YJA Campaign Phase Two - A Synopsis

The world is without its greatest heroes, killed in the aftermath of the Watchtower incident. As the world comes to grips with this solemn fact, The Avengers are forced to come up with a plan in order to handle this emergency.

Team Gamma immediately was forced to become Team Alpha. This group was composed of Kentauride, Mary the new Captain Marvel, Melinoe, and Loki the god of mischief and thunder.

The new Team Gamma was composed of Queen Shuri the new Black Panther, Ghost-Spider, Patriot, Squirrel-Girl, and Ironheart. They were recruited from various groups in Hammond High.

Cable, Deadpool, and Domino were released from custody to become the new Team Omega.

Melinoe started a social group in the magical community known as the Order of the Beer-Tree. Members included John Constantine, Odin, the Wizard Shazam, Stephen Strange, Swamp Thing, Wolverine, and Wong. This group became an unofficial Avengers magical group.

She-Hulk and Mercury left the Avengers to work to protect Europe along with former rogues Captain Cold, Golden Glider, and Pied Piper.

Secretary-General of the United Nations Lex Luthor spared little time in replacing the Justice League. He announced the creation of Stormwatch, a worldwide network of heroes that will protect the planet. Their most powerful membership formed the Squadron Supreme.

Some highlighted adventures:

• The group rescued a young group of metahumans from containment from Trask Industries. One of those members, Panacea, turned out to be a shapeshifted Unicorn. Panacea was then hunted by Sergei Kravinoff hired by John Constantine. John needed the horn to cure a case of magically resistant lung cancer.

• They discovered that Stormwatch was behind the attack on the Watchtower, reversing an antimatter warhead from the remains of Brainiac's Headship. In their escape, they encountered Hyperion and Nighthawk, who revealed there are part of the Squadron Supreme under duress.
  
• Helping the magical anthropomorphic tiger Tawny, Team Alpha helped recover the stolen Chronicle of Hidden Paths from the ninjas of The Hand. The Chronicle would reveal to Kentauride the existence of an untouched hidden land known as Outland, and showed Captain Marvel that Billy Batson might be alive.
   
• The group traveled to Monster Island and discovered that the Rip Hunter had been behind the scenes for many plots. Blaming himself for the current problems, he systematically eliminated all sources of time travel technology, using the last of it to send a dimensional shifting device to teleport the League Watchtower out of harm’s way.

The end of Phase Two was a pivotal moment:

Using technology provided by Rip Hunter, Team Alpha was able to travel to a dimensional fragment where Hunter had sent the League Watchtower. There they found the Avengers, Justice League, and other individuals believed to have been killed.

Threatened by the magical might of Thulsa Doom, Team Alpha had to assault his Temple of Set. Destroying the Altar within, they were able to distract the sorcerer-king long enough to allow the survivors to reach the portal and make it back to Earth-Prime.

When the arrived in the main timeline they were met with dozens of golden-clad soldiers bearing the mark of Checkmate. Henry Peter Gyrich had convinced the President of the United States to revoke the authority of the Office of National Emergency and allow Checkmate to absorb it.

Using the threat of extradimensional contamination, the survivors are held in quarantine until further notice. Nightcrawler has been able to teleport Team Alpha out of the Baxter Building and to a secure location, but without a clear path on what to do.

With Lex Luthor in charge of United Nations law enforcement and Henry Gyrich in power in the United States, the free members of the Avengers once again are the world’s only heroes

Thus begins Phase Three: Dark Reign.

A YJA Moment - The Negative Zone

Almost all the timelines in The Great Spiral are of similar composition.  The lone exception is The Negative Zone which is composed completely of antimatter.  The Negative Zone is a stunted ruined dimension, filled with the fragments of ancient matter and crackling energy discharges.  Unlike most universes which are almost infinite, the Negative Zone is actually quite small - it's long been theorized one could use the spacial difference to travel vast in the real world, by crossing over and traveling in "Negative Space"

The Negative Zone was first discovered by Reed Richards when he was a student in Empire State Universe, theorizing the existence of an "Antimatter" universe adjacent to ours.  For years Richards conducted experiments to reach the Negative Zone until he came up with the Artemis Drive.  The experiment itself was unsuccessful but led to the creation of the Fantastic Four.  Since then, Reed has used the data of the failed mission to construct a stable dimensional gateway to the Negative Zone but only uses it sparingly.

For the Negative Zone is inhabited by a great many threats.

The biggest threat is an insectoid horde known as the Annihilation Wave.  Lead by the cosmically-empowered Annihilus, the Wave exists only to conquer and consume.  Annihilus has found naturally occurring breaches between dimensions, crossing over to our dimension on at least two occasions.  Each time they caused great damage to the galactic community until an alliance of alien empires drove them back.

