It was the 1930s. The avarice of the elite had plunged the country into the Great Depression. Class warfare was being waged, and someone was about to snap!Young Betty McDougal discovered how hard life could be when her family was evicted from their farm and forced to live in a Citadel City shelter. They struggled to survive. It was a time of desperation, sin, mistakes and lessons Betty didn't want to learn. Her life felt pointless until a mysterious stranger delivered her an ominous black car. It transformed her.Pandora Driver was the relentless avenger of the common man sifting right from wrong in a realm where the villains were the local gentry and the heroes were outlaws. Pandora was a mistress of disguise who used sly audacity and an unstoppable Car-of-Tomorrow to unleash chaos into the halls of wealth and power. She infiltrated the unscrupulous rulers of Citadel City and adopted their unsavory methods to usurp them. Her fight was the fight of the ages. She was the fist of the people battling greed, graft, inequality, and exploitation. Her time was in the past, but the problems were the same blights facing society today.She intervened when law enforcement or the justice system failed citizens. Sometimes her methods were unsettling. Battling sin in the filth where it resides can dirty even the purest hearts; the good old days we remember in monochrome were lived in color. In a time when good and evil was simply black and white, Pandora lived in the gray area.Pandora Driver: The Origin, summons the spirits of pulps past and adds dieselpunk hardware. This retro-hero tale is for mature readers.It ain't Shakespeare. It's pure Pulp!
Can you imagine a time without computers, the internet, or tv? Telephones were connected to walls by wires, and a "cell" was a place to put bad guys. The daily news was delivered by a paper boy, not a cable news station. Laptops were where children sat to tell Santa their Christmas wish-lists. Magazines were presented on pulp, not ipads. Mass communication was brought into the home via vacuum tubes, not microchips.
In the 1930s the radio was the centerpiece of the family room. Feel the warmth from the unit, more an elegant piece of furniture than any modern electronic device. As the tubes heat up, two children, a boy with tousled hair and his younger brother, sit excitedly in front of the enchanting device, their eyes gently twinkling in the golden glow of the dial, the only light in the room. The subdued light feeds their imagination as they delight in the fantasy unfolding in the imaginary theatre of the mind, following the thrilling tales of heroes of yesteryear.
The 1930's spawned a new type of hero. They were the champions of a halcyon era, a genre unto themselves. They were non-conformists who couldn't sit back and watch the word fall apart around them. They endeavored to fix it. They were super detectives that used tricks, gadgets and gimmicks in service of society. They used their unique resources for the good of mankind. They were secretive vigilantes that held villains accountable for their dastardly deeds. They were mysterious costumed crusaders who hid behind masks and worked outside the bounds of law. They were self-governing agents of justice helping the helpless, protecting those who couldn't protect themselves, and staving off oppression.
They appeared in the early days of comic books, adventure comic strips, and pulp magazines. Their movies were black and white serials with cliff hanger endings keeping the crowds coming back week after week (at 25 cents a pop!). The heroes of these stories risked life and limb sorting right and wrong in a different time, in some ways a more simple time. In this fantasy world it was easier to tell the good guys from the villains. Heroes like The Shadow (1930), The Phantom (1936), The Green Hornet (1936), Batman (1939), Spy Smasher (1940), and Captain America (1941), provided an heroic archetype, and brought order to the chaos wrought by villains. These characters formed a shield between the bad-guys and the rest of us. We looked to the heroes of the past for inspiration as they fought for a better future.
One hero of the past stayed hidden in the shadows. She was unseen and unknown until discovered decades later. Her name was Pandora Driver and this is her story. It's the tale of young girl forced to grow up too fast as a matter of survival.
Pandora was frustration personified. She became the relentless avenger of the common man sifting right from wrong in a realm where the villains were the local gentry and the heroes were outlaws. Pandora was a mistress of disguise who used sly audacity and an unstoppable future-car to unleash misery into the halls of wealth and power. She infiltrated the unscrupulous elite of Citadel City and adopted their unsavory methods to usurp them. Her fight was the fight of the ages. She was the fist of the people battling greed, graft, inequality, and exploitation. Her time was in the past, but the problems were the same blights facing society today.
These Heroes intervened when law enforcement or the justice system failed citizens. Sometimes their methods were unsettling. Battling sin in the filth where it resides can dirty even the purest hearts. The good old days we remember in monochrome were lived in color. In a time when good and evil was simply black and white, Pandora lived in the gray area.
Pandora Driver The Origin is a retro-hero tale for adults in the form of an e-pulp. We hope you enjoy the ride.
By 1934 the United States had found its dark age. It was a time of loss and consolidation, an era of transformation and desperation. It was a time of survival. Though the depression was lifting for some, others continued to suffer in Citadel City. Bankers broke the back of the nation's economy and created an income gorge between the rich and the poor. Corporations took advantage of the crisis to consolidate markets and expand their interests. They squeezed every penny out of local resources and workers, as a matter of “self-preservation.”
The people best equipped to survive the depression were the affluent, and the old moneyed. Their ilk always seemed to win. Their hands were in everything and their actions created ripples that radiated far beyond their boardrooms. They affected people out of view, the ones who didn’t really matter. They served themselves at the expense of others, in the name of “doing business.”