Some stories have a message...kinda...

Additional Notes:

WARNING! (The real one)

This story is pretty offensive, it can get graphic and downright ruthless at times so if you don’t like that sort of humor, don’t read this story. But if you read it anyway don’t complain if you get offended, I did warn you and keep in mind it IS only a story.

(Or read it anyway, get offended and leave a hilariously triggered comment, that's fine too.)

Also, don't bother trying to "win" either. You can't. Just heed the moral lessons you may learn.

One musician's tale in a dying world

Additional Notes:

If you’ve read and liked Necromancer, then this might interest you as this story takes place during the same course of events of that story. (Not a prequel, not a sequel, but an equal!)

However, this story is definitely more “story” than “game”. In fact you shouldn’t even bother reading it if you’re intent on “winning”. You can’t. That being said, there is a “true ending” to this story and you’ll probably know if you get it. If you do get it, you can consider it a “win” if you like.

There are a few points in the story where there are links that lead to “Letters to Home”. While not necessary to understand the story, they do provide a little more insight into the protagonist’s thoughts and feelings on various situations.

The last hope for a dying empire

Additional notes:

This story can be very long assuming you're not dying. Years pass and your surroundings will most likely change. You may very well live a life time in the story.

As with any of my writings, the story comes before the game. However while there isn't a complex inventory and all of that, you can technically "win" by getting one of the epilogues.

There are 13 epilogues total.

There are also several points in the story where there are links that lead to more background information on various people, places, things and events. While not completely necessary to understanding the story, they do give you more insight into it.

Carnivals aren't all fun and games.

Additional Notes:

While there is only one spot that contains extra histories for this story, it's basically the background information of all the major characters and factions. It's strongly recommended that these are read due to the fact that your character will be interacting with most of these folks in his attempts to successfully accomplish his task(s).

This story has a very factional feel to it, so choose your allegiances carefully to get one of the better endings.

If you see a bright light, duck and cover!

Additional notes:

I should point out that this story can be very long assuming you're not dying. Years pass and your surroundings will most likely change. You may very well live a life time in the story if you're lucky. You will also experience a completely different adventure depending on how you escaped the initial nuclear strike. (Assuming you do survive it.)

As with any of my writings, the "story" comes before the "game". However, this story was written in a "game like" format. So while there isn't a complex inventory and all of that, you can technically "win" by getting one of the 4 special endings. (You'll know if you get one because you'll get an epilogue)

This one's for the kids, no really!

Additional Notes:

This story has clear cut win/lose endings. There is nothing excessively unusual about this story, it's just a simple "children's story".

(Yes, you can still die in it)

Running the family business isn't easy!

Additional Notes:

In a few places there are links for history or certain characters. While not necessary to understand the story, they do provide further background information.

There are several endings varying in degrees of good/bad or neutral outcomes. Technically there is one very happy ending, but it isn't labeled as such.

Underneath the sickness there's love...

Additional Notes:

WARNING!

This story contains a lot of graphic content, if you are offended by ultra violence, explicit sexual descriptions, tons of swearing, blasphemy, inappropriate dark humor, and brutal misanthropy in general then DO NOT read this story!

Of course now that I’ve mentioned all the things it contains, you’ll probably read it anyway, you sick little monkey.

Well don’t complain if you get offended, I did warn you and keep in mind it IS only a story.

(Or read it anyway knowing it'll offend you and leave an amusingly triggered comment. That's fine too.)

This also isn't really a "win/lose" type story. While there are some endings better than others, this is basically just a tale about a very twisted man and his very twisted lifestyle.

Additional Notes:

This story is definitely more "story" than "game", however there are two distinct paths that can be followed, each with their own pitfalls and additional choices. There is also "one true" ending in which can be considered a "win" (You'll know if you got it, because you'll get an epilogue)

This story can get long, and assuming you're surviving, years do pass in it and you and your environment will change. There are a few points in the story where there are links that lead to more background information on various people and things. While not completely necessary to understand the story, they do give you more insight into it. The text that accompanies some of the pics are also done for similar purposes (Your journal entries, personal thoughts, letters written to you, etc)

Humanity never changes...

Additional Notes:

There are links leading to various background information and your character's current thoughts throughout the story. In some cases these may provide greater insight since some mysterious things can occur in this story.

There are also several endings varying in degrees of good/bad/neutral outcomes. Technically there is one ultimate "winning" ending, but it isn't labeled as such.

Emotions can be wonderful or dangerous...

Additional Notes:

This story has a few bits that are probably a bit on the disturbing side. Not many, but they are there in places. So if you don't like that sort of thing, you probably shouldn't read it.

This story in general is probably a bit odd and less verbose than most of my other stories. There are also several endings varying in degrees of good/bad/neutral outcomes. While there are some endings better than others, this is basically just the tale of a teenager who definitely has some issues.

From humble beginning to infamy and beyond!

Additional notes:

This story is a fully self contained one and can easily be read on its own, however it also acts as a "sequel" to Innkeeper.

As with any of my writings, the story comes before the game. However while there isn't a complex inventory and all of that, you can technically "win" by getting one of the 12 epilogues.

Things would be so much easier if your name was Mary Sue

Additional notes:

This story is a fully self contained one and can easily be read on its own, however it also acts as:

A direct sequel to the "Good Girl" short story in Tales From The Basement.

A semi sequel to the other TFTB short stories, Repression, TRASH, Love SICK and Geek.

A semi prequel to Ground Zero.

As with any of my writings, the story comes before the game. However while there isn't a complex inventory and all of that, you can still "win" by getting one of the epilogues.

There are 16 epilogues total.

Because Basement Dwellers are people too!

Additional Notes:

This story is three stories in one. Your first choice will lead to a separate tale of a different “basement dweller”. Each one is mostly different in tone.

Ebay Escapist is weird and random. It’s the least verbose of the three. (Or my stories in general)

Good Girl is the longest and most descriptive of the three. There is some weirdness going on here too, but is mostly kept much more in "reality". There is a cast of characters link in the beginning to help you keep up with who’s who.

