From: hgb@catalina.edu (Hubert Bartels)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc
Subject: A waif at the LNH door
Date: 12 Oct 92 16:43:37 GMT
Organization: Optical Sciences Center


	[My apologies to those who have seen this before in alt.comics.lnh.
I wanted to crosspost this to rec.arts.comics.misc, but I mispelled the
newgroup name. Since so many people still are not getting alt.comics.lnh,
I am reposting it in rec.arts.comics.misc again. HGB]

	The Spandex-clad Heros flexing their muscles and bickering among
themselves at LNH.HQ stopped suddenly to stare at a figure sitting on the
gilded steps to the front door. She seemed to be sobbing. 

	She was a mutant, one of those crosses bwtween big cats and humans
that appeared in DC and Marvel every hundred crossover specials; she looked
like a leopard poured in a woman's shape. Yellow-orange fur and black spots.
Her chest's coat shaded to white. A long tail lay curled around her. She
wiped her tear-streaked cat eyes with a hand tipped with sharp claws. Sharp
cat ears poked through a shock of blonde hair. Although white and orange
fur covered it, she still had a woman's face.

	She was wearing a very tight body suit, a suit that outlined every
line of her very slender, very sexy body. Her feet were covered in calf
length soft leather boots.

	Someone came outside and placed a hand on her shoulder. "What's the
problem?"
	
	The leopard woman looked up at the bulging muscles and the broad
chest, then wiped her eyes again, and shook her head.

	"I'm Panta," she sniffed. "That's without a (tm), you know. And I
want to be on a superhero team. A real superhero team with (tm)'s and 
character merchandising and..." She burst into another crying jag. "And
trading cards," she wailed.

	"There, there, there," the Legioner said. Curious, more of the
LNH team came outside, joined by several fanboys who immediately started
panting at the leopard girl's figure.

	"So," the Legioner began. "Where do you come from? What can you
do?"

	"Like almost all the mutants I know, I don't know. But I knew that
if I wanted to be someone, I'd have to hustle to survive. I started work
in one or two of those B&W's, you know, furry magazines. YARF!, 'Albedo',
and 'Fusion'." Panta shifted and spoke a little more strongly. "I had an
offer to work on 'Omaha, the Cat Dancer', but I wanted more. I'd heard that
DC was looking for a cat-girl for 'The New Titans', so I went over and
auditioned for the part."

	"Wolfman, Grummet and Vey weren't looking for someone like me - so
I didn't get that job. They wanted a redhead. A redhead!" Panta snarls. 
"Like that Pantha (tm). I tried to go back to B&W work, but in the meantime,
the market had collapsed. And those that were left resented my audition with
DC."

	"So next, I heard that Liefield was holding a open casting call for
his new series, X-force. I dressed up and ran over to Marvel. That was
really wierd. Really wierd. All these big guys with tiny heads carrying
huge hunks of metal twisted to look like guns. Liefield never even called me
in. The job went to this girl with this really stupid hairdo. Feral(tm).
Now she's pulling in the merchandising dollars and I'm doing casting calls
for Japanese manga."

	The Legioner studied her for a moment before asking. "So, what do
you do anyway?"

	"First, the way I look, the fanboys love it when I'm on the cover.
I perch on tables and make catty remarks. And when it comes to fights, I
jump on someone and cut them up with my claws. I provide tension in any
superhero team because no one ever understands what I'm doing on the team
anyway. In team practice, I do more damage to the team than the villains."
Panta spoke quietly, her cat eyes fixed on the Legioner's face mask.
	"I don't understand it." Panta stood up slowly and stretched,
showing the fanboy crowd every line in her sexy body, the shape of the
tight spandex across her firm breasts, the high cut of the bodysuit at her
thighs. "Why doesn't anyone want me?"

	A single teardrop hung in each cat eye.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
All the characters are (tm) by DC or Marvel or TSR or someone, except for
Panta, who'd like to have one. Someday...


--
Hubert Bartels          INTERNET: hgb@catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu
Optical Sciences Center (602)-621-2032
University of Arizona   "Uchi-ra wa Buaku-do no Annapuna to Yunipuma ya!" 
Tucson, AZ, USA 85721   "Senshatai Yaburetari!!" Annapuma & Unipuma, Dominion