The Monarchy #1 is an issue of the series The Monarchy (Volume 1) with a cover date of April, 2001.
Synopsis for "Red Shift"
C-Space. A Transdimensional reality. Home to The Throne, the headquarters of a team of 10,000 superheroes. All but two of them just died. The survivors, King One, hereditary leader of the Throne, and Morningstar, the youngest member of the team and King One's heir. Their enemy: Abraham Dusk, the quantum bacteria that walks like a man. King one calls him Traitor, and he says he's doing very bad things, things that would give Einstein nightmares. When Morningstar's powers (which are similar to Apollo's) do nothing to stop Dusk, King One reshuffles reality, bringing him and Morningstar to the Throne's engine room, powered by a reality prism. King One disables Morningstar's power.
Philadelphia. Jackson King and Christine Trelane stand outside a cathedral, on the trail of a transdimensional man, who they've been trying to recruit for six months, and they knew about since the incident on the Carrier. Christine heads back to The Crown, their headquarters, while Jackson goes to talk to this Transdimensional man.
A few blocks away, a pack of kids calling themselves the Young Authoritarians are killing "suspected" crack dealers and immolating homeless people, "making the world a better better place no matter how many people they have to kill". They are Authority Fans, and they get their powers from Matt, a young boy who has glowing rods sticking out of his body following a toxic waste spill.
In the cathedral, a young woman is confessing to "Father Ray" that she works in an AIDS hospice, and smothered a victim because she couldn't stand to see him suffer. She asks him if he's going to turn her over to the police, but he tells her there are no judges, and if she should look in the mirror, and if she sees anything that looks like God, to give him a call. She runs into the night. King walks over to him, and we learn that Father Ray is Jon Farmer, aka Morningstar, who has been hiding from the world since he went to the Carrier looking for heroes, and only found Jackson.
Christine and Professor Q, the "Calculator goddess" are in Pathway Xi, another transdimensional realm, chatting about Jackson and his plans, and setting mines for a group they called the Four Horsemen. They return to the Crown, and Christine tells Professor Q that she has to find a weapon in Manhattan to use against Chimera, and they'll send "The big blue Bastard"(Union) after it. Christine says what Jackson did to get him back gives her the creeps. She then has some sort of prescient flash, and somehow realizes what the Young Authoritarians are up to.
Back to the cathedral, where King and Farmer are talking inside Farmer's mind. Farmer accuses Jackson of being insane, who retorts by saying that Farmer is pretending to be a priest, but Farmer isn't, he actually became a priest when he realized the world is ill. King tries to convince Farmer to join him again, saying that their are problems in the world, and "even our origin stories are going sour". Outside, the Young Authoritarians are demolishing a housing project, but Matt knows that he was meant to be a hero, and that the others are misusing the powers. When he tries to stop them, they turn on him, beating him mercilessly. Christine arrives and shoots them with stun darts, but Matt is venting power and ready to explode with the force of "thirteen Hiroshimas". Farmer finally emerges from his seclusion and vents the explosive force away. His powers have obviously changed since the events in C-Space. King telepathically alters the memories of all the bystanders to remove the evidence of what happened, as this team will work hidden and away from prying eyes.
Appearing in "Red Shift"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Matt
Antagonists:
- Young Authoritarians
- Jenni
- Fletcher
- Whitey
Other Characters:
Locations:
- C-Space
- Philadelphia
Items:
Vehicles:
Notes
- The Young Authoritarians are, of course, meant to evoke certain members of the Authority: Jenni is Jenny Sparks, Fletcher is The Midnighter, Whitey is Apollo. There is a girl with curly hair who is either Swift or The Engineer, and then there is Matt, who can really only be analogized to The Doctor, if anyone (Matt is outside the group to a certain extent).
See Also