“You see, when I’m going superfast — not my top speed or anything, but fast enough — it’s as though everything around me is frozen in time. Like a world of statues — a single moment, paused … And it’s so beautiful … So calm and still … But as soon as I slow down and try to enter that perfect world … Everything starts to move … And it’s gone.”
–The Flash
“To those who say people wouldn’t look; they wouldn’t be interested; they’re too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter’s opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost. This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that Humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box.”
–Edward R. Murrow, the Radio-Television News Directors Association Convention, Chicago, October 15th, 1958
The Lawyer
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The Rebel
The Outlaw
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The Hero
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The North Star
a proposed TV series by Saab Lofton
The North Star is an hour long, afrocentric, sci fi adventure series (Smallville meets The Boondocks, however, this is a drama, NOT a comedy). A modern day Robin Hood, Scott Freeman is a black radical with superspeed who uses dubious methods to raise funds and recruit others to his cause. Though the public is unaware of his existence, Scott Freeman’s exploits are closely monitored — and occasionally influenced — by angels and demons alike …
Scott Freeman (Robert Richard)
Enrique Ortega (Jay Hernandez)
J.D. Sweet (Charlie Murphy)
Annie Rosen (Janeane Garofalo)
Jarvis/Metatron (Woody Harrelson)
Satan (Timothy Carhart)
Scott Freeman
Scott is the son of a Black Panther named Steve Freeman and a white hippie named Mary Ellen Stuart. They met at a Panther headquarters right before a COINTELPRO raid and fell in love at first sight — so much so, they both simultaneously decided to RUN rather than be arrested. Conceived on the RUN, baby Scott gained the mutant ability to move and heal himself at superspeed so long as he has PLENTY to eat. When Scott was about to be born, a pair of cops moonlighting as Ku Klux Klansmen pulled the expecting couple over. Just as the cops were about to kill them for being a mixed couple, an angel swooped down, disabled the cops, scooped up the pregnant mother and dropped her off at a nearby hospital. The Black Panther father was left behind and the cops subsequently took their frustrations out on him — charging the Panther with the assault the angel committed and spitefully sentencing him to life without parole. Since then, the mother split her time between raising Scott in a secluded, Northern California hippie commune and organizing a campaign to free her husband (FREE STEVE!).
Since he was able to break the sound barrier during puberty, Scott was all but raised in isolation, so his social graces aren’t very refined. Between that and his leftist upbringing, he’s often terse, brutally honest and rarely suffers a fool lightly. To tolerate how slow everything seems to someone with his hyperactive perceptions, Scott has studied Buddhism over the years and regularly engages in meditation. He also smokes a LOT of marijuana since it soothes his otherwise accelerated state of being. All of this — plus his commitment to save the world — has made him very lonely. Plus, despite his youth, Scott feels ancient given how many experiences are crammed into every millisecond. However, Scott knows several languages since his speed reading is superhuman, so he considers himself a citizen of the planet Earth and acts accordingly.
In addition, Scott’s been told by the angel Metatron that he shouldn’t ever have sex since his pelvic thrusts would literally feel like a jackhammer to an ordinary woman. Scott manages to get around this rule by using lesbian techniques (or limiting himself to women who are just as superhuman as he is — see Scott’s Lovers for details). Metatron does not approve, for while vibrating his tongue/fingers at superspeed isn’t harmful, doing so does leave mortal women so — ravaged, they can never be satisfied any other way. Therefore, either an irrational addiction to Scott’s touch comes over them or a bitter resentment towards him for having ruined their sexual pallet.
Scott is (pardon the phrase) faster than a speeding bullet, but since he’s not invulnerable (think Wolverine’s quick healing — it accounts for why stomping his feet on the ground at hundreds of miles per hour during every run doesn’t cripple him), it’s extremely painful to try and stop a bullet barehanded. Therefore, in situations where gunfire is to be expected, Scott will make it a point to bring an ALUMINUM baseball bat so that bullets can be safely swatted away.
Because of the large amount of food his heightened metabolism requires (a full course meal seven times per day is ideal — anything less and he begins to weaken), Scott leaves huge piles of feces the few times per year anal excretion is necessary. So Scott has gotten into the activist habit of leaving piles of manure on Wall Street, the White House lawn, the gates of the School of the Americas, in front of the Pentagon, the C.I.A. and so forth. He’ll either do that or provide poor farmers with a free source of fertilizer.
