New Readers
Everything you need to know to start reading now! (As long as you don’t mind spoilers)
The Mythoscape
Revealed to actually be a shared space, similar to the way the internet or P2P works. Every human brain, at least a certain part of it most people are not aware of, is connected to each other in a Global Unity. It’s where Dreams, Nightmares and Afterlife Experiences come from. It is the Unconscious mind, except that it’s all connected and the residents of the Mythoscape have built worlds without limits there.
When a person dies, goes into a coma, or gets really high on drugs, they can join the Mythoscape. Only some choose to retreat to it, others do not. Near death experiences and Drugs can push people close to the Mythoscape and break through sometimes for brief periods.
The Shattered
Certain psycosis and mental problems cause people to have Parallels in the Mythoscape. Those are known as “Shattered” and are generally represented/manifest as Nightmares. The Shattered are mostly scattered and just create Chaos for the other inhabitants, but there appears to be a group of them organizing under a mysterious leader for some purpose or another. Each Shattered has different looks and abilities.
The Gods
Because people of Faith consider the Mythoscape to be the afterlife (based on their religion), there has always been an expectation to “walk among the Gods (or God)”. And therefore, there are inhabitants of the Mythoscape that resemble Mythical Gods of past, present and in some cases, Future. They have the power and ability to shape the world around them as needed.
A large number of the Gods have gathered at Mount Olympus, banding together to help protect the Mythoscape from the Shattered as well as continue the war with the Dark Gods. The Dark Gods are the ones who have chosen to go about their business of causing trouble in the Mythoscape regardless of the Shattered and the decrees of the Gods.
Story so far…by Chapter (Spoiler alert!)
Welcome to the Mythoscape
Roland woke up in the Mythoscape on the top of a Mountain. Anubis was there and explained very little, then they started down the mountain. Halfway down they encountered footprints of Fenrir, a Wolf-God.
Mans best friend
Fenrir turns out to be a loveable wolf-pup. Anya now travels with Fenrir as she looks for answers without Anubis or Roland. Anya found a town called Gard which was being ruled by a total schmuck that turned out to be Loki.
Everything Changes
Roland learns that the Mythoscape is in a constant state of Flux, shifing and changing at any time. That includes the landscape, the Gods, and even Rolands hair. Roland also runs into a Shattered drone for the first time but it mysteriously is absorbed into his forearm has an odd skin condition under his band. Anubis says it looks like Exactly like the Shattered but Roland says he’s had it for monts BEFORE waking up in the Mythoscape. Anubis reveals his weak stomach and tells Roland that he’s not THE Anubis, but the Mythoscape IS the afterlife, “in a manner of speaking.” Then we find out Roland is pulled from 1992 before they find Gard and end up in front of Loki’s Castle. Fenrir shows them where to find him.At this time, Anya learned she had the same power as the Gods to shape the Mythoscape to her liking. More powerful actually, she managed to overpower and embarrass Loki. He got away as Roland and Anubis showed up.
Answers at last
Anubis then decided it was time to explain the Mythoscape to the two mortals so he summoned Prometheus to come and provide some answers. Prometheus answered all their questions about the Mythoscape and the Shattered, (see above) except what he didn’t know. He has no idea how or why Roland and Anya got there, why Roland has an arm with elements of Shattered on it, or why Anya can manipulate the Mythoscape, or why they came there from different times. Then he abruptly left.
Olympus
Anya, being an impatient Red-Head, decided to try that ZAP thing to get herself, Roland, Anubis and Fenrir to Olympus quicker. Once there they met Zeus, who took an instant liking to Anya. But Fenrir got jealous and Zeus had him imprisoned for “Past Crimes”. Anya, Roland and Anubis decided they needed Loki to testify on Fenrir’s behalf at his upcoming trial so Anubis and Raven left to find him. Meanwhile, Anya and Roland realized that a large portion of Olympus was actually a theme park to entertain and protect all the kids in the Mythoscape. Roland got into a scuffle with the wrong people, the park volunteers and Anya got tired of Zeus hitting on her and zapped him with a water gun. She was promptly imprisoned as well and Zeus took off, having no interest in hanging around Roland without Anya.
