Appearing in "Heartburst"
Featured Characters:
- Sunoco Firestone (joins the circus for a time, a.k.a. Hi-Test)
Supporting Characters:
- Maia (Mysterious Maia, High Priestess of the Ploo Tribes)
- Rimbaud
Antagonists:
- Xerox Firestone (Inquisitor, Sunoco's uncle, becomes Inquisitor General, then Grand Inquisitor, killed by a heart attack after jumping into the well) (Death)
- Gene Police
- Ipana Schlitz (becomes Captain, then Colonel)
- Captain Pepsi
Other Characters:
- Travelling circus
- Farfle (clown)
- Ploo (race)
- Tooba (Ploo tribe elder) (Death)
- Sunny Firestone (son of Sunoco and Maia)
- NASA (Mentioned)
Locations:
- Earth-84202
- Epsilon Bootis
- Hall of Justice (Mentioned)
- Plootown
- Eos
- Well ("well of dreams")
- Earth (Appears on screen)
- Epsilon Bootis
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for "Heartburst"
Sunoco Firestone dreamed of a well with a woman's face before his Uncle Xerox, an inquisitor woke him up and scolded him for not studying his broadcasts. After they landed at the Ends, Xerox was briefed by the Gene Police about capturing a woman named Rimbaud while Sunoco brought forth the receiver in which Xerox displayed "holy broadcasts" from Earth that Rimbaud claimed were only television shows that were from three centuries earlier. Then, Xerox sentenced Rimbaud to life in prison for copulating with a Ploo.
Later, Sunoco told his friend Ipana that Rimbaud resembled the woman in his dreams before they went to a circus together. There, they saw Mysterious Maia, High Priestess of the Ploo Tribe who was booed away. Sunoco followed her before Ipana and a clown named Farfle dragged him away. On Planetfall, the next holy day, Xerox was praying before he slapped Sunoco who ran away and encountered Maia again followed by them having sex. Maia claimed that they were "responding to nature's wishes" and that they were soulmates although she left because she believed that humanity's crimes against the Ploo would not stop until the latter race was wiped out. Sunoco returned to his uncle who was drinking, believing that Sponsor had abandoned him due to the broadcasts stopping, and told him that he had made love with a Ploo. Then, he punched his angry uncle before bidding Ipana farewell and jumping onto the circus caravan.
He was reunited with Maia and was taken under Farfle's wing as a clown when he joined the circus. When Maia revealed that she was pregnant, Sunoco claimed that their baby would be a monster, leading her to kick him out. After time had passed, Sunoco dreamed of the well again and returned to Maia to tell her about it. Then, they arrived at the ancient Ploo city of Eos where Sunoco was disguised as a Ploo and was taken to a well that resembled the one in his dreams. He refused to go in the well that called to him and rushed into a street where the Gene Police restrained him and learned that he was actually a human that impregnated Maia.
Sunoco was subsequently sentenced to life in prison by his uncle and Rimbaud still called to him from the well before he woke up in prison and was visited by his uncle, who became the Inquisitor General of all Epsilon Bootis and revealed that the clergy overthrew the governing council with help of the Gene Police after a Ploo uprising. Xerox revealed that they were raising an army of convicts and offered Sunoco amnesty if he joined. Sunoco refused to kill Ploo although Xerox gave him a noncombatant assignment in which the former was reunited with Rimbaud who referred to him as "Hi-Test" and revealed that she had been calling him in his dreams through the Unified Field before they drove to Eos which was being attacked. Rimbaud attempted to convince Sunoco to go to Earth with him and they had sex together that night.
The next day, Sunoco agreed to come with her before they ran through the war-torn Eos and jumped into the well as a nuke destroyed the city. Sunoco decided not to follow Rimbaud and appeared in a well before Farfle and the Ploo. Sunoco rushed to Maia and found that she had been married again to a tribe elder named Tooba. As Sunoco lashed out at Tooba, the Ploo knocked him unconscious. After he woke up, Sunoco entered a train full of convict soldiers injured by the nuke in Eos and attempted to treat them, as their medic was also injured. After three days of treating all of them, he finally got too tired and he told the injured convicts that they were tricked into doing dirty work and that there were never any pardons for them. Then, crafts flew into the sky and destroyed the train as Sunoco watched before he took weapons from its wreckage and attempted to contact Rimbaud again in a dream before Tooba contacted him instead.
Sunoco spent two years living in mountains before relocating to the Ends and destroyed it with dynamite after four years. After one week of cleaning the well of debris, the ruined prison became a refugee camp. One day, an injured Farfle returned and revealed that he was injured and that the Gene Police had nuked the last of the Ploo cities. Then, Sunoco rushed to Tooba to find that Maia had also been injured and embraced her before Tooba spoke to him in a dream and revealed that Maia was only pretending to be his wife in order to protect the child. In the dream, Tooba taught Sunoco the secret of the heartburst. However, they were interrupted when Tooba was killed in his physical body and the Gene Police closed in on them. Sunoco was separated from Maia while searching for their baby son and was reunited with Ipana, who had joined the Gene Police and the attack. Sunoco asked Ipana to help him and told him about his son with Maia. Ipana demanded that Sunoco surrender his crossbreed son and Maia agreed if she and her husband were allowed to live. When Ipana saw that their son was deformed by radiation, he contacted Xerox's ship, leading the inquisitor to prepare an execution.
Sunoco's and Maia's son died from radiation sickness and when Xerox decided to double his efforts on the Ploo, light burst from his nephew's heart and Rimbaud appeared with a receiver with a message from the Sponsor who ordered the inhabitants stop the genocide of the Ploo and pay reparations for any crimes committed against them. Xerox wanted to go to Earth and jumped in a well but died of a heart attack due to lacking the talent required. Then, Maia ran away from Sunoco and left him with Rimbaud and asked him to join her in seeing how far the Unified Fields extended throughout the galaxy although he turned her down. Later, after Sunoco put on clown makeup, Maia showed him their son Sunny Firestone, whose death she lied about at first using a dying baby before the husband and wife shared a kiss.
Solicit Synopsis
Notes
- Logo design by Novak.
- Back cover art of Maia by Veitch.