#256: The Marthálans

     Being primarily homeschooled for most of my life has had some downsides, but whatever few there have been are completely made up for by not having to participate in the Cha Cha Slide and/or Cupid Shuffle at every school dance. Thank you, universe, for sparing me from such torment. Anyway, time for some new characters. Ladies and gentlemortals, I happily present to you, the Superians! If any of you have stuck with me and my madness since early 2015, you might remember that the JC-Verse harbors its very own version of the infamous submerged location of Atlantis, currently acting as home to a surprisingly advanced class of merpeople. But long before all that jazz, it did sink. And the story of how that came about is worth retelling. As it turns out, the island nation wasn't even originally called Atlantis. No, the place was originally named Marthálas, and in 300 b.c. the original, unaquatic folks that lived there received hands-down the best early Christmas gift ever given: a whole minesworth of Quantum Crystals, ripe for the picking. Upon acquiring a Quantum Crystal, one receives abilites that (if honed) could make a Greek God tremble, and for whatever reason the powers-that-be decided to test the people of Marthálas to see if humans were worthy of those abilities. And as you can probably gather, the answer to that query was a whopping no. With all the power in the world and then some coursing through their collective veins, the Marthálans grew twice as power-hungry as they already were to begin with. Fighting raged among every social class now level in supernatural might, and before they could even launch their planned attack on the mortals of Greece, their society was an utter wreck. Needless to say, the P.T.B. decided that maybe humans weren't exactly ready to get jiggy with the Quantum Crystals yet, and down went an unsalvageable Marthálas into the depths of the ocean blue. Bum deal, huh? Maybe one day the forces beyond will give the ordinary citizens of the JC-Verse a second whack at it, and the Crystals will rear their ethereal heads once more. But until then, the all-knowing power provided to said citizens by interweb search engines will have to suffice. As it does for us.

(Two members of Marthálan royalty battling it out the old fashion way: with searing hand-blasts of otherworldy radiation.)