Temptation
This left Roland alone and vulnerable for the first time in the Mythoscape and Tezcatlipoca (Tez) swooped in to tempt the boy with trinkets and treasures. Roland of course got in way over his head and ended up in steep debt. Tez holds out on him and Roland starts to crack. He develops some imaginary friends and due to his Gadget Habit, looks for anything he can to use as collateral. The only thing he has on him are his car keys, complete with a replica fossil keychain. This gets Roland arrested as well, and the Spartans come in to take him in.
Persecution
Anya and Roland meet up again in Prison, the Science Center where her Powers won’t work. Roland gets bunked with Fenrir, who hates him. Anya is roomed with a mysterious person in the shadows. Roland meets a mouse named Mr. Pringles and his Imaginary friends, Roddy and Oppy make another appearance as Roland really starts to slide away from sanity. We get a mysterious message from a kid named Nixon and Tez smuggles some “special” gadgets in which Roland turns into a BattleBot Owl named Spectre. With Spectre’s help, the gang makes a daring escape but Fenrir gets caught and Anya chooses to stay with him. Once outside, she quickly zaps Roland to freedom and goes back to find out that her room-mate escaped as well.
Sunday worship
A brief side story in which Anubis and Raven track down Loki and bring him back to testify in Fenrir’s trial.
Church and state
Anubis arrives just in time to be Anya and Fenrir’s lawyer, then they learn Zeus is the prosecuting attorney. After a tough negotiation, Anya gets Community Service, but Fenrir goes to trial. Judge Osiris keeps order in his courtroom at the expense of the defense. Eventually, Fenrir takes the stand and Osiris says the wrong thing to him. After mauling the judge, Osiris sentences Fenrir to “an eternity in a very, very small cage.” In order to protect her friend, Anya gives Loki back his powers (what? I didn’t tell you she deactivated them?), and in return, he and Fenrir zap out of Olympus.
Roland’s run
When Anya zapped Roland to his freedom, she had very little control over it. He ended up in the one of the darkest regions of the Mythoscape, where the Shattered live. He found Spectre, but he also found Pandora. A very special Shattered, one of the oldest. She took an instant liking to Roland, seeing in him some of the same bitterness she’s harbored for so long. After a short walk, Pandora introduces him to Seth, master of this domain and leader of the Shattered. After failing to get the information Seth needed to finish his robot, Roland escaped with the help of Spectre and Tez. But not before Spectre took off with the head of Seth’s henchman, the Doctor. Apparently, when he was messing around with Roland’s mind, Opie and Roddy (Roland’s imaginary friends) jumped in to protect him. This caused the Doctors head to explode and fly off.
Roland’s run Pt. 2
Unable to teleport anywhere for fear of being tracked, Roland and Tez continue their escape from Seth by hitch-hiking. It was cold and rainy when Roland caught a chill, causing the trucker Big Joe to show up and give them a ride. After spotting Anya working on a chain-gang and running a blockade set up by Shattered following Tez’s orders, Big Joe drops them off at a truck stop called the Crossroads Truckstop.
Myths Will Shatter
While at the truckstop, Tez reveals to Roland the HE is the guy who activated Seth’s machine, bringing Roland through. Something went wrong and the machine blew up. Tez just assumes that’s his fault. Shortly thereafter, Seth and his army show up, calling Roland out. Roland agrees to go along quietly so that Seth doesn’t hurt Anya (who he captured). But Spectre and the truckers ban together to stop Seth before he gets very far. During the commotion, Spectre reveals he’s actually being driven by Mr. Pringles and Roland absorbs Pandora into his arm. This gives him the power to actually absorb Shattered from a distance. Before Pandora disappears, she tells him Seth will be in Sanctuary. In order to get there, he hitches a ride with a special truck that converts to a helicopter. Piloted by Flash Gordon and Tez.
