Welcome to another edition of Story Behind The Story. This time we'll look at "The Judas Connection," the story where Ranger and Combat finally become a couple.


SPOILERS AHEAD IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE STORY! THIS IS YOUR FIRST AND ONLY WARNING!




























































The seeds for this story were planted when  train sent many of us in the group an email revealing the traitor who betrayed the UNIT, Brigadier General Thomas Louie Jefferson. This gave me an idea: what if the UNIT weren't the only soldiers he betrayed? What if he sold out Julius Thomas to the Yakuza? I pitched the idea to  train and he liked it. Then he suggested the UNIT as Julius' idea, which I liked very much. The title is a sort of nod to one of my favorite comics storylines, "The Judas Contract" from New Teen Titans When I came up with the story, I was toying with another story idea called "Tasting the Forbidden Fruit," which was about Combat violating his own rule against getting romantically/sexually involved with a student, in this case, Doe Dynamo. In that story, there would have been a falling out between Combat and Ranger, which would have carried over into this story. I eventually dropped that story idea.

To set up this story, I had Jefferson appear at the end of "Infection Strategy." From there, I determined that he would hire supervillains to protect him or assassinate Ranger. Many would be created by  train, and some would be mine. I conceived three villains for this story. The first of mine to appear was Awry, who I based on an obscure X-Men villain named Scrambler. The second was Berserker, who started as a cyborg elephant called War Elephant. After a while, I changed him to a Kodiak bear and an even more apparent anti-Ranger (male, insane and more explicitly cybernetic). In terms of personality, I based him on two characters from Full Metal Jacket: Private Pyle and Animal Mother (if you've never seen "Full Metal Jacket," nothing I just said may make sense). The third character I created for this was Ningyō Tsukai, Japanese for "puppet master." I took inspiration for him from an episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender called, appropriately enough, "The Puppet Master.


At the time I started writing this,  train started redesigning Ranger's look. Thus, this would be the first story to have her in the then-new outfit. The first attack on Ranger is where I decided to use Awry. The part where he mocks the tension between her and Combat was inspired by a similar scene from issue #90 of JLA.  mojorover fleshed the scene out by adding Cash Tankenson doing what he does best: shoot his mouth off. Initially, I had Combat pursue Jefferson separately from Ranger and confront him disguised as Julius. But the more I thought about it, the less plausible that seemed. So I had Ranger and Combat go after him together. A small confession: I had no idea that General George William Casey, Jr. was a real person. I assumed he was a character  TRAIN created. Then I looked him up and learned that he was real. At first, I only had Mad Hat saving Ranger and Combat, but then  wolfrider added Strikira and the thread about Jefferson also selling out her brother Josh's unit. He also added his and  TRAIN's character Glitch to fight alongside my Berserker.

Now let's talk about what everyone probably wants to discuss: the Joseph-Kuwanna sex scene. I had never written a sex scene, at least not in a Colmaton story. I found a website for an erotica writer named Zane. She had at least one sex tips article. That article was a big help in the scene. I also came up with a playlist. At first, I had Joseph and Kuwanna kiss during "The Closer I Get To You," but then I decided "Yearning for Your Love" by the Gap Band was a more fitting song for the kiss. And here's the playlist:

"The Closer I Get To You" - Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway
"Yearning For Your Love" - The Gap Band
"Read Your Mind" - Avant
"Rock Wit'cha (Quiet Storm Mix)" - Bobby Brown
"Moments in Love (Quiet Storm Version)" - Art of Noise
"Footsteps in the Dark" - The Isley Brothers
"You Are My Starship" - Norman Connors featuring Michael Henderson
"With You I'm Born Again" - Billy Preston and Syreeta


As for the ending, Jefferson originally ended up in Han Zhaoxing's clutches. Han wanted the Bionic Blood secrets. Then, I considered switching him out for the villain with the most emotional impact on Ranger: Dr. Brambleberry. Of course, Brambleberry would be angry at Jefferson for trying to kill her archenemy, much like how the Joker won't allow anyone else to kill Batman. Then, I took a cue from the first Raimi Spider-Man movie with the "You must first attack the heart" bit, setting the stage for a future story.


And that's the story behind "The Judas Connection."