Anime Addict has a lot of offensive language and humor, so if you don't like that sort of thing you shouldn’t read this one.

In all the tales there are several endings varying in degrees of good/bad/neutral outcomes. While there are some endings better than others, these are basically just tales of basement dwellers.

It's an edgelord boogaloo!

Additional Notes:

This story is three stories in one where it follows a different protagonist based on the first choice.

This story is also probably really offensive or something. Probably shouldn't read it if that's not your thing, but feel free to do so anyway and complain loudly in the comments since those are always good for a laugh.

Anyway, there's your extra warning. You can't say you weren't told.

Incel Insanity and Whining Wokie are all new tales, while Film Fanatic is a "reboot" of sorts of an older story called Exploitation Theater. Yes, it's finally here and been greatly expanded on.

As always the story is always more important than the game focus, but also as always, you definitely can get better endings than others.

Three ladies. Three legends.

Additional notes:

This story is a fully self contained one and can easily be read on its own, however it also acts as a connection to Rogues, Eternal and Necromancer.

As with any of my writings, the story comes before the game. However there is an epilogue for each "winning" ending.

Yee Haw! It's a trailer park life for me!

Additional Notes:

This story has a ton of offensive langauge and humor so if you don't like that sort of thing, you probably shouldn't read it. Though given the setting, the language used is pretty accurate.

This also isn't really a "win/lose" type story. While there are some endings better than others, this is basically just a tale about a typical day of a degenerate that lives in a trailer park.

Alright as I mentioned the Black Barney story started off as the secondary one in the previous Buck story, but by the 4th comic, this changed up and Barney’s story was the main one and a Buck one was the secondary. So he got his own covers eventually.

Yeah, Barney was already a more fun character to read about

Anyway on with it

Black Barney: His Search for Meaning of Life and Happiness (2-6)

The story starts off with Barney’s merry band of space pirates attacking a RAM security prison with the intention of releasing all the prisoners. Apparently he’s doing a job for the Brigand League and he’s already doing 6 impossible things before breakfast the entire time by just bum rushing the place.

Certainly more interesting than Buck passing out all the time

Right away the comic has a bit more of a “cartoony” vibe due to how goofy the expressions are on some folks, though it’s got a black humor vibe too since there’s more than a few graphic deaths, some of which are played for laughs.

Barney is less of a brooding anti-hero and more on the spectrum of “enjoys being a violent sociopath” for the most part

Of course he’s also got some main crew buddies that he relies on more than others. One of these Skrugg who is one of his older dwarf like crewmates with a walrus mustache and Peg who seems to be his crewmate/girl with a secret crush on him. It’s sort of established early on that she likes him to some degree, but Barney being Barney, well he’s not exactly the monogamous type. (More on that in a bit) He also seems a bit unaware of her feelings.

So after freeing the prisoners, there’s one more that Skrugg is currently attempting to release but whoever it is, is behind a huge metal door that he’s trying to open with some sort of heavy plasma cutter. They figure it must be someone really dangerous, but to their surprise it’s a HAWT girl. Barney immediately decides to take her back to his ship “The Free Enterprise”

Like the little illustrated thought bubbles

But before he can fuck Judee, there’s an alarm saying there’s a ship approaching at fast speed and effortlessly dodging all their attempts to hit it. The pilot inside isn’t looking well and saying to himself that he can’t die before he sees Barney.

He manages to dock with the Free Enterprise and Barney’s already ready for a fight. Except instead of getting that, the pilot opens the door only to start melting (or finish melting since he was already doing it before he opened the door) saying that Barney is going to die in the same way that all of them  will eventually do.

End of the 1st bit

It should be noted that “Barney” isn’t just Black Barney’s name but also a “designation”. All barneys are essentially these genetically engineered cyborgs though nobody seems to know why exactly since they seem to be unique even as far as “gennies” go.

The one who just melted was a “barney” too, though he was going by the name “Potemkin” and Black Barney tracks where his ship recently departed from which was from Luna where he was in contact with another barney called Klaus Yorder.

Barney decides to go have a chat with Yorder. Peg offers to go with him since she grew up on Luna, but he wants her to stay on the ship with Skrugg to keep the ship ready for launch. Judee however insists that she’ll go with him to keep him out of trouble which Barney seems to be fine with mainly because she’s pretty much been hanging on his arm and acting like a cat in heat since he released her.

They land on Luna and Barney decides the best place to start looking is the scummiest bar he can find. Judee thinks it’s just an excuse to go bar hopping, but Barney assures her this is the best way. Doesn’t take long before he gets into a bar fight with the local gang though as luck would have it, the leader of the gang recovers from his beating and mentions that Yorder said a barney might show up so he’s got something Yorder wanted him to see.

Cut to a scene back on Mars at RAM HQ where one of the high ranking executives Mr. Titov is having a conversation with a pair of siblings Veruschka and Dutter Wydlin.

As it turns out the Wydlin corporation is the one that created the barneys, but they were bought out by RAM a long time ago. However, the barneys have been a thorn in RAM’s side (And the solar system in general) so to stop hemorrhaging profits from the chaos they cause, Titov is in talks with the last of the Wydlin heirs who claim they just need to track down a device that will get them all in line.

Of course this being all corpo shit, both sides are plotting to try to cut the other out and Titov already has a spy on Luna that’s located Barney.

So cut back to Barney, Judee and the teenage gang leader heading to Yorder’s hideout. The teen explains Yorder was his friend and how Potemkin was also recently here. Turns out though that Yorder’s been dead awhile and he’s just left a recording to warn other barneys about their eventual fate.

So before the Wydlin Corp got the hostile take over treatment, they created the barneys as a last fuck you to RAM. The barneys were deliberately made to give RAM grief in some way. However Wydlin still being corpo bastards didn’t give their creations complete freedom and implanted a genetic time bomb that goes off after 20 years have passed. Basically all their cells turn cancerous and they turn into genetic sludge. So the only hope is to locate the original lab since maybe it’ll have a way to stop the bomb. Potemkin was the first barney. Yorder was the second and it turns out Black Barney is the 7th, so he doesn’t have much time.

