I always assumed in the comics that Linderman knew Arthur before he met Angela...1968

But now we're seeing Linderman knew Angela back in 1961...

The novels also make it seem like Linderman and Arthur thought of the company, while Angela was the stay at home mom. So are we to assume Angela had Linderman recruit Arthur...and she was still the mastermind behind it all?

Linderman shows up at the Petrelli house and Angela doesn't let on that they friends in the past and present?

So at some point Linderman decided to side with Arthur over Angela...but then decided to take her side again...or was it part of Angela's plan to not let on she and Linderman were friends.

I'm right with you. "War Buddies" was a 6-part arc that showed how Arthur and Linderman met, and purported at the time to explain how the Company was formed (or at least give a glimpse into how it was formed).

The assumption was that Linderman and Angela had never met before that point, since she's shown once at the end of the arc sitting in the background and doesn't say a word.

I just had this discussion with someone else, and while I think the GN and the show can be harmonized (there aren't any overt conflicts in the story), I think it's a stretch and I'm not happy with it.

I'm the one LTB had the discussion with.

Peronally, I always had the impression Angela and Linderman knew each other before Arthur was involved. I also had the impression Arthur was drafted into an already existing Company.

I don't see the need to really work that hard to make them mesh- to me, they just slid together flawlessly.

I guess after reading 6 GNs of relationship development between Arthur and Linderman, I'm just a little skeptical about seeing Angela and Linderman with this history.

Your "assumption" that Angela and Linderman knew each other has no factual basis in anything before this episode.

However, neither does the assumption that they didn't. Nothing in the GNs you're talking about dealt with any relationship that may/not have existed between them.

I didn't see this brought up. The episode showed that Angela met Daniel L, Bob B, and Charles D; but not Arthur at Coyote Sands. Please explain.

I think he meant Linderman, not Arthur.

I think its more like the company was formed at the end of the War Buddies arc, but Linderman had been sent to protect arthur when he was in the war maybe? I think Angela was just mentioning that they would start a company some day, not that day.

I thought it was pretty clear that they were forming the Company right then and there. Although at the end of the War Buddies arc, we're led to believe that Linderman started the Company and Arthur was his first recruit. *grumble*

(I am not happy about this. How do they just ignore a 6-part GN?)

Sorry about that, I fixed that, I mean Linderman.

Again, I never read it as anything but the beginning of Arthur's involvement. I never thought it was the start of the Company- especially as they'd made it fairly clear by that point that it started in the early 60s.

The groundwork was laid in the diner but,they needed a little time to build their resources.So Primatech started in 1962 and they could have started the cleanup from Coyote Sands,erasing memories & destroying information.[indent][/indent]Just occured to me that perhaps Linda Tavara was sent by Angela (or Charles) to lead Linderman back to them because he had become disillusioned with the plan & left to try to have a "normal" life.

They'll fit it in somehow; just sit back and enjoy. Maybe Linderman introduced Arthur to Angela?

I think this is basically just an inconsistency. The writers hadn't thought of this backstory yet when "War Buddies" was released, and have now more or less come up with a completely different backstory for the Company, Angela, Linderman, etc. It is possible, I suppose, to make them "fit" coherently, but only with a great deal of difficulty and at the expense of a lot of the "feel" of the original story. It's similar, I think, to their decision to have Arthur turn out to have been behind the assassination attempt on Nathan- if it were Arthur, a guy with about a million superpowers who has numerous associates with potent powers of their own spanning all the way from mind-reading/controlling to turning things into gold, who was looking to kill Nathan, why would he do it by having a couple of cronies haphazardly ram his car during a drive? Moreover, why would he even need to do it when he could easily wipe memories, erase evidence, etc. with basically no effort? But they were imposing basically a revisionist explanation for previously-established events, and so caused a great deal of tension within the story in terms of consistency.

Yes. It's a retcon. We're just going to have to cope. On top of everything else, they basically ignore Adam. They did it in Villains too.

Because a suddenly changed Nathan would draw far too much attention. A suddenly dead Nathan wouldn't bring nearly the attention.

