The Original Story 21-25: Annotized

Chapter Twenty-One

*I6: Back in TOS15, haven't you been paying attention?

*III1: This is the first time "Milo" demonstrates his true powers.

*VI1: It may have been by just a matter of months, but Joe's line here does precede Rob Schneider's repeated line in the Waterboy. While it would have existed on script before this chapter was written, we can safely assume that he had no prior knowledge of it.
*VI1: This is Chuck's first advancement in his powers since he learned how to expel Negative Zone energies in TOS12.

*IX15: Elyk is indeed a nice guy, but to recap - Elyk is really a human/Skrull spawn who was brainwashed by S.H.I.E.L.D. to think he was a Skrull to infiltrate, so subconsciously, he wouldn't kill any of the good guys.

*XI1: It's Chuck and Joe's job to humiliate and ridicule Kyle. Anyone else, human or not, have to answer to them.

*XIV9: The Phoenix Saga begins with Jean Grey returning from a mission in space and being exposed to radiation from a solar flare. This type of radiation is similar to that of a cosmic storm...as far as you know.

*XV4: The original transformation in the Phoenix came from her powers expanding to their fullest potential, becoming a being of pure thought and then reforming herself.

*XV5: So then later Kurt Busiek went back and said, "Wait, that wasn't really Jean Grey! She was at the bottom of the Jamaica Bay. We'll worry about what the Phoenix was later on."

*XV13: That great evil will come back to haunt the boys in TOS26 but will provide help in TNS36.

*XV14: Kyle's six Chapter absence is the longest any Supercool is not mentioned in The Story and ties Chuck's absence in The New Story.

Villains defeated by Chuck: 8 - no credit for miscellaneous Skrulls
Villains defeated by Kyle: 8
Villains defeated by Joe: 16 - see Chuck

Chapter Twenty-Two:

*I2: Saturnyne is part of the Dimensional Development Court and was charged with the safekeeping and maintenance of order and reality of the entire Omniverse. Like Access, that means making sure people stay in their correct reality/dimension/universe. However, she has frequently employed the Technet, a group of bounty hunters, who, themselves, are from a variety of other dimensional worlds.

*II1: A quick explanation of Joyboy's unusual powers: basically, he can telepathically scan people to determine what their greatest desire is and psionically make it come true but in a twisted, demented way like genies of fable tend to do. Thus, Joe's dream is twisted to where he's back at his home dimension's job without leaving the Marvel Universe.

*III1: Here's "The Rage" again; however, considering that he's up to about four bouts of omnipotence, lost his girlfriend while being kidnapped across the galaxy, and been shrunken to a foot tall - you can't really blame him for taking his aggression out on Yap.

*III4: This is the first occurrence of what would be later dubbed a Nega-Blast and becomes Mr. Negativity's trademark ranged attack. It's also noted that he uses this power for the first time against an infant. Admittedly, it's an alien baby with a grotesquely swollen belly and brain that floats around, but an infant, nonetheless.

*IV5: In the majority of cases, the effects of superhuman/technology effects cease once the origin point has been rendered unconscious/inert. However, those effects which affect changes down to a molecular level have a much greater time period for inversion. The Grey Gargoyle, for instance, can turn people to stone. Even if knocked out, though, it is an hour before the transformed person will return to normal. In cases of size-alteration, the time is exponentially proportional to the size difference. Unless an external factor returns Kyle to his normal size (don't worry - it will in TOS26), it will be a few months before he returns to normal height.

Villains defeated by Chuck: 11 (this Chapter - Bodybags, Ferro V, Joyboy)
Villains defeated by Kyle: 9 (this Chapter - Yap)
Villains defeated by Joe: 18 (this Chapter - China Doll, Gatecrasher)

Chapter Twenty-Three:

*I1: Government standard safety regulations do not recommend sitting in the front seat if one is only a foot tall.

*I3: The "common" method for generating one's porn star name is taking the middle name and adding the name of the street the person grew up on. Thus, Kyle would be Joseph Audubon.

*I7: In 1996, Tyco released the Tickle-Me-Elmo doll which is generally recognized as the start of the tradition of having one particular toy so in demand during the holiday season that people go ape-shit over it trying to get one. See also: Ferby, Pokemon, and any new video game system since 2005.

