illuminate.
Meanwhile, Brian Wattson meets up with a friend and is hunted by a machine whose power equals his own. What correlation could it have with the beings from the future (as hinted at in issue 8)?
Finally, the group returns back at base for some long-overdue R&R while the police chief, Sean Tracer wants them out on a mission the police cannot handle. Would Blaire have agreed, had Incessant not come back in time? We don’t know. But, when they go to get their vehicles, the team ends up obeying orders, but at the loss of their job with the city of Madison, WI. It’s time for a change.