Millennia ago, the Weaponeers of Qward were a scourge on the galaxy, selling weapons of mass destruction to whoever could pay their price.  After untold billions of dead, The Green Lantern Corp intervened and brought the Weaponeers to justice.  The Guardians of Oa exiled the entire planet of Qward to the Negative Zone but left their factories intact.  The rogue lantern Sinestro traveled to the Negative Zone and made a deal with the Weaponeers - through this alliance the Weaponeers were able the reverse engineer an Oan Power Ring, giving Sinestro his own fear-based weapon and the Qwardians valuable technological knowledge.

The most mysterious is Counter-Earth, an identical replica of Earth (and the solar system).  The only difference between this world and our own is that the morals of all the inhabitants are reversed.  On Counter-Earth the Crime Syndicate and The Oppressors fight for control of Earth while The Shadow resistance run by Alexander Luthor seeks to free the planet from domination.

Beyond these threats, there are dozens of races and individuals such as Blastaar and The Tyannans that inhabit the Negative Zone.  With little exception, all the species are aggressive and xenophobic.  There are few in this dimension that can be called allies.

A YJA Moment - Japan

For many years the islands of Japan have been protected by its greatest superteam, Big Science Action. The team was led by the mysterious alien Ultimon, blessed with fighting skills, energy expulsion, and size manipulation powers.  It included Boss Bosozuko, the Japanese Spirit of Vengeance; Blazing Sun, mutant fire manipulator; Cosmo Racer, former Herald of Galactus; Dr. Light, master of the electromagnetic spectrum; Fuji, encounter-suited mass of plasma energy, the armored heroine, Hammersuit Zero-X; and the shadow-warrior Nazo Baluda.

Big Science Action protected Tokyo during the Monster Wars when giant creatures appeared on Michinojima a.k.a. Monster Island.  The unrecorded island is home to a number of dimensional anomalies which allowed alien life forms to pass into the world.  Joined by the infamous kaiju Godzilla, Big Science Action was able to drive the entities back to the island and allow the Self-Defense Forces to quarantine the region.

Although the Justice League was involved in helping protect Japan from threats, it was Big Science Action that was the most beloved.  They were widely emulated by starting heroes and many metahumans dreamed about being invited onto the team.  Big Science Action was on the Watchtower when it was destroyed by the anti-matter warhead, plunging the entire nation into turmoil.

The Japanese government hastily put together a new team in order to protect the country and calm public anxiety.  The reformed villain Silver Samurai was placed in charge of what would become known as the Big Hero 6.  These included the experimental battle-droid Baymax; armor-suited Go Go Tomago; genius teenager, Hiro Takachiho; secret agent code-named Honey Lemon; and Martian expatriate Kid Kaiju  

Okata Yutani,  one of the richest people in Japan, used his immense wealth to forge himself a super-hero identity.  Calling himself the Most Excellent Superbat, he created the Atomic Lantern, clad with an energy-emitting battle-suit; speedster Lightning Flash; tiny flying Lolita Canary capable of generating sonic screams; and Atlantean Shiny Aquazon.  Together they became the Super Young Team, an independent super-team.

A YJA Moment: Wakanda and Zandia

In prehistoric times and alien meteorite crashed into the continent of Africa.  Composed of the kinetic-absorbing element Vibranium, the meteor changed the flora of the region creating such wonders as the Heart-Shaped Leaf and the area that would eventually be known as the City of the Dead.

The peoples in what would be known as Wakanda were a mix of East African and Nubian traders and expatriates from Kush.  They would form a number of tribes as they settled into the region, forming the Golden, River, Merchant, and Mining Tribes.  When the Golden Tribe rose to rule over the others, the tribesmen that opposed their leadership left to form the Jabari Tribe.

The early history of Wakandan history was filled with trade and exploration.  Emissaries traveled as far as Egypt and India, bringing back the worship of Bast and Hanuman, which would lead to the development of the current rites of the tribes.

When the colonizers from Europe arrived, Wakanda retreated into its borders, developing techniques to keep interlopers out.  As their knowledge of Vibranium grew, they were able to develop technological means to protect their borders.  Members of the tribes of Wakanda took their most promising defenders and tasked them with keeping their nation free.  This was the beginning of what would become the Border Tribe.

Yet despite all their attempts to keep knowledge of their advancements hidden, word led to the outside world of the wonders of the nation.  This attracted many people from around the world from European treasure hunters to Arabian merchants hoping to make it into the jungles of Wakanda and find the fabled City of Birnin.

These encampments grew over the years, eventually becoming administered by Oberst (Colonel) Frederick Zand as part of German East Africa.  After being administered by the Belgians in the 19th and 20th Centuries, the territory became independent after World War Two as The Republic of Zandia.

Where Wakanda has been a symbol of peace and prosperity, Zandia has been a place of war and oppression.  The colonial powers were harsh on the people before independence but things have improved little since.  Sometime in the 19th Century The Church of Blood, a vampire cult made its way to Zandia has dominated the nation until recently.  The Light, secretly using the United Nations as cover, overthrew president Elias Seromba and drove the Church underground.  Brother Blood, the immortal leader of the Church of Blood, continues to dominate portions of the country, effectively fighting a civil war with Lex Luthor and the Light.