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The Hooded Hood Chronicles #11: The Hooded Hood and the Brink of Apocalypse Monday, 29-Nov-1999 07:32:15
The Hooded Hood Chronicles #11: The Hooded Hood and the Brink of Apocalypse Hello, and welcome to this week’s BZL continuity lecture. Now pay attention. This story takes place just after Jarvis announced the new Lair Legion line-up, which added Rocket Raccoon, Sersi, and CrazySugarFreakBoy to the team, but demoted DarkHwk to technical advisor to NTU-150 (“Duck!”) and took Donar off the regular team, with the subsequent correspondence about Donar’s suspended expense account. Yo was off-Earth after the conclusion of the major Yo-planet storyline. spiffy was dead and in hell, which is manifested to him as a small, cold Nebraskan town. Visionary was in self-imposed exile in some cornfields somewhere with his robotic companion Fleabot. The newest hero on the block was a guy called Goldeneyed, who’s just debuted and will soon meet the Lair Legion for the first time. Just before this story, the major Parody-Master plot (written mainly by Jarvis) had led to the restoration of the previously nuked city of Paradopolis (and the consequent ret-conning of New Parody City), the destruction of the Legion’s unpopular LAir Fortress and the return of the original Lair Mansion, and the restoration of the previously exploded moon. Also Messenger had almost fatally shot Jarvis, but both of them were better now. On a cosmic front, the Chronicler of Stories had just helped to induct a new, female office-holder to the post of Shaper of Worlds. In the real world, Jarvis announced his engagement to the lovely Melissa around this time, and the board was temporarily shocked by what appeared to be an insulting message from Starseed to the BZL’ers but which turned out to be a poor joke from a friend of his. All of this is marginally relevant because with this episode and from now on this series really became “Untold Tales of the Lair Legion” in all but name, and was dropped right in the middle of what we laughingly call BZL continuity. Pretty much all of the stuff mentioned here gets referenced in this or later chapters. Here we go: This is a story with a multiple choice beginning. Just select the opening you prefer and then put all the others after it. For those who like to start with something spectacular – DC comics editors replying to Fin Fang Foom for example, or Jack Kirby in one of his kosmic moods - we could open with a massive starscape, and there, moving majestically through the void amidst inexplicable black bubbles of energy we see Galactivac, all-powerful cosmic force, the Living Death That Sucks. Ever forward he moves, always seeking out civilised worlds that he can hoover up into his infinitely expanding interior. And there, in his path, a small shuttlecraft clearly plagiarised from the Star Trek franchise. The close proximity of Galactivac has leached all the energy from their systems, and the occupants are jabbering pointless technobabble to each other about recoupling the OCP conduits and rerouting the primary phlogiston generator with increasing panic. “Never fear…” the suddenly-appearing superhero assures them, “Goldeneyed is here – oh shit! Where the heck am I this time?” There, on the expensive monitor screen ahead of them, the grandeur that is Galactivac flexes one mighty hose towards them. “I can’t die!” Goldeneyed shrieks, “I’ve only just started my own series. No way am I going to get cancelled before issue six!” “A massive gravitemporal pulse is heading towards us,” one of the uniformed shuttle denizens reports. Then, noticing Goldeneyed for the first time, adds hopefully, “Um, are you one of the Q come to zap us into some amusing historical simulation? Please?” This shuttle pilot has just worked out what colour shirt he’s dressed in, and that his name wasn’t in the regular cast credits. “Nope. Sorry. But it is time to get out of here.” “That would be a most logical course of action, but the probability of re-engaging the principal or secondary dipilation couplers is…” Galactivac’s vast nozzles reach towards the stranded craft. “This is really, really going to hurt!” Goldeneyed responds, gripping the superstructure and unlocking his talent to jump between times and places. The theory is, his clothes go with him when he jumps (except for that one time, but that’s another story, and besides the summons was quietly dropped and everything was settled out of court with a discreet payment to the chicken farm), so all he has to do is imagine that he’s wearing a fashionable fourteen hundred ton spacecraft with six people in his pockets. The sound effect twangscreeeeeeaaagghhhh! is not the one most usually associated with him using his power. From the right side of the Portal of Pretentiousness (i.e. the other side to the one that Galactivac is on), the Hooded Hood watched with satisfaction. “That