*II2: Chuck's apartment complex at this time would have been off of German Church Road between Washington Street and 10th Street on the East side of Indianapolis.

*II14: Ben and Carlos, along with Sarah (TOS19) and Dylan (TOS21) will all have their roles revealed way down the line in TOS46.

*II20: Joe is less irritated with Kyle than with himself for setting Kyle up as such.

*III3: It was mentioned earlier, but just to recap, Joe - yes, Joe - didn't remember Haywire's real name and created "Milo". Keep in mind, this was before Google and not a lot of people had the Internet, and those who did only had dial-up, so all the other stuff that Joe wrote about was stuff he knew.

*III8: Joe has no bias towards mentally tormenting friends - black, white, powered, no powers, gay, straight, or twelve-inches tall. He is an equal-opportunity mind-fucker.

*III14: Joseph

*III16: Austin

*III18: We would have accepted Alan Scott, Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner, John Stewart, Kyle Rayner, Jade, Abin Sur, and a host of others.

*IV2: It's a testament to Joe's shopping ability that he managed to leave Wal-Mart with only the one item he went in to get.

*V5: Naturally, Joe would wish to go with a music related pun for christening a spaceship, but it only makes sense if he still believes "Supercools" is a real lyric.

*V6: Actually, both Joe and Rina refer to it as the Supercoolmobile, but Chuck never does.

*V7: "The Jeffersons" (1975-1985) theme song was titled "Movin' On Up" and was ranked by IGN as the #14 top televesion theme song.

*V8: This device was created in the mind of Joe and should be noted at how precise the device actually is. The thin layer of Joe's hypnojacket was enough to keep the device from absorbing the energies from the Wonder-Glove, the hyper-gravity energies of Graviton, the psionic energies of Joyboy, and the kinetic energies of Spiral's explosion.

Villains defeated by Chuck: 11
Villains defeated by Kyle: 9
Villains defeated by Joe: 18

Chapter Twenty-Four:
*Title: Play off of the 1995 movie "Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead"

*Important Information: Before Joe began writing The Story, Charles had been writing his own fanfiction which wasn't nearly as good as Joe's writing. The premise of Charles' writing (which was entitled "A Novel Idea") involved only himself getting transported to the Marvel Universe, hooking up with the X-Men and eventually setting out on his own to help find and assist new mutants. While he used his friends and family in his writing, fictional Charles was meeting all for the first time (with the exception of his brother who gained the mutant gene designated for the first born male since Charles didn't exist in Marvel reality). When Joe and Charles were writing simultaneously, they worked on a way to cross their stories over. This chapter is the result of having Charles' characters' minds swapped into Joe's characters' bodies (and vice-versa). Further information will be smattered throughout the rest of this chapter's annotations.

*I2: Eric would be Charles' real life brother who now is inhabiting Haywire's body.

*I4: Tony is Charles' fraternity brother who is now in Ben.

*I6: Amy was Charles' real life girlfriend at the time and occupies Rina.

*II4: In Charles' story, his power was to affect probability fields. Unlike Longshot or Domino who are just naturally lucky or the Scarlet Witch who uses magic, Charles' power worked on the subatomic level. The longer he focused, the greater a probability fluxuation he could cause. On his end, he was pushing his powers to their greatest for a now-forgotten cause. The result of his powers along with Joe's use of Doom's device caused the cross-dimensional switch.

*II7: Eric, while not necessarily vain, is well aware of his physical comeliness and charisma.

*II28: Charles had named his group Chaos Factor after his old MRPG team.

*II32: Kyle's powers in Charles' story were similar to the character he played in the MRPG - illusion creation along with force blasts.

*II33: Amy's alternate powers were the ability to manipulate friction.

*II36: In the other reality, Eric could take on the natural abilities of animals (flight, strength level, enhanced senses, underwater breathing, etc.)

*II37: Joe actually had powers in the other world - he could reverse naturally occurring effects (reverse gravity, have lights create darkness, etc.)

*II40: Tony's power was to nullify extraordinary powers in his vicinity. As opposed to Kyle, Tony's was involuntary and confined to a small radius around his body, but he could also focus to disable one person's powers at the expense of not being able to do anything else.

*II42: Eric alt-codename was Jester. It was argued with him in story that it had nothing to do with his powers, and he stated he didn't care and just liked the name.