Only a few dozen people on the entire planet know of Scott’s superspeed. These are usually proxies with money whom Scott indebts (a la Alec Baldwin’s 1994 version of The Shadow) so he’ll always be able to afford all-you-can-eat buffets and other amenities — such as a series of cell phones with his number on SPEED DIAL (no pun intended) in case he’s needed. Out of an understandable fear of media exploitation or governmental experimentation/extermination, Scott goes out of his way to maintain a low profile and encourages witnesses to dismiss any accounts of a black man disappearing in the blink of an eye as delusional hallucinations.
Enrique Ortega
Enrique is Scott Freeman’s best friend and the first person to ever learn of Scott’s superspeed — besides his mother, of course. They’ve known each other since childhood. While Scott was home schooled and ordered by his mom to stay hidden within a Northern California hippie commune, Enrique provided a much needed window to the rest of the world. The commune grew fruit/vegetables and Enrique’s parents often came to pick them up so they could be sold across the Bay Area. Since there weren’t any children Scott’s age in the commune — and since Enrique was an only child whose parents would bring him along during those trips to the commune — the two youths bonded.
Enrique’s parents originally came from Mexico and eventually became American citizens. They co-own a couple of small, organic/health food stores and raised Enrique to (at least) be a (semi-)vegetarian. Though his family could be construed as an example of the American Dream come true (since they went from dirt poor to middle class), they also raised him to be a revolutionary with a healthy disdain for “gringo imperialism.”
Enrique is a gifted, bilingual poet and an even more talented lecturer who’s always being asked by the Peace Movement to speak at a variety of events. Though he’s going to college on a full scholarship, constantly being on the road has delayed the attainment of his Ph.D. enough to upset his parents.
His speeches are particularly scathing (he’s known for his gory, graphic descriptions of Human rights abuses) and Enrique would’ve been assassinated long ago if Scott hadn’t been bodyguarding him over the years.
Enrique is also very good looking and extremely popular with the ladies, but he’s never really taken advantage of this — except to encourage women to donate to his favorite causes, such as Pastors for Peace.
Enrique is an expert motorcycle rider and has a Honda XL500 trail bike he call El Caballo Rojo (The Red Stallion). One of his lifelong dreams is to retrace the path Che Guevara rode in 1952 (The Motorcycle Diaries). Whenever Scott isn’t around to save him from assassins, Enrique escapes them riding El Caballo Rojo in elaborate, high speed chase scenes.
Though J.D. Sweet will disparagingly refer to Enrique as Scott’s “sidekick,” it’d be more accurate to say Scott is Enrique’s bodyguard, since his popularity as a speaker will ensure that one day he’ll be compared to the likes of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
J.D. Sweet
Not much is known about his early years, but for the better part of a decade, J.D. Sweet was the most powerful pimp, gangster and drug dealer in California history. It all came to a head one night when the police cut a Faustian/Machiavellian deal with Sweet’s criminal rivals in order to storm his fortress of a mansion. However, just when it looked as though Sweet was about to sacrifice his life to keep from ever being arrested (as Sweet always promised he would), Scott Freeman came to his rescue. Using superspeed, Scott disabled (and severely disoriented) both the cops and the gang members who’re after Sweet while helping the crime lord escape. Because there were a series of large, fiery explosions throughout the raid, the public still assumes Sweet died that night — an assumption Scott tries to cultivate whenever possible (“J.D. Sweet is dead,” is an often heard phrase).
Scott saved Sweet so he’d feel obligated to fund Scott’s crusades and charities, however, Sweet despises the many rules Scott forces him to work under:
1) The only drug Sweet is allowed to deal in is marijuana since it’s non-lethal and all-natural.
2) Sweet can continue as a pimp but ONLY if the women in question are willing (75% of Sweet’s stable abandoned him immediately after Scott came into his life and gave each prostitute a ten thousand dollar severance — only “Jade,” “Candy” and “Fulana” remained) and at NO time can he strike them or even raise his voice in their presence. They also keep two-thirds of how much ever is made.
a) Jade looks just like Lucy Liu. She’s an expert in massage and acupuncture.
b) Candy looks just like Sanaa Lathan (except darker) and is in love with Scott Freeman but hates that Scott only likes white women.
c) Fulana is the leader. An outspoken Latina, she looks just like Salma Hayek and makes sure J.D. Sweet ONLY gets a third of what’s made.