deals with one possible threat to my Master Plan,” he gloated to VelcroVixen. “By the time Goldeneyed is in any fit state to jump again I will have sealed off this timeline from all interference. Thereafter he will simply be fodder after my rise to omnipotence.” VelcroVixen ticks off one of the list of names on her clipboard. Or if you’re not into franchise placements, let’s try this opening: Moody, grim, cold city, somewhere between Frank Miller and Bill Sienkowitz. It’s snowing. The only light comes from cold, cheerless bars where sour, loveless men drink weak, tasteless beer. And there, shivering in an alley because of the cold, the hero formerly known as spiffy, now known as citizen 7,944 of Hell, Nebraska. “I am not a number,” he chatters, hugging himself to ward off the hypothermia. “I am a free fern – I mean, man.” A shadow falls over him. He looks up to find a bald, ten-foot tall guy in sandals and a toga looking down on him with interest and taking notes. “Who the hell are you?” spiffy demands. What he really wants to ask is, “Why the hell aren’t your knees blue, and if you don’t have thermal underwear under that skirt, then what the…?”; but he decides not to go there. “I am… the Observer,” the visitor declares. “Um, how did you spot me?” “Hey, I used to be half of a detective agency,” spiffy answered defiantly. “I’m trained to spot the tiniest clues, like you being a ten-foot tall version of Charlie Brown impersonating Julius Caesar.” “It must be because you’re dead,” muttered the Voyeur, feeling that life was being rather unfair to him. “Oh, well, since you can see me perhaps you could just answer a few questions. How long you’ve been dead, what the deal was about that evil spiffy clone stuff, why you have no sex life. Just routine background stuff, for the archives – if I ever get around to updating them.” “The Observer,” mulled the fernless one. “So you watch all the important things that go on in the Universe, right? And just now you’re observing me?” The Voyeur crossed his arms and pouted. It wasn’t pretty. “Well, I took the best assignment on the list that I could get,” he admitted. “But something significant is about to happen to me?” spiffy asked in anticipation. The Voyeur found something very important to observe up behind spiffy’s shoulder so he didn’t have to look him in the eyes. “Well… the reason that I’m observing you is that you’re the only hero in the whole Parodyverse who isn’t going to do anything interesting whilst the Hooded Hood makes his move to conquer reality. Sorry.” The grey snow kept falling in spiffy’s bleak little alley. Still not satisfied? OK, how about a combat scene? Fierce Viking warriors wrestle with each other, rolling about on the floor amidst cheers, thrown flagons of mead, advice from the watching revellers, and a fair quantity of straw and goat-dung. In the background a squad of cheer-valkyries is hopping up and down in metal brassieres and shouting “Bjorn can do it, he’s out man…” etc. On the other side a bunch of dwarves is doing their ritual support dance, a bit like the Kiwi rugby players of New Zealand but with more bent-arm gestures, quaffing, and bending over with chainmail shorts dropped. “Ahhh,” sighs Donar, temporarily unemployed ex-Legionnaire, vacationing in Ausgard, “it doth not get much better than this.” Siryn stifled a comment about a thirty-inch widescreen TV, a multi-disc CD changer, and a dishwasher. Just as Bjorn had managed to get a good grip to pull his dwarven opponent’s head off, a large white stork came fluttering through the meadhall and perched down on the back of Siryn’s chair. Donar turned slightly paler. “Don’t worry, mac” declared the stork. “Amount of stuff you’ve been drinkin’ lately, she’s got no worries.” Siryn stifled yet another comment. “I’m just fillin’ in for the pigeon post, which as you may know is boycottin’ Ausgard on account of the union not likin’ you eating over half their members. I’ve go a message fer a Miss Donar.” The God of Thumping Things gripped Mjalcolm and considered starting a boycott from the stork’s guild as well. “Speak thy message ere thou risest the wrathest of Donar,” he instructed. The stork’s keen sense of self-preservation cut in fast. “OK, It’s from some guy by the name of Hämmerblade. He says you’re a pansywaist makeweight with a bearded girlfriend and you couldn’t make a rainstorm by piddling off the empire state building. He says he’s challengin’ you to a duel for the title of Donar, and the loser has to become a nun in Niflimlingheimgard or something.” Imagine things getting broken at this point. Picture a big foaming frothing Ausgardian expressing his views about Hämmerblade. Imagine Siryn booking him a ticket from RainbowAir. “Siryn, get thee to the cobblers and bid him make me a new pair of boots whilst I am gonest!” “OK… why?” “Because I art going to plant the ones I’m wearing so far up Hämmerblade that