Welp, it's Day Two of WWChicago. Last night did not go well for our hero (or his lady. Poor Mei got sick halfway through), so I am just gonna go in today and try my best and we'll see how it goes. On the bright side, it almost literally can't go any worse today than it did yesterday.
So, let's talk about the Skull Mob, since we've finally got around to a page that puts the title of the comic into perspective.
The Skull Mob first popped up, almost by accident, in "Monster King" #3. Originally, it was a small group of quirky, pulpy geek heroes that ran around with Cactus Joe. The group had two inspirations, firstly, they were inspired by one of the best comics to out in the past few years, "The Bulletproof Coffin", and secondly by the "Batman the Brave & the Bold" cartoon, which showed Batman as a member of multiple superhero teams and partnering up with various oddball characters. I thought, if Batman can be a member of 3 or 4 different teams at the same time, why can't Clown & Penguin.
After MK3, the Skull Mob spontaneously (and inexplicably) morphed and grew into a massive, Avengers/JLA style team. Suddenly, just about every character I had ever created was now a member of the Skull Mob. The Skull Mob became an army so large, that it was divided into various divisions consisting of 5 members (some divisions had more, but in general there were 5 per division). I'm trying to remember how many divisions there were... 7 maybe? Which would put the roster at around 35 members (it was actually bigger than that, there were at least two divisions that had more than 5 members). Let's see if I can remember the groups...
Division 1- Butterfly Mob- Leader: Clown & Penguin. Members: Broken Tea Cup, Rakka the Witch Doctor, Johny Eraser, Kolby Koala, and Mike the Butcher.
Division 2- Mask Mob- Leader: El Exclamation Point! Members: Agent D, Kingfisher, Dr. Z, and Armageddon Clock.
Division 3- Shadow Mob- Leader: Bad Jack (before he was the Death Moth). Members: Beelzebub Joan, The Puzzelor, Spookshow, and Mr. Hex.
Division 4 (almost forgot this one)- Colorful Mob- Leader: Cosmico Rex. Members: Run-No-No-Run, Stop-Go-Go-Stop, aliceislost, and Riddle Bug.
Division 5- Eyenigma- Leader: King Dark. Members: Phantom Butterfly, The Masked Platypus, Creepshow, and Sparrow Girl.
Division 6- Anarchy Mob- Leader: Akuma Boy. Members: Namo Redrum, Medusa Tina, Lady Luna, Mini-Toro, Shinobi Crow, and Johny Payday.
Division 7- Halloween Mob- Leader: Halloween M@n. Members: Doomharvest, Asylum, Candy Cane, and Zombie Chick.
Division 8- Pig Mob- Leader: Johm Smythe. Members: Gemini Aqualung, Shirac, Xavier Mystery, and CutUp.
Anyway, in the short time they were around in Monster King, the Skull Mob declared war on the evils of the TORCverse, and actually succeeded in wiping out most of the Bad Guys I had created over the years. Then they went to war with Ortex.
I never actually showed the Battle at Ortex Tower, but if you've read "Pulp Horrorshow" v. 3 and "Death Moth" (there's also some hints of it in TORC 100), you should have a pretty good overview of how things went. The Skull Mob was outgunned by the sheer power of the Ortex Corporation, and to make matters worse, Akuma Boy's Anarchy Mob betrayed the Skull Mob and attacked the group from behind. The entire team was slaughtered. With some exceptions. The Clown's group wasn't at the battle, because he and his allies were on the other side of the Universe on the quest for Omnichronus. Run-No-No-Run and Stop-Go-Go-Stop left Earth on the Space Whale, Watoosi, and set out across the Galaxy having adventures. aliceislost simply wandered off.
Other than that, Spookshow and the Puzzelor have both been seen in SDF. Spookshow is a ghost, so it's possible he was "killed" and simply reconstituted his ecoplasmic body later. The Puzzelor is a living enigma, so it is unknown how he survived the battle. King Dark's body, which is made of Living Darkness, was destroyed during the battle, but a small sliver escaped, and hid inside a corpse until King Dark was strong enough to reemerge. Agent D's body was never found. Her status is unknown. Also, the Masked Platypus's body was not found, although he was confirmed killed at the battle.
Obviously, Akuma Boy and his Anarchy Mob survived the battle (since they were on the winning side), although Lady Luna recently died fighting a rejuvenated King Dark.
The only other survivor of the battle was Bad Jack. Jack's body was destroyed, but his Vermin Angels masters reclaimed his soul and put it inside the body of the Death Moth.
Now the Vermin Angels have decided to create a new Skull Mob led by the Death Moth under their auspices. And that's my new comic. Ta-Da!
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