The Bag.On.Line. Adventures

The cover of Issue 1 by Wes Abbott.

***The Bag.On.Line. Adventures*** is a comic written by Claudio Sanchez and illustrated by Wes Abbott. It was published by Evil Ink in 2005, but was discontinued after just two issues and subsequently rebooted as The Amory Wars.

## Plot Summary

Twenty years after the events of *Year of the Black Rainbow*, Coheed and Cambria are living a normal life with their four children: Josephine, Claudio, and twins Matthew and Maria. Coheed is a mechanical engineer and Cambria is a retired nurse, now stay-at-home mom. One day, as Coheed is leaving his over-night job, is approached by Mayo Deftinwolf who tells him he and his wife are infected with a deadly virus called the Monstar Virus and even worse, unbeknownst to them, they have passed this virus onto their children and it has mutated into a new strain called the Sinstar Virus which, if left unchecked could spread and destroy all of Heaven's Fence. Deftinwolf offers Coheed two options, kill the kids yourself, or Wilhelm Ryan's United Red Army will come to kill them for him. Coheed comes home to Cambria who *knows* what happened—saw it in her mind—and agrees that it's better for them to kill the kids as they will be merciful and then kill themselves. Using poison Deftinwolf provided him, they give the young twins the first dose.

Meanwhile, their eldest, Josephine, is out with her fiancé, Patrick, when they are attacked by a local gang, the Jersey City Devils. After the assault, Josephine goes home to cry to her mother, when Coheed strikes her head with a hammer, killing her instantly. It's then that Deftinwolf arrives, sees the scene and takes Coheed and Cambria into custody for the deaths of their children. Elsewhere, Claudio is with his girlfriend, Newo, when he realizes he's late. Upon arriving, he notices that things are disheveled and entering the kitchen, finds Josephine. Distraught, he embraces her and she comes to life to briefly warn him of an attack. He runs away just in time, and tries to piece together what happened.

## Publication History

The first issue was published April 1st, 2005, and the second was published on June 1st, 2005. It was then discontinued due to creative roadblocks including Sanchez's touring schedule with Coheed and Cambria but was later rebooted.

During a 2006 interview, Sanchez cited financial constraints and lack of "pull" for the irregular and unfinished release of both stories' publications, and explained that Evil Ink intended to publish new comics under the title *The Amory Wars* that would retell the concept chronologically.

The two issues were republished in the Ultimate Edition of *The Amory Wars: The Second Stage Turbine Blade* released with BOOM! Studios in 2017.

### Creative Team

Wes Abbott is a comic artist who is known for versatility; having been a writer, penciller, inker, colorist, and above all: letterer. Prior to working on *The Bag.On.Line. Adventures*, he primarily worked as a letterer for various comics in both Marvel and DC. After *The Bag.On.Line. Adventures*, he went on to enter and win the second of TokyoPop's Rising Stars of Manga contests and produced two volumes of a manga titled *Dogby Walks Alone*. Primarily a comedy, the noir film-like story follows Dogby, an amusement park mascot who never speaks, and never removes the head portion of his costume (at least not anywhere the "camera" can see), while actual narration and dialogue come primarily through "Snack Girl", Dogby's "Watson" who also has a huge crush on him.

### Changes

There were several changes made from this original inception to the final version published as *The Amory Wars*.

#### Issue 1

The first issue opens with the aftermath of Inferno having destroyed the IRO-bot Longcindia discussing things with Chase and Sizer. This scene was in Issue 6 on the rebooted version instead of the beginning. There is much more text to explain certain things than in the reboot, where we have accompanying visuals and it is narrated by Claudio Kilgannon with the line, "My father was created along with two others for this reason..." where as the reboot is largely narrated by Inferno, if anyone.

Coheed has a much more body-builder kind of body with a closely cropped hair style and beard. Deftinwolf refers to Inferno by his "common" name of Jesse. Deftinwolf tells Coheed the Virus is to "cool the star transformers" not kill people directly. He also explicitly states a liquid has to be in the hosts' bloodstream to activate the virus, which we see happen in the reboot, but isn't explained. This liquid is call the Ciache. He even tells Coheed how he and Cambria must lock eyes with this liquid in their bloodstream to activate the virus. He knows Jesse is a clone of Hohenberger even, and claims Coheed is the one who killed the original. Then he tells him about the mutated virus; how they can extract the original but not the mutation. This sets up the reader to believe a lot more about the Kilgannons and Hohenberger and understand why not only did they have to kill the children, but submit themselves to Ryan. He also makes it clear he the parents can't kill themselves because the virus will become airborne, and thus infecting others.

As Coheed takes a breather outside the car, the time flashes for him: 21:13, which is 9:13 pm in military time, but he clocked out around 6 pm, so this is a time he has in his mind. Deftinwolf tells him to make his decisions by 02:00 (2 am) tomorrow when they will arrive and do what they think is necessary (more or less the same warning) giving him the briefcase with the poison to "help him decide."

