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I’ve mentioned that I’ve been working on a non-comics thing for a while. My involvement was announced at the weekend.I’ve been writing the Story Mode for Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls.

Here’s the trailer where they revealed that…

As relatively little information is out there – a story mode for 5 teams, cinematics and motion comics, written by me – I can’t say too much, as I’m not sure what I can say. I’ll be doing some promo videos in the next few days, which likely will be out before the next newsletter, so watch out for them. After then, I’ll know what I can say, so I will.

So, until then, here’s some of the trailers for the game, which include some cinematics and also people having a good ol’ fight because of reasons.

Out August 6^th. Yup, that soon.

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This may be the last newsletter before the next Script club will go out. So, I better make a decision on what it’s going to be.

To celebrate the 20^th anniversary of Phonogram’s debut...

The Next Script Club will be Phonogram: Rue Britannia #1

It’s where we started, and as ugly a story as this is, I guess it’s a good one to share. I just went to the latest draft I could find – v7 – and some scenes are still significantly different from what was published. I don’t think there was an actual script after this one, and changes were done by direct communication between Jamie and me. As we often say, to really do from-script-to-page with us, you’d need our instant messages.

Strictly speaking, the 20^th anniversary is August 16^th, but I think the lead in is best for this one. I’ll likely write something longer on the actual anniversary. I think I may even have something even rarer for the anniversary month too, though I’ve got to check it.

Anyway - it’ll be going out to Script Club members on the 31^st.

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A few more answers from the AMA that Caspar and yours truly did? Yeah, why not.

How does Eliza reconcile her membership in the Pyramid with her faith? Is that blasphemy for her?

She called herself Eliza Hellbound. There's a good question of how much she did. I think the tension there with her is interesting, and much of the point.

She is both deeply faithful and a non-comformist. The punk aspect to her is very real - I was thinking of the sort of radical christian punk folks with her, that post-punk austerity.

One should not overlook that the angelic aspect to Magus' teaching. This is not diabolic, and Magus can prove it. John Dee is useful to think about here.

You also must wonder how much her perspective changed and leaned more traditional after selling her soul.

I've answered this with questions, which I think is kind of the point, right?

First of all i love the story and the premise that in a realistic world, an actual fight between two omega-level mutant equivalent/Superpowers would basically end the world. My question is about the tier just below them, what is the more average power level of atomics look like and distribution, how many atomics are there that are below superpowers but still powerful? How does the world actually handle that tier? Do major powers run SHIELD or GDA-style agencies to recruit and/or contain them, and how well does that actually work?

That the world is the way it is suggests the level of impact the actual Atomics have, in terms of how many powers of notes there are, if you see what I mean. If they were that many regional threatening powers, they'd be more regions threatened. You'll notice that Etienne, when confessing, doesn't say he just took down actual Superpower-level folks - and the number there is interesting too.

The short is: atomics who are genuinely messy are relatively rare. They're there, and have interesting lives, but it's relatively rare. You're right with a lot of the "they must do XYZ stuff" in there. You can imagine a lot of recruitment and careers going on for some useful folks.

There's a conversation in issue 17 when we come back which may illuminate some of this too - it's allusive, but the subtext is there.

There's an observation I haven't put in the book - and may never do - but in our world we have commonly available devices which turn you into a superhuman. They're called guns. Someone with an ability to have gun fingers is clearly powerful - but they are basically equivalent to someone with a gun. Someone on (say) Cyclops tier is a nice-to-have but also inherently counterable asset. He can hit like a tank, but is also squish like a person.

This is the sort of stuff which, if given infinite space, we'd do more with, but it's not core to the book's drive so gets less explored.

Did Jacky stay in Hell for practical “I am the only one who has the knowledge to finish the seal” reasons, or did he have some other reasoning, like doubting that his followers would commit to it or something?

This is something I presumed was clear and that some folks are confused shows it isn't.

If he could go back, he'd have gone back. He has to stay there to close the hole, as he's got the best skills to ensure it's done - or, as you say, doubts they'll go through with it if he leaves. I suspect the former is a stronger reason. They are a pretty good cult, as issue 16 shows.

Hey, Kieron. Loving the book so far, and VERY intrigued about this "second lap" Val and Et are about to embark on. Are we going to follow them more or less chronologically or will we jump to an alternate2 1999 wherein we will see the outcome of their actions, slowly revealed (as the book so far has been doing)?