Maybe Arthur and Angela were introduced by a third party, like Charles. Some member of the company had a role in the military, and took control of the AuCo mission. They set both Arthur and Lindermen on the mission, since it dealt with a "Special". The two met for the first time there, but obviously Lindermen had met Angela previously.

I found it odd that Angela had such a big part in forming the company (well I dunno if you all would call it 'big' and I haven't read the GNs enough to remember them off the top of my head to recall any other backstory on the company) and she was the last person to inherit the CEO (or company equiv.) position!

First, when you have an endless supply of superpowers at your disposal, there would be a billion better ways to kill the guy than by having "normal" goons haphazardly ram him with vehicles (which would even leave a fair deal of physical evidence of the attack, like tire marks and dents on the back of Nathan's car). For example, you could just have Maury project an illusion that the road turned left on what, in reality, was a right turn, causing Nathan to drive into the trees and die, but without any of the physical evidence.

Second, why would the sudden death, in a mysterious car crash, no less, of the prosecuting District Attorney who had just decided to go after the biggest mob boss around not draw attention, or draw significantly less than his changing his mind?

There is no telling how much contact Linderman, Angela, Charles and Bob had once primatech paper was founded. Its possible that some of them were less invovled on purpose just to make it seem that they were leading normal lives. Linderman likely joined the military and did not have the time or even need to contact any of the others he knew with abilities.

In 1962 primatech paper was founded, ill guess that Bob managed it. The company was not founded until 1977. I think a few years after founding Primatech Paper everyone returned to a normal life. With primatech running they could build up funds and slowly figure out what to do from there.

I bet it took till the early 70s for Angela, Bob, Charles, Daniel to start searching for people like them. Arthur was likely the first new member of the group until in 1977 with the help of Adam all the company founders came together.

I wonder if Angela didn't dream about her future husband and sent Lindermann out to save him during the war?

That's an interesting theory.

Ok, 1961 Angela meets Bob, Linderman, and Charles for the 1st time. She tells them her dream about them coming together to create the Company. She's been saying that her dreams are up to interpretation, so for her, the founding of the Company was rather nebulous. So I'm guessing she lets the events play out.

Late 1960's, she meets and marries Arthur Petrelli. Linderman ends up as an army medic under Arthur's command, neither knew each other's real name. Linderman probably didn't know that Arthur was married to Angela.

Early or mid 1970's, the Vietnam ends, Linderman becomes a drifter, meets Linda Tavara, kills her in self-defense. He has her notebook with Arthur's name and address in it. I'm thinking that before he meets with and formally introduces himself to Arthur, he meets Adam Monroe who invites Linderman to the organization he's forming (The Company).

But hey, weren't Angela and Artur married at this time? They even had baby Nathan and Angela send Arthur a letter, wrote to him about his birth... So this is incorrect theory.
But maybe, the part about forseeing was correct. Maybe when Arthur went on war Angela saw in her dreams that he could be in danger and sent Daniel after him? I'm not sure if this makes any sense, how could Linderman know that he would be in the same group as Arthur?

Edit: Helix83, this sounds about right. Still, it seems like quite a coincidence for them both to fight together, not even knowing each other names, but being so tightly connected to Angela.

He doesn't show up for twenty odd years.

Bob talks about how Adam thought they all belonged together. There is one thing for a group of teens to get together and say this will happen and maybe do some odd things, like burn all the papers at Cs, or we don't even know when they did that.

I have no problem believing they we're wayward and un organized until Adam came along and brough the together cohesively, and with more people like Maury and Kaito. Not everyine us a retcon, sometimes things just ad to a story and as the writers aid "answer questions and leave new ones"

the writers have promised the GN's will be canon for 1961.

I think Helix may be on the right track. Young Angela didn't say they were forming a company right at that moment she said they were "going" to form a company - it was a future statement not a present one.

I'm sure someone can think up a way of making everything fit together. Might be a bit like putting a jigsaw puzzle together with a wrong sized piece but nothing a bit of determination can't solve..