*II43: Tony was Counter.

*II44: Chuck was Lucky.

*II47: Kyle was The Apparition.

*II48: Per Joe's request, Amy became Grace Slick.

*II49: And finally, Joe was Flux.

*III1: In the initial lineup that was worked out, Mr. Hyde was not among the villains. It started with Thumbellina, Ticktock, Unus the Untouchable, Vapor, and Vermin. Another villain whose name beginning with 'U' was sought after to have names beginning with T-T-U-U-V-V. Joe's suggestion for the villainous group was the Crazy 8's (since the number 8 on the phone has the letters T-U-V), and Chuck's idea was the Stuttering TUV's.

*XV8: This, obviously, never happened. You have to give it to Spiral for being able to pull a story out of her ass in no time flat.

*XV11: Unlike Loki and other Asgardians, Spiral really isn't held in check by promises. However, telling someone that it's impossible for you to break a promise really gives it a little more credence.

Villains defeated by Chuck: 12 (this Chapter - Mr. Hyde)
Villains defeated by Kyle: 10 (this Chapter - Blackout)
Villains defeated by Joe: 19 (this Chapter - Vapor)

Chapter Twenty-Five:

*I2: The Mojoverse is comprised of a race of fat, lazy beings who love to watch television. The proclaimed ruler, Mojo, who enthralls the race by kidnapping heroes and pitting them in gladiator-type brawls for amusement. Despite how awesome that might be, neither Mojo nor heroic gladiator-type battles appear in this chapter. For the latter, see Chapter Thirty-Seven. For the former, see TSQ22.

*I5: Kyle's technically right, here. An alternate reality or alternate universe is one where a different choice or occurrence leads to differing results and pathways. An alternate dimension stems from a completely different makeup of matter as resultant from the beginning of its existence. For ease of use, if one leaps into an unknown area and the beings are humanoid, then it's an alternate reality, otherwise it's an alternate dimension.

*I7: By the definition above, Haywire would be from an alternation universe. According to Marvel on-line, Haywire is from an alternate dimension. My definition stems from multi-dimensional mathematic theory, Marvel's definition stems from Marvel. However, since TOS is Marvel-based, you can decide which way the argument leans.

*II2: Both Charles and Joe are familiar with the workings of the American Sign Language alphabet .

*II7: If you think their abilities with charades is impressive, you should see the two of them playing Pictionary.

*IV1: How good is the Dazzler's singing? Amongst the regular array of fans, she's also enjoyed by the Juggernaut, the Hulk, and the Rhino.

*IV2: The miniature X-Men are the X-Babies, child clones created by Mojo. These clones either had kiddie names such as "Shadowkitty" and "Wolvie" or had "Lil" as a prefix. As the roster changed through the years, likewise the roster of the X-Babies changed. While it has never been noted one way or the other, it's feasible that Master Negativity and No Powers Kid might be there.

*IV7: This is a line from "Clue" in which Mrs. White explains why her illusionist husband never reappeared after disappearing.

*IV11: And here Joe is enacting Beavis' hyperactive alter-ego.

*V2: Considering his future half-self is killed by an alternate universe honorary Avenger, his decision here is a wise one.

*VI2: He'll have to in Chapter 34.

*VI6: The Siege Perilous was a collapsible extra-dimensional gateway which several X-Men used to escape death. However, passage through it drastically changed them in a variety of ways: Havok was rendered amnesic and ended up working in Genosha as a Magistrate, Rogue was stripped of Carol Danvers' personality as well as her powers (temporarily), and apparently Dazzler's feet grew.

*VII1: This is the only time the Scavenger is described head-to-toe (or toe-to-head) in TOS and has to date, only happened again in TNS1.

*VII10: It really depends on if you're counting transportation between dimensions as teleportation.

*VII11: Because if you do, Kyle is WAY ahead thanks to Access jaunting him about in TOS2.

*VII14: Mr. Price was Charles and Joe's shared driving instructor the summer before they officially met at the Academy. With a good amount of wit, Price would respond to "never mind" by noting that he never had to mind that person again. Likewise, he would often pass out.........the papers.

Villains defeated by Chuck: 12
Villains defeated by Kyle: 10
Villains defeated by Joe: 19