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The Hooded Hood Chronicles #4: The Hooded Hood and the Purveyors of Peril Thursday, 18-Nov-1999 16:35:21
The Hooded Hood Chronicles #4: The Hooded Hood and the Purveyors of Peril Our tale begins with a moody establishing shot of Herringcarp Asylum, the mental health institution with the greatest annual rainfall on the Eastern seaboard, the gargoyle-bedecked garrets of which have taken more lightning hits than Lisa is a downtown night-club. And there, in the single lit tower, looking out over a spume-capped ocean, the cowled crime-czar himself… the Hooded Hood! Flapjack, a conveniently created hunchbacked servant, rushed around the plushly furnished cell hurriedly tidying up before visiting hours. “Be certain to turn the cushions over where Baron Zemo was sitting,” the Hood instructed his minion. “He was somewhat excited when he arrived, what with hoping to date his deep-frozen wife again and then capturing the lissome Lisa. He spent a lot of time over there on the couch with my copies of Domination and Devastation. And I would not wish my visitors to be disturbed by… stains.” “All shall be in readiness, master,” promised Flapjack. The Hood had originally given him a pronounced lisp, but he had made that unhappen because after a half hour of “mathster” this and “mathster” that he had found it just too annoying. Instead he had substituted carbuncles. This had the twin advantages of providing a distinctive puss-layered appearance to the hunchbacked retainer so that he could be easily picked out even at the Annual Super-Villain Unmasked Ball and of allowing the Hood to amuse himself by throwing darts to pop them. “Very good,” the Hood nodded, wondering for a moment if he should use his retconning abilities to ensure that he had always had a cat to stroke for moments like this. But no. That hadn’t worked before. He had decided on a big ginger tom in Tales to Infuriate #87 “Space Phantom meets the Hermaphrodites of Doom”, and the damn thing had kept leaving dead mice on the throne throughout the entire plot and then had got itself stuck under the Nuclear Disaster Co-Ordination Board and had managed to short-circuit the entire thing. If the Hood hadn’t erased the entire comics company the entire Western world would now be a large, barren crater. And that would have been no fun to rule. The great grandfather clock sonorously sounded the hour. The Hooded Hood drew himself up from his reverie and swathed his cloak dramatically behind him. He ensured that it was at least fifteen feet longer than practical, for dramatic purposes, and gestured to Flapjack. “Open now… the Portal of Portentiousness!” he commanded. The hunchback was quick to obey. He pulled down on an unnecessarily large lever which made a massive sound effect for no other reason than to keep a rather underpaid letterer happy by giving them something out of the ordinary to do. FLAAAARRCCHHH-CHAKKKK…. THOOOOMMMM! A section of cell wall ground aside to reveal a shimmering silver mirror, partially obscured by zip-tone. The Hooded Hood’s green eyes narrowed as he glared at the image in the looking glass. “I was not aware that my meticulous research into the follies and weaknesses of my enemies included a detailed study of Pegasus’ bathroom shower,” the cowled crime-czar commented. “I was only trying to assist, master,” Flapjack cowered, clutching some two dozen video tapes to his chest and trying to conceal his very favourite episodes down the front of his tights. The Hood seized up a handful of the boxes, not being too careful about what he crushed in his iron grip. “Visionary-Cheryl-Hot Tub 23” he read, cuffing the serf, “Return of the Loofah”. “I thought they might be discussing strategy,” the hunchback quickly explained. The Hood gave Flapjack the horrendous squint that he had now had all along. “The Parody Master doesn’t have these problems with his minions!” the cowled crime-czar muttered. “Must get the address of his agency…” The swirling Kirby energy bubbles around the Portal of Pretentiousness intensified as the Hood focused his attention once more upon the mirror. “Let the veil of dimensions now be ripped asunder!” he proclaimed, gesturing his hand into an unlikely Ditko posture, fingers impossibly splayed and a thick wavy black line circling his fist. The Portal rippled, shuddered like the reaction to bad fan poetry, and showed an entirely different scene. A tall, blonde man in an elegant tuxedo raced between the blackjack tables of the floating casino. Ahead of him, a svelte young woman in a tight-fitting velvet-like substance raced towards the deck and her waiting escape Helihoister. “You’ll never catch me now, Jarvis,” the VelcroVixen mocked, turning to get in a full-page pin-up shot before departing. “I