PS238
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| PS238 | |
 Tyler gets a lift to school in the third collected edition |
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| Publisher | Do Gooder Press |
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| Creative team | |
| Writer(s) | Aaron Williams |
| Artist(s) | Aaron Williams |
PS238 is a comic book that follows the lives of both teachers and students at an elementary school for metaprodigy children, or children with super powers. Issue #0 was published in November 2002. PS238 is written and drawn by Aaron Williams and published by Do Gooder Press. Until issue #20 it was published by Dork Storm Press and Henchman Publishing. In December 2006 Aaron Williams started posting the comic page by page on his website. The online version is now updated Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Aaron Williams also writes and draws Nodwick and Full Frontal Nerdity. He co-wrote the title Truth, Justin and The American Way with Scott Kurtz[1]. Hero Games created a PS238 role-playing game using their Champions game system.[2]
Contents |
[edit] Story Overview
PS238 is a school only recently founded, three miles below the seemingly normal Excelsior School, with many of the teachers having little or no experience teaching. The reason for their lack of experience is that most of the teachers are former superheroes. Part of the school is made from the old satellite headquarters of the Union of Justice, a superhero team whose members founded the school. The reason why a superteam should choose to found a school is initially a mystery, but is revealed as the series progresses.
At the beginning of the series the protagonist is unclear; issues #0-#2 each follow different main characters. In issue #3, we are introduced to Tyler Marlocke, who becomes the central character. Tyler is a strange case as he has no super powers. His mother and father are two of the most powerful metahumans on Earth and cannot come to terms with the fact that their child is not "gifted" like the other students. Tyler's parents have gone to great lengths to get his powers to surface; throwing him off buildings, for example. Though the school was at first opposed to letting Tyler attend because his safety could be at risk, after some observation, they determined that Tyler would actually be safer at the school than left to his parents' devices. Tyler is assigned a tutor of sorts in the form of The Revenant, a Batman analogue; as The Revenant has no superhuman ability himself, it's hoped he can steer Tyler in the right direction ... or at least keep him alive. Tyler possesses a very keen sense of self-preservation, which leads him to outfit himself with every kind of gadget he can when he is assigned a field training session with the Revenant, who comments that Tyler couldn't even move with all that weight on himself, and after a pause, wonders if that was intentional. Occasionally, and only when the situation merits, Tyler assumes the identity of Moon Shadow, Revenant's Robin-like sidekick.
[edit] The Rainmaker Program
The original Rainmaker Program was a US government project to study superhumans, with the aim of finding out how to give people superpowers (or take them away). The project started in the 1960s and focused on one boy, Harold Nelson, who had the power to make rain start and stop. The government had become increasingly insecure about metahumans and a boy who couldn't fight back with super-strength was an appealing research subject. For 6 years, Harold was put through tests to try and find how his power worked, but with little success. The scientist working on the project started to get worried about the lack of results and resorted to drastic measures. Enlisting the help of Dr. Irons (an imprisoned supervillain in a robotic body) they tried a new machine of Dr. Irons' own creation. The machine was actually made to enhance Harold's power, not to study it, and with a torrential downpour of rain, the lab wall was broken. In an ensuing explosion, Dr. Irons lost his body and Harold made a run for it carrying away Dr. Irons' still-functioning head. It is not known what happened to the Rainmaker Program after Harold's escape.
The modern day Rainmaker Program was started when PS238 was opened as an alternative program geared towards those with super powers deemed unfit for superheroics. The program is very similar to that of the rest of the school except that the Rainmaker children don't participate in activities like combat training. Those in the program include the Earthly incarnation of Hestia Goddess of the Hearth, a boy who can make anything into an edible substance, a kid who can dig through any kind of soil or rock, a boy who can deduce probable events from patterns around him, a girl who can rebuild any object from its remains, and a girl who can see the past of any item or area by looking at it or touching it.
[edit] Characters
Many characters in PS238 are analogues, homages or outright parodies of heroes from other publishers. One of the pleasures of older readers is spotting the sometimes obscure references that will elude (hopefully, in some cases) younger readers. Other characters correspond to familiar superhero archetypes: they may or may not be direct references to heroes in other media.
Atlas came to Earth from the exploding planet Argon, crashed in Iowa and was raised by a farm couple who could have no children of their own. He's vulnerable to Argonite, and at one point, had a pet superdog named Argo. The Superman parallels are obvious. Atlas' son Captain Clarinet attends PS238.
The Revenant is, as stated before, much like Batman; he has no superpowers and instead relies on detective skills, gadgets, wealth, intimidation, physical and mental prowess in his war on crime. He is quoted as saying, "Sometimes I think access to money is the greatest power of all." The Revenant is a character from a Michael Stackpole short story, “Peer Review”.
The faculty of PS238 includes Alfred Cranston (the school principal), Herschel Clay (who teaches shop class and used to fight crime as the armored hero Mantium), the robotic Doctor Positron, the mystic Vashti Imperia, Coach Rockslide (who both looks and sounds like Ben Grimm[citation needed]), and Cristina Kyle (based on Aaron Williams wife, Cristi[3]). Of these six, only one (Principal Cranston) was not a member of the Union of Justice.
Other than Tyler Marlocke, all the children at PS238 have super powers. There is Victor Von Fogg (a nod to Victor Von Doom), and The Emerald Gauntlet (who has powers similar to The Green Lantern); the two have a particularly contentious relationship as The Emerald Gauntlet (senior), is the parole officer for Victor's father Doctor Philippe Von Fogg (based on Phil Foglio[citation needed]). Also on the rolls are: a blue Hulk-like child named Bernard; Murphy, a child version of Dream (a.k.a. Morpheus) from Neil Gaiman's Sandman; Zodon, a genius gadgeteer who has a "Barry Ween" chip (replacing profanity with such terms as "Finland!" or "Gurgling piece of pot roast!", and larger strings of profanity with Rodgers and Hammerstein show tunes), a rivalry with Von Fogg over who will be the greater supervillain and a very vocal distaste for Tyler (centering around his lack of powers); Malphast, a Spawn-like character who shares an origin with the Genesis entity in Preacher; Tom Davison, a time-traveller who resembles the Fourth Doctor; and American Eagle and USA Patriot Act, respectively Democrat and Republican patriotic heroes.
[edit] Trivia
William Stronghold from the movie Sky High closely resembles Tyler Marlocke as a child with no superpowers born to superparents and sent to a school for superpowered kids. There was considerable controversy among Williams' fans about whether "Sky High" was plagiarized from "PS238." So far, no evidence that this was the case has come to light. The made-for-TV "Up, Up, and Away" was released by Disney in 2000 (therefore predating PS-238) also had a similar plotline, though without the school setting. Another similar feature, "Zoom", was released in summer 2006.
[edit] References
Long, Steven S, The PS238 Roleplaying Game(2008) ISBN 978-1-58366-109-3
