As Faro struggled through his weekly treatments, the world outside changed swiftly — and cruelly.
Mr. Clown, exploiting the fear and hopelessness across Thundarr City, launched a campaign promising “order and prosperity.” With the media in his pocket and the broken spirit of the people, he easily won the presidency. Beside him, grinning wickedly, Flint Faros was sworn in as Vice President.
Their rule descended like a hammer. Heavy taxes, mass surveillance, and brutal enforcement became the norm. The D.E.C., once meant to protect, now turned a blind eye to injustice, their pockets fat with Clown’s bribes.
No more heroes roamed the streets.
No Falcon.
No Shecon.
No Kestrel.
Cal Faros, having long since abandoned his mask, became Clown’s powerful new business partner after marrying Ronda Riy and fathering a son. His public betrayal of the Faros legacy was the final blow.
Across Planet Thundarr, a chill set in: a world without saviors.
Meanwhile, in a forgotten corner of Southbank, Rita watched over her frail husband and her two innocent children. She clenched her fists every time the news blared Mr. Clown’s sickening promises across broken television screens.
“We have to rise again,” Rita whispered one night, watching the rain fall like tears against their cracked window. “Even if it’s just us. Even if it’s impossible.”
And Faro, weak but alive, squeezed her hand.
“We’re Faros,” he rasped. “We don’t die quietly.”
Thundarr City grew darker under Mr. Clown’s rule.
One by one, non-city settlers — the poor, the refugees, the forgotten — were rounded up like cattle. Giant black trucks roamed the districts day and night, sirens howling, dragging families out of hiding. Deportation camps were overflowing. Mercy was a dead language.
Rita and Faro, clinging to what little life they had left, lived in fear for their son Pifo.
The Pigmen were officially declared “non-citizens” by the new laws. Pifo’s mixed blood could expose them at any moment. Every knock on the door, every siren in the night, sent terror through Rita’s chest.
Meanwhile, Flint Faros tightened the iron grip over Thundarr’s underworld.
The women working in Clown’s strip clubs — Rita among them — lost every shred of protection. Laws were rewritten to ensure they had no rights, no voice, and no way to escape their contracts. Flint personally oversaw the cruel new systems, making sure the clubs remained Clown’s most profitable entertainment industry.
As for Cal Faros, now the golden boy of Thundarr business — he stooped lower still.
Desperate to dominate the city’s beverage market, Cal ordered artificial addictive enhancers mixed into every bottle of the newly rebranded Clown Cola.
The chemicals made drinkers crave the soda uncontrollably, swelling Clown Cola’s profits — but at the cost of widespread addiction.
The once-proud Cal Cola empire had become a corrupt beast, feeding the city’s decay.
And in a crumbling apartment in Southbank, Rita and Faro sat in the dark, listening to the thudding boots of deportation squads marching closer.
Faro clutched Pifo and Sulari to his chest.
Rita wiped silent tears from her eyes.
“We need a miracle,” she whispered.
But in Planet Thundarr…
miracles were getting harder and harder to find.
Mr Clown Plays His Trump Card
As Thundarr City grew colder and harsher under Mr. Clown’s iron rule, the walls closed tighter on those who didn’t belong. Immigrants, villagers, and the so-called “unwanted” were shunned, denied rights, and tossed aside like waste.
One evening, under the neon flicker of Southbank’s crumbling lights, little Pifo — Faro and Rita’s pigmen child — collapsed in the narrow alley where their small shelter stood. His small body was burning with fever, shivering uncontrollably. Rita screamed for help, clutching her son in her arms, running through the streets toward the nearest clinic.
When she reached the gates of the hospital, two stone-faced guards stood firm.
“Papers,” one of them barked, without even glancing at the crying child.
Rita, tears flooding her eyes, pleaded, “Please, he’s just a baby! He’s sick! Please help him!”
But it didn’t matter.
Pifo was a non-citizen.
An illegal.
A stain in the eyes of Mr. Clown’s new regime.
The guards shoved her away coldly.
“No healthcare for illegals,” they said, slamming the clinic doors in her face.
Desperate, Faro staggered after her — his own body wrecked by illness, his skin pale and eyes hollow from his liver failure. Together, they sat in the gutter of Southbank Avenue, holding their dying son, powerless.
Above them, billboards flashed with Clown Cola’s new slogan:
“Drink. Obey. Smile.”
And in the distance, Flint Faros laughed as he watched the suffering from the tinted windows of his government car.
