Today in the Trinity Universe: there's always another wound to discover

[aberrantangels]

May 19
[Aberrant] Scandal rocks Project Utopia as unconfirmed reports of mercenary novas, government infiltration and nova black ops leak to the media. Æon Society and Project Utopia spokespeople immediately counter with evidence of a Teragen frame-up involving the dead Slider. Wary observers and conspiracy theorists see themselves as vindicated and deluge the media with dire predictions.

Some people have their reactions already planned.

Morganna Wolf, Project Utopia's public relations manager, sends an email memorandum to Novation editor-in-chief Jerome Grant informing him that in the wake of the Slider scandal, Novation will no longer enjoy its prior creative autonomy.

The media have been given a lot of carefully engineered disinformation that could be detrimental to Utopia if the public gives it any credence.... Utopia is calling in a number of favors now to help mitigate the damage done by these irresponsible allegations....

We need all Novation products, particularly the comics, to be on the side of Utopia one hundred percent: no shades of gray, no "equal time" for heroic rebels, no hand-wringing debates on "artistic integrity." All of that can come later, if at all.

We're in dire straits at the moment, and this is how you're going to portray things: Utopia and Team Tomorrow are the good guys. We're the ones who cured AIDS, cleaned up Mexico City, revitalized Ethiopia and what have you. André Corbin is a dangerous psychopath who brutally murdered an innocent and much-loved young woman named Jennifer Landers.

This will be necessary until "the screech and thunder generated by this media feeding frenzy" go away.

(If this woman were in Internal Affairs and not PR, I'd suspect her of being Thetis.)

In the Aberrant Storytellers Companion (not officially called that, but it was included with the ST's screen), the top of the next page gives us a conversation between Grant and market analyst Dave Roh. Grant, appalled that Corbin's action figure is selling better than the Shelb's, tells Dave "Make the Corbin figure uglier." Dave points out that this'll mean making a new mold, and the model won't be as accessible; it just seems a little petty to him.

[W]hat kind of values are you trying to instill in these kids? The higher-ups in Utopia didn't even want a Corbin figure... how am I supposed to tell them that he's outselling Caestus Pax? Worse, how am I supposed to tell that vain sonofabitch Pax? He'll go through the roof, possibly literally.... And, hey, could we include a Slider murder weapon with the new Corbin? Just to up the verisimilitude? [Kids] love those little authentic touches.

On the bottom half of the page, we get the subsequent conversation — at once hilarious, heartwarming and heartbreaking — between an unidentified Novation Comics artist and his equally unnamed writer (respectively the dumbass and the shithead); Jerome wants the artist "to give Corbin more angular features and either a demonic grin or a sneer for the rest of the run." The artist's informed, articulate reaction:

Fuck no. Let him find some other way to wedge his nose up Utopia's butt. I think Corbin was totally framed.... It's like some sort of really ungroovy Chomskian conspiracy or something....

The writer, on the other hand, is of the opinion that "Utopia wouldn't have such a hate-on for [Corbin] if he hadn't killed Slider."