# The Return of HAVOC, INC. / 2019



## Dorset (Dec 27, 2018)

An update posting: It looks as if this will happen shortly. I've sent Terrie a listing of new characters slated to appear in the first for new issues, and should see her designs of the new cast additions fairly soon. The new run will begin with the unpublished issue 10, which ends the Atomic Dragon story line. Arrangements are bring made to catch readers up on what's come before in the series, but I can't give specifics just yet.

A couple of details I can pass along. Some of the precious supporting characters will return, including Capt. Regulo, the vastly self-delusional squirrel 'pirate king' and his long-suffering first mate, Wilson the panda. Mari (the cyborg from Deck'a past -- no, *not* Knife -- will join the crew, along with a small companion that allowed for her to communicate. Said small companion instantly forma a romantic fixation on Chester. Mari may, at least to some degree, replace Orb as a mobile control for the Half Moon. She will live in the transparent engine section of the ship, venturing out at intervals.

Other characters will debit, including Roswell, an alien arms-merchant from Deck's time with the Lion's Circle, Olga, and the Gunbunnies, cute but lethal pirate rivals of Regulo (yeah, lifted from another comics pilot I never got around to launching).

Bits and pieces can be learned at the Chester "Ringtail" Magreer Facebook page.


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## Twopaw Tarnished-Silver (Jan 20, 2019)

I'm rather fascinated that Mari (who I believe had suffered undisclosed tissue injury so severe she was functionally a quadriplegic and totally blind prior to the installation of her cybernetic prosthetics) will be added as a crewmember with Chester, Deck and Orb in tow. I'm also wondering if there will be any juxtaposition to Orb's function as a moderately-mobile interface for their ship, by similarity to Mari (as a cyborg, not a totally artificial construct like Orb) as a floating, partially-technological but (apparently) quite sentient being, but with limited ability to express herself (Mari seemed to be mute, whether by design in her trauma repair or choice) externally.

Mari, although having only minimal presence in Havoc, Inc. so far (although being part of the same crew Deck was a member of prior to her injuries, Mari was a close friend to him in the past), is someone I'm glad whose background will be explored more deeply in the future.

-2Paw.


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## Dorset (Jan 20, 2019)

Mari was one of the earliest backup characters I created. I wanted to give Deck a back story other than his being a complete outcast (to the point that his older brother was willing to let him die) among his people in general, and family in specific, for being a runt. Deck is 6'1" in a world where the males generally top 8' and females 7'. 

That led to the creation of the Circle, who secretly indulged in industrial spying and other unsavory activities. While he went along with this for some time, Deck  needed someone to play against with his essentially protective nature. In came Mari. She was instrumental in his break with the group, a few steps before Knife would have probably killed him for his increasing doubt about their actions. There's no indication that Knife damaged her in reprisal of this. Without a protector, she just happened to be in the wrong place when the authorities took out the Circle. Most of the members were killed.

Oh, you interrupt, why didn't Knife kill Deck at the time for shooting her? Well, that happened after he exited the group. It was an earlier story that never saw print. Knife tied to kill Chester. Deck, who was a notoriously bad shot, got in a lucky shot. This would have occurred either during a port stop by the _Amani Dragon_, during the latter part of the Demon Wars of MIDNIGHT SONATA, or very early in the HAVOC timeline. Probably the former.

Deck was a mech pilot, and that alone would require a few therapeutic shore leaves.

Mari flees to the Half Moon, with Knife in hot pursuit (second half of the two-part script I'm on now -- sent Terri the first part last week).  Well, assuming the ship's apparently being blown up is just a cliffhanger ending to the first half.

She can 'speak' via a telepathic link with a small dragon (who will become extremely smitten with Chester, to Deck's disgust). It then relays her words through a translator unit it wears around its' neck.

Orb vs. Mari. Orb can electronically link with the ship's systems. Mari would be limited to entering commands with her hands. Fro now that's somewhat up in the air. Orb may ultimately be eased out. He was essentially a one-joke character that was a combination of three service 'droids I created for another furries-in-space 'zine before moving on to MIDNIGHT SONATA and the HAVOC. The possible dynamics of Deck/Mari seems more promising to write. Besides, I've always really liked the character.

Incidentally, I can say that Capt. Regulo and Wilson appear in the first section of the new storyline, as do the Gunbunnies, a crew of painfully cute but...er...problematic bunnies I worked up for a comic pitch I never did anything with at about the time HAVOC was getting going. I have a feeling that, if the series takes off again, a lot of my unused characters (and Terrie and my LARK & KEY, the 'British Deck and Chester') may show up in future scripts.