Before he can get going, the RAM spy shows up with an ambush crew. They kill the teenage gang leader, but not before he tells Barney that Yorder said that Mercury is the next place he should continue his search.

End of the 2nd bit.

Next bit picks up with Barney and Judee fighting off the spy and his back up. Judee might look like she’s just there for eye candy, but considering she was locked up in a maximum security prison, she actually is fairly dangerous.

Still, the pair of them are greatly outnumbered, but fortunately for them Peg and Skrugg overheard RAM broadcasts so they came down to help. And while Peg thinks she’s finally going to get head pats, what barney does instead is kiss Judee and go on about how great she was at fighting along side him causing more illustrated thought bubbles of Peg plotting Judee’s murder.

So now they’re on their way to Mercury though Barney’s got a lot on mind trying to do research on the Wydlin corp so Judee is temporarily forced to not be able to hang around him, so she starts talking with Skrugg (Who is wondering why she isn’t currently running her fingers through the captain’s hair). Skrugg goes into a little backstory about how Barney was created by old man Wydlin and specifically designed for space piracy in mind. Also mentions there were 40 of his kind created.

He also mentions that Barney killed the old captain and while things are a lot more hectic with him in charge, they’re also a lot more profitable.

When they get to Mercury the plan is to locate this raider group that’s been attacking RAM mining factories. Since this takes some skill and insanity to pull off successfully, it can only be surmised that the leader must be another barney. This time he’s got Judee and Peg accompanying him.

Doesn’t take long to track down an attack on a RAM factory in progress. After a bit of fighting, the three get captured by the raider group who think they’re spies by the rulers of Mercury, the Sun Kings. They take the trio to an underground system of tunnels to speak with their leader S’nee, who of course is indeed a barney. She isn’t entirely convinced that the barneys have a genetic time bomb within them saying that Yorder tried to convince her months ago.

S’nee looks a little like Grace Jones. Nobody remembers her much now, but she was a bit more well known in the 80s.

(Interestingly her crew also all have those glasses that the marvel villain Mole Man wears. Probably not a coincidence given they live underground and comic writers tend to give nods to each other)

She still thinks they’re spies until Barney manages to get the upper hand and tells her to calm the fuck down or they’re both going to die soon. This amuses her enough that she’s willing to listen more to his tale…in her bedroom.

This prompts Judee looking incredulous with Peg just smirking at her like “First time?”

So while all this is going on, the Sun Kings’ police have tracked down rebel HQ and are taking step to destroy the mountain they’re currently under. Police blow a big hole in it and start pouring in. S’nee now changes her demeanor again believing that Barney IS a spy that ratted on them and starts attacking. Barney really tries to subdue her without killing her to prove he’s telling the truth, but while he’s got her pinned, the time bomb within her starts going off and body horror ensues.

Not good

As she’s painfully rotting away from the inside out, she begs for mercy and for Barney to do something but there isn’t anything he can do. About midway through she is given mercy however with Judee suddenly shooting her in the head.

Barney and his ladies manage to escape the ensuing chaos and off Mercury despite Barney now getting slightly depressed about the idea that he’s probably going to die soon in a similar way.

Cut to Mr. Titov again who has a particularly vicious looking barney in front of him called El Shaata. He’s captured him at great cost to have him kill Black Barney. El Shaata doesn’t see much point in killing barney if he’s already dying, let alone working for RAM. Titov however points out that Black Barney has been the most troublesome so having him made a personal example of would be desirable. Also if El is able to do this, they’ll share the cure they’ve found out about. RAM believes that if the barneys could be useful if brought under control and El would get the first perks of being the first to work for RAM.

El agrees to this and is given the location of Barney’s current whereabouts which is now orbiting Ardala’s pleasure planetoid. Extra instructions have been given to not make a mess of the place since her zone is still technically neutral territory for everyone.

Cut back to Barney giving his final instructions to Skrugg saying he’s leaving the Free Enterprise for good. Peg starts getting upset about this claiming he can’t just leave, but Barney is now in broody anti-hero mode claiming he’s got four months to live and nothing he ever did meant anything. Peg tearfully tries to convince him that he gave them a rallying point and lead them to victory time and time again over RAM, but it doesn’t work so she just does the whole “Well just give up and die see if I care.” thing while running off to cry somewhere.

It almost looks like he’s going to say more to her, but Barney’s got too much stoic toxic masculinity to do something like that so he’s off.

Judee meets him in the shuttle bay thinking she’s different than everyone else saying that the pleasure planetoid sounds fun, but Barney’s in no mood for Judee’s endless flirting exclaiming he doesn’t want to die in front of his friends, then he throws her back in the main ship and sets off for the pleasure planetoid.

When he gets there, Ardala’s a little insulted that he’s asked for the best girls, but not her (In the previous Buck story it very briefly established that Ardy and Barney have their own volatile on and off again relationship) She tells him that it’s going be expensive and when he mentions he’s staying for 4 months, she mentions that’s REALLY going to be expensive. He tosses her his Luna bank card and says he can afford it.

Even in anti-hero brooding mode, Barney’s still not going to just sit sulking in the dark totally alone for days on end

(And another 80s reference with "Jimmy Swagger" suite which was obviously a reference to the televangelist Jimmy Swaggart and his scandal of getting caught with a hooker in a motel room. Not as well known now but tons of jokes about it back then)

After he leaves, El Shaata appears from nearby and Ardy tells him to give Barney at least 15 minutes since she wants him to at least get some of his money’s worth.

So Barney’s sitting in a hot tub sexing up three woman and drinking non-stop, however his thoughts turn to Ardala’s snarky comment about hoping the suite she’s set him up in brings back fond memories. Snarky since apparently at some point in the past when he spent time with Ardala in this room she tried to have him killed.

