Ten ClanDestine Questions

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DonCampbell
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Joined: Mon May 21, 2012 5:56 pm
Location: Island of Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Ten ClanDestine Questions

Post by DonCampbell »

I picked up my weekly assortment of comics yesterdey and FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #33 was the first one I read through. As a follower of ClanDestine since issue #1, I've long hoped that we fans would eventually get to see the rest of the storyline that you had planned out for the family (before it was so sadly cut short). It was over SEVENTEEN YEARS ago that we first learned that Adam had killed his son Vincent and it was an absolute pleasure (albeit a sad one) to finally see how and why that tragedy occured. The fact that there are still mysteries about what happened to Vincent just makes me even more eager to read the rest of the story in this year's DAREDEVIL and WOLVERINE Annuals.

That being said, there are a lot of aspects of the Clan Destine that haven't yet been explored and I'd be overly optimistic if I expected those next two annuals to provide all of the answers. So, I sat down and wrote out a list of questions that I had about the Destines, questions that I suspect will not be answered next month. I was going to call this topic "Twenty (ClanDestine) Questions" but I found that, unless I wanted to ask questions that might require spoilers for answers, I would have to include some rather trivial questions (like does "Winter of 1374" refer to the winter of early 1374 or late 1374) so I cut the number back to just ten.

Anyway, here is the list of ten questions that I wanted to ask you about the Clan Destine. Some (probably more than I'd like to think) are still quite trivial and some I've wondered about for years while one only occured to me yesterday. Still, I would greatly appreciate any and all answers that you would care to provide. However, if any of these questions would require *spoilers* as answers, then please skip them.

1. Adam was born in 1168 and was in his “sixteenth year” when he nearly died. This means that his impalement occurred between his fifteenth birthday (in the summer of 1183) and his sixteenth birthday (in the summer of 1184). Could you provide a more exact date (i.e. season or month, year)?

2. In the miniseries, Adam said that the land of Yden was part of his beloved and Walter stated that Elalyth “was never really here” because “she can’t…” From these comments, I jumped (nay, LEAPED) to the conclusion that Elalyth was somehow unable to leave the valley of Yden and that that meant that all of her children must have been born there. How wrong was I?

3. Given that Elalyth is a mystical being, does she give birth much like human women? Or is it a more supernatural process?

4. Adam’s statement that it was a legend that Elalyth was a Djinn implies that she is actually something else. Is it possible that there is a legendary creature which is based on her? A certain infamous female mythical character who married a man named Adam and had many children comes to mind, and her name sounds similar to “Elalyth” (even though their natures seem very different).

5. If Elalyth is a pure white light source and Adam is a dispersive prism, then their children are the refracted beams of light of various colours that are created by their interaction, a rainbow-spectrum of light into which the original white light was split. Is this a fair description of how you see the Destine family? Or, possibly, their various gifts?

6. Jasmine’s forty-third host body was the American Indian woman who was injured when Vincent destroyed the manor house. Given that she is a nomadic consciousness, does she count her original Destine body as her first host body? Or would it be “Body Zero?”

7. As I recall, you once said that Jasmine left her original, immortal Destine body by choice. How did she do that? More specifically, did she have to kill her original body in order to transfer her consciousness out of it? Or is “she” still alive somewhere, either asleep or preserved?

8. Newton seems to have kept the true nature of his gift a secret from Jasmine, telling her that he could only transport himself across the dimensional divide. Is his gift the ability to open dimensional portals? Or is it the intelligence needed to create a mechanism that generates such portals? Or is it a combination of both?

9. There are apparently no second-generation Destines. Is that because Adam and Elalyth’s children are not genetically-compatible with ordinary humans? Or is there something about their immortal nature that renders them infertile?

10. I found the story of what happened to Vincent to be very interesting but finally reading it brought to my attention a discrepancy that I hadn’t noticed before. In the first series, Adam’s killing of Vincent had occurred over eleven years previously but it was implied that it was after the twins were born (i.e. less than twelve years earlier). Since the “present-day” of those early issues was 1994, that would mean that Vincent died in 1982 or 1983. However, the story in Fantastic Four Annual #33 seems to suggest that Vincent’s death took place nearly a year after he vanished (during the 1969 Woodstock Festival?) which would make his year of death 1970. Over a decade of time separates these two possible dates and there are consistency problems with both of them. If Vincent died in the 1980’s, then Samantha (who was born in 1951) would have been over 30 years old then, and not the child depicted in the annual. She also wouldn’t have been “still a youngster” when Vincent destroyed the mansion or “just a kid” when she saw Cuckoo’s last body switch. On the other hand, if the 1970 date is accurate, then Samantha (at 18) still looks too young in the annual. More importantly, it raises the question of what happened during that decade between Vincent’s death and Adam and Dom’s separate self-imposed exiles. It would also mean that Adam and Elalyth conceived the twins after Adam killed Vincent – which is not something that has not even been hinted at before.

