MAJOR ARCANA: Part Two, Chapter 12

Oceanopolis

Major Arcana is a serialized novel for paid subscribers. For more details, both about the novel and about subscriber amenities, please see the Preface. Previous chapters are accessible (in reverse order) under the Major Arcana tag.

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PART TWO

Chapter 12. | Oceanopolis

The senior editorial team at the comic-book company went on what they called retreats twice a year, in fall and in spring, first to the north to watch the leaves turn and then to the south to melt the winter out of their bones, there to plot in pastoral quiet the narrative journeys the icons and archetypes in their custody would take over the coming months. Would Overman propose to Mina Mars? Would The Bolt, radiation-immolated by the stony cosmic dictator IronReich in the company’s last galaxy-spanning crossover event, return to life? How would Ratman’s apprentice, Sparrow, fare as he struck out on his own in his adult guise as the vigilante Dark Angel? These questions and more the editorial team disputed over coffee and bagels on paper-strewn bed-and-breakfast tables, sketches and outlines brown-ringed or slickly transparent with dropped butter, or, their papers threatening to take flight like the superheroes whose destinies they debated, on the windy restaurant decks of beachside hotels.