And then that’s when he realizes she actually gave him a warning.

El Shaata suddenly attacks, but Barney’s a little more ready than he was expecting giving him a solid kick to the face. Barney then feels his foot hit titanium and wonders why another barney is attacking him. El Shaata mentions a cure which then perks Barney up from his depression. So now having a reason to live again, he fights for his life.

And the comic ends with them both flying out the window fifty stories high and in Barney’s case he’s also completely naked.

End of the third bit.

I feel like it was a little odd for Barney to just give up after the Mercury thing since he was looking for a cure before, but I guess the logic was he didn’t have any more leads with S’nee’s death so he lost all hope. Though it isn’t like S’nee would have been much help anyway since she didn’t believe the time bomb story.

But anyway on with the next comic.

Starts out as it was left, with Barney and Shaata falling fifty stories, though Ardy apparently keeps the gravity on the lower end of things so barney’s confident he’ll survive the fall. They crash through one of the strip clubs where Barney grabs a slide puppy from a stripper to cover his nakedness.

What’s a slide puppy? Well, it’s easier to just show you.

Like I said, Barney typically had more interesting situations happening than Buck

Barney beats the chicken soup out of Shaata, but doesn’t kill him. He instead tells him to send a message back to his RAM masters that he’s not giving up and he’s finding that cure.

Meanwhile Ardy’s lezzing it up with some young girl and watching these events unfold. Her teen queen seems a little concerned about it, but Ardy exclaims the damages are nothing compared to the excitement Barney just brought to the place which will bring in more tourists, not to mention she’s still got his Luna card to pay for everything. As for RAM they can’t bitch to her about any of this since it was their idea to send an assassin in the first place which technically violates the neutrality rules. Not her fault the assassin failed.

“Everyone got fucked and I get paid!” - Ardala

Cuts back to the Free Enterprise where Peg is still holding out hope that Barney is coming back. Judee however says she’s not the captain and the crew should just get shore leave since they’re already in orbit. Peg says no, because they should be ready when Barney comes back.

It’s at this point the claws directly come out and Judee says he’s not coming back for Peg anyway since why would he want a scrawny shrew who can’t get the job done?

Well predictably that leads to Peg slapping the shit out of Judee who is ready to throw down though she’s actually being held back by three crew members who claim how strong she is so Peg shouldn’t really be pursuing this, but she’s undeterred from a fight.

Then Barney suddenly shows up.

Lol

Cuts to Titov on a vidphone with Shaata, screaming at him about letting Barney getting away. He ultimately tells him the deal’s off so they’re even. Shaata remarks that he’s actually ahead since he’s free. Then Titov reminds him he’s still got a genetic bomb in him and it just so happens to be going off right now.

Never gets old

After Shaata melts into goo on the pleasure planetoid, Titov is back to trying to track Barney again. He figures that the Wydlin’s must have a spy on him so he’s wondering what they might know.

Cut to the Wydlin’s who are relaxing at their mansion on Mars and they do indeed get a message on a phone (Amusingly looks nothing futuristic, just looks like a corded phone from the 80s) from a spy about where Barney’s heading next which is the Trojan Asteroid cluster since that’s where he thinks the lab might be. They decide to head there themselves to get the cure directly.

Cuts back to Barney speaking with Peg about from what he believe he’s read about Noah Wylin the creator of barneys that he liked to keep his options open so he wouldn’t plant a bomb unless he could also defuse it somehow. Peg wonders though if the cure isn’t already lost or never existed. Though Barney points out that it must exist otherwise RAM wouldn’t have bothered to bribe another barney with it to try to assassinate him.

Yep, the slide pup starts showing up in panels as a bit of a mascot for the crew now.

There’s a panel with Judee looking a bit suspicious and then they find the remnants of the Wydlin lab. Barney mentions he’ll give forty million credits from his personal accord for anyone who finds the cure first. Skrugg asks didn’t he already give that all to Ardala to which he replies that he actually gave her some high ranking RAM executive’s secret account not his own.

The next nine pages are basically Barney and his crew fighting off an attack from RAM ships. Towards the end Barney gets some help from some unknown on the lab exterior firing a Fatboy nuke at one of the RAM ships. Turns out it’s actually Yorder and he’s alive.

End of the fourth bit

Alright final comic for this story.

It starts off with Barney and his ship still fighting off some RAM ships. Ultimately RAM’s small fleet gets trashed, though Titov manages to survive in very small escape pod sending out a memo to RAM ship design that the pods need to be made bigger and contain toilet paper. All the while hoping he even gets picked up.

With RAM taken care of Yorder invites them all to enter the space station/lab. Skrugg is apprehensive about leaving the ship since it needs repairs, but Peg says Barney said it was fine and besides Judee agreed to stay on the ship.

At this point if it wasn’t obvious by now, Judee is certainly up to no good as she sneaks off the ship and finds her own way into the lab. She also mentions planting a beacon on the ship.

Meanwhile Barney and his crew have entered Noah’s lab and find it’s a paradise. A fully self contained ecosystem with plants, animals, water, etc. Barney’s crew goes off to bathe in clean water for once while Yorder take Barney to meet someone important. Namely Remus Wydlin. (Weird that they kept mentioning a Noah Wydlin as the creator all this time, but whatever)

There’s a small cut to the Wylin siblings with a small battle bot army heading to the beacon Judee planted. They figure RAM softened up Barney and his crew so they can swoop in and grab the cure, sell it and get rich again. (Or much richer than they obviously already are) There’s also a brief bit implying the siblings are a little incestious with each other.

Gotta keep that bloodline pure

Remus says Yorder’s been keeping him updated on how much grief Barney’s been giving RAM and he’s proud of him. Barney though is still worried about getting a cure, though Remus gets a bit philosophical about it and asks does he want to live forever and what he would do with such a cure.

