A PEEK AT THE EIGHTIES
Posted on April 14, 2017
Here's a look at the eighties references from the epilogue of The Powers That Flee. Yes, I realize they're referencing concepts from the seventies, but these are the comic and television influences the character grew up with.
They parted ways. Rachel flew home as a dragon, certain she had enough left to get her there safely. Darin indulged himself and made his new power something he'd been dying to try.
He concentrated, and a silver surfboard appeared in front of him, hovering three feet above the ground. He crawled on top and stood. He urged the board to shoot forward. The sudden movement caused him to fall backward and land on the pavement. The board levitated to a stop ten feet ahead.
Norrin Radd always made it look easy, he thought. He felt foolish. Reading one or two comics about a cosmic herald who surfed the interstellar byways didn't prepare him to do such himself.
He worked his way back on the board, this time straddling it like a horse and securing his grip on either side.
And closer to the end:
"Yeah, I told him we'd do something later. Right now, it's best to lie low and make sure no one comes after us wanting their idea engines back. Pretty sure that lab up in the mountains isn't on the up and up. Neither of us needs to be on the run from a shadowy government group, cabal or whatever." He thought of Bill Bixby, the actor on The Incredible Hulk show. He was always on the run from week to week. What kind of life was that? And he'd only been chased by a single tabloid newspaper guy. No telling what might come after them. Ryder and Boyce had been recruited from the military so the originators of their powers certainly had the resources to send an armed force after them. He'd always hated that the show had gone with the name David Banner instead of like what it was in the comic. Nothing wrong with calling the Hulk Bruce Banner. Guess television executives found the alliteration cheesy or something.
"Makes sense."
"If they do find us, maybe they'll just have us work for them like Steve Austin in The Six Million Dollar Man. He worked for the government, and that seemed to go okay."