Ordinary citizens of Paragon City have started to ask themselves a simple question: do they need heroes at all? In the absence of large numbers of superpowered heroes within city limits, many citizens have taken it upon themselves to stop crime in their area... and are having some successes. What's more - citizens appear to be happier being saved by other citizens rather than heroes since "normal people are just nicer."

"It's true, I'm sorry to say: many heroes are self-absorbed and too brooding to even pay attention to who they are rescusing," says Mabel Chatsy, spokeswomen for the Citizen's Advocacy Brigade (CAB). "All too often a hero will mope onto the scene, deliver some dialogue about having an unhappy childhood, then punch out the bad guy and leave. No hello, no goodbye - these heroes just think they are better than us. Well, we can look after ourselves!"

CAB has reported its memberships are up in recent times and that its members have been able to reduce the number of petty thefts, vandalisms and car-jackings that have occurred in CAB-assisted areas. Also, CAB members are more likely to know the area they are protecting and aren't going to make a mistake. Ms Chatsy elaborates on this point, "I remember one time when my son came to borrow some money off me on the street. He was wearing bright clothes and had coloured hair, but he's such a nice boy... anyway, I'd just handed the cash over when some spandexed fool appeared and proceeded to mind-control my son into giving the money back! It took ages to explain to this hero what was going on; all I can say is I'm glad he didn't have claws when he made such an error!"

As a new CAB member, Andreas Spiros says there are many reasons to join CAB and to stop using heroes. "CAB put on such nice member lunches and are always so polite to each other - not like those 'zip in, save, zip out' heroes who think the world revolves around them. Would some manners cost them, or would it just eat into their heroing time?", he asks.

When questioned about CAB's effectiveness in stopping superpowered villains, Ms Chatsy and Mr Spiros indicated that CAB hasn't crossed paths with any. "Villains generally stick to their own dirty areas where decent folk don't go," says Ms Chatsy. "CAB looks after citizens and doesn't see the point in galavanting into abandoned factories or disused parks since there are no citizens there. In fact, only those who are stupid or arrogant would go into such areas, and then all they do is fight anyway. Acting like this isn't heroic at all!"

CAB expects to hold a public meeting in Atlas Park in the near future and is seeking decent citizens for members.

A large battle group of 39 heroes managed to hunt down the evil genius known as the Clockwork King, but in a dramatic battle deep inside the Paragon City sewer system he managed to escape. All 39 heroes involved in his pursuit required emergency teleportation and hospitalisation.

The picture below was supplied by the Dawn Patrol from the cybernetic memory logs of one of the injured heroes, it clearly shows the turning point of the battle when the famous Australian hero known as "The Belcher" released his trademark Super Sonic Belch attack at the Clockwork King's head. The belch managed to disorientate the super-villain and also made the villain completely deaf.

At this point the Clockwork King panicked and managed to retreated from the super heroes by going deeper into the sewer system. The heroes thought they had the Clockwork King on the run and that they simply had to catch up with him to guarantee victory... but they did not follow the Clockwork King to victory, they followed him into a trap.

The Clockwork King had executed his escape plan perfectly. When the heroes followed him into the tight sewer tunnels where he detonated a nearby gas main to totally devastate the hero group. If it was not for the recent upgrades to the Emergency Teleportation System (ETS) there would of been fatalities.

Analysis of the battle data confirms that the Clockwork King has only the usable sense of sight for the time being. This is because he has no sense of smell from hanging around the sewers for so long, his robotic battle armor has no tactile sensors, but better still he is suffering from temporary deafness that will last for about a two weeks without advanced medical attention.

The Dawn Patrol has taken this opportunity to form a team of Light Control & Darkness manipulating heroes to hunt down the renegade robotics engineer while he is in this vulnerable state of deafness. The specially picked team of heroes will use their use their powers to totally bombard the villains sight till he is totally blind, which will completely swallow the villain in a state of sensory deprivation and make him easy to subdue.

The team had only just headed into The Sewer at the time the Beholder went to print, so alas we can not report the outcome of the manhunt at this time.

The Clockwork King under attack from all sides.

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In a shock move that will see no Paragon City entrant into this year's Miss America contest, the Miss Paragon City Beauty Contest has been cancelled just prior to final judging after it was determined that the judges were being mind-controlled by a contestant. Miss Diane Durns was arrested on stage and has been charged with five counts of unlawful mind-control of a person, each of which are a serious misdemeanour.

Miss Durns is perhaps better known as the hero Miss Direct, a Controller who was involved in several minor hero teams prior to the Rikti invasion. She apparently retired from her heroing career shortly after the invasion was repelled, saying to UberLeet magazine that she'd seen too many good people "throw their lives away". Within a short time of retiring Miss Direct was hired as a model by several Paragon fashion designers and had been nominated as Miss King's Row for the Paragon City Beauty Pageant.

It appears that Miss Durns would have gotten away with the deception but for an observant audience member who noticed that the judges were blinking in unison whenever she was on stage. Together with some video footage of the event he managed to convince a number of heroes to act. They arrested Miss Durns on stage, throwing the Pageant into some confusion for several minutes until they could explain themselves.

Miss Durns' lawyer, Karl Uxor, spoke on her behalf after her arrest. "My client has admitted wrong-doing in this incident and feels great remorse for her actions. She wanted to win so badly that perhaps she subconsciously commanded the judges to give her the prize, but admits to having controlled them. She will please guilty on all charges and throw herself on the mercy of the court. I'm sure her excellent hero record and that no harm was done will see Miss Durns' receive a fair hearing."

The cancellation of the Pageant will mean that no Miss Paragon City will be eligible to enter the Miss America Contest. It was expected that the Miss Paragon City Contest would help reinvigorate the citizens coming out of the shadow of the Rikti; instead it is yet another dark day for Paragon City fashionistas.

* On a personal note, as a former contestant and later judge of the Miss Paragon Beauty Contest, I am shocked and appalled by Miss Direct's behaviour. I believe that previous Contests should be examined for signs of tampering; I am sure that Bethany Smythe used something similar to beat me in the 1988 contest.