Sanctuary
Roland soon learns, the only way to Sanctuary is to go through the Christian Heaven. Which means they have to go to Hell. On the ride down via the Snot-Rocket, Seth reveals that he gave Anya her powers. He needed that energy to gestate inside a mortal powerful enough to handle them. Now that the energy has matured, he took it back and used it to activate his monster. When Roland and Tez arrive in Hell, Anubis is waiting for them. He informs Roland Sanctuary is not Hell, it’s a place IN hell. Turns out to be a tiki bar run by Heracles and Dionysus at the outer edges of the area. It’s revealed that what Seth wants more than anything is control of this domain. Control of the Christian Hell. Something about it is different from the rest and even his Shattered are usually afraid to go there. When he attacks, Roland and the Gods spring into action. Roland tells Spectre to go down and save Anya (who’s still Seth’s prisoner) but dumps the nasty, sticky, blown up head of “the Doctor” with Roland. It’s then he learns his imaginary friends Opie and Roddy jumped from his mind into the mind of the Doctor when they were protecting him.
The J5
In this chapter, Seth’s plan comes to a head. The Mecha-Kraken attacks Hell & the Gods do what they can to slow it down. Specter saves Anya and she meets back up with Roland and Anubis. The J5 arrive in need of a distraction so they can take the monster down. Roland is the first to come up with a plan. He gets Raven to fly him over the Mecha-Kraken’s head where he drops the doctor head into the hole at the top. Then Opie & Roddy are able to interfere with it’s functions, locking it up. This bought the J5 enough time to combine into the supergod, Jesutron! He pulled out the “Blazing Sword of Michael” and sliced the monster in half. Then it went boom and everybody celebrated.
Survival guide
The bad guy was defeated, Anya took off to help the citizens of Gard adjust after Loki’s deception and Roland went back to Olympus to enjoy the pleasures of an Amusement park. He even convinced them to let Tez back in. But as everyone knows, Theme Parks are rough. To better prepare him, Anubis gives Roland the “Mount Olympus Theme Park Survival Guide”, making sure to point out the pages they added AFTER Roland arrived in Olympus.
Of mice and owls
Using his downtime wisely, Mr. Pringles makes some modifications to Spectre. Roland disagrees with a couple of those tweaks but during their heated argument, the Spectre robot absorbs some of the Shattered infection from Roland’s arm. The new Spectre makes it very clear, very quickly, that he’s now an evil bird.
Loki and son
When we finally catch up with Loki and Fenrir, we find out they’ve gone home. It’s Loki’s plan to train his son to be a ferocious monster again, by any means necessary. After a few failed attempts, some questionable fashion choices and getting his body ripped apart, Loki thinks Fenrir has finally cracked.
Brother VS brother
Before long, Roland hears Anya has returned to Olympus and he finally gets up the nerve to tell her how he feels. Then he sees her smoochin’ some guy. And he gets angry. Then he finds out the guy she was smoochin’ was his big brother, Curt! After a brief reunion (Curt died in a car wreck), Roland realizes he has to break them up. With the help of Tez, Roland sets out to endlessly torment the happy couple. Eventually, Curt loses his temper and reveals he is actually ZEUS! He’s been pretending to be Curt in an effort to woo Anya. But Zeus makes it very clear, he based the character on the REAL Curt. And that he’s somewhere in the Mythoscape!
