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I've posted from Common Grounds before (check the tags), it's one of my favourite series. Like one of my other favourite series "Astro City", it's a series of slices of life in a world with superbeings, but looking at the bits BETWEEN the slugfests.

Each story has a different guest artist... in this case, George Perez which, as you might imagine, is another reason to get hold of a copy to read the whole thing .

The last time I posted, we were visited by the writer himself, which was fun.

This is another story, as a hero reflects on his...

In this world there exists a chain of coffee shops; "Common Grounds", whose purpose is to create a neutral environment for super-powered beings. Anyone, hero or villain, is welcome (though "normals" tend to be intimidated) but the one rule is "NO FIGHTING". There's no truce magic, or power neutralising effects or the like, just mutual agreement. And it holds too, because even supervillains like somewhere to get a nice kruller and a cup of really good coffee.

And anyone dumb enough, or psycho enough, to try something there would discover that A) Their bouncers are superpowered too, and B) All the OTHER heroes and villains who liked it there would be after you like a shot. You think Darkseid is bad, just wait until you see Bucky deprived of his coffee and morning Danish pastry... An eternity in the Firepits of Apokalips would be a refreshing spring breeze by comparison. (It's never stated, but one might assume that the Police don't intervene on Common Grounds property because if they're having a coffee they're not robbing a bank, and if you did try to intervene then it would get very messy very quickly.)

They also do event catering, as in this case, a party to clebrate 30 years since the forming of the superteam known as the Liberty Balance.

It's a six page story, which means two pages tops, which feels like an act of criminal vandalism on a Troy Hickman/George Perez story, but rules are rules.

We see the story from the point of view of Lift-Off, who was one of the first members of the team. He has fond, and proud, memories of the team, and is looking forward to the event, he's even taken a set of the old trading cards they had to show to others.

I leave it to you to imagine what "The Flaming Follicle", a sort of male Medusa (of the Inhumans) looks like after a couple of decades of male pattern baldness.... yeah pretty much like you're thinking I imagine.

He next runs into a couple of heroes who DID get married, Mach-Master (the team speedster) and Magna-Woman.

Heh, I like that...

And then there's Captain Gallant (Their patriotic red-white and blue wearing superpowered boyscout) who is suffering from an unfortunate variation of the 90's-ification of the superhero genre.

Ouch!

He meets the other members of the team including a couple we have met (or will meet) in other stories in the collection, like the Eternal Flame (Who has one of my all time favourite origins) and others we never see again, like their female feline, Kittycat,

And then....

"... but right now I feel on top of the world."

As you may have spotted from the last sequence of panels, he means that literally. Well they WERE both fliers....

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

auggie18

Oh man, I love Common Grounds. I would totally post more stuff from it here if I didn't worry about ruining my trade.

My favorite story is probably the one with the pro-America superhero who has to deal with all of those people who call her ideals outdated. Her little speech to that foreign kid about embracing freedom as the responsibility to be the best you can be...

salinea

what an intriguing concept!

icon_uk

It is, and very versatile as a basis for storytelling, you can have stories about the customers (hero and villain and even the staff... there's one I might post later which features perhaps the oddest customers they have, it's a good thing that Common Grounds does deliveries..

crinos

I was going to bring up that story, but if you're going to post from it I may hold off till its posted.

Friggin love Common grounds.

I actually wrote up the members of Liberty Balance in 2nd edition Mutants and Masterminds and posted them at the Atomic think tank. It even drew the interest of the author.

omgwtflolbbqbye

I got CG after someone here posted the chapter featuring the Flash expy. Great story idea all around, although the execution left me wanting in quite a few cases.

My favorite story of the series was either the one where the senior superhero and supervillain bump into each other on the street for the first time in ages, or the retro monster coffee and donut summit.