Back at the house, Cambria has a vision of Jesse and Chase holding hands and passes out. Claudio goes to her; he is similar to his father; more clean cut and nerdy and less loner-looking. He leaves, getting in the car with his girlfriend Newo Ikkin and her Dalmatian, Apollo. The time is stated to be 9:16 on Hetricus in Sector 11 (so the morning). The place "Valley Hills" is also listed which could be the specific city the Kilgannons live in on the planet. The scene shifts to House Atlantic in Sector 1. It is 8:13 when Deftinwolf calls to say things are in motion with Kilgannon, so this could indicate that Apity Prime is in a different time zone; one that is 13-hours behind Hetricus. The location is also listed as "Apity Prime, Omega" meaning Apity-Prime is actually a city and Omega is the name of the planet it resides on. We have a brief exchange similar to the reboot, a look at the Prise, also the same, and then back to the Kilgannons, where the time is now 21:11—two minutes before the time he had in his mind. This is interesting too because it means it took him several hours to get home. Inside, Cambria tells him that she knows, has always known (similarly) and that she didn't want to scare him. Of course the rest plays out much the same and when Coheed enters the twins's rooms, they say "Shabutie!" like they do in the song.

#### Issue 2

In Issue two, see the children drink the poison, and follow a car drive through a darken city which turns out to be Jersey City, with Patrick and Josephine behind the wheel. We are not previously told that they are engaged, but there is a close up of Josie's hand where a ring is present. Of course, the Jersey City Devils break into the car, beat Patrick up, rape Josie, and leave. Patrick comes to and sees a despondent Josie. After a brief exchange, they are on their way back to her house. We also cut back to Newo and Claudio, where he's missed his curfew. He doesn't understand why he's got one in the first place showing this isn't normal, but they rush to leave as well. We are back to the engaged couple and see Josie is smoking, which she isn't shown doing in the reboot. She goes inside and straight to the kitchen to vomit when Cambria enters. She tries to comfort her, sees that she's become engaged, and as Coheed enters with a hammer she also sees the terrible pain the poison put the twins through. Just as Coheed covers his eyes and brings the hammer down on her head, Patrick enters, trying to check on her and witnesses the murder, and flees.

The scene switches again to Ryan as he sets lose his Onstantine Priests who are more uniformed looking before switching again to the Prise visiting Mariah Antillarea. The scene plays out more or less the same except for Jesse's existence and interruption at all. Back to Ryan, he tells Deftinwolf he knows their is one remaining Kilgannon child and that that one is the worst of all because he senses that he is The Crowing. The scene shifts again to the Kilgannon house where Coheed laments the death of his three children already and he reluctance to do it again. Cambria remarks he won't have to as Ryan's forces show up. Through Cambria's powers, it is revealed that ALL the Kilgannons are to be killed. The virus was never meant to be extracted from the parents, but they will die (in time) at Ryan's hand all the same. Coheed activates his Beast powers there, in the home, before they ever leave, but is tranquilized and captured, leaving the planet. Meanwhile, back at the house, an Onstantine Priest is stalking the dark hallways where two Red Army guards keep watch. They are both killed gruesomely just as Claudio steps up to the house.

#### Conclusions

In a way, more information was given to us in these original two issues, but it's hard to tell if it truly was more information, or if some of it was rethought and reworked into other ways in the comic. Apity-Prime, for example, is widely believed to be a planet in-and-of-itself, whereas here, it is a city. Is this still true? Probably not. In *Year of the Black Rainbow*, for instance, we have the line, "It was impossible to put a happy, sunny face on the insanity that had occurred in Apity Central, the capital city of Apity Prime." Which would lead us to believe Apity Central is a city and Apity Prime is the planet. So if this detail was changed in the reboot, it is possible other changes were made. Thus, please take the notes on this page with a grain of salt, not as cannon.

## Trivia

* This original name for the series was derived from the name of a shop that Sanchez passed by often during his fateful Paris trip.
* This name was also going to be the first chapter's title, but was dropped for *Year of the Black Rainbow*.

## See Also

* *The Amory Wars: The Second Stage Turbine Blade*

## References

1. ↑ https://leagueofcomicgeeks.com/comic/5926936/the-bag-on-line-adventures-1
2. ↑ https://leagueofcomicgeeks.com/comic/6291416/the-bag-on-line-adventures-2
3. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20061006190030/http://www.cobaltandcalcium.com/index.php?page=interview\_with\_claudio\_sanchez
4. ↑ https://www.comics.org/issue/771546/
5. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20170707151408/http://comicbookdb.com/creator.php?ID=76
6. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noir\_fiction
7. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20100102115039/http://tokyopop.com/manga/book\_catalog/browse?alphabet=d-f