I’m not going to want them back afterwards." Or how about the X-Files/conspiracy theory angle? The White House. Washington DC. Opening shot of Jarvis, Lisa, and Cheryl being ushered into the Oval Office. There’s a lot of worried looking military and CIA guys standing around, because the last time the Lair Legion got involved in something the moon exploded. “How-do,” the Pres smiles. He’s especially glad to see Lisa. “This isn’t a social visit,” she explains, staying away from the well-remembered desk. Cheryl drops a manila file before the Chief Executive. “This is a list of the nine hundred and seventy-two times that the Lair Legion has saved the world,” she explains. She doesn’t present the other files, the ones about endangering the world, going rogue, being cloned, spawning evil offspring, and especially not the one totalling the property damage. That’s PR for you. Jarvis places a second file next to it. “And here’s the bill,” he smiles coldly. “The what?” the President asks. “The fee,” Lisa says, with that special cool look that only attorneys can use just before they hit you with the statement of accounts. “My clients have received very generous offers from other parties,” Cheryl explains, indicating the appropriate correspondence. “Zemo is now offering $100,000 a week, tax free, plus benefits like dental and psychiatric counselling. My clients are in demand. So they have decided to get what they are worth.” The Leader of the Free World exchanged worried glances with his aides. “These demands are impossible,” he replied. “We can talk about salary, yes, but…” “Nobody has chosen to rule an important country,” Jarvis pointed out. “Heck, Banjooooo’s only asked for the sea-filled crater where France used to be. Rocket Racoon’s willing to settle for Haiti. Hatman wants Canada – for some reason. CrazySugarFreakBoy! is willing to settle for Lichenstein just because he wants a country whose name is bigger than it is. There are so many countries out there, one each for the heroes who the world depends on doesn’t seem that unreasonable.” “It could be worse,” Lisa encouraged. “You have read Squadron Supreme, haven’t you?” “You can’t be serious!” The President was appalled at the level of corruption he was facing here. He wasn’t due to be in the Senate for hours yet. “Your choice, of course,” Jarvis smiled coldly. “But whilst you’re waiting, don’t be surprised if we get impatient and… break things.” The President waited until the two representatives of the most powerful lunatics on the planet had left before turning to his aides and swearing. “What the f*** do we do now?” he asked them. The three former heroes left the White House to give statements about their visit to the Press Corps. “I love my work,” the Indigo Impostor whispered to his two alternate-timeline selves. They agreed and went off to explain to the TV people that the planet had some new rulers. Or, if we want a heartwarming attention grabber, character-driven piece, let’s open with the real Lair Legion doing a goodwill visit to St Aloysius’ Orphanage in Slumtown, Parodopolis. They’re not all there. Lisa has some kind of unaccountable aversion to orphanages and nuns so she and Jarv are absent. CrazySugarFreakBoy is still in hospital, enjoying the reruns of Captain Planet and Inspector Gadget on daytime TV. Starseed is still off looking up old friends and explaining that those notes they got weren’t from him but were a joke by his jerk buddy. But that’s probably Banjoooo over there under that pile of rug-rats, and Hatman is keeping a small crowd of big-eyed manga-cute orphans happy with a series of increasingly improbable hats. There’s another scrum in the other corner, although curiously it’s only the adolescent male orphans queuing up to jump on Sersi. Messenger is somehow making folded flying envelopes do the most amazing things for an adoring crowd. NTU-150 has a whole range of dangerously transforming toys for the children to break, so he’s pretty popular as well. Fin Fang Foom is shapechanging into all kinds of creatures and kiddies are still finding ways to ride on him. Space Ghost has passed out quietly in the corner, but the children have found his spank-ray and are about to wake him up anyway. Oh, and the entire under-five contingent is following Rocket Racoon around as if he were some kind of minor deity. “This is great – kinda,” Banjoooo admits, crawling from the bottom of a heap of screamingly happy children. “We should do more of this stuff and less of the fighting Dr Moo and that crowd.” “They’re certainly… enthusiastic,” admits Sersi. “We should set this lot onto Moo and see how she copes,” Fin Fang Foom suggested, shifting into something reptilian and armoured in self-defence. “And not only do we get to cheer the poor orphans up, but that anonymous benefactor donates one million dollars to keep the place open just because we came,” added Hatman. “Hmph,” comes