PS238
| PS238 | |
|---|---|
Tyler gets a lift to school in the third collected edition | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Do Gooder Press |
| Creative team | |
| Written by | Aaron Williams |
| Artist(s) | Aaron Williams |
PS238 is comic book following 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. It was previously published by Dork Storm Press and Henchman Publishing until issue #20. 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 draws and writes Nodwick, and Full Frontal Nerdity. Aaron Williams has also worked on titles such as Truth, Justin and The American Way. Hero Games is currently creating a PS238 role-playing game using their Champions game system.[1]
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 even made from the old satellite headquarters of a "JLA"-type team the Union of Justice, from which most of the faculty seems to have come. Why this superteam decided to found the school is still a mystery, but it is revealed in issue #5 that something happened to a team member prior to the founding of PS238. She is now deceased, or at least without a body. As the series progresses, more teachers from outside the team have come to the school.
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; having 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 led to him outfitting himself with every kind of gadget he could when he was assigned a field training session with the Revenant, who commented that Tyler couldn't even move with all that weight on himself, and after a pause, wondering if that was intentional. Occasionally, and only when the situation merits, Tyler assumes the identity of Moon Shadow, Revenant's Robin-like sidekick.
The Rainmaker Program
The original Rainmaker program was started in the 1960s and focused on one boy 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. Thus ended the first Rainmaker Program.
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.
Parodies
Many characters in PS238 are parodies of heroes from other publishers. One of the pleasures of older readers are spotting the sometimes obscure references that will elude (hopefully, in some cases) younger readers. For example, 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, of course, obvious. Atlas' son Captain Clarinet attends PS238.
The Revenant is much like Batman; he has no superpowers except his limitless wealth. He's often 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”. Ms. Kyle - (based on Aaron Williams wife, Cristi) a.k.a. "Micro-Might" - is a somewhat revised version of The Atom: Instead of being able to shrink or grow to any size while retaining the same density (variable mass, constant density), Ms. Kyle gains in density the more she shrinks (variable density, constant mass).
Of the children that attend PS238, there is Victor Von Fogg instead of Victor Von Doom, and The Emerald Gauntlet instead of The Green Lantern; the two have a particularly contentious relationship as The Emerald Gauntlet, senior, is the parole officer for Von Fogg's father (based on Phil Foglio). 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 parody of MODOK, 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; and American Eagle and USA Patriot Act, versions of The Falcon and Captain America, respectively. There's even a parody of Forge, Angie.
The faculty includes references/parodies of such characters as The Thing (Coach Rockslide), and Dr. Strange and Dr. Fate (Mrs. Vashti).
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.
References
- ^ "PS238 Role-Playing Game in the works!". GamingReport.com. 2007-10-12. Retrieved 2008-01-26.