Just call me Nix
Cut back to the Sanctuary bar & grill in Hell. Nixon Jacobson, Tez’s first “gadget-link-guy”, has found his way BACK to the Mythoscape. He got here by hitching a ride with the Winchester Brothers on one of their many trips thru hell. Heracles shoos the brothers out before Dionysus can embarrass himself (He’s got a crush on Sam). In an effort to get rid of Nixon, Heracles takes him back to Olympus to leave him with Tez. Once there, Nixon reveals how he got home the first time – something called a “Return Ticket”. An item that takes mortals who’ve been trapped in the Mythoscape back to the real world. A ticket he got directly from Tez.
Mythbuster
Roland begins his quest to find the Return Ticket by tracking down Hermes, who Tez says is the only guy you can “earn” one from. Once he finds him though, Roland runs into his old arch-nemesis, Grant Imahara. Grant tells a tale about Battle-Bot rivals competing in a huge championship tournament. A tale where Roland accused Grant of cheating after he lost a vital match, getting him thrown out of the tournament as well. He swore his revenge on Roland so when Seth pulled Grant to the Mythoscape and asked him to build the Mecha-Kraken, he was more than happy to oblige. It was Grant who rigged Seth’s machine so that when activated again, Roland would be the mortal it selected. It was imperative that Roland’s defeat at the Tournament be fresh in his mind so Grant also hacked the machine to pull Roland from the year 1992. In the spirit of competition, Hermes sets up a Battle-Bots Tournament to decide who gets the Return Ticket. Nixon pretty much takes a dive because he doesn’t want to go home. Roland eliminates Anya but by possibly questionable means. After the match, Anya finds Mr. Pringles inside her controller. She also glances the evil Spectre inside of Grant’s robot. It all comes down to Roland VS Grant but knowing that Spectre is inside, Roland hits a button to override control of Grant’s robot. Roland wins the match but Grant passes out and we learn Spectre (now a female?) was controlling him, or at the very least, enflaming his anger towards Roland. Roland admits he cheated Anya but only because he wants the Return Ticket for his brother, Curt. Surprisingly, no one rats him out to Hermes.
Oh God!
Roland has the return ticket, now he needs to find his brother and send him home. First stop, the Christian Heaven. After a run-in with George Burns, he spends some quality time talking with Big G, the Christian God. Roland learns Big G is a special God with the ability to “watch” what goes on in the real world. He tells Roland that Mithra, one of the oldest Gods in the Mythoscape, is in the real world. He’s pretending to be a doctor by the name of Dr. James Mithra and he’s conducting experiments involving the Shattered infection in Roland’s arm. Which make sense as he’s Roland’s doctor. Big G tells Roland he can find Curt in a community called Willoughby, on the paradise island of Kadavu. Before sending him on his way, Big G gives Roland a flash of everything that’s happened since 1992. He now knows everything he missed.
Peace, love and understanding
On the train ride to Kadavu, Roland’s train stops long enough to pick up Anya. When they arrive, Dakuwaqa gives them a quick tour of his Vegas-like resort. But then Roland finds Curt (the real one) up on stage playing bass with the house band. He plays them a nice slow song to dance to before the whole gang heads over to Willoughby. Once there, they meet the peace loving members of this simple community: Cernnunos, Ishtar, Minona and Pax. Nixon is there too. Pax and Anya spend some time bonding while Curt and Roland discuss the Return Ticket. Curt disagrees with Roland about using the Return Ticket to go home. He flat out refuses. Roland is getting ready to suggest Anya be the one to go home when Fenrir shows up. He growls at Anya and jumps to attack her. The Willoughby Gods stop him but while distracted, Loki jumps from a roof, blade aimed directly at Anya (or Roland?). Curt shoves his brother and Anya out of the way but gets stabbed himself. Dakuwaqa shows up to try and help but Loki and Fenrir quickly gain the upper hand. He’s carrying a special sword called a Soul Sword. A weapon that “breaks the rules” of the Mythoscape by disconnecting the mind from this shared realm. Just as Loki is about to finish off Anya, Fenrir has a change of heart and rips a blue crystal from his chest, causing Loki to vaporize. With no sword to keep him there, Fenrir is instantly teleported off the island, WITH the blue crystal. But Curt is dying and whether it works or not, they have to try the Return Ticket to save him. Roland puts it in his hands and helps him rip it. Afterwards, Roland uses a new “vision” power (a side effect of being touched by a watcher) to find out Curt has been reincarnated as Curt Smith of Tears for Fears! At the same time, Pax confides in Anya she can no longer be the Goddess of Peace. She says “Peace requires someone willing to fight for it”. She then removes a yellow crystal from her chest and hands it to Anya. She then takes over as the NEW Pax! This also marked strip #300 in two years of comicking.
