Homeopape: Superhero Selection (std). *

Inguria’s streets are safer once again thanks to the efforts of our patrolling superheroes.

Recent Justice Crusader, Heavy Metal, was checking out an abandonned construction site for signs of illegal activity, when he spotted unlicensed surgeon, Boris Grachik, in the act of removing organs for resale from the recently deceased body of Jimmy Flatman, who it is now known was kidnapped for that purpose earlier that same day.

Battling the scalpel-wielding surgeon and his bone-saw equipped assistant, Metal was gaining the upper hand when a rifle-armed gang member appeared from behind, attracted by the noise of the fight. Things looked sticky for the Justice Crusader, but fortunately for law and order brawny crime-fighter and member of the Perioici, The Brute, arrived on the scene seconds later. Crashing through the window, Brute batted the villain for a home-run, as Metal rounded up the two medicos.

Searching the site for other gang members, Brute found a fourth villain, whom he attacked with a boomerang. Before he could make an arrest, however, controversial new hero Pyro Man appeared and fatally flamed the gunman before disappearing again.

Deft computer work by Heavy Metal revealed a full list of customers of the organ racket, including a number of legitimate hospitals. Following up on this information coup, the IPD’s Detective Sergeant Frank Ziccone has already made a number of additional arrests.

Aggroman and Automaton with the help of a single SWAPF officer managed to defeat Automaton’s evil twin along with Gorilla Grodd and his right hand ape Gorilla Surfer. Penetrating their under-city base shortly after Evil Automaton (Automaton’s evil twin), launched an EM pulse which wiped out electronic devices across the city, the three heroes managed to defeat all the forces of ape chaos that had gathered there before any further damage could be done.

With the help of Automaton’s quick wits and Aggroman’s strange devices, the Evil Automaton was quickly defeated in a battle already dubbed "the Battle of the Toolmasters". Automaton quickly rewired his evil twin’s own robot and used it to take out Gorilla Grodd and Gorilla Surfer along with Grodd’s army of evil apes.

Gorilla Grodd on trial yesterday along with fellow ape, Gorilla Surfer, made monkey history when he defended himself. The simian defendant proved more than a match for the mere human opposition when he packed the court using his eloquence and an extensive classical education.

While admitting that he had planned on taking out Bloomberg’s electrical system using an electromagnetic pulse, he denied responsibility for the resulting damage, claiming that Evil Automaton had set off the device too early and without giving proper warning to everyone who might be affected.

Curiosity remains around Grodd’s origin as well as the origin of his companion Gorilla Surfer. Grodd has promised to write a book on his origins as well as outlining the philosophy which drove him to try to return Inguria to the stone age.

Although exhibiting no greater super power than being a talking gorilla, Inguria Penitentiary has said that it is planning on housing him in the Superpower wing.

The court was unanimous in handing down the longest possible sentence against Evil Automaton yesterday. His crime of setting off an electro-magnetic bomb, which led to a great deal of destruction and a number of deaths, was described in the trial as "The worst disaster to befall Inguria since the alien invasion a few months ago."

Lawyer for the defendant, Mark "The Snake" Stan, complained about his client being called "The Evil Automaton" as being suggestive of his client’s guilt. "We must always remember that he comes from a dimension which was overrun with insane robots. Sometimes and insane action is the only sane action to respond to such insanity."

Good Automaton, who prefers to be known simply as Automaton, managed to stop a planned attack on Victoria Island last night aided only by one of his trusty robots. A group calling themselves the Freedom Riders had gathered a number of super-villains together to launch an ill-conceived attempt to free the slaves of Victoria Island. The slaves in question are contract employees who had been brought to Victoria Island as agricultural workers.

The group, led by the son of legendary baseball player Hank Morrow, hired a number of villains including Mind Flayer, Man Mountain and Booster Blue to help in the attack, but moments before they were to leave Inguria, Automaton arrived and put a stop to their plan, capturing Man Mountain along with most of the Freedom Riders. The Justice Crusaders arrived to help with the mopping up.

In a heartfelt attempt to make the best in a very difficult situation, Flame led the space-wrecked team of actors from the failed film Star Captain in a variety performance to entertain the scientists on space station Venera.

Scallion Plimby of Pheonix IV films has suggested that a variety show here on Earth might be what is needed to raise the funds to bring Flame home. "If we get enough money we can complete her film as well, which is what we all want to see happen," said Plimby.

Reports to hand indicate that the 1 million pseudo-dollar donation that recently rescued the Save The Mutant Fund from financial collapse is somehow connected to Fund-founder The Conqueror’s new and mysterious female friend. Speculation continues as to the ultimate source of the cash used for the bailout, the nature of the role played by the mysterious Antonia in the life of the mail-clad superhero and philanthropist, and the role of the supposedly-deserted Bloomberg Conservatory of Music in the whole affair.

The Eros Foundation has stepped in to help fund a space research project after the KIA withdrew funding. The project, which has yet to get full ethics approval, is to study gibbons having sex in zero gravity. Buck Studely of the Eros Foundation has described the research as both interesting and important. 

The New Freedom League had their first outing yesterday when they nearly succeeded in capturing Captain Kellogs’ arch nemesis, The Mutant Potato.

Founding members of the New Freedom League, Captain Kellogs and The Fish Fighter had managed to corner the veteran villain in the frozen goods section of Sam’s Fish Mart. In the hectic combat that ensued, The Mutant Potato managed to disguise himself as one of the Fish Marts mascot spruikers. The villain has escaped and is still at large.

The leader of the New Freedom League, The Shifter, described the outing as a "qualified success. The Mutant Potato might have escaped but he did so without the small goods which he was attempting to steal." 

As Jake Sleeman tells it, he was walking through the woods near his back-country farm in north-eastern Elfatoney when he was assaulted by four living corpses. "They was a-comin’ for me brains!", the grizzles old-timer claims, "Lucky I has me shotgun, and so I ups and blows them to kingdom come!".

One of Sleeman’s neighbours, who has asked not to be identified, describes Sleeman as "a chronic alcoholic with an over-active imagination". Elfatoney police, to whom Sleeman has made a statement, have declined to discuss the case.

Despite the incredulity of many, the report has resulted in hundreds of curious zombie hunters making trips to the area in an attempt to sight the elusive corpses, to the great benefit of the local tourism and t-shirt industries.