3) Because it’s best if the world assumes he’s dead, Sweet can no longer live in a mansion or frequent nightclubs every night as he’s accustomed to. Instead, Sweet is to spend the rest of his life secluded in a suburban four bedroom/three bath, which is the base of Scott’s operations.
4) On those rare occasions Sweet can leave the house, he has to “dress down” (Scott pawned all of Sweet’s gold/jewelry and the money was given to the homeless), wear sunglasses and limit himself to public transportation — he can never own another car.
In addition, the house is adorned with pictures of Gandhi, the Black Panthers and other left-wing legends as a reminder of where Sweet’s money is going. And since Sweet is constantly asked to pay for things such as the bail of jailed activists or full-page newspaper ads for leftist organizations, he’s gained the nickname “ATM” — much to his chagrin.
Over the course of the series, Sweet makes a variety of threats (some are made in jest, most are not) towards Scott, but knows full well he’d stand NO chance against “the world’s fastest man.” And while the public believes him to be deceased, there are those in the underworld who know better and view Sweet as either a laughing stock or someone who’s fallen from grace — all the while wondering why he’s clearly under the thrall of a beta male like Scott Freeman (yet another rule is that Sweet must help keep Scott’s secret) …
As a result of the aforementioned, Sweet often vents his frustration of Scott’s friends — Enrique Ortega and Annie Rosen. Sweet usually makes racist comments about Enrique’s Latino heritage, and since Annie doesn’t like that Sweet’s a pimp, there’s plenty of sexist antagonism between them to say the least. This never goes too far since Scott is always a cell phone call away. If Sweet ever misbehaves too badly, he’s taken on high speed runs against his will and/or is dropped off at the most remote/desolate corners of the globe (“I hear the Himalayas are nice this time of year,” is an often heard phrase from Scott, before leaving Sweet on a snowy mountain top for an hour or two as punishment for a particularly grievous offense).
Sweet is a product of mainstream, urban black culture whereas Scott is a nerd who dresses like a 1930s adventurer and “sounds white” — this difference in tastes accounts for even more conflict. However, Sweet isn’t just a common thug — he’s a huge fan of Shakespeare who’s able to quote the Bard at whim and in depth (his favorite play being Macbeth). Sweet is also a botanical genius and grows his own marijuana in the basement of the suburban home Scott had him buy.
Annie Rosen
Annie is a Jewish lesbian and the single greatest trial lawyer the American Civil Liberties Union has ever had in its employ due to her deductive reasoning and photographic memory. Because of Annie’s support for the people of Palestine, she was disowned by her Zionist family, so risking a great deal by taking on lost causes is almost second nature. It hasn’t helped her popularity in the community, but Annie’s willingness to rush where angels fear to tread accounts for how often she’s fought for the free speech of Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen in court.
She doesn’t approve of Scott’s and Enrique’s marijuana smoking and she definitely has a problem with J.D. Sweet being a pimp, but Annie turns a blind eye to all that (and more) out of an acknowledgement of all the good Scott’s superspeed is capable of. Annie and Scott first met when a gang was threatening to “rape her straight” and Scott came to the rescue. Indebted to him as Sweet was, Annie signed on for his mission (see The Mission for details).
While Sweet reluctantly goes against his capitalistic, egotistical nature to work for Scott and Enrique helps because of a lifelong camaraderie, Annie lends her legal services out of guilt. Having defended the far right on behalf of the ACLU for so many years, she felt the need to balance the scales of justice.
Annie love dolphins, anything with caramel on it and the Rocky/Bullwinkle cartoon.
Jarvis/Metatron
The night Scott Freeman was born, two white supremacist cops pulled his parents over. Before the cops could lay a hand on either parent, a winged, glowing superpowered figure descended from Heaven, beat them down and flew the expectant mother to the nearest emergency room so she could give birth to Scott in peace — leaving the father behind to face the racist cops’ wrath alone.
