Article in 1:8.1, transcribed in its entirety:
Famous "Firsts"
45 Years and Three
Generations of Adventure
Dr. Augustus Furst arrived in his hometown of St. Paul,
Minnesota, this past May, to give the commencement address at the
Harold Jordan Memorial High School graduation exercises. There
was a brass band and a parade, and throngs of admirers from as
far away as Boston, Massachusetts, and Fairbanks, Alaska. But
there were also people who know Dr. Furst personally, and who've
known him since he was a students at "H.J.'s", as the locals put
it. "He was a science nerd then, and he's a science nerd now,"
says Mamie Didrickson, 64, Furst's date to his high-school senior
prom. "But he's a really, really famous science nerd."
Indeed. In between high school and today have come four wives,
innumerable enemies, a pair of super-powered adoptive children
(born to an ex-wife and an exotic enemy), a marriage for one of
those children that shocked the world, the globe's most famous
grandchild and, of course, a lifetime of adventure and lasting
fame as head of what the world has come to know as "The First
Family."
It's been a heady ride for Dr. Furst and for his younger brother
Julius, starting back in 1950 with what was supposed to be a
research field trip to Romania. "Some fancy scientific
muck-a-mucks had been having trouble with something behind the
Iron Curtain," says Julius. "They thought is [sic] was some
unreadable energy flux whatsit that was drainin' energy from
one'a their manufacturin' plants--they didn't know it was Onggu
the Omnivorous. Nobody knew about that until Gus got there.
"Anyway, they'd seen some stuff Gus wrote in one'a those science
journal things he used to clog up the livin' room with--he
[transcript ends.]
[Harold Jordan Memorial High School is an homage to Hal "Green Lantern" Jordan.]
The First Family is also seen in headline, 2:2.1: "First Family to City: Good-Bye!" Also in 2:2.1, "Rex and Natalie: It's a Girl!" refers to Astra, "the globe's most famous grandchild". In headline, 3:6.1, "Dr. Furst Battles 'Space Spiders' ". In 3:18.1, the First Family is "out of town", with the implication that they're regularly *in* town, despite the headilne of 2:2.1. Life Magazine, 5:10.0: "Special First Family album issue". Headline, 5:11.3: "First Family Leaves City". The First Family trophy room in 2.3:22.1 contains three giant robots apparently named "Mo", "La", and "Cu", a reference to the Three Stooges.
[Augustus] doesn't smoke. He used to, but he quit years ago.
However, he kept misplacing his mini-energenerator, which requires
open airflow around it. So he decided to keep it where he'd always
be able to find it. And yes, it's the same kind of energy [as Nick's
and Astra's].
The Living Nightmare was created years ago by a psychologist who
tried to eliminate fear. Instead, all he did was externalize it,
creating a violent, destructive creature that lashes out at
anything that threatens it. Over the years, the Nightmare's
taken many forms, even twice, with a marine pilot's mind
superseding the creature's consciousness, becoming a member of
Honor Guard. These days [1995] it's in an exceptionally annoying
configuration. It appears out of nowehere, it's drawn to the
super-powered beings that have so often contained it, and it
leeches off our energy so that I can't harm it and every time I
hit it I grow weaker. And it always--always!--attacks when I'm
tired.
1, etc.
Member of 1995 Honor Guard. Secret ID Asa Martin,
a fact-checker at Current (the Astro City Feature Weekly).
ID is artificial,
an anagram of "Samaritan". Real name unknown. Samaritan originated in a
dystopic 35th century and was sent back in time to change the past, which
resulted in the complete erasure of his time line by a more utopian
alternative. His powers came about
as a result of exposure to the primal energy of time and space during his
passage through time. (Samaritan believes this to have been unplanned,
although this is by no means certain.) Samaritan's hair is naturally a
bright blue, although he uses his power to leach the color out as Asa.
Uses a zyxometer, a kind of organic/crystalline computer. Powers include
flight, super strength, invulnerability and life support, and the Empyrean
web, a kind of force field. Samaritan is in constant contact with the
zyxometer, which monitors all sorts of emergency broadcasts, via a receiver
in his earlobe. Samaritan is able to access the Closet, which is
apparently a kind of extradimensional storage space. Was named according
to his remarks to a reporter after his saving of the space shuttle
Challenger (January 28, 1986) [homage to Superman's naming in Man of Steel
#1]. Headline, 5:10.0: "Tidal Waves Quashed by Samaritan".
