PHINEUS: THE RETURN OF JOE MAGARAC Part 4: I Like Ike Bob DelBane
NEW CHARACTERS
1) LUPEK DOUGLAS AND LASTY THE WILDCAT: Corp’s company created Lupek as a fakelore character with the intention of replacing Joe Magarac in the hearts and minds of Pennsylvanians. As Magarac is a folk hero of the steel industry, Corp intends Lupek to be a folk hero for the region’s once and hopefully future energy boom. (This is not unprecedented. See Chesapeake Charlie.)
In order to suggest he is not a brand new character, he is dressed as a nineteenth century oil field worker would, as if he were walking down a street in Titusville in the 1860s. (In my mind, he looks and sounds like Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood.)
Lupek ilasty is Polish for shale, a common target of fracking. Douglas is Scottish/Gaelic for dark, black, or gray stream. Wildcat can mean an exploratory oil well or the act of drilling an exploratory oil well.
2) BABE THE OX: Babe is Paul Bunyan’s big blue pet ox.
3) RANDOM MIDDLEMEN: Continuing the tradition of Corp’s loyal Middlemen whose names mean first, second, or third in a foreign language, one in this story is named Zweiter.

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