The winged figure was none other than Metatron, the voice of God, and unlike Satan, he can remain solid while on Earth (hence him being able to thrash the cops). After Scott grew up and began his destiny as a superhero, Metatron began occasionally appearing to him while he dreamt. Except curiously enough, Metatron appears to Scott as a Southern gentleman named “Jarvis” who wears a white hat/suit and black string tie while rowing a boat down a river. Scott is usually the only other person in the boat, and given the surreal sights around them, he’s theorized those “dreams” are actually jaunts into the afterlife and that Jarvis performs the same function as Charon from Greek myth. It’s also been theorized Metatron appears as Jarvis to assuage Scott’s understandable mistrust of Southern white men.
Jarvis/Metatron contacts Scott very rarely and only to alert him of the gravest of dangers; usually threats involving Satan. Jarvis/Metatron feels guilty for having left Scott’s father behind and almost sees Scott as the son that he, as an angel, could never have.
Satan
Satan is jealous of Humanity (longing for the days “back before the beginning of time” when it was just him and God) and is the biggest proponent of the cynical claim that “Human nature” will inevitably cause the Human race to fail and ultimately destroy itself. After Samson and the birth of Jesus, Satan made God promise not to send any more superhumans to Earth in order to “cheat” or “help Humans when they ought to be helping themselves.” Therefore, Satan views the advent of Scott Freeman as a gross violation of that promise, hence their feud. In fact, it was Satan who alerted the cops to the car Scott’s parents were in — all the while prompting them to kill him before he was born.
Satan can visually/audibly appear in the material world — and can instantly teleport anywhere (so he’s “faster” than Scott) — but he has no actual substance. As a result, Satan always makes it a point to tempt someone from afar, lest he be given away — coming in physical contact with him would be akin to passing through a ghost or hologram (a telltale sign of his presence is Satan’s inability to cast a shadow). Satan can shapeshift, and is also telepathic/empathic, so he’s able to take a form that’ll best suit his purposes.
However, Satan is far from omnipotent: He cannot hypnotize anyone or tell the future. And since he can’t handle solid objects (while on the mortal plane), Satan counts on villains who — in the pursuit of their baser instincts — wind up doing his bidding. For instance, a mad scientist overly concerned with overpopulation was once told by Satan to lower the population via genocide.
The Mission
When Scott Freeman was a child, he fell in love with Robin Hood. Between the potential his superspeed provided and how the Northern California hippie commune he grew up in naturally reminded him of Sherwood Forest, Scott envisioned himself as a modern day successor to the Prince of Thieves. As Scott began to race across the globe, he couldn’t help but notice the glaring contrasts between the haves and have nots. So from a very early age, Scott would rob from the rich and give to the poor — except he’d do it so fast, no one could ever catch him.
By the time he became a young man, Scott did less and less himself and operated more and more via a series of proxies. Taking a cue from The Shadow, Scott got into the habit of saving certain people with access or talents he needed all so they’d be indebted to him. For instance, the rapper M.T. Pockets gives half of everything he makes to Scott as does the boxer Moses “The Mountain” Hightower. The money is then funneled into the Peace Movement and other, similar causes — as is the case with J.D. Sweet. However, Sweet differs from Pockets, Hightower and the rest of Scott’s proxies in that he’s the only one who’s reluctant and regrets having signed on with The Mission. This is because Sweet was a crime lord for so many years who never cared about anyone but himself.
The money raised by the proxies goes towards everything from feeding the homeless to paying the bail of jailed activists. The only indulgence Scott allows for himself is his 1930s serial swashbuckler wardrobe. As Sweet once put it, “Scott’s the only nigger I know who doesn’t wait for Halloween to dress like Flash Gordon.”
Scott has never revealed exactly how many proxies there are worldwide — no doubt out of concern for their safety should his connection to them ever be revealed. There couldn’t be more than a handful since Scott thinks (and rightfully so) there are far too many people who know about his superspeed as it is.
Scott’s Lovers
1) Penny Hicks is a pale, petite blonde from a small town located at the exact spot where Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee meet. Knowing Scott’s weakness for hillbilly women — and knowing that Penny secretly lusts after black men because her father was a KKK Grand Wizard — Satan played cupid and used his influence to see to it they met. Once the two of them did come together, Scott decided to retire from being a superhero and resolved to only use his superspeed to upkeep Penny’s farm. After being told in their dreams of Satan’s involvement by Jarvis/Metatron, Enrique Ortega, J.D. Sweet and Annie Rosen then hunted Scott down and talked him into returning to duty before he was bound to Penny forever via a shotgun wedding.
