SCHIZOPHRENIC ANNOTATIONS ON SEVEN SOLDIERS: MYSTERY STRING [PART TWO]

Seven Soldiers: Zatanna #1 - "Talking Backwards"

• Super-hero therapy group in San Fransisco!
• So Zatanna's lost her powers after a seance into the Sphere of Gods went wrong. She had been in search of her father's lost books of magic, the Librae Zatarae, but a spell gone wrong from days prior (to summon her 'perfect man') ended up unleashing a herald of the apocalypse known as Gwydion. He kills everybody in the ritual.
• They got together because they were having bad dreams about the Sheeda.
• Gimmix's encounter with demons is revealed to be sexual. She goes from this therapy session to her eventual death in #0.
• Members of the Therapy Session: lil hollywood or (Sally Sonic?), Etta Candy, Mind Grabber Man...
• Misty Kilgore: she has backwards powers too?
• Members of the Seance: Timothy Ravenwind, Ibis the Invincible, his wife Taia, Terry Thirteen.
• Inter-reality of Ra...
• King Ra-Man!
• The Realm of Never-Be-Found!
• Red God of Ys: will eventually consume reality. Ys is home to the Warlocks!
• Omni-Nomicon...
• MGM's two dimensional plate holographic theory? Invisibles intersecting Vesica Pisces?
• Number 13 is used a lot: 13 months of Arachne, the sorcerer's calendar, the 13 on the cab...

Seven Soldiers: Klarion #1 - "From This World to That Which is to Come"

• Limbo Town!
• Klarion Bleak and Teekl!
• The denizens resurrect their dead to use as slaves. An alter-version of Grundy! They are branded by the Submissionary and the Hex. A metaphor for comic book characters and concepts being resurrected as zombie ideas way past their time, toiling around in the garden of stories.
• Beulah Bleak, his sister.
• The Book of Shadows...
• Their dad left to go to "High Market" = the secret underground subways of NYC...
• Submissionary Judah!
• Croatoan, a witch-god of these people...
• Some sort of conflict between the Sumbissionaries and the witch-man parliament...
• They know of the Sheeda, it's a bad omen and their sins have been found out, but what sins? = see Klarion #3-4
• The lizard/dragon on his shoulder is a Draaga.
• What taint condemned the witch-people to limbo town? = see Klarion #3-4
• Blue Rafters = the sky?
• Sabbat...
• Sumbissionary Shadrach: Shadrach was one of the three thrown into the fire by nebuchadnezzar, Babylonian emperor.
• Sheeda Storm...
• Ezekiel, step-dad.
• All the witch-people have familiars.
• The book of shadows is blank, and stained with SM's blood? He's just making stuff up?
• The witch-women know secrets the men will never learn...
• Were the witch-men going to seal the gate or trade with the higher world?
• Why did the Submissionaries want to kill the witch-men, is it because of the parliament, or because they would attract more Sheeda by trading with the higher world?
• The Submissionaries combine to birth Horigal, and kill the witch men going to trade.
• The primary purpose of the Submissionaries is to prevent progress and advancement, keeping Limbo Town stagnant at it's current level of development. Perhaps by stagnating at a Medieval level of development, the Witch-Men hope to be spared the Harrowing. However, Judah's decision to close the Wicket Gate is motivated more by self-interest than by religious dogma. If the prophecies actually come true and the Witch-Men inherit Blue Rafters, then the Submissionaries are out of a job. By cutting off all communication with the world outside, Judah and his fellow Submissionaries hope to ensure that life will continue in Limbo Town as it always has, even after the Harrowing comes to pass and there is no longer any need to hide. [needs citation]
• Septic mire... slaughter swamp?

Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight #2 - "Mood 7 Mind Destroyer"

• Spoils of Unwhen: Arthur and his legions invaded Castle Revolving and faced 7 trials, one of them being Guilt. Only seven returned back to Camelot. This is what the seven men were referring to in #0.
• Guilt can kill with words!
• After the destruction of Camelot, a new fortress was built as King Mordredd ruled a zombie empire for 500 years. = see shining knight #3
• Ystin spent 10,000 years in the castle revolving!
• Stella Stellamaris = See bulleteer #3
• Vanguard comes from a race of Pegasus (Pegazeus)!
• Don Vicenzo, the undying. He survived three bullet holes to the heart., immortal?
• Crazyface!
• Strato the air golem, could he be connected to the golem we saw in Guardian #1?
• The mansion of Vincenzo is invaded by Sheeda led by Neh-Buh-Loh!
• Morrigu = Gloriana?
• Ystin gets his groove back and saves an old man, possible magician...
• Mention of raising dead ancestors like in Klarion #1!
• A bus comes and picks up the stranger... = see Zatanna #3

Seven Soldiers: Manhattan Guardian #2 - "Homeless Superior"

• A battle between the two pirates, a race to the secret treasure beneath manhattan!
• The president Clinton runs over a beast on the tracks... this will be explained in Klarion #2
• Puritan kiddie snatchers and talking rats...
• Foundation stone, the Heart of New York, six sided...
• Ancient Architects...
• There's a god, in burning shackles, he lifts his star maned head...
• A strange chamber beneath dead man's junction, radioactive pool of ooze and a pedestal with chains hanging from above, on it lies the foundation stone, a six-sided dice.
• The sequence with being metacommentary on Grant vs Alan?
• Little pulley cart on the tracks, Jake mentions the laws underground, and leaves his helmet as a trade = see Klarion #2
• Larry dies from his wounds.
• No beard survives and drives a death-train, but he's soon to die from radiation poisoning. Cool idea hearkening back to Shelley from #0, at what point are you playing the super-hero or actually the part? No-Beard is only an old man, waiting to die, without the underground pirate story behind him. [needs citation]
• Rats show up repeatedly in this issue. Here they are an example of blind greed. In No-Beard's story, the Puritan kiddie-snatchers did trade with "talking rats." There is a rat perched on the switch controlling the rails at Dead Man's Junction, and two rats look on during the final confrontation of No-Beard and All-Beard in the radioactive chamber of the Foundation Stone.

Seven Soldiers: Zatanna #2 - "A Book in the Beginning"

• Gwydion hunts Zee and Misty across San Fran!
• They stop at her friend Cassandra Craft's shop where they will us the magical arsenal to make a stand.
• Gwydion is a celtic version of Merlin, a were-dragon
• Misty's power come from a magic die, possibly connected to the die we see in Guardian #2!
• Prowley the cat! Prowl + Crowley!
• Cassandra sold Dyna-mite rings... possibly to dan who used them in #0?
• Rando dude crackling with electricity pulled up to Cass's shop and dropped off a hat for zatanna, claiming he "came back for the books".
• Eternal Gentleman's Outfitters...
• The cabinet of Ali-Ka-Zoom, a roach motel for spirits. What happened to the cabinet that it needed to be broken down? = see guardian #4
• Gang of hero kids... Newsboy Army murder case... = see guardian #4
• Ali-Ka-Zoom; merlin of the ghetto. Cracked up after murder case, wandered Los Angeles as a homeless. Last they heard he was dead. = see guardian #4
• Gwydion says he serves the new supreme architect of the universe...
• Is Gwydion an Imp? An elemental homunculus.
• Phantom Stranger returns with some bread!

Seven Soldiers: Klarion #2 - "Badde"

• Horigal chases Klarion beyond the wicket gate and is about to eat him until he is shot by Badde and then run over by the train we see in Guardian #2.
• Ebeneezer Badde!
• Klarion's dad's name is Mordecai...
• A leviathan of children; lost kids banding together to create a hive mind!
• The place all-beard and no-bear found with the die is the house of croatoan, where a god once dwelled, leaving behind only chains.
• Klarion finds the die of the beard-pirates.
• Theses goons work for mister melmoth, they want a child from limbo town...
• Badde is a hunter of children, it's why leviathan hates him...
• Could Badde be his dad? Did he kill his own father?
• Mister Melmoth is revealed!

Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight #3 - "The Perfect Knight Returns"

• 30 years after the fall of Camelot, Peredur, Bors, and Galahad emerge from refuge in an Atlantis type kingdom and go to the land of the Dwarrow men, where they use Bors' hammer to split the atom and create a primordial atomic bomb to use against Mordredd!
• Note that the three knights who convince the dwarves to split the atom are the same three who tradition tells us succeed in finding the Holy Grail: Galahad, Bors and Peredur/Percival. The idea that the Grail has here been replaced by - or is equitable to - the atom bomb is, in some ways, far more disturbing than the unsettling imagery of Mordredd the undead king.
• They had three remaining imperishable treasures...
• Helen 'Sky High' Helligan: she can draw the sword, she must be pure of heart!
• Gloria Friday, obviously Gloriana...
• Primordial Arthur and a primordial Camelot
• Friday claims the sword is one of four treasures Arthur stole from Sheeda-side, but seven given from god to men...
• Helligan's sister's wedding in New York...
• So Arthur died before the Sheeda invaded Camelot?
• Galahad was broken by Guilt as well...
• Sheeda refers to Excalibur as the sword of Aurakles...
• Helligan gets a poison kiss, will she get zombified?
• WHAT! Spyder is alive and has joined the sheeda? Have they resurrected him as an undead servant? Fits with the True Thomas poem, where Thomas becomes a servant of the faerie queen.
• Spyder is the one who shot Vincenzo, and he has the cauldron, but how did Vincenzo get the cauldron?
• Summer's End...
• Galahad is also resurrected as a sheeda slave!

Seven Soldiers: Manhattan Guardian #3 - "Siege at Century Hollow"

• Century Hollow, global theme park, has gone awry when the androids gain autonomy and take over.
• Jorge Control has gassed everybody; faking a terrorist hack on the island to cover up the fact that he wants to kill his wife.
• Spartacus code: turns slaves into rebel outlaws.
• Jake is still suffering from the aftermath of Larry's death: Carla is pissed and blames him for her father's death, even though it had nothing to do with him. She rejects his marriage proposal.
• Hurricane Gloria: a cover for the impending Sheeda invasion? A veil over castle revolving? it's off of Honduras at this point.
• So this ginger chick Hannah is the other half of the 'rich people' that created CH. She stutters.
• Jorge is her husband, and she insulted him, probably causing the fake hack.
• Newsboy army base jump deus ex!
• Marriage is an illegal sham, accuses Hannah of loving machines more than him, he made her...
• Ed stargard is a man-baby!!?!?!
• Secret history of the OG newsboy army next issue!

Seven Soldiers: Klarion #3 - "The Deviant Ones"

• So the people of Limbo Town descend from the Roanoke colony, mysterious puritan settlement that disappeared leaving only the word Croatoan carved onto a tree.
• They had contact with something not human (Sheeda) creating the witch-man bloodline. Ashamed of these sins, the went to live underground reverting to a darker religion.
• The group in this meeting room is part of the Silencio Mob.
• Melmoth runs a hostel with runaway kids.
• Melmoth and the Silencio mob want to invade Limbo Town.
• In panel four, we see that Mister Melmoth has terrible scarring around his neck, as if his head were once chopped off and then reattached...
• Deviant Ones gang!
• Members: Mouse, Billy Beezer, Murderrella-rella, Nob'dy
• Goldenboy was the OG leader of the gang?
• Team Red: kids graduate when they turn 16...
• Costumes of Stripesy, Star Spangled Kid, Crimson Avenger, Miss America, Liberty Belle, Wonder Woman, the iron hand of Iron Hand...
• Sapper Drill!
• "Practically a challenge, I'd say. Don't mess with the witch-boy, Billy. Curses come to this one as naturally as breathing does to you or me."
• Goldenboy returns, and he reveals that Team Red is a hard labor gang. gold mines in the red place...
• Erdel Gate... MARS!
• Klarion goes to save his people!