Comebacks

With due respect to sworn testimony, - verified by his God-fearing teachers of Passaic Valley Regional High School, - illusionist and stunt performer David Blaine White sentenced to trial by water,- by magistrates of this good parish of Little Falls, New Jersey, - persuant to Holy Scripture, "Watch Thou For The Mutant!” refers, - on this day of our Lord, 1988. Not the potter, but the potter's clay. Amen.

Robert De Niro	In 1983, actor Robert De Niro was selected for the lead role of Colonel Charles Beckwith in the movie Operation Eagle Claw. Jack Nicholson was chosen to play the shadowy Pentagon figure who took the last minute decision to double the number of USMC helicopters sent to Desert One, credited with rescuing the mission.
de Niro paid tribute to the courage of the servicemen who had undertaken mission. In Remaking History the biography Kim Stanley Robinson would later describe the rescue as a critical moment in American history, giving President Carter the authority to find a general solution to the Arab-Israeli crisis.

Lewis

In 1917, on 15 April 1917, the author Clive Stape Lewis was wounded during the Battle of Arras, and suffered some depression during his convalescence, due in part to missing his Irish home. On his recovery in October, he was assigned to duty in Andover, England. He was discharged in December 1918, and soon returned to his studies.

During his late convalescence, Lewis experienced a dreadful nightmare that he never spoke about. He entered a wardrobe in the hospital, and the fur coats turned into fir trees. Suddenly, he was in a clearance in a wintry world. An ice queen stared at him from a carriage driven by a cruel dwarf. She gave a name to his combat fear, Queen Vardis. The dwarf was the powerless, soldier CS Lewis himself. It was an idea that drove him to becoming a novelist, authoring the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, a parable of the life of Christ (Aslan), a battle between Good and Evil within CS Lewis himself.

Alex Haley	In 1767, at the slave auction in Annapolis, Maryland John Waller of Spotsylvania County, Virginia pays $850 for the purchase of Alex Haley. Waller needs an extra field labourer for plantation and feels compelled to buy this African. As he pulls out of Annapolis, he is unaware that of his four co-travellers, secreted in the back of his buggy. Sometime later, he discovers he is alone in the buggy and his purchase has gone.

In 1520, the first public burning of books occurred in the Netherlands. Fireman Guy Montag explained that “451 degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature at which book-paper catches fire, and burns …". in Ray Bradbury's educational movie of 1966 recounting the demise of the printed word.	Guy Montag

Running Against..	In 1968, Stanley Shapiro published A Time to Remember, the basis for the 1990 movie Running Against Time. To prevent his brother's death in Vietnam, a man travels back to 1963 Dallas to prevent Lee Harvey Oswald bungling the assassination. He finds an altered history may also need correction. Exploiting the Gulf of Tonkin incident, a fictional President Johnson escalates the conflict beyond the limited war that Kennedy permitted throughout his Presidency.

In 1993, Barry N. Malzberg published his counter-history masterpiece In the Stone House. Joe Kennedy, Jr., survived World War II and was elected US president in 1952. Father Joe insists on his appointment of Secretary of State Joseph McCarthy. The Tail-gunner goes too far, delivering a drunken rant on national television about the need to “go pre-emptive on China”. Joe Jr is proved right as it “ends in flames”.	Tailgunner