2) Atomwoman is a redheaded superheroine from a parallel universe in which the characters from Scott’s favorite comic book are real. Initially, Scott was asked to permanently reside in said universe and join a superteam called Just U.S. However, upon realizing how racist the group was (Scott was rendered to the status of an errand boy while the only other black member was Weatherman, a closeted gay who suffered constant discrimination), Scott returned to his universe — taking Weatherman and Atomwoman with him (since she had grown tired of being the only female in Just U.S.). Weatherman settled in Africa (where he would become quite popular in desert regions) while Atomwoman and Scott Freeman fell in love. Unfortunately, in addition to not being able to psychologically deal with how dark and cynical Scott’s universe was, its presence of nuclear missiles and power plants wrecked havoc with her atomic superpowers. Eventually, Atomwoman accumulated so much excess nuclear energy she had no choice but to fly into deep space and self-detonate — lest she destroy the Earth. This broke Scott’s heart so much he swore off of women altogether, until …
3) Desdemona (a.k.a. “Dez”) is a hundred year old vampire (a very Gothic pale brunette) who was bitten by members of the Clan Calixa, an extremely elitist clique of aristocratic, Victorian vampires. Rather than feed on Humanity, Desdemona left the Clan Calixa and subsisted off of forest animals until the lack of Human blood drove her mad. Coming to an internal compromise, Desdemona decided to limit herself to the blood of criminals — hence she became known as Vampire Vigilante. In fact, fighting crime is how Desdemona and Scott met. After getting to know each other, Scott learned the Clan Calixa was trying to tempt Desdemona into feeding on innocent Humans as they do. Once he’d had enough of their smug, condescending manner, Scott decapitated the entire clan — thus killing them all and setting Desdemona free. Out of all the relationships Scott ever had, the one with Desdemona lasted the longest and was the most meaningful.
SEASON ONE
There will only be two seasons, or 24 episodes, of The North Star — think of it as a very long mini-series, since one of the biggest problems with television is that certain shows wear out their welcome …
1. Pilot, Part I
After a brief prologue about Scott Freeman’s birth (October 25, 1985), the story flash forwards decades (October 21, 2015) and shows Enrique Ortega giving a scathing speech about America’s genocidal imperialism to a cheering crowd. Jim Finley, a CIA agent (Mark Hamill) tries to assassinate Enrique but Scott uses superspeed to save him. This is witnessed by Finley but when he tries to tell his superior (Ronny Cox) that a black man used a baseball bat to swat bullets away, he’s dismissively sent on medical leave. Finley then becomes obsessed with exposing Scott and strikes out on his own in order to do so (this becomes a running theme throughout the series).
Simultaneously, Enrique is arrested on a trumped up charge of holding a traffic-blocking rally without a permit, and after calming an enraged Scott down, he says to find a good lawyer. Scott immediately goes to the ACLU asking for their best; insisting that money is no object, and he’s referred to Annie Rosen. Scott sits in on the conclusion of one of her trials, but before she could be tapped, the Zionist Rosen family accosts Annie outside the courtroom for supporting the Palestinian cause. Not wanting to interrupt a family dispute, Scott trails Rosen to a lesbian bar — where she and her girlfriend are attacked by drunken frat boys. In the process of preventing her from being gang raped, Scott accidentally reveals his superspeed to Rosen, so he decides to explain everything.
Scott directs Rosen to a suburban three bedroom/two bath on the outskirts of Bay City (a metaphor for Oakland, California — just as Superman’s Metropolis is supposed to represent Manhattan), where a crimelord who was thought by the public to be dead, J.D. Sweet, sulks because Jade, Candy and Fulana — prostitutes who used to be under his thrall — are now taking the lion’s share of their earnings. Scott explains that since he saved Sweet’s life, Sweet has become one of the chosen few who knows about Scott’s superspeed and works for him as a fundraiser for various charities (a brief flashback of what happened would be inserted here). Rosen reluctantly agrees to help Enrique get out of jail, but doesn’t like the idea of having to keep Scott’s secret or being paid with money made via prostitution and marijuana dealing (not to mention Sweet’s sexist comments).
