The Characters (or the ones I've made bios for, anyway)

Dr. Strangelove

Iinspired by the character in the classic film Dr. Strangelove (Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb), he is the hapless hero of the story. In a way, he represents Everyman - though the universe seems bent on throwing absurd obstacles in his path, he gets by with a little ingenuity, and a little help from his friends. And, occasionally, hideous cruelty and mild insanity. But that's beside the point. Our character is a puppet and pawn of what we want to throw into the story, and so it really doesn't matter if he is Dr. Strangelove, an out-of-work repairman, or Paul E. Tsongas.

The Doctor in this story bears little resemblance to the film's Doctor, incidentally...the only significant similarity is that they are both nuclear tactitians who get around via wheelchair. At least, at the beginning (Dr. Strangelove, in our story, regains walking ability while on board an out-of-control city bus).

A brief summary of the Doctor's careers, in order, as he gets around more than Doonesbury's Uncle Duke:

United States nuclear strategist (1998), Slave to the almighty Neptune (1998), Director of Bonn division of Communist party (1936), Russian nuclear strategist (1998), One Who Hunts Elves (????), Patron Saint Of Wood (canonized 1089), Steamhead's lackey (1998), PSAT administrator (as Proctor Steamlove, 1998), general-purpose scientist and hero (all times).

The Man In The Cowboy Hat
(or MITCH, as he is inevitably abbreviated)

An enigmatic figure who appears from time to time to provide aerial rescues for the Doctor. We learn that he is fabulously wealthy...but is he, as one storyline suggests, really just Strangelove himself, warped through time and given a cowboy hat by Chillingworth? This seems unlikely after it is revealed that the MITCH is actually an ordinary dullard who is empowered only by the cowboy hat, a separate entity bent on world domination. Inspired by a character from the same film as Dr. S., who, in one of the more famous moments of all film, rides an atomic bomb down towards its target.

Doctor Roger Chillingworth

Originally created when Strangelove warps time so that he joins the Communists (thus leaving the US in need of a new strategist), Chillingworth is in fact our hero's dark, sinister opposite, with an eye for alchemy and other half-sciences. Chillingworth is also a reference to a character in Nathaniel Hawthorne's tiresome The Scarlet Letter.

Boris Badenov

A reference to the "Rocky Show" character of the same name, Boris is a somewhat bland character who turns up to fill random seminecessary plot roles. He seems to be an old friend of the Doctor's, at least in some of the timelines. Most of the time, he seems to be a Communist, although he has been placed (impossibly) at the head of Nazi armies.

Marty McFly

One-shot character, taken from the Back To The Future movies (along with the time-warping DeLorean, if anyone actually didn't know).

Professor Steamhead

Inspired by perhaps the greatest character ever to appear in any literary work - the brilliant science teacher of the same name from the comic series Ninja High School. Kertz and I were both hooked on this character almost immediately and it was only a matter of time before he - and his obsession with steam as the answer to all the world's problems - showed up in Strangelove. In our series, he's been portrayed as something of a villainous figure, at least in the sense that Strangelove is often opposing him. However, it must be noted that in the original NHS material, Steamhead is unquestionably a hero (by virtue of being so cool) and has plenty of nemeses. So these things are fairly relative. In any case, the character offers limitless plot concepts and will unquestionably be kept around for a time.

Priestess Who Can Turn Into A Dog

This character was a reference to one of Kertz's favorite budget anime, Those Who Hunt Elves. She shows up in the sequence wherein the Doctor and Boris must travel through a magical land to find several elves with special markings on their bodies, which is the plot of Those Who Hunt Elves. Addison is not very fond of the show, and promptly had her shot out of a cannon and into a wall. She is to be presumed dead.

Footo The Elf

A totally unimportant character who shows up during the Those Who Hunt Elves parody. Not a character from that show, he was produced out of nowhere by Addison when he wanted to drive that plotline to conclusion.

The Flat Physicist

Perhaps the most obscure reference at all, the flat physicist was originally tossed in as a nod to one of physics teacher Ken Gibson's word problems (the problems that inspired the story in the first place), in which an inebriated genius wanders through the streets late at night and is eventually killed by the 'C' bus just as he is having a crucial revelation. Kertz added a quick heads-up to this problem in an early edition of Strangelove, and then brought him back, dozens of pages (in the original handwritten form) later, having revealed him as cryogenically frozen and still alive. Unfortunately, we haven't yet relocated a copy of the original problem, and we can't remember what the physicist's name was. Oh well. Thus far his only potential importance has to do with the great war for the steam planet, and the fact that he is the only man who can destroy...

The Floating Head Of Stalin (TFHOS)

A totally random character created in one of Kertz's great moments of comic genius. As far as the plot goes, Stalin's floating head is a monstrously powerful entity who seems to be aligned with Steamhead; however, he lives in terror of the flat physicist, who not only can destroy him, but also created him (just how is not known). Another one of those seminecessary characters; perhaps he will evolve into the role of the Secondary Villain.

That's all I've written up so far. There are certainly more characters, of course....it just takes time.