Don Campbell
Alan Davis
Creator
Posts: 472
Joined: Sat Aug 06, 2005 9:13 pm

Re: Ten ClanDestine Questions

Post by Alan Davis »

1. Adam was born in 1168 and was in his “sixteenth year” when he nearly died. This means that his impalement occurred between his fifteenth birthday (in the summer of 1183) and his sixteenth birthday (in the summer of 1184). Could you provide a more exact date (i.e. season or month, year)?
No, and neither could Adam. His family would have been uneducated, living by season rather than calendar. Years would have been remembered by events, droughts, blizzards... Or the year Adam fell on a scythe.
2. In the miniseries, Adam said that the land of Yden was part of his beloved and Walter stated that Elalyth “was never really here” because “she can’t…” From these comments, I jumped (nay, LEAPED) to the conclusion that Elalyth was somehow unable to leave the valley of Yden and that that meant that all of her children must have been born there. How wrong was I?
You’re not wrong.
3. Given that Elalyth is a mystical being, does she give birth much like human women? Or is it a more supernatural process?
Yes and yes. Surely the creation of life is the only truly supernatural process in reality?
4. Adam’s statement that it was a legend that Elalyth was a Djinn implies that she is actually something else. Is it possible that there is a legendary creature which is based on her? A certain infamous female mythical character who married a man named Adam and had many children comes to mind, and her name sounds similar to “Elalyth” (even though their natures seem very different).
There is no connection to any single myth/legend/faith.
5. If Elalyth is a pure white light source and Adam is a dispersive prism, then their children are the refracted beams of light of various colours that are created by their interaction, a rainbow-spectrum of light into which the original white light was split. Is this a fair description of how you see the Destine family? Or, possibly, their various gifts?
It’s a nice analogy. Very colourful. But I can see too many ways for it to be extended into inaccuracy and contradiction for it to be valid.
6. Jasmine’s forty-third host body was the American Indian woman who was injured when Vincent destroyed the manor house. Given that she is a nomadic consciousness, does she count her original Destine body as her first host body? Or would it be “Body Zero?”
Forty three was a rough calculation I plucked out of the air based on the number of mortal ‘prime’ lifetimes in Kay’s lifetime... and perhaps a dozen or so actual individual hosts linked to specific story lines. But, as semantics might suggest. Kay’s first host would be the first body after her own natural body.
7. As I recall, you once said that Jasmine left her original, immortal Destine body by choice. How did she do that? More specifically, did she have to kill her original body in order to transfer her consciousness out of it? Or is “she” still alive somewhere, either asleep or preserved?
Kay’s original body died when she left it.
8. Newton seems to have kept the true nature of his gift a secret from Jasmine, telling her that he could only transport himself across the dimensional divide. Is his gift the ability to open dimensional portals? Or is it the intelligence needed to create a mechanism that generates such portals? Or is it a combination of both?
Newton’s ability is a ‘creative genius’. He manufactured dimensional portals. Newton lies to Kay because his otherworldly ‘hide-out’ is his own personal playground. The last thing he wants is to share it—or have it perverted(?)-- by hedonistic Kay.
9. There are apparently no second-generation Destines. Is that because Adam and Elalyth’s children are not genetically-compatible with ordinary humans? Or is there something about their immortal nature that renders them infertile?
In nature many hybrids are sterile—which serves to simplify things with the Clan because it could get very messy with the geometric boom of great, great, great, grandchildren. The only exception to this is Kay, for obvious reasons, but that is another story.
10. I found the story of what happened to Vincent to be very interesting but finally reading it brought to my attention a discrepancy that I hadn’t noticed before. In the first series, Adam’s killing of Vincent had occurred over eleven years previously but it was implied that it was after the twins were born (i.e. less than twelve years earlier). Since the “present-day” of those early issues was 1994, that would mean that Vincent died in 1982 or 1983. However, the story in Fantastic Four Annual #33 seems to suggest that Vincent’s death took place nearly a year after he vanished (during the 1969 Woodstock Festival?) which would make his year of death 1970. Over a decade of time separates these two possible dates and there are consistency problems with both of them. If Vincent died in the 1980’s, then Samantha (who was born in 1951) would have been over 30 years old then, and not the child depicted in the annual. She also wouldn’t have been “still a youngster” when Vincent destroyed the mansion or “just a kid” when she saw Cuckoo’s last body switch. On the other hand, if the 1970 date is accurate, then Samantha (at 18) still looks too young in the annual. More importantly, it raises the question of what happened during that decade between Vincent’s death and Adam and Dom’s separate self-imposed exiles. It would also mean that Adam and Elalyth conceived the twins after Adam killed Vincent – which is not something has not even been hinted at before.
The actual year is problematic because, as stated elsewhere, despite decade long breaks I have maintained an unbroken ClanDestine continuity within the MU continuity which regularly cites dates that can’t possibly be considered accurate. As to the specific instance of when Vincent died in relation to the other events you listed, there is no discrepancy. A couple of wrong assumptions and a possibility you haven’t considered-- that will be hinted at in the Wolverine Annual.

Alan
DonCampbell
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon May 21, 2012 5:56 pm
Location: Island of Montreal, Quebec, Canada

A Thank You and an apology

Post by DonCampbell »

Dear Mr. Davis;

Over three years ago I joined this board specifically so that I could post ten questions about ClanDestine that I hoped would be answered. A few weeks later I checked this board and was quite pleased to find that you actually had taken the time to answer all my questions. Better still, you had provided full and comprehensive answers which showed that you had taken my questions seriously - something which not all writers do. I immediately began drafting a reply in which I thanked you...but also asked some follow-up questions. And that's where things went wrong.

I wasn't able to compose my follow-up questions quickly so I put them aside to finish later. And then I forgot about them. From time to time I would remember those unfinished questions and the fact that I had never thanked you for answering the original questions but, instead of doing something about it, I just put them off again...and again...and again. As you may have guessed, I am a Master Procrastinator.

Anyway, I have long since realized that I was being ungrateful by not (at the very least) replying with a thank you for your taking the time to answer my questions. So now, even though my follow-up questions are STILL not fully composed, I am correcting my discourtesy.

Thank you, Mr. Davis, for answering my questions, and I sincerely apologize that it has taken me so long to get around to saying that.

Don Campbell
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