Life Extension Theory

Sinbad, traveler to both Lemuria and Hyperborea, learns of the secrets of longevity from Melanthius. In his later lives as Ahmed of Deryabar, Dakkar of the Rocket Lords, and Nemo of Temple Mer, these secrets serve him well. In the late 1860s he seeks out the fabled Robur, for he has plans to learn of his flying machines and his knowledge of aeronautics, rocketry, submarines, lost continents and sunken cities.

Pedro de Vargas first discovers the hidden mysteries of the Moonfolk in a deep underground city in a cavern system stretching for thousands of miles under the new colonies in North and Central America. These shocking truths have sustained him, in a later chapter of his life, impersonating a fabled freebooter, and then later a coastal corsair, at war with all the world, yet always in search of an ever-elusive peace. In the late 1860s he seeks the rumored Nemo, for he has learned much of aeronautics, of rocketry, of life extension theory, of apergy, of levity, of gravitronics and beamed energy, yet still he thirsts for a key to the mysteries, a solution to the question of the Moonfolk, an algorithm to unravel the enigma of the Strangers, a weapon against the schemes of both Venus and Mars.

Victor von Frankenstein, builds not one, but several re-aminated golems, learning each time, until finally he creates a double of himself, equal in every way. When he eventually quarrels with this double, who goes off to find Victor's previous "efforts", Victor is forced to create another helper, and so creates a companion who he hopes will be more companionable. After so many attempts to make men into gods, he begins to find (and then combine) the remains of demi-god-like life forms of the Deep Beyond, from Farther Space and Distant Aeons. When he re-animates these ancient, arcane, eldritch, ineffable, unexplained, inexplicable, unholy horrors from the great depths and the mind-numbing void, all hell literally breaks loose upon a world already rent asunder by an arms race hurtling headlong through time, space, endless realities, and uncounted dimensions.

Alexi von Frankenstein - Victor's younger double - is an even looser cannon, with an even bigger pie-in-the-sky pipe dream of interplanetary intrigue and extrasolar imperialism.

Early in 1870, on his one-hundredth birthday, while living in China (studying Taoist and Buddhist life-extension techniques), and building his monsters, Alex - Victor's "son" (double/twin/brother) - comes to visit him.

He has found both Nemo and Robur, and something far more dangerous, and sinister.

Sinbad movies, Fairbanks/Flynn/Power/Price/Rathbone-era swashbucklers, Verne/Wells/ERB postwar steampunk adventure cinema, Harryhausen puppets, Tsuburaya rubber suits, Shaw Bros. wuxia, Roth/Mead/Anderson vehicles, Hammer Frankenstein, EC/Warren/Epic/Omni/Heavy Metal sci-fantasy horror gonzo exotica a la Joe Kubert and Jack Davis in a Sunday funnies turned Ralph Bakshi midnight movie turned Wood/Williamson eight-pager in the back of a center mag from a triple pack off the spinner rack.