Power School 2012!

Francis L.

Why do you have a school with only six students, Pauly?

Pauly Poderr

This comic strip only shows my one class. We have four classes and four teachers: Liberal Arts, Science, Math, and Power. My class has the six students you see in the comic strip. We go through each teacher each day, for ninety minutes each class. So do three other classes. We all get an hour for lunch and study hall together.

I've heard my class is special, because we mostly have powers based on The Old World. I'm extra special in that class, because my parents have those powers and I don't.

Vitesh H.

Who's in your class, Pauly?

Pauly Poderr

Hi, Vitesh! In my class, besides me there are:

• Megaphone Jr. Twenty years ago or so, the future warrior Megaphone came to our era to be a superhero. This is his son, with at least the same powers. He's stronger than most of us, and he has high-tech gear. Some of the kids in the other classes say his mother was some super nympho whore. Some day I shall have to come to his defense. Hey, no one insults my classmates! But then I'm not the warrior in this picture.
• Titan Jr. About the same time as the original Megaphone, an alien with growth, shrinking, and gravity powers came to Earth and became the superhero Titan. This is *his* son. He has the growth and shrinking powers at least. We're not sure Titan Jr. *has* a mother.
• Intensity. She's from our "old" history too. Her parents are no one famous - but by the age of four, she was stronger than a grown man.
• Hipolyta. She *says* she's the daughter of the legendary warrior-queen Zenobia! However, her mother is nowhere to be found. Hipolyta says she's back in the old world, defending Palmyra... Anyway, Hipolyta is about as strong and fast as normal humans ever get. We wonder... Even if Zenobia were the mother, who'd be the father?
• Candy Coach. She's the daughter of the magic wielders Vara Hosea and Lucianus Autonomus! But she doesn't have their powers. She only summons candy!

Andrew P.

What are the qualifications to go to Power School?

Pauly Poderr

Hi, Andrew! Students in Power School have to:

(1) Be of human or near-human intelligence. Aliens welcome! We might have to decide about (say) the singing buffalo, though.

and either

(2) Have some power which is beyond or outside the maximum range of normal human powers. (The exact language is a lot more precise; Professor Powernaut helped draft it. But it's also something we seldom have to refer to. People usually know superhumans when they see them in action.) It doesn't matter how strong or useful the power may seem to be. Power School teaches a use for *everything.*

or

(3) Be related to someone who has such powers. *Almost* all the teachers agreed with Principal Powernaut: Relatives of superheroes need to be ready for superhero crises, and possibly to receive superhero powers themselves. That's kind of how I got into Power School.

There's one more limitation we don't have to put in the rules: They have to be here on our Earth. The doors which let people get here from that old Earth in 2011, didn't let everyone in. We got only the reasonably pure of heart. Don't ask me how they determined "pure". But five Powernauts were operating the doors, and they have power-senses plus other ways of telling.

We hope you can refer someone! We have some rivalries and stuff, and I don't always like everyone or everything. But none of us are really bad people.

Lewis F.

Where exactly is Power City? I've seen maps that say it's in New Jersey, but I don't think they have buffalo ranches there.

Pauly Poderr

Hi, Louis! Power City is in north central Oregon, alongside the Columbia River. It was named for a dam that was built there in the 1930s. Plenty of room for buffaloes off in the countryside!

That map of Power City, New Jersey must have come from old Powernaut comics. Who knows what kind of stuff they invented for their stories? From what I've seen from 1980s Powernaut comics, they weren't shy about inventing stuff!

Andrew P.

I'm curious about your world's history. If the world was founded in 2011, how did anything happen before then?

Pauly Poderr

Hi again, Andrew! I asked Professor Powernaut about this. He says, this is like all the other outbreaks of Fractal Time. A new version of Earth would come into being, complete with all its history! We had our own World War 2, with our own Powernaut - my Dad! I was born in 1999, so Dad and Mom were obviously still around then. Mom likes to say, I keep her young - but so does the power!

Fractal Time is weird, though. There are heroes in our history, who've mysteriously disappeared. The heroine "Lass Lady" who saved Doctor Fu in World War 2 was one of those.

We all learn about Fractal Time in science class. So I've seen the famous diagram Steven Oliver Samuels came up with. (Powernaut 2005 #3) In that diagram, all the alternate universes eventually merged back in to the main timeline, or else disappeared. So I asked Professor Powernaut if that would happen to us too. He said, "Good question... I don't know!"

Wally V.

If Powernauts are masters of power, and the Hippie-Powernaut is a master of power *plus a pacifist*, why did he have to renounce his power when the hypno-buffaloes started rampaging?

Pauly Poderr

Hi, Wally! I know Professor Powernaut can use peaceful powers, like force fields. Maybe the buffaloes were interfering even with those, though. But I *didn't* ask him about that, because he usually knows what he's doing. This time was no exception. It made my friend Vicki feel so good to be the one who saved the day. And he knew perfectly well she had the power to.