Manteau

MANTEAU

Created by Arlen M. Todd

Characters

Lina Mayen

Solange (Lina’s secretary & master of her disguises)

Osher (bookstore owner)

Anatole Janvier (mob boss, gang des Pauses Sud)

Pittard brothers (Janvier’s bodyguards)

“Sturmbahnfuhrer” Wiegand (German leader)

Fantome (Boris Gunn)

Noye (stage magician known as Count Mirabeau)

Ciara

Paul

Lancer

She is in Paris after the last man responsible for her sister’s death, Lina Mayen (not her true name) put the murderer on hold when another case surfaces. After all, she all ready knows who her sister’s killer is, so he can wait.

Manteau: She strapped on her silk black mask. The mask covered her face like a bandana, allowing her hair to tumble free to her shoulders. It was decorated with a silver-threaded Libra or balance scale symbol. The scale’s support ran the length of her nose; its beam defined her brow line; and its weighing pans consisted of the eyeholes. She regarded this persona, Manteau, the Cloud-Sign Mask, as her truest self. The mob boss Lena Mayen was a ruse adopted only as an efficient means to discover the criminal deserving Manteau’s vengeance and, except around her father, she’s allowed her birth name to fade with disuse. The anonymity of the mask both protected her private life (such as it was), and afforded her the freedom to think and act as justice demanded.

Her only way into the museum was up – four stories of sheer brick. Iron bars secured all of the windows below the top floor. The buildings façade of acid-resistant silica offered no easy handholds. The mortar between bricks would have to do. She affixed a collapsible sword to her thigh-strap, attached a holstered gas gun to her belt, then donned a pair of clawed gloves. Her head was still bleary from last night’s cognac. She cursed herself for not drinking red wine cut with water and again for forgetting her cloak, which, when activated by her gauntlets, stiffened into glider wings. The building loomed like an unmarked gravestone. She found her first crevice, took a troubled breath, and pulled her combat boots from the ground.

She drives a Duesenberg J Roadster.

Manteau runs the Marseille mob, Unione Carse as a divergent to her role as a masked detective vigilante in the 1930’s France. She especially looks for cases that involve the supernatural.

         Although it’s mentioned that she has many aides, and a few are named, Solange works as her close associate and secretary. She also works wonders with disguises for Lina Mayen when she doesn’t want to be seen as Manteau.

         There’s only been one novel so far that I know of, and there was a mix up in the name. Sometimes she is called Manteau, and sometimes Monteau. Manteau appeared more often, so I went with that name for our heroine.

1: “The Q For Damnation” (Imperiad Entertainment 2016) Published in NIGHTSCAPE Double Feature #1 The second novel in the issue was “The Thousand-Eyed Fear” by Derrick Ferguson & David W. Edwards (both stories slightly connected, but does not feature Manteau in both).  

The Protectors

THE PROTECTORS

Creator: Zackary Blue (R.L. Stine)

Characters

Matt O’Neal

Micky Malano

John Wendell Waterford

Riana Riggs

Lu Golden

Five students receive airline tickets and special requests to come to Washington D.C., supposedly to receive Presidential Citations. However, when they arrive, they are secretly taken to a mysterious group headquarters called CONTROL, and told they are needed for a special mission; to help a Russian gymnast defect to America. The students are five very talented young people:

Matt O’Neal is a mechanical and electrical engineer genius.

Micky Malano, is a young girl who is an actress and disguise expert.

John Wendell Waterford IV, whose parents are connected to high society.

Riana Riggs, a 16-year-old black girl who has a photographic memory.

Lu Golden, Vietnamese and brown belt in karate.

Before they were brought to D.C. they had never met, now they have become good friends, and eventually feel like a team. This is definitely a young adult spy novel, with no sex or language, but it was cute. Everything seems to go wrong, and there is a nice twist at the end. I was a bit surprised when the author included a strange pain in Matt O’Neal’s side, which seemed to bother him suddenly at the wrong minute, a la Secret Agent X. If you’re looking for hard, fast gun battles and killings, this series isn’t for you. But it was a fun read, and a light-hearted spy novel with teenagers as our team of heroes.

In the second novel someone is stealing the plans of a secret airplane at an Air Base next to a youth military academy. Using the academy as a cover, CENTRAL sends The Protectors there as cadets. They uncover two CONQUEST agents, but they are also after the secret plans. So who is the hidden spy, and who is buying the information? The spy is uncovered, but we never learn the answer to the last question. And this is the final issue of The Protectors. The series is juvenile. There are no killings, no sex, and no language – which was a nice touch for a spy series. Lu, the brown belt in karate does have a fight with one of the CONQUEST agents, and Mickey uses disguises for her and Riana, and J.W. has fun being snobbish. Perhaps Matt has the best scene when he’s left alone in a jet on his first time in a cockpit.

In this last novel, the Air Force Base is easily accessible to anyone, with no real security, and there’s even a secret elevator built in a hanger for the team’s use. A tear in the fence is never reported or repaired. And there is absolutely no security around the secret plane. A sergeant flies a jet, and is an instructor for the cadets in the cockpit. Plus, I had a little trouble with ignition keys in a military jeep but the novel was written in 1987, and I got out in 1979, so maybe they had ignition keys by then; in my time, there was merely a switch on the dashboard of military jeeps. R.L. Stine has written many, many children and young adult books, and this was a fun series. And I’m sure parents would rather their children read this than Nick Carter – Killmaster, or The Executioner, The Enforcer, etc. Scholastic, Inc. was the paperback publisher, and the packaging was also top notch.