The problem is some of you want the writers to fit their story to your assumptions, like you thought Angela did not know Linderman because she was quiet or war buddies initiated the company; I find it more interesting to find a new meaning to the little angel baby Nathan is playing with...

you wanna a timeline i got one way it could have went.

1961, 4 people meet and learn they will form a company, they are presently ages 16-17. They need to get started and careful pre-cog dream plans are laid.

In time Angela who dreamed of all the founders, would fall in love and marry her husband and future founder Arthur Petrelli. Linderman would join the army, and make sure he is in Arthur's unit to keep him alive as per angela's plans. Striking a bond of friendship and paving way for future trusts.

Bob and Charles would spend time aquiring money and power through their individual abilities. Bob providing money and Charles taking control of buisness and political power with his Telepathy. Charles devreux and his society snares Kaito nakamura, an up and coming bio tech company CEO. Kaito in the likes recruits Victoria pratt who is an expert in biological study to head up comany research.

Linderman and Arthur return from war, both going seperate ways but forming a bond of brothers with eachother. Arthur returns to his family and children and tells angela his story.

Due to arthur's report the government elements of Icarus blackout his mission, and discharge him from service. later his name is listed on a tracking company and he would be a future target of Linda. Linderman goes out to camp alone and somehow knows he was being followed (thanks Angela) and kills linda and then decides its time to re-unite as elements of the Icarus must still be looking for them.

The formation of the company begins and with their might, Icarus and all its files finally get buried and fogotten including the traker company.

Time passes and you know the rest.

What if Arthur pulled an "HRG" and had Angela's mind altered by using the Haitian so she never remembered meeting Linderman or even forming the Company? He could have hired her later on as some sort of consultant and she would have thought she played a major role in the Company and its actions from that point forward but would remember nothing of Coyote Sands. So when she first met Linderman, to her it really was their first meeting.

Wasn't there an episode where Linderman "heals" Angela's brain? Maybe that was when she finally saw what her husband was really up to and figured out that it was she, not Arthur, who built this thing from the ground up and was responsible for what was going on. She would also then have memory of her sister and what happened to her and the other specials.

Also, does anyone else think Peter is Charles' son? I'm basing this on my thought that Charles power evolved to the point where he was able to absorbe powers by getting into people's heads and figuring out how their powers worked (sort of like Peter's empathic mimicry). If this needs spoiler tags, I apologize. I havent read this anywhere

The Company was founded in 1962. Linderman and Arthur met in Vietnam. How could THEY have formed The Company? Linderman showed up to Arthur PETRELLI's house, I'm sure he was surprised to see that Angela Shaw was his wife. This could lead many to believe that they were "destined" to be together.



Well said. That's they was I see it as well, except that Primatech was founded in 1962.

I agree. But I think we can safely say that The Company has we know it was founded 30 years ago, what ever started in 1961 at that dinner were the seeds, but they didn't fully form and be a powerhouse until Adam brought them all together.

Very true. So Primatech was founded in 1962 to eventually be the cover for The Company. Makes sense to me.

Arthur would have had to not only erase Nathan's memory but Nathan's entire office. Also, Linderman and Arthur wanted to make it it look like a hit and run car accident. Nathan wasn't supposed to be alive to tell that they were clearly being targeted.

I agree this seems very convoluted at this point. Some of it could be just because the histories are being told by different points of view who revise history to make themselves appear more/less responsible and involved. Where was Adam during all this? Bob claimed in S2 that Adam was the one who brought everyone together, so was he covering his own involvement? Who recruited Linda Tavara? Who was behind the mission in War Buddies to locate Au Co in the first place, someone in government left over from Icarus? Can all of this be explained by Angela's extremely close relationship with the Haitian, a man she could have sent to erase project Icarus from the minds of even the other Founders?

You'll notice that Kaito and the other founders weren't there when Bob, Angela, Linderman and Charles had the chat at the diner?

Adam "brought them all together" by putting the already-forming group in contact with others.

After watching 1961, I just want to know is War Buddies still canon?

We're discussing it here.