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## Twopaw Tarnished-Silver (Jan 20, 2019)

I dig; so Mari's prosthetics weren't necessarily intended for data/rig interface, at least not off Knife's ship. My god, that woman's a nasty piece of work, and was easily one long before she needed cybernetic repairs to her face and one of her arms. I can see why Deck, aside from the industrial espionage and sabotage the Circle was getting deeper and more seriously into, wanted her at arm's length (metal and hydraulic ram, flesh and blood or otherwise). Someone like that doesn't need to be self-employed in hostile demolition of nuclear fusion/fissile installations, chemical processing plants or heatsink vaults to be dangerous to everyone around her...sadly, as Mari found, and Deck fortunately made it away from.

Per Deck being a runt for his particular species/planetary racial origins: I had been wondering at times (say, when he tore off Knife's arm near the end of that storyline, or punched in the security panel to get his charge (and to be discovered, unbeknownst to him, the Crown Princess) out of her cell and off of Knife's ship) why Deck seems to have more physical strength (seeming to me, anyway) than his what would otherwise be more human-sized body would have, had he been a similarly-sized RL person; if his species is more likely to approach seven and eight feet tall apiece, I can understand from where the added physical strength and stamina he often can draw on would come. I am not familiar with Midnight Sonata (other than in an advertisement a very long time ago in either an MU Press or Antarctic Press comic dating from sometime in the early 1990s), so most of what I know about Chester MacGreer (Action Comics reference, possibly? I've wanted to ask you or Terrie about that ) and Deck himself is from the first batch of Havoc, Incorporated's series.

At least regarding the re-vitalized Havoc, Inc.: one more new comic to look forward to at Red Nails here in town! Got back into comic collecting about six years ago, and they're quite good about getting in new titles as long as their chosen distributor can get them in.

-2Paw.

EDIT:



Dorset said:


> She can 'speak' via a telepathic link with a small dragon (who will become extremely smitten with Chester, to Deck's disgust). It then relays her words through a translator unit it wears around its' neck.



I hope you won't mind me calling that wee dragon 'Lockheed', in private thoughts.  Am also kind of wondering this about Knife and Deck, and Knife's 'love'/possessiveness towards him: was she at all intimidated by other folk of his kind, but found it easier to complement (dominate?) 'the runt' of the litter, so to speak, without her being more potentially unnerved by a hypothetical cousin of Deck's species were she to have picked someone else to be pathologically obsessed with?


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## Dorset (Jan 20, 2019)

In designing the Draconian canines (Deck's species),  wanted them to be considerably stronger then, say, a human being. This was essentially a seldom-used plot element in several stories I did for TAI-PAN, before I left that project. 

As for Mari's currently being in Knife's crew, it isn't mentioned, but I have a back-of-the-mind itch that Knife kept her there as a slave, by way of unconsciously punishing Deck. Or at least punishing Mari for being close to him. She's basically a sadistic little thing, and won't be in the new run past the two-parter where she's back for vengeance.  As far as I 'know' Knife never encountered other Draconians.  Deck was leading a hard life and just fell in with the circle. A natural sadist at heart (and, worse, a cheerful sadist), this was not a romance that was going to end well. Her attraction was based on his being stronger than most of the gang, and more prone to taking unreasonable risks.

SONATA was a 'zine I started up. It got through two issues before I started working steadily as an inker on SHANDA THE PANDA and KATMANDU (Terrie and I also collaborated on a backup in RHUDIRPPT and an ashcan for NAUTILUS). That was before I gave up inking for scripting, which I'm much better at. Chester and Deck were friends at TAI-PAN so she cloned him for SONATA and later HAVOC.

Another small tidbit. Lambie (r.n.  Hitomi), the duo's adopted daughter came from one of my better, unused TAI-PAN stories. Celestacorp (a sprawling and infinitely amoral conglomerate that popped up n HAVOC and one of the two WILDER & GEL e-books I wrote) was after the experimental atomic powered heart transplanted into her. As I recall, it was one of my wilder stories.

And don't ask me about the complete tiki village in Hold B. The 'nest' will be used less as sleeping quarters in the future. The idea of living in a smallish jungle of unclaimed palm trees and a prefab Polynesian house appeals to me tiki fan side.

Or about their home world house and the tokenly guarding 'monster.'