Barney mentions he wants to at least live long enough and that he’d sell the cure to other barneys. Remus is a little disappointed at Barney’s world view of things stating he wanted revenge on RAM not just greed and unrestrained violence and maybe he shouldn’t show Barney his private lab.

Then he notices the lock on his lab is broken. Yorder immediately goes in thinking maybe its one of Barney’s crew sneaking about. He enters and from the darkness Judee puts her fist right through his chest and breaks his spine (and several internal organs) in the process, killing him instantly. Turns out a bit unsurprisingly that Judee has been another barney the entire time.

Barney and Remus enter, with Barney exclaiming that he was cured and she’s a total bitch for killing him. She merely sneers at his words and says “This bitch just snagged herself the cure”  as she holds up a large hypo needle.

Meanwhile cuts to Peg taking a waterfall shower and talking to her new slide puppy that’s curled up on a rock nearby. The pup however starts growling and then the Wydlin battle bots appear causing her to reach for her weapons. Upon hearing the sounds of shooting, the rest of the crew bathing elsewhere go rushing over to Peg’s location and more battle bots arrive.

Cut back to Barney’s showdown with Judee who makes her villainous speech about her past actions. She was planted by the Wydlin’s in the RAM prison to follow him and she’s been relaying info to them the entire time. She mentions that ultimately though she’s not working for anyone, and is going into business for herself and selling the cure for profit. She manages to get the best of Barney stating that she won’t be giving him the cure though because there’s just no way she’d ever be safe with him still alive.

She then injects herself, though Remus warns her that she shouldn’t do that. She tells him to shut up since the old fool is next, to which he states she won’t live to become one. The hypo was a booby trap that speeds up the process rather than cure it.

Judee explodes into a bloody mess spectacularly.

Gooey!

Barney recovers asking if there’s no cure at all, Remus tells him it’s all around him. The atmosphere in Remus’ station kills the genetic time bomb and he was cured as soon as he breathed it in. Meaning Judee died like a retard seeing as she was also already cured.

Cut back to Barney’s crew finishing off the last of the battle bot wave, but Barney soon arrives to tell everyone more are on the way and they need to get back to the ship. Skrugg asks how are they going to escape since the ship is full of holes. Barney tells them to follow him to the new ship Remus is giving him since he’s got a big surprise for his heirs when they finally arrive. Peg asks what about Judee to which the reply is she won’t be joining much to Peg’s delight.

The crew escape in the new Free Enterprise while the Wydlin siblings meet Remus. There’s an exchange of words and then the sister pulls out a pistol to shoot Remus. This Remus though isn’t real and is just a distraction while Barney was able to escape with the cure. Then the entire station blows up with the siblings as Remus says he’s off to get some new heirs.

Cut to the last scenes where Remus is on his own small ship with some of his animal creations to find a new place to do his research in peace. He mentions that any competent geneticist can make a cure for the rest of the barneys with bacteria in Barney’s bloodstream.

Peg asks if Barney’s going to sell the cure, but Barney’s decided instead to give it away to any of the surviving barneys out there since he doesn’t want to play god with their lives. (See, he learned a moral lesson after all) Then it’s back to kicking RAM’s ass.

And that’s the end of that arc.

So yeah this already had way more action going on than Buck’s introduction. Safe to say out of all the stories in the Buck comic series, I probably enjoyed this one the most.

Speaking of Buck, the next story arc I’ll go over is a very short back up involving him during the previous Barney storyline. Though “story” might be giving it a bit too much credit, but we’ll get into that next post.

Well here's a topic that gets beat like a dead whore, romance in RPGs. Though I'm surprised to hear that today's youth are getting sick of romance in games. I sure hope so, because the faggots screaming for it in every game was getting old a long time ago.

Apparently there's a big article about this topic, but in keeping with the male tradition of not reading, here's a short video talking about it instead.

According to your profile, you're supposedly working on an "edgy' story.

A real edgelord doesn't ask what the community is interested in, they just create and get results (Whatever those may be)

Mr. Pengbeng on 3/26/2025 for Eternal
Why is the sex not a choice? Is the author really so demented that they forced us to be a man and to fuck Mistress? The hell is wrong with them?

Well someone had to force Mr. Pengbeng to be a man because obviously his own father failed at the task. Lol.

Though I do find the above comment also amusing in comparison to a couple recent comments I got on Eternal from another reader.

goddamnit what an amazing story. Never read such a masterpiece. although i achieved the 11th ending, im gonna play again and try to get with mommy semra lol

— aquib_98 on 3/12/2025 2:04:48 PM with a score of 0

its amazing but add an ending with semra :(

— aquib_98 on 3/12/2025 3:35:38 PM with a score of 0

Because it reads like it was written by a retarded genderless robot.

Arguably the baby born without a penis could just be a normal girl since it doesn't specifically say the gender.

Not sure how the baby without a brain got institutionalized specifically for mental illness though.

Alright the easiest way to do these reviews is by story arc. As I said way earlier in this thread, the Buck Rogers comic didn’t have any short stories outside its main focus, though it did have stories that focused on characters other than Buck. And in one instance this became a main story, but more on that later.

Anyway so the main story of the first 3 comics is…

Rude Awakening 1-3

Yep, still a white guy.

The comic starts off with Buck giving his last report since he’s dying after his battle with MASTERLINK. He’s recording that he’s no hero and just a regular flyboy that sacrificed all to save his country and planet from destruction.

But backing up just a bit earlier. We see a secret US air force base in a mountain where Colonel Rogers is getting picked to fly a highly experimental aircraft. His old scientist buddy Doc Huer who helped develop it, is explaining everything. It’s basically a jet that can go into space and has all this cool armor and weaponry on it. The problem is they never really tested it and there isn’t any time because the Soviets are threatening to unleash their Masterlink satellite to deactivate the entire US defense grid AND launch all its weapons.

(Ah yes, little did anyone realize the real life Soviet Union would barely outlive the entire comic’s 10 issue run)

Really though the USSR doesn’t have the idea to launch nuclear armageddon, what happened is their operative assigned to Masterlink has gone completely rogue or Masterlink’s AI gained control over him. It isn’t too clear on that point, but Comrade Karkov is perfectly fine with being borgafied to destroy the US.