2. Pilot, Part II
Rosen is able to get Enrique out of jail easily enough, but then Scott gets a call from his mother and runs at superspeed to see her. It turns out Scott’s father Steve Freeman is being transfered to Death Row and Scott seriously contemplates breaking his father out of jail even though doing so would surely reveal himself to the world because of the amount of security cameras and witnesses. Told to “sleep on it,” Scott dreams of being in a row boat with a Southern gentleman named “Jarvis,” who says he’s been on the right path thus far, but that everything would be ruined if his superspeed was allowed to become public. Scott deduces that he’s receiving a message from God and abides by it. Scott talks Rosen into signing onto what he calls “The Mission” full time and she manages to get his father transfered off of Death Row.
Satan approaches Finley, tells the agent every detail there is to know about Scott and sets a trap across from Scott’s suburban home: Satan is to draw Scott out into the open by changing into a rampaging monster, and once Scott uses his superspeed to combat the supposed threat, Finley is to capture it all on film. Finley deviates from the plan and begins shooting at Scott instead, which pisses Satan off to no end. In his anger, Satan inadvertently demonstrates how any form taken by him on the material plane is intangible and doesn’t cast shadows. Realizing he’s being duped, Scott takes off and leaves Finley raving about devils and superheroes while a straitjacket is being strapped on. Scott and Enrique later gives Rosen a pep talk (this is how the phrase North Star comes up) welcoming her into the fold even as Sweet makes snide comments in the background (which results in Scott taking Sweet “around the world”; Scott grabs Sweet and either drops him off in some remote part of the world or just scares the shit out of him by exceeding the speed of sound) …
3. No Time For Love, Dr. Jones
Scott, Enrique and Rosen debate the implications of using the royalities from porno movies (starring Jade, Candy and Fulana) to fund battered women’s shelters and free, feminist martial arts classes. Meanwhile, one of Scott’s charities — a homeless shelter run by a liberation theologist — comes under fire. Also too, Candy develops feelings for Scott, but much to her chagrin, he’s only into white women — a couple of whom put in brief appearances throughout the episode to either curse him out for ruining their sexual pallets with his superspeed or beg for more. Jarvis appears as well in a vision to warn/wean Scott off of sex.
4. Full of It
Mounds of urine drenched shit begin appearing in front of CIA headquarters, the Pentagon, and other sources of evil (which attracts the attention of Agent Finley). It turns out that Scott is leaving these mounds around because of how his hyper-accelerated metabolism works (t here’s a secret league of black scientists in Atlanta, GA that Scott turns to whenever questions about his powers need to be answered and it’s introduced in this episode). All along, Scott talks a young black genius out of joining the military and orders Sweet to pay the kid’s way through college.
5. Focus on Annie Rosen.
6. Sweetness and Light
After being struck by lightning, Scott loses his powers. Once Sweet finds this out, he beats Scott down and returns to his old ways. After Scott’s superspeed returns (thanks to a second, subsequent bolt of lightning), Sweet is put back in his place, but Scott allows him one, last gangstalicious party.
7. Focus on Enrique Ortega.
8. Heroes of Hiroshima, Nobles of Nagasaki
Scott’s sensei, Saigō Katsumoto, is introduced — a Hiroshima survivor herself, she arranges a world tour of the other remaining survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, but there’s Satanic sabotage afoot. A flashback of Scott’s early days as a sneak thief and Robin Hood fan is also seen.
9. Invitation Only
On a dark and stormy night, a starving and injured Scott accidentally crashes through a window into a rich white family’s house during a dinner party. After the patriarch’s lovely daughter cares for him, he schools her parents and their guests on the finer points of black history and defends them from a home invasion. In the end, they all agree to keep Scott’s secret and even sponsor a couple of his charities.
10. Peace In Our Time
Annie Rosen speaks before Israel’s parliament about its horrid Human rights record while Scott runs across the Middle East trying to stop a series of bombings which threaten the peace.
11. House of the Darkest Shadows
This episode is an homage to Japanese samurai movies and depicts J.D. Sweet as The Black Dragon, a mystic shogun no one can defeat in battle.
12. Countrybama, Part I
Penny Hicks is a pale, petite blonde from a small town located at the exact spot where Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee meet. Knowing Scott’s weakness for hillbilly women — and knowing that Penny secretly lusts after black men because her father was a KKK Grand Wizard — Satan plays cupid and uses his influence to see to it they meet. After the two of them come together, Scott decides to retire from being a superhero and resolves to only use his superspeed to upkeep Penny’s farm.