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## Twopaw Tarnished-Silver (Jan 20, 2019)

Tai-Pan (The Project, as in) the APA I knew of, but that goes way back for me, before my time. I think it'd been publishing for a while when I saw it mentioned in Ed Zolna's Catalogue of Good Stuff, when I got my copies of it in the early 1990s...damn, BBS days for me, and right at the very beginning of my being in Furry and, for the most part, science-fiction fandom. As for the young mouse lady Lambie, she's got an excellent head on her shoulders, a knack for numbers and a very potent heart of gold. I'm glad she's got a Da and Da like Chester and Chris, and as importantly they've a young'un like her! 

Damn, I need to go and re-read the Rhudiprrt issues I have. I filled in the early issues (pre-#7, with the Tom Verre cover, which was the first one I bought on new-release) when a now-closed comic book store I frequented got in on a couple of occasions a whole mess of vintage AP and MU books, as well as from publishers I had very little familiarity with, long since out of business from their heyday in the 1980s....Tales From The Aniverse, with Arda Chevious (and her supersized husband) being one of them. I held a bit of pride in me that I recognized her when she was in some Furrlough issues many years later (Iron Panther?), even though I still don't know much more about her today. I can't clearly remember the backup story you and Terrie did in that particular issue of Rhudiprrt, and I'm going to go look in my longboxes in the next couple of days. 

As for Knife intentionally keeping her alive, crippled (albeit with cybernetic prosthetics to make her 'useful') and slaved (literally) to her ship's internal sensors, like a piece of equipment rather than a person, I think I'll be more than a little happy to see her properly excised away from Knife's sadistic grasp and behaviour. I have no idea what Mari might say to Deck, with a voice of sort she can use, but I'll be curious to hear it. She remembered him, albeit wordlessly, and that was at least good to see. I'd like to think after all she's been through, Mari deserves at least that much more freedom for her own.

-2Paw.


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## Dorset (Jan 20, 2019)

I got in on TAI-PAN before t got really rolling, and wrote probably 90 stories, as well as doing some design work. If I recall right, one story was in issue one, and then I left the project.

I inked two backups for RHUDI -- one with Freddy Anderron and one with Terrie on pencil. Prior to Verre signing on, Dwight wanted me to handle inks on future issues, but Verri wanted to do full art. I shifted over to SHANDA ad writing a couple of stories (GENUS and FURRLOUGH).

I still keep in touch with Dwight, and he occasionally sends me a copy of one of his new novels.

I'm a sucker for female characters like Lambie and Mari. I also strongly dislike gratuitous violence against women, but that's another matter. Both characters deserved more exposure, so it was natural to pop them in again when we were approached about doing new HAVOCs. Unfortunately, due to the somewhat convoluted storyline and amount of characters in the first+ issue, Lambie will be 'off at school' again at the start.


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## Twopaw Tarnished-Silver (Jan 21, 2019)

90 stories published, geez...I consider it an achievement on my part that I've gotten enough nerve up to put a fair bit of my scanned journeyman artwork online, and that I've finally gotten down to writing again in the first place. Thank you for making me feel much less of a greymuzzle, chum!  I remember how awed I was when I read Warren Schaeffer & Delilah's 'origin story' prior to both of their deaths on 'our' mortal realm, right at the beginning of Rhudiprrt #1, which I didn't read until quite a few years after picking up Rhudiprrt #7 on the comic rack at Unknown Worlds (a comic store here in Toronto, long since passed on itself). The total stripping of any physical connection to what either of them were in our world, and a natural, normal, relatively easy passing from it...that part of their journey was complete and settled. Warren seemed entirely calm seeing his own military funeral (surprised mostly by the remaining family he had; I believe it was implied that he never married (to a human) or had children of his own loins).

Having had more than a few fourlegger wee bits of my own IRL, with no chance of natural children in my future, I'd be just as angry if whichever authority decided it had umbrella direction on where human souls went (and the remainder of those of Earth's living things did not) decided they weren't going to have any of my fuzzpups in their so-called Heaven. o_o While I haven't created any characters of my own named Delilah so far, I admit to Bast/Ilura's natural spirit-form inspiring more than a few strong, feline (and human, too) women and daughters in my work. Dwight and Terri's work (both in Rhudiprrt and A Wandering Star), very much like your own (and while I respect your desire to not have your name revealed here, I know exactly who you are, good and old friend! ^_^), have been of considerable inspiration to my own imaginings, chum. 

-2Paw.


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