In fact, he’s not even too keen on his soviet comrades at this point. As far as he’s concerned, they better listen to him or they’re getting nuked as well and start doing that thing where he’s so integrated with the machine that’s he referring to himself as “Us” and “Masterlink Karkov”

Obviously one should always be wary of anyone using the word “master” in his name.

So Buck flies into outer space where he and Karkov have their space battle. They exchange a few threats and one liners as is the style of such things. Karkov in particular is prone to the villainous boasts about he is more than anyone now and he’s in the process of downloading his personality into the Masterlink where he’ll have complete control over earth’s systems. How the fuck the Soviets built something so ultra tech to do such a thing in the first place can just be accepted as the “anything goes” part of the genre.

It comes down to the wire since Buck has expended all his ammo and missiles so he does the only thing he can do to stop Karkov which is suicide ram into him. Masterlink warns Karkov while he’s busily focusing on downloading himself, but he dismisses it as a bluff just before Buck smashes into him.

Everything explodes spectacularly. Masterlink is wrecked and Buck’s black recorder box ejects while he’s slowly freezing to death. His last words being his life in exchange for saving the world is a good one and he’d do it again.

Fade to a complete black page (And saving on costs!)

Next pages show a scientist excitedly going on about finding something that nobody believed existed and how he’s going to get the prize along with showing all the major players in the galaxy.

I might as well go over them now to save a bit of time later.

Andreson - Yeah don’t worry about him, you’ll soon see why. Lol

Wilma Deering - She’s the leader of NEO (The New Earth Organization) which mostly fights to liberate Earth from RAM control. Wilma’s been around since the original Buck Rogers comic though of course she became more of an action girl with newer incarnations. She’s of course always buck’s romantic interest, but this can be a bit of a roller coaster at times since she’s frequently annoyed with Buck or whatever reason (Sometimes due to Ardala)

Holzerhein - He’s head of RAM (Russo American Mercantile remember?) and was created during this incarnation of Buck as far as I know. If you’re wondering why he’s got a weird red coloring, that’s not just due to him being on Mars, but due to him being a sentient hologram effectively making him immortal. Other than that’s he’s a typical corporate overlord and I’ll be calling him Holoboy from here on out.

Ardala - She’s a space hooker. Okay she’s a space madam or rather a really powerful space madam. She essentially runs a giant brothel on an asteroid and trades in secrets to stay ahead in the political games of the solar system.

Ardala is another character that was around since the earliest days of Buck. She’s usually the daughter of some space tyrant in most versions (Hell she was Killer Kane’s daughter in at least one) so she’s often “Princess Ardala”

In this version though her back story is a minor mystery, but she’s more independent in this one. (More on that later)

No matter what the version though she ALWAYS wants Buck’s dick (Even when she’s scheming against him).

Kane - It’s Killer Kane and in this version he has the appearance that he’s working with NEO, but of course as I’ve already mentioned he’s a horrible traitor in past versions so I’m not surprising anyone that he turns out to be one in this version too. He’s no major tyrant though, he’s just a ruthless mercenary type for the most part.

He also has a relationship with Wilma. This wasn’t a new idea as he did have one with her in the old comic strip too. Naturally this always results in a split soon after Buck comes into the picture.

Black Barney - As far as I know Barney was newly created for this version of the comic. Though he is a space pirate at his core so he might have been based on some space pirates that Buck fought in past versions.

Barney is probably one of those characters that the writers were toying around with the most. His first appearances like you see in the pic are him as this masked man who just screams evil badass. He also turns out to be a “Gennie”. One of the super genetically engineered humans, so he’s stronger and faster too.

However, they soon do a spin off story focusing on him and it basically turns him more into an anti-hero which rounded out the cast. Buck and Wilma are clearly good guys while the RAM corpos are clearly bad. Kane’s a traitor and he’s got such a long history of being an asshole so he wasn’t the one to turn into a proper anti-hero. (And Ardy is already a femme fatale so not her either)

So Barney ended up becoming the Han Solo though probably less outright heroic than Han became. You even see his face eventually, but more on that later.

Okay enough info dump, back to the story. Anderson’s find is of course the remains of Buck’s ship floating in the asteroid belt. He also finds Buck who is frozen solid thanks to the cryo device that was for an emergency in case he couldn’t get back to earth. Yeah, there was supposed to be a system in place to send a team to eventually save him, but well shit happened.

Wilma shows up to tell Anderson that he needs to get the hell away from the scene because RAM is heading their way, but Anderson is paranoid that Wilma is trying to steal his find so time is wasted.

Black Barney then arrives to take the prize he’s heard so much about. After a bit of arguing and threats between him and Wilma, RAM finally arrives with its stormtroopers which finally causes Barney to get out of there.

RAM declares its taking over the ship and that’s when the stormtroopers (Or terrines as the faceless armored mooks are called in this) are shot to death by someone. Wilma smells gunpowder which hasn’t been used in 500 years. She turns around and sees Buck defrosted introducing himself and holding his trusty Colt 45 because damn straight he took his gun into space like a true American hero.

That’s the end of the first comic.

Next one starts off with Buck passing out and Wilma having to drag his ass back to her ship. She escapes RAM, but Barney is still tracking her from a distance.

Buck briefly wakes up to a half naked Wilma Deering floating towards him explaining how he’s lucky he survived cryosleep since its rare for folks to do so. She also mentions he’s a hero of hers, along with him being a legend since his black recorder box was found in 2083. Buck thinks he’s been asleep for a century until she mentions the black box was found 400 years ago. (Then passes out again)

She meets up with Kane on another asteroid who finds out the big surprise was she rescued Buck. Kane wonders if he should be jealous, but Wilma says she doesn’t go for older men because she doesn’t have daddy issues. Doesn't quite explain why she decided to be half naked in front of him earlier though.

in any case Barney steals Buck away because he can. Kane doesn’t really give a shit, but Wilma is already planning to go rescue him since Buck is basically a major symbol to the NEO resistance movement, plus y’know he’s her hero and all.

