From the Immortal Chronicles #1 (Spring 1998)
Founded in Great Britain during the 12th Century by Sir Brendan the Malodorous, the Immortals were a secret society of knights bound together by their love for King, country and thin sliced, steaming hot pastrami served on a French roll with just a little bit of brown mustard. Yum.
After missing an opportunity for glory in the last Crusade (Sir Brendan argued, in his dialogue with Sir Hubert the Mildly Entertaining, that the Immortals’ task, as prescribed by divine decree, was staying behind to guard the money and women in case the dreaded Saracens attempted a clever feint through Austria), the Immortals were asked to leave Great Britain and, at the command of King Richard the Lion-Hearted, “find something to do.” Emboldened by this royal decree, their travels soon took them to the New World, predating the arrival of Christopher Columbus and the Vikings by several hours.
Unfortunately, the “Immortal Colony” (as they called their small settlement) proved anything but – beset by a bad winter, local hostile natives aghast by the sudden drop in local property values (Manhattan for $24 – in trinkets?!), and a complete dearth of tolerable pastrami, the Immortals took to endlessly rehashing the funniest parts of the Canterbury Tales. When that grew tired, they turned to the Decameron and the works of Rabelais. (Today, this ancient practice continues with ritual accounts of last week’s Dharma and Greg.)
The Immortals were almost completely forgotten until three UCLA students during the Dark Years of Reagan got together, and dubbed themselves the St. Edwards Literary Society; the fact that one of the them was the direct descendent of Brendan the Malodorous and another of Hubert the Mildly Entertaining was in no way connected with their pretentious behavior, pseudo intellectual discussions, and general inability to carry a simple two-way conversation. Later, they invited new members into their fold, choosing only those who lived up to their rigorous standards of conduct, and could endure a three-day ordeal of Arby sandwiches and That Girl reruns.
Nearly two decades later, confronted by advancing age and the shadow of their own mortality, and with the command of their wives, girlfriends, and parents to “find something to do,” these same friends got together and called themselves The IMMORTALS. This is the best they could do.