         Only two novels were ever published, both from Scholastic Books, in paperback.

The Protectors #1: “The Petrova Twist”

The Protectors #2: “The Jet Fighter Trap”

The Centipede (Villain)

THE CENTIPEDE

(Villain)

Creator: Tom Johnson

Characters

The Centipede (Villain)

Muggsy Scarlatti (Mob Lieutenant)

Sammy Paulson

Jack “Butch” O’Leary

Billy

Benson Roberts

Claude Burks

Kirk Stanley

Curtis Van Leif

Richards

Wilson

Jackson

The Centipede: He was covered from head to toe in a yellowish-green robe, designed like the old Manchurian emperors of old. A matching hood covered the man’s head, hiding the features of his face in a dark green mask; only his eyes were visible, and they flashed like fire as they burned into Scarlatti 's very soul. A strange, many-legged shape was sewn into the design of his robe.

"I'm like the venomous centipede," the hooded man said. "You, my dear Scarlatti. Forget who is running this organization, and I'll feed you to my little pet."

When Billy’s mother is shot down on the street outside a bank, the young boy is also wounded, and lies near death in the hospital. His uncle, big, tough Jack O’Leary sits in his room fearing the worse. But daring bank robbery and vicious murder of innocent bystanders brings someone else on the trail of a mastermind behind the vicious mob lieutenant, Muggsy Scarlatti. That Big Shot is only known as The Centipede.

The Centipede only appeared in one story, the debut short novel featuring The Masked Avenger, CRIME’S LAST STAND. He was Sammy Paulson, a business associate of a rich industrialist. The story made three appearances.

DOUBLE DANGER TALES # 24, January 1999 (FADING SHADOWS)

GRYPHON DOUBLE NOVELS #23, January 2001 (GEYPHONE BOOKS)

TRIPLE DETECTIVE #2, (ALTUS PRESS) 2008,

Super Incorporated

SUPER INCORPORATED

Creator: Brian Barr

Characters:

Brian Surgeon (Antagonist)

Principle Mind (Antagonist)

The Saints of Death (Villains)

Mont E. Cartoon (Villain)

Master Gepetto (Villain)

The Stoic (Crusader)

 The Shekinah (Crusader)

Ghost Lady (Crusader)

Horrid Hag (Crusader)

The Gambler (Crusader)

Brian Barr’s Psychological Revenge: A Super Incorporated Novel

         Hello. My name is Brian Barr and I’m an American author of novels, short stories, and comic books.

Recently, J. Ellington Ashton Press published my second book, Psychological Revenge: A Super Inc. Novel. This short pulp novel revolves around two antagonists, Brain Surgeon and Principle Mind, who must be stopped by Super Incorporated, a crime fighting team assembled and owned by the government.

         Super Incorporated exist in a future, centuries down the line, where vigilantism has been outlawed, and all crusaders must be licensed by the government. Crusaders can only work for government-owned agencies. Super Incorporated is the most renowned and respected crusader team in Capital City of Sector E3 (a world-state that consists of the Americas, Europe, and parts of the Middle East). Their team consists of five members: The Stoic, The Shekinah, Ghost Lady, Horrid Hag, and The Gambler. Together, Super Inc. fights against supercriminals, criminals deemed too troublesome or powerful for law enforcement and the military to handle. In order to fight crime, Super Inc. must get authorization from the government, and going beyond their jurisdiction would result in heavy penalties and consequences.

         In this first novel, Super Inc. goes against Brain Surgeon, a psychotic extraterrestrial who feeds on mental energy, and Principle Mind, a misanthropic telekinetic and electrokinetic who hates humanity. An intense rivalry brews between these villains, and Super Inc. must stop the both of them before their feud destroys Capital City. Other villains get tangled in the rivaling supercriminals’ affairs, from the violent crime syndicate known as The Saints of Death, to the paranoid-schizophrenic cartoonist Mont E. Cartoon and the mad robotist Master Gepetto.

         Along with being introduced to these characters in the Super Inc. universe, Psychological Revenge also familiarizes readers with the world these characters exist in. From the corporate regulations imposed by the government that Super Incorporated has to followed, to the complexities of Capital City, an advanced megacity that stretches from what was once Maine to the Floridian peninsula, the novel portrays a world that has changed drastically from the one we know now. The results of a failed one-world government, which has produced five independently-ran but connected world-states, allows readers to understand Super Inc.’s environment. It’s a complex environment, strange and far-removed from nature with mass urbanization, class divide, and immense crime. It’s a world where heroism and action is heavily limited, where crusaders can only do the right thing if approved by the forces who rule them… or else.

         Thank you for reading this essay. Please check out Psychological Revenge!

         One novel has been released, but more are in the works.

Psychological Revenge: A Super Inc. Novel (J. Ellington Ashton Press)

Psychological Revenge on Amazon, Kindle and Paperback:

Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Psychological-Revenge-Super-Inc-Novel-ebook/dp/B01JO5H392/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1470771106&sr=8-5&keywords=Psychological+Revenge#nav-subnav