Barney’s plan was to turn him over to RAM for the phat loot prize, however he’s got a shitload of bounties already on his head so he needs a go between. Naturally the best one for that is Ardala who isn’t exactly pleased to see him either, but she’s a little more flexible on the situation since she’s getting a cut of the money and is planning on ripping off Barney and his pirate crew into poverty while they party and gamble on her pleasure planetoid.

Plus she finds spending time with Buck appealing since he’s an older man and she definitely has daddy issues what with being a space hooker and all.

So he wakes up again to now find half naked Ardala hovering over him. She explains a few things like how people genetically engineer themselves to the planets they tends to live on since he thinks at first some of the strange people he’s seeing running about on her asteroid to be aliens. She makes a lot of flirty remarks towards him, but she’s still got a deal to do and takes him to see Holoboy on Mars.

Instead of killing Buck immediately RAM hopes to maybe turn Buck against NEO. His victory against masterlink is seen as a victory over AI/computers. Seeing as RAM is run by Holoboy it makes a little sense that they see themselves as following Buck’s footsteps in sticking it to the toasters. Though its a bit more than that considering RAM is actively occupying Earth. Holoboy isn’t entirely convinced that he shouldn’t just kill him and be done with it.

Holoboy gives Buck some sort of children’s learning device to catch him up to speed on what exactly is going on in the solar system then they give him a room to settle down in. Buck turns it on and is surprised to see his old buddy Doc Huer appear in holo form. Why Huer? Well because that was pretty much the last person he spoke with directly from the old days so the computer decided it would help to have a familiar face to assist with the learning process.

Turns out though the device doesn’t work as planned. The device breaks down in error since it runs on a class system. Basically it only allows certain classes to see what they want to see. So basically a ready made echo chamber. Seeing as Buck is over 500 years old and has no class in this new future the device couldn’t properly link to him.

Congrats on Holoboy holding the stupid villain ball on this one. You’d think he’d fucking know something like this could happen with his own damn tech.

So the device has gone haywire and now Doc Huer isn’t really bound by its programming anymore and can answer Buck’s direct questions since that’s still working. Huey warns Buck that he’s considered dangerous and valuable to RAM and they have no intention of letting him go. Buck tries the door which is locked, however there’s a balcony. He also notices the gravity is lower so he just takes a bedsheet and uses it as a makeshift parachute to freedom.

Cue Ardala entering Buck’s room with some booze and ready to fuck, however she notices he’s escaped exclaiming that Holoboy is a dumb ass not having more security and not thinking like how a human would think.

Meanwhile Buck is now on the lower level of Mars where he’s equally unwelcome. The poor unwashed Martians think he’s an “upper” and not pleased to see one of those that are currently lording it over them. Another one thinks he’s a scummy asteroid belter dressed like an “upper.”

Buck tries his best to figure out how to get out of the situation, but it isn’t long before he runs afoul of Black Barney who stuns him unconscious to deliver him again to the highest bidder.

So far Buck’s spending most of his time unconscious. Thrilling stuff!

End of the second comic.

The final bit of this arc starts off with a damn one page recap of what happened after Buck woke up from cryosleep. Not really necessary, but whatever.

Holoboy is yelling at his board of directors about letting Buck escape, never mind the fact that he was the main one responsible in the first place by being an idiot.

Barney has Buck aboard his ship, but is only slightly more careful about things. His main plan is to sell Buck to NEO now. He studies the device that Huer is on since he thinks RAM could track them with it. After changing it so info can’t go out of it, he hands it back to Buck and doesn’t bother to take away Buck’s pistol since he’s not worried about an antique. He then says Buck’s got free reign to move about the ship and warns him not to abuse it.

While this is somewhat holding a stupid villain ball, Barney almost immediately catches Buck accessing Huer to try to take control of the ship. Buck attempts to punch him, but only hurts his hand in the process. Barney still isn’t impressed when Buck just pulls his pistol on him and dares him to shoot.

Buck shoots Barney in the head and he goes down. That was easy.

Of course this doesn’t kill him (Armor plated skull stops the bullet), though it certain surprises him that the “antique” had enough power to cause him to go down. This does however by the convenient code of rogues, allow Buck to gain command of the ship as he who beats the captain, becomes the captain. Buck playing by the code of the video game hero, recruits Barney to help him get back to Earth rather than throwing him out an airlock. (Defeat equals friendship and friendship is magic!)

Buck finally gets back to Earth and Huer tells him to prepare himself since its a shithole now. Even more than when Buck left it. Turns out RAM somehow knew he was heading towards Earth as well, which causes Buck to be suspicious. They blow up some RAM ships and tells Barney to drop him off on Earth since he’s got some things to discover on his own. Also calls up Wilma and says he’ll meet with NEO later. (She’s not pleased about that seeing as it was set up for him to meet up with NEO, or at least Barney set it up before Buck got control of the crew)

Barney drops Buck off at the old base where he was picked to fly the experimental jet, while Barney goes on some mission that Buck sends him on (They don’t explain what, just sort of jumps a bit to “You know what to do right?”)

Buck explores the ruins of Iron Mountain asking Huer what the hell happened to Earth since he thought he prevented WW3 from happening. Huer explains that did happen or at least it happened for 300 of the years he was out. Earth didn’t get turned into a wasteland until the RAM wars of 2210-2222. RAM was a unified corporate giant on Mars while Earth was still a planet of divided nations. RAM ended up playing them against each other and swooped in to play “peacemaker” all the while gutting it of its remaining resources.

Wilma and Kane eventually show up after learning his whereabouts on Earth. Wilma’s all hot on him wanting to come back with her to join NEO, but Buck at this point is sick of everyone wanting to use him as some sort of pawn so he’s not completely sold on joining NEO just because Wilma’s screaming about it and seemingly fighting for Earth.