SEASON TWO
13. Countrybama, Part II
After being told in their dreams of Satan’s involvement by Jarvis/Metatron, Enrique Ortega, J.D. Sweet and Annie Rosen hunt Scott down and talk him into returning to duty before he’s bound to Penny forever via a shotgun wedding.
14. Eight Thousand Miles
To take his friend’s mind off of Penny Hicks, Enrique takes Scott on a reenactment of Che Guevara’s motorcycle tour through South America. The trip strains their lifelong relationship to the breaking point but they make amends when the opportunity to stem the damage America’s foreign policy has done presents itself.
15. Just U.S., Part I
Atomwoman is a redheaded superheroine from a parallel universe in which the characters from Scott’s favorite comic book are real — a universe discovered by the league of black scientists. After entering it, Scott is asked to permanently reside in said universe and join a superteam called Just U.S. However, upon realizing how racist the group is (Scott was rendered to the status of an errand boy while the only other black member was Weatherman, a closeted gay who suffered constant discrimination), Scott returns to his native universe — taking Weatherman and Atomwoman with him (since she had grown tired of being the only female in Just U.S.).
16. Just U.S., Part II
Weatherman settles in Africa (where he becomes quite popular in desert regions — one of the historical differences between Scott’s Earth and ours is Africa’s partial salvation) while Atomwoman and Scott Freeman fall in love. Unfortunately, in addition to not being able to psychologically deal with how Scott’s universe is comparably darker and more cynical, its presence of nuclear missiles/power plants wrecks havoc with her atomic superpowers. Eventually, Atomwoman accumulates so much excess nuclear energy she has no choice but to fly into deep space and self-detonate — lest she destroy the Earth. This breaks Scott’s heart so much he swears off of women altogether.
17. Trippin’
Scott volunteers to take part in a black scientist league experiment involving backwards time travel (in order to keep from dealing with the death of Atomwoman) and winds up one of the 54th Massachusetts — right before the battle of Fort Wagner …
18. Pure Vegas, Baby
This episode introduces rapper M.T. Pockets and boxer Moses “The Mountain” Hightower — both of whom are proxies of Scott’s and both happen to have career-shaping events in Las Vegas during the same weekend, so Scott, Enrique, Rosen and even Sweet venture there and hilarity ensues …
19. Target Demographics with Disposable Income
Enrique attempts to produce an action-adventure series about a Latino superhero and encounters corporate censorship head on. Told that his TV series is too revolutionary, and as a result, would alienate white suburbia, Scott organizes a letter-writing campaign to get it on the air.
20. Vampire Vigilante, Part I
Desdemona (a.k.a. “Dez”) is a hundred year old vampire (a very Gothic pale brunette) who was bitten by members of the Clan Calixa, an extremely elitist clique of aristocratic, Victorian vampires. Rather than feed on Humanity, Desdemona left the Clan Calixa and subsisted off of forest animals until the lack of Human blood drove her mad. Coming to an internal compromise, Desdemona decided to limit herself to the blood of criminals — hence she became known as Vampire Vigilante. In fact, fighting crime is how Desdemona and Scott first meet. After getting to know each other, Scott learns the Clan Calixa is trying to tempt Desdemona into feeding on innocent Humans as they do. Once he’s had enough of their smug, condescending manner, Scott decapitates the entire clan — thus killing them all and setting Desdemona free.
21. Vampire Vigilante, Part II
As fate would have it, one of the Clan Calixa escaped Scott’s purge and this episode is about that vampire’s revenge. Candy deals with her vehement jealousy of Dez, meanwhile, Scott deals with his fear of being accidentally bitten during sex.
22. Focus on Desdemona/Vampire Vigilante.
23. Finale, Part I
Scott is in Japan meditating where he has a vision of God, who appears to him as a baby sumo wrestler with blue skin floating in mid air amidst swirling protons and electrons; as if an atom. God tells Scott that his time has finally come and disappears. Confused, since Jarvis/Metatron is usually the one who speaks for The Almighty, Scott begins to assume the line “your time has come” means he’ll die soon. Scott stresses himself out trying to do as much good as he can before the end, as it were, and this is noticed by his friends.