a grim comment from the shadows. Not one of the children had yet approached within ten feet of the Dark Knight. Somehow he does not have a “twist my costume and see which bits fall off” aura about him (although it is well known that Sersi brings the team average right back up). “I don’t like it. We know too little about this supposed benefactor. It could be a trap.” “Lighten up, DK,” urges Rocket Racoon, triple-somersaulting past in front of a toddler stampede. “Does every anonymous millionaire have to be a world-dominating bad guy?” “Name one that isn’t,” challenged the Dark Knight. “Well this one must be pretty nice,” Space Ghost argues, staggering forward rubbing his backside and replacing his spank ray gun in its holster. “He’s sent a big pink-ribboned box of presents and everything. It’s just been delivered outside.” “Yay! Presents!” The children shout that as well as Hatman, Banjoooo, NTU-150, RR and Foom. The Dark Knight scowls. The box is almost twenty feet cubed. “Messenger, could the postal service actually deliver something that size without a special truck?” he checked. “Actually, no,” frowned the post-master. “And I don’t see any postage attached.” The children are happily clawing at the wrappings, except for the older boys who are still attempting the same thing with Sersi. “Wait!” Dark Knight called. “Don’t open that box, its…” And the sides of the package explode outwards. “What… the… hell… is… that?” Space Ghost demands, picking himself out of the jelly bowl. The thing that has just come out from the box is roughly the size of a small Soviet Bloc peasant cottage, assuming the cottage had been decorated with razor-sharp super-dense bone fragments and the occasional vaguely-human feature. It looms up, grabs three of the nearest children, and clasps their heads in its massive claws. “Yurt kill!” it promises. In our next instalment: The Lair Legion takes on the unstoppable Yurt! Yo vs Galactivac! Zemo gets a housecall! The President authorises use of the Sentinoids! And the Hooded Hood makes an offer that can’t be refused! Don’t miss it, fervid one! (It’ll probably be around Wednesday, but you know these distribution dates these days) And here’s what the critics said: The Hooded Hood and the Brink of Apocalypse (The Hooded Hood) (07-May-1999 16:09:15) Way beyond hysterical, Ian. Indeed, this was piece was so much fun to read that I had to change my undies afterward!! ;-) (n/t) (Lisa, who gets a howling lust-jones whenever she reads good material... :-O) (07-May-1999 18:05:02) The Author of this Material Cannot Accept Any Responsibility for the Underwear of Readers (n/t) (Sneek, Grabbitt & Thuggery, Attorneys-at-Law) (07-May-1999 18:19:53) Hmmm... I can't decide where to begin, they're all pretty damn funny. (n/t) (Visionary, wondering about Space Phantom) (07-May-1999 18:19:16) Hilarious. I do so love to see the heroic types in deep digestive end-product. (n/t) (Moo) (07-May-1999 19:47:10) Woo hoo! My first role not written by me since my untimely demise! But I notice I wasn't in the "next issue" blurb... sigh. (n/t) (spiffy) (07-May-1999 23:13:20) I'd be delighted to do further unpleasant things to spiffy but I don't want to screw up his continuity. E-mail me with any suggestions. (n/t) (The Hooded Hood, seeking to unify all continuity into one pristine and ordered whole with the Hood as supreme arbiter) (08-May-1999 08:26:12) Nifty! By the way, I'm out of the hospital by now, if that helps. :) (n/t) (CrazySugarFreakBoy!) (08-May-1999 03:19:53) Well, I was kinda hoping for a wounded-hero-drags-himself-from-hospital-bed-scenario, if that's OK with you (n/t) (HH) (08-May-1999 07:45:08) Well, um, if you want to write it, that's cool, but having just written another lengthy story post, if _I_ have to write it, then as far as I'm concerned, he ALREADY dragged himself from the bed, but is still pretty sore and knocked around. :) (n/t) (CrazySugarFreakBoy!) (08-May-1999 08:07:04) No problem. I can find other ways of getting CSFB! into bed (and I'm not referring to the Lisa method) (n/t) (HH) (08-May-1999 08:28:41) AYE!! LET THE HAMMERBLADE SLAYING BEGIN FOR THE NONCE!!!! (n/t) (DONAR, who's pretty sure Kiwis and Maoris are from New Zealand..) (08-May-1999 06:45:53) Um, yeah. New Zealand. Slip of the fingers on the keyboard. Terminal user error. Insert new user. (n/t) (HH) (08-May-1999 07:43:48) Note: the original error Donar’s referring to has been expunged from the text. He was probably imagining it anyway. Wow!. Looking forward for next!! (n/t) (Yo) (08-May-1999 09:49:20) Next time: thrill in awe as the Hooded Hood and Space Ghost battle it out for the title of "Most Insane BZL Writer." *text should begin his *own* story today* (n/t) (08-May-1999 14:53:50) The reprints get into the major league as the Hooded Hood launches his plan to become... ah, you can guess the rest |
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