I went back and did all my fact-checking (just because I hate being wrong and looking like an ******).

The most relevant GN to this discussion is War Buddies Part 5. Here's the part causing all the trouble:



We don't know exactly when this happens, but we know it's after 1972 (the middle installment of the Linda Tavara series is in 1972). The Company/Primatech was founded in 1977 (according to Four Months Later).

Sure, maybe they meant something else when they talked about "making sacrifices to save the world" and Linderman asked Arthur to consider his "offer" so that they could "do great things." But if they weren't talking about forming the Company, I'm not sure what they were talking about.

I'll reiterate that I don't think harmonizing the two is impossible; however, I don't think the show cares or will try to reconcile the differences. I think they're content to ignore that War Buddies ever happened in favor of this new, exciting story. That's what makes me most angry.

Linderman recruited Arthur. No argument there.

Can someone show/tell me exactly when Linderman said it was the start of the Company? Because I don't remember seeing that anywhere.

Can you tell me exactly what the point of this GN was, if it wasn't to show us the beginning of the Company?

Or, maybe tell me why the heck Linderman came all that way to recruit Arthur when Angela was sitting in the living room?

Sure, you can ignore all of the implications the writers made at the time, and what their actual intent was and just rewrite the story in your head to fit the new story they're giving us. But why? It almost makes me want to stop reading the GNs. Apparently, they're not canon.

The point was exactly what they said it was. To show 2 of the people involved in it to Hana and Noah.

It showed how Arthur got involved. I never understood it to mean how Linderman got involved. Actually, I never understood how anyone could interpret it that way.

I suppose I meant the point of showing the events to the fans. Not to Hana.

And no doubt it shows the beginning of Arthur's involvement. But the reading was that after his near brush with death by Linda Tavara, Linderman changed his mind about using his ability to change the world, so he went back to the person who first showed him that hard choices sometimes needed to be made: Arthur. Linderman wanted to start a Company, and Arthur was going to be his first recruit.

These events were happening sometime shortly after 1972. As I said before, the Company was formed in 1977.

That was the reading then. Now, you can read it however you want.

That may've been your reading, and the reading of a few others, but it's not the way I ever read it.

And for anyone who's interested, War Buddies Part 5 was released on April 9, 2007, in between Parasite and .07% during Season 1.

While Linderman was in charge of Primatech. Before we knew that Angela had anything to do with anything.

And Synch made an interesting point: the point of the arc was to show Hana exactly who Linderman was, so that she would know who her true enemy was and how to take out the Company. Just one more reason to read the GN as depicting the formation of the Company.

How is that one more reason to read it your way?

Linderman was in charge of the Company. That's all it showed. It never said, and, imho, never even hinted, that the Linderman/Petrelli meeting was where the Company started.

HRG to Hana: "You really wanna know who the Company is? Really want to know who you're fighting? Go find this file."

Hana reads file where Linderman meets another man. Linderman asks other man to join him in saving the world and all that.

You've got to at least admit that's a hint, even if you have dug your heels in too deep to consider the possibility that it was the intent of the writers that we reach that conclusion.

The writers have been pulling this crap for a while. Thats why viewership has gone down dramatically, and why the show just isn't as good anymore. Synch is exactly the type of fan the writers need to keep up their illusion of "good work".

The oddity of Primatech being found in 1962 and War Buddies taking placed in the 1970's before all the Company founders have been assembled has been there since season 1... So while I do agree that Angela's intended role might have changed in some parts, but I think the two dates in season 1 showed the writers have always intended that there to be multiple origins of different aspects of the Company...



Actually, so far we have only seen Linderman, Bob, and Angela as the head of the company --> all 3 are part of the group of 4... It is probable that Angela was simply the 3rd/4th in command after the others at Coyote Sands (most likely 4th, since Charles seems to be the de facto leader of their small group in 1961), and that the other founders that died were actually supposed to inherit the company after Angela...

Primatech was founded in 1962 as a front, of course at the time it really wasnt a front for anything other than hiding the reason it was really founded. It took from 1962 till the founding of the company in 1977 for everything to fall into place.