An increasingly rebellious Sweet has taken to venturing out more often than usual, is eventually recognized and subsequently arrested. Rosen refuses to use her legal skills to free him on the grounds that Scott shouldn’t have relied so heavily on his criminal activities. Throughout the finale, Sweet tells a very slanted version of events to his cellmates in prison and goes through a series of misadventures, which eventually leads to his escape.
After a particularly indicting lecture on the illogic of America’s immigration policies, Enrique gets into an intense high speed chase; his motorcycle, El Caballo Rojo, is being shot to pieces by a truck full of minutemen who’re actually attempting to deport him, dead or alive. Enrique is about to call Scott on his cell phone when that too is shot out of his hand. Just then, a blur of wind disables the minutemen, but instead of it being the Scott Enrique knows and loves, it turns out to be a much older version of Scott Freeman.
The elder Scott claims to be from decades in the future, and after Enrique reunites with the Scott he’s familiar with and Rosen, the elder describes a timeline in which a mad scientist obsessed with overpopulation triggers World War III in order to cut down on the amount of Humans being born. The elder Scott wasn’t able to stop the madman in time, and as a result, three-fourths of Humanity died in atomic fire. Citing that foreknowledge is forewarning, the younger Scott intends on changing history for the better. The scientist in question turns out to be manipulated by Satan into wiring all the world’s nuclear arsenals to his computer so that pushing one button would empty every warhead onto random targets, but thanks to the elder Scott, the younger was able to stop that from happening. The younger Scott, however, is perplexed because by all rights, changing the timeline should’ve caused the elder Scott to fade from existence, and yet he’s still around.
24. Finale, Part II
The elder Scott then claims that after the nuclear holocaust in his timeline, he revealed himself to what was left of Humanity and used his superspeed to power a massive treadmill/turbine which would provide an unlimited amount of clean, renewable energy. The elder Scott proposes that this same machine be built and activated in the now altered timeline so that Big Oil and Big Nuke would be put out of business and a utopian society could come into being. Eager to do as much good as possible before his imminent death, the younger Scott agrees. Being more cynical than Scott, Enrique and Rosen are both suspicious of his older counterpart, and after confronting him; demanding to know why he’s so quick to build the machine, the younger Scott tells them for the first time about that vision of God in Japan. Enrique and Rosen warn Scott of the dangers of overcompensating and to appreciate the difference he’s already made.
Having escaped from jail, Sweet returns to Bay City for a stash of money/drugs/etc. he’s had hidden from Scott for months. Sweet is caught by the elder Scott, which thoroughly confuses Sweet and makes him wonder how long was he imprisoned. However, the reason why the elder Scott was near Sweet’s stash in the first place is because it happened to be next to the point where the elder came from the future — something Sweet is more than happy to point out, since doing so takes eveyone’s attention off that stash. Wanting to catch a glimpse of things to come, the younger Scott peers through the time portal but finds nothing but darkness absolute and almost dies from asphixation.
While he’s passed out, Scott has a vision of Jarvis, which warns him of his older counterpart’s motives. After coming to, the younger Scott chases down the elder for answers in a breakneck race around the world. Exhausted, the elder Scott confesses that the machine didn’t work in the future, and in fact, wound up draining energy instead of emitting it — so much so, every star in the universe was snuffed out; extinguishing all life. The elder Scott believes he deserves a second chance and can get the machine to work properly, but the younger Scott insists that it be destroyed.
Using one of his disguises, Satan tricks Desdemona into activating the machine, and since the elder Scott is too weary to do what’s necessary to shut it down, the younger Scott must enter the machine and destroy it from the inside. Doing so takes all his strength and he dies as a result — meanwhile, the future version of him fades away; ceasing to exist (since someone or something else could’ve triggered WWIII, the elder Scott remained in existence, only the death of the younger Scott would’ve negated the previous timeline). Desdemona doesn’t want to live without Scott — not to mention an inability to forgive herself for having been fooled by Satan and nearly triggering the end of life itself — so she commits vampire suicide by walking into the dawn of a new day. Sweet grabs his stash and heads for the Caribbean, never to be seen again — leaving Enrique and Rosen to mourn and continue the good work Scott left behind. The very last scene shows Scott and Desdemona in Jarvis’ row boat heading for Heaven.
