We're celebrating Klordny Week, Superboy!

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.

( Unfortunately, in light of the recent Slider tragedy, such laissez-faire management would be in nobody's best interest. )

1923
[Adventure!] Whitley Styles records in his journals that, as far as he can tell, Maxwell Anderson Mercer vanished into thin air last July. Michael Donighal has cabled him from the Far East, reporting no success and recommending Whit not waste any more of his time.

As we've seen, he found his friend again.

1924
[Adventure!] Whitley Styles records in his journal that Max's idea of the Æon founders spending Christmas together "was perfect. It was like a second family....I even saw Jack crack a smile or three."

Aww...

2001
[Aberrant] Lambert Asani, son of Congo diamond magnate Mente Asani, and his three brothers travel the world meeting with novas who could help Lambert's goal of deposing Congo president Laurent Kabila.

Asani doesn't rate a mention in the Aberrant core rules; he's entirely from Aberrant: Elites.

2002
[Aberrant] Over the next three years, much of the world's copper and fiber-optic cable communications networks are replaced with advanced optic cable, derived from studies of eufiber, and wireless networking. The new hardware, couple with new data-transfer protocols, is dubbed "OpNet." OpNet replaces the Internet, phone systems and cellular networks, allowing for wireless communications from virtually any location. It boasts an initial 700% increase in data speed over previous telecommunications technology.

The expansion of the OpNet is mostly complete by May of this year.

Caestus Pax announces that Team Tomorrow will be splitting into T2M Americas and T2M Europe. Pax himself, along with Lightning, Apollo Kid, Slag, Splash, Uta "Tremor" Stentz and Byron "Saxon" Graham (among others), will be forming T2MEu, based out of Venice, while Montoya-Bernal, Psyche, Jennifer "Slider" Landers, Ana Graça Texeira and Pualani "Pele" Kapunani will comprise the Mexico City-based T2MAm. Ragnarockette and Shadow Artist will remain members-in-training.

You'll be seeing more of those names in times to come.

Project Utopia launches Novation Toys, Games and Comics, its licensing division, to compete with (among other things) the DeVries Agency's entry into the action-figure market. Series I action figures include Slag and the Fireman. The first wave of Novation-produced OpCast series includes Team Tomorrow: Protectors and Slag: Hot Metal Fury.

That last one's a little redundant, but it's in the calendar as written. I may merge it with the other datapoint, actually.

Well, this is a rarity — a Today as distinct from a This Day.

2004
[Aberrant] In a letter to store managers of this date, Novation Editor-in-Chief Jerome Grant regrets to inform his customers that, due to Hiram Goldberg's recent demise at the hands of DeVries elite Klaus "Tötentanz" Kleisner while on assignment in Nigeria, the Slag: Hot Metal Fury™ comic will end with #30 (an accurate retelling of his final mission, to be sold polybagged with a Mature Readers label) and a "Mourning Edition" Slag figure will be included in Series III.

Mourning Edition Slag™ (Series IIIb if you want to get specific) is actually to be a boxed set of three figures: Slag™ with Slag Pile™, Slag™ with Accurate Death Wounds, and Hiram Goldberg in casket with removable lid; these will be the last Slag figures ever. HMF #30 is to have "two full-color covers" (whether they'll be sold together or as separate surprise variants, Grant doesn't say).

Finally, Grant takes a moment to reflect on how Slag's death reminds us all that novas are not immortal four-color superheroes, and sets a precedent. "The road forks here," he writes;

one path leads to a comfortable and changeless mythology, the other leads back to the real world. We at Novation have, after a great deal of debate, chosen to err on the side of realism to illustrate that novas are real people, with real problems and whose choices have real consequences.

Grant means it only as a comment on the static nature of most comics. At the risk of stating the obvious, Kraig Blackwelder presumably also meant it as an observation on the evolving nature of the TU. (Okay, evolving via a somewhat railed metaplot, but evolving nonetheless.)