Then of course RAM’s terrines show up and Buck’s already running for cover with Wilma. However she’s of the mind that he’s more useful staying out of harm’s way and remaining a “symbol” meanwhile Buck doesn’t like the idea of “rank and file” NEO resistance dying for him. Wilma leaves Buck in the company of Kane while she tries to help out some NEO troops, and already after she’s left Kane’s pulling a gun on him.

Buck however isn’t too surprised, since he already figured someone had to tell RAM where he was heading, not to mention Kane’s earlier attitude didn’t seem surprised that RAM showed up. Buck manages to get the drop on him and knocks him out before helping Wilma who’s nearly getting herself killed.

After he’s saved her, he tells her that Kane’s a big fat traitor. Wilma doesn’t believe him, and Buck is like fine Barney’s back, I’m just gonna hitch a ride with my new crew.

It’s at this point Barney lands and reports to Buck about the mission Buck set him on which was finding out about secret transmission to RAM which all points to Kane especially since when they go to question him directly, he’s already woke up and left the area.

Wilma is all despondent about her boyfriend being a traitor since before he WAS a war hero in the fight and if RAM can get to him then it’s looking grim for the resistance.

However, Buck does his heroic uplifting speech that even though he doesn’t even know all the sides and all the players, he’s fighting for earth since it’s his home.

And that’s it for the first story arc.

Overall it’s not a terrible introduction to the setting.

I’ll also mention that comics 2 and 3 also have a second story after the main one. And that story involves Black Barney. In fact, after this Buck arc, Barney gets the spotlight as the main story for the next 3 issues, meaning out of the ten issues, he’s got half of them either solely or partially focused on him.

But that’ll be the story arc I’ll review next post.

Also:

TL;DR Here’s some pics of Ardala since there’s rumors that guys don’t read and respond better to pictures and here I’ve gone and placed them after all the text. You’re welcome gooners.

So I was looking up some stuff about this topic mainly because AYT said a lot of books now are middle aged female goonerbait (Lol) and I stumbled upon a book called Credence which is apparently a romance novel about some girl getting passed around by her cousins and uncle.

Oh sure that's considered erotic, but when I write Love SICK, I get called a psycho. Lol.

Wow, did anyone even read the previous Mamma's Boy story? Didn't even get a passing comm for that one and it really was the best of the lot (Including these Buck comics I'm about to review). Tough crowd.

Anyway, rebooting this thread after nearly a year to finish up the last reviews of these TSR comics. Next up is the Buck Rogers one, but again a little extra history first.

So as I mentioned in the very first post, all of this comic endeavor was to try to branch out and tap into other markets and all that other shit. Didn't work out for TSR obviously on a grand scale, but more specifically it also didn't work out for their recently acquired Buck Rogers rights either.

For the Zoomers (and probably Alphies now here) if you haven’t heard of Buck Rogers, he was basically a very early pulp scifi action hero that went around getting into adventures IN SPACE…and the future since he’s always a pilot from his original time that got frozen and thawed out later in the 25th century.

He started out as a newspaper cartoon strip back in the late 20s along with a radio show and film serials later. Had a pretty good run until about the late 60s when the comic strip ended. However, there was a brief revival towards the end of the 70s to very early 80s. Besides the short lived strip at this time, there was also the TV show during this time.

He’s also always a straight white dude saving the galaxy because you always want a little realism in this sort of thing.

So TSR had the Buck Rogers rights back in the late 80s and thanks to the leadership at the time, they were REALLY trying to revive it and make it profitable. This naturally included a pen and paper roleplaying game, but also a board game (Which I used to own, it was basically like scifi Axis and Allies) a couple of video games, some novels and finally this comic book.

It was a multi-pronged attack which ultimately lead to disaster. Buck just wasn’t popular enough to pull TSR out of the tail spin they were heading down at the time and all the money they poured into it probably just made it worse. TSR wasn't really being managed well at the time anyway.

Still, I actually think their take on Buck was sort of interesting since they took a less “anything goes” and more “hard scifi” approach than other versions did. This version only centered around our solar system, tech wasn’t really “ultra-high tech” and there weren’t any aliens, though there were definitely genetically engineered humans to the point that they didn’t necessarily resemble humans proper anymore.

But we’ll get into all that as I review some of this stuff.

One last thing is “Who exacty was the villain for Buck?” Well that’s another interesting thing. Buck sort of came out before certain “tropes” were in place. Normally a guy like Buck is fighting SPACE NAZIS or something similar to Nazis because y’know Star Wars. Even if the Nazis aren’t specifically human, they’re usually aliens with Nazi like trappings. (AKA Cardassians from Star Trek)

However since Buck predated the Nazis, his earliest adventures were fighting the old “Yellow Peril” in some way. So yes, AZNs. Usually they were like a mongol horde (IN SPACE) type with Chinese Empire (IN SPACE) mixed in. (Of course by the time the 40s rolled around, Japs (IN SPACE) were even more fair game)

Fighting yellow hordes is great and all, but a hero really can’t really stand out unless he’s got a proper villain, which Buck did have in the form of “Killer” Kane who was a arrogant criminal/dictator/traitor/whatever role was needed for the Buck incarnation at the time. Kane was a white dude, but I mean come on, only another white guy is going to be a worthy villain match for a white hero after all. (Kane usually had a "sneaky" looking appearance so he probably had some mixed blood, and/or was a closeted degenerate)

Of course as time moved on, Buck’s old AZN killing days were gradually dropped. TSR completely changed things up and went a more “cyberpunk” route and made a corpo style government the main enemy, known as RAM.

Which stood for the Russo-American Mercantile.

For more lols, RAM dominated the solar system from Mars as their HQ.

(Insert whatever comment about today’s political climate and certain billionaire interests in the red planet here)

Next up, the reviews. Stay tuned!

That reminds me, I should finish up my TSR comic reviews. Just have the Buck Rogers series left.