Number of the Beast is a comic book limited series, written by Scott Beatty, with art by Chris Sprouse. Number of the Beast was the second in a number of bi-weekly series, it was preceded by Wildstorm: Revelations, which resulted in the relaunch of a number of Wildstorm titles. Characters As well as regular Wildstorm characters the series introduced a new team, The Paladins, comprising: Aeronaut, a jetpack-user and womanizer. Black Anvil, an Afro-American former football-player made of living iron. Considered indestructible. Engine Joe, real name Joseph Rotkowski, is a cyborg made from car parts. He is a friend of Mago and Tumbleweed. Thrush, an analogue to DC Comics' Hawkgirl. Falconette, daughter-sidekick of Thrush. Mago, a magician. Gained magical knowledge by 'renting his soul' to various occult powers. Midnight Rider, a female motorcycle-riding urban vigilante. She is a lesbian, and an analogue of the Midnighter. Neandra, a vigilante who acts like a cavewoman. Redeemer, evidently millennia old and eternally young, the leader of the Paladins. Tumbleweed, a former U.S. Army lieutenant, turned into a being made of desert flora by radiation testing from the Trinity Site. Honeybee, '50s icon for troops. Johnny Ray-Gun, a cowboy with a high-tech weapon. Mite, a size change superheroine. The High, the main antagonist from Warren Ellis' "Change or Die" arc of Stormwatch, was revived for the series. Synopsis The story chronologically began in 1945, when General Zebulon McCandless, a very pious and dogmatic person, oversaw the American recovery of a crashed Daemonite flying saucer in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. The saucer was deliberately buried where it impacted and converted into a bunker facility. McCandless looked upon the saucer's teleportation, virtual reality, and suspended animation technology and an impossible idea occurred to him. He began drafting a plan to capture this era's superhuman heroes and villains, some of whom had contributed their services in World War II, and train them to fight off the End of Days under a program he titled "Number of the Beast". McCandless had America's hero team, the Paladins (who also knew the general very well), sent to observe the Hiroshima bombing, but they were teleported into the facility built around the saucer, known as Number of the Beast Bunker #1 (NOTB #1). Eventually, the Paladins' allies and enemies were similarly captured and placed in suspended animation, without ever-aging, for more than sixty years, during which the Paladins protected "the City"