I don't want to give away too much what we're doing, for obvious reasons. It should all be a surprise, and all the options are on the table as a storytelling choice. However, I'll say we initially pick up very shortly after Valentina's arrival.

Of course, time and memory remains important - it's not as if Valentina won't be remembering things from the first time around, and we'll see that too.

What was a theory/history/research text you found while working on TPF that you'd recommend? Or was less research necessary for TPF than, say, the historical specials for Wicdiv?

TPF was designed to be less research heavy than many of the books. It was born of the idea that I have been around for a long time, and have read a lot of stuff, so let's build a book upon shit you dig. Build upon it, sure, but there's a bedrock already.

To choose some things that explicitly were part of the mix...

500 Songs Podcast was a big influence for the cultural history of it, especially in the 50s/60s. Pairing world events with songs made the period live, and something I tried to evoke. Valentina and Telstar is a good example of that.

Black Skin, White Masks, Frantz Fanon: post-anticolonialist philosopher that I'd never read. It's a case of - what has Etienne read? What is Etienne thinking about? While I've only read this in translation (so can't know how accurate the timbre is) Fanon was among the voices I was trying to inform Etienne as a Black French-language philosophically-bent character.

Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare, Bertrand Russell*.* Pacifist Bertrand Russel arguing in favour of american world domination earlier was one of the things which clearly got in my brain (I got the fact first from the Hardcore History: The Destroyer of Worlds episode). Digging into the thinking here.

Revelations of Divine Love, Julian of Norwich: 14th century Anchorite. I went on a Julian of Norwich binge, including several books about her, and this kind of mystical thinking obviously got worked into Eliza a bunch.

But it's an ongoing project - informed by what I read, and I read stuff to get what I need.

To answer the "why want to have relatively less research" question in there - just being a father. My time has other pressures. I can't just read 50+ books like I did for DIE. I have to be more precise.

Can you explain how Heavy can heal himself with his gravity powers?

He has very powerful gravity powers.

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• Back on my Top 101 TTRPGs I Played Before I Was 50 list. I’ve set myself a deadline for this, so we’ll see how it goes.

• Worldcon is coming up on August 27^th -31^st, and while I won’t be there in person, I will be part of the Virtual Programming. Come and be in a zoom window with me.

• Nat Guest writes about dealing with the hot weather with her limited thermoregulation. Intersection of autism and dealling with that. Lots of stuff, well done.

• God, I’m linking to Joe again. This one has a great Stan/Jack anecdote and chews over how a collaboration works.

• Zach Rabiroff writes about Jim Shooter’s legacy over at the comics journal.

• There’s a lot of 20^th anniversary’s going on. Here’s Stevie Chick on Cat Powers’ The Greatest. I too once wished to be the greatest, but have only achieved being the tiredest. And even that’s not true. I’m not even the most tired person in this house.

• We lost Bonnie Tyler, and I was reminded of this cross-dessert video singalong. It’s also 20 years old.

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It’s been a big week. I went into London to see My Chemical Romance doing their (wait for it) 20 year anniversary shows for Black Parade, which was a pretty astounding thing to see – a band in their full pomp, doing weird performance whilst filling Wembley Stadium and then doing a straight in-the-round rock show. Honestly, inspiring and heartwarming as a theatrical presentation of dystopia and death can get.

(Honestly, it’s like watching someone filling a stadium with a Vertigo comic. I had to smile.)

Also, while we’re still a few weeks before the actual 20^th anniversary of Phonogram, this was our regular basement dance party (Club is perhaps an over-grand word) closest to the date, so we had the low-key Phonogram salute. Jamie was in town, so we at least got to high five. Considering it was in the heatwave, on a day when there was a big comic event on the far side of town AND the England game was on, the turn out was pretty good. Dancing, and big emotions, thinking about Bonnie Tyler while looking at the photos of Elvis and Monroe on the wall. Pop music can be melodramatic, at least after sufficient cocktails.

There was then Karakoe until 3am.

Workwise? DIE 8 being signed off, Stephanie onto issue 11 of DIE: Loaded and Caspar wrapping the next Power Fantasy before he toodles off to San Diego. I’ll be handing the 4^th issue back over to Katie tomorrow – there’s a handful of finessed elements I still want to nail, but it exists and is doing some emotional stuff I was hoping to find space for.

Oh noes! Our car is suddenly unavailable, so I have to walk to nursery to pick Iris up, which means I should wrap up immediately to make sure I mail this out.

Speak soon.

Kieron Gillen
Bath
15.7.2026