Making plans
Anya, now known as Pax, tells Roland the Crystals are what turns ordinary Mythoscape civilians into the Gods. There must always be a version of each God and when one quits or dies, the crystal usually finds someone to take his/her place. Roland has a vision of Mithra in the real world talking about how “Six of the Twelve” have crossed over. The gang decides Roland and Anya/Pax should split up. Roland will take a Journey to the West with Sun Wukong, learning to use his vision power better. While Anya will go East and find the Deva, a mounted peace keeping force consisting of Agni, Varuna and Indra. She will enlist their aid to track down the origins of the metal used to forge the Soul Sword.
Journey to the west
Anubis, Zeus and Fenrir join Roland on his journey. Fenrir now wears the Loki crystal around his neck. He’s been charged with keeping it safe and keeping Loki from coming back for a while as part of his court ordered punishment. Roland’s lessons are difficult but before long, they decide to make a quick stop at the Cryptid Critters Pet Shop.
Cryptid Critters Pet Shop
The gang takes a quick break at the Cryptid Critters Pet Shop. A pet shop filled with Unicorns, Sasquatches and more. They meet the owner, a guy named Neil who tells them he can’t seem to keep a general manager to stay. Tlaloc was his most recent and he left after a psychotic break. Neil asks for a volunteer from the group to stay and manage the store. Anubis wins by default when everyone else takes a massive step back. He agrees because he knows Roland is “going home” soon. Mr. Pringles decides to stay with Anubis and act as Assistant Manager.
The Twelve
Continuing their journey without Anubis or Mr. Pringles, they come across ten more people infected by the same Shattered virus Roland is. These are the rest of the people Mithra was experimenting on called “the Twelve” and they seem to be drawn to Roland. Unfortunately, a batch of special Shattered called “Hunters” shows up looking for them. But they didn’t expect to find Zeus, Fenrir and Sun Wukong in the same place. Roland carries his own weight, absorbing the Spider-looking shattered directly into his arm before Sun uses his powers to fling the hunters across the Mythoscape. In order to better protect the Twelve, Zeus is appointed to protect them while Sun, Roland and Fenrir go on ahead. A job he fails at as an army of Robot owls take off with them while Zeus is hitting on Spectre, now revealed to be Pandora. Unaware of the problem, Roland uses his vision power to see what Anya/Pax is up to. Turns out she and the Deva are having a throw-down with the psychopath Ares, who has TWO soul swords. Roland insists on going to help them so Sun zaps the gang there. Ares appears to be getting his orders from Mitrha and Baron Samedi. He disposes of the Deva and drops a mountain on Sun but he’s used up so much of his energy, he can’t teleport Roland back to HQ. Anya gets her hands on one of the soul swords and they start fighting. During the scuffle, a floating Sun Wukong head tells Roland he has to kill himself to stop Mithra, Samedi and Ares. If Roland is dead(er) he’ll just pop up somewhere else, a TRUE citizen of the Mythoscape. Eventually, “Sun” convinces Roland but if he’s going, he’s taking Ares with him. Roland tackles him and unable to teleport, they both fall hundreds of feet to their death. The floating Sun head then reveals himself as Baron Samedi.
Song of Roland
No Spoilers on this one yet, it’s the big finish. Click the Heading there and go read it. It’s only about 27 strips.