have the jewels, the secret plans, the President’s underwear, and the codes for the NORAD nuclear arsenal. Now I shall sell them all to the highest bidder, unless you care to bring me the twelve million dollars ransom I demanded!” “Not so fast, VV!” Jarv called out, already scattering the ice bucket across the floor so that she would slip and drop her Static Cling Inducer, “Get it yourself!” It was clear to the watching Hooded Hood that VelcroVixen was about to fail. Not only would the butler somehow overpower his adversary, but he would somehow get away with never telling Lisa about the hot wrestling match he was going to get subduing her. “It shall not be,” the Hood commanded. He reached through the Portal, erasing the entire episode from the BZL archive, drawing VelcroVixen back through to Herringcarp Asylum. “Where am I?” the cat-lithe villainess demanded, desperately casting around for an editorial footnote. “Hood? Hoody, is that you?” “You are a most fortunate young woman, Victoria,” the cowled crime-czar told her, stepping backwards onto Flapjack’s hand as he reached for the video camera. “I have saved you from your greatest defeat, and brought you to where you will have a chance to make all your dreams come true.” “All of them?” the VelcroVixen shuddered. “Even that one where there are all those big wobbly mountains of jelly and...” “I have arranged it so that you have never fought Jarvis before,” the Hood interrupted impatiently. “You know his methods, his fighting style, all about him. But he has never even heard of you.” “Then he won’t know about the time…” “Exactly,” the Hood grimaced. “Hoody, I like the way you think.” “Don’t call me Hoody,” the cowled crime-czar instructed her, turning back to the portal. “Now to find some other villains that have come within an inch of defeating members of the Lair Legion. As I recall, Fin Fang Foom had a certain difficulty with Appendage Man.” “No!” VelcroVixen gasped. “Not Appendage Man! He’s insane! The dragon had to break his sacred oath never to eat another sentient being to stop him! And that led to the entire cycle where he renounced his dragonhood, and his best friend took up the mantle as Fighting Foom II, struggling to live up to the legend until he was tragically killed in that freak oyster disaster. And then Foom had to give up the video game addiction and somehow claw his way back to herodom…” “Never happened,” the Hooded Hood proclaimed, drawing the hairier-than-the-Changeling, gibbering-like-Deadpool-on-speed villain through the portal of Pretentiousness. “Welcome, Appendage Man… to the Purveyors of Peril!” The Hood waited until Appendage Man held something that resembled a hand out towards him. There were a few other bits he would prefer not to shake. “We kill Foom?” the many-shaped menace lisped from several random orifices. The Hooded Hood raised his grey-mantled head towards the flickering portal. “Not yet, my disgusting ally,” he told him. “We have many more enemies of the Lair Legion yet to recruit.” And he turned his attention back to the Portal, and the moment of the Dark Knight’s greatest tragedy. “Many, many more,” the archvillain promised. And this episode’s added bonus: About the time this chapter went up a brand new poster appeared on the board with an IPP address remarkably similar to the Hooded Hood’s. The new character called himself “A Junior Reader”, and he typified every undiscriminating, opinionated, poor-judgemented fourteen year old you’ve ever wanted to strangle in a comic-book shop. A few chapters later he was due to actually appear in the Hooded Hood’s storyline. Here’s his debut: A Few Questions Wow! I just discovered your mega website last night and all I can say is, awesome! You guys are the coolest! You really whup ass. I hope you don’t mind if I ask a few questions. It might be that people have asked them before, but please answer them cause I’m new. 1. Who is Lisa? She seems pretty cool. Is she dating anyone? What grade is she in? 2. Who is stronger, Jarvis or Visionary? 3. Who thought up the LAir Fortress? It is cool. 4. Will you ever do a cross-over with WILDcats? That would be cool. 5. I think Banjooooo is awesome. What stories has he been in? Will he ever team up with Sersi to take on Dr Moo? That would be awesome. 6. I didn’t understand all of that story by Gurl about the student taking her pants down. Could you explain what was going on. Will the student be coming back to fight the Legion? 7. Where do you get your ideas from? 8. Why don’t you do a story where all the bad guys team up and attack the Legion all at once and there’s this really big fight with loads of things exploding and people get killed and everything and then Donar gets, like, really mad and then Shaper and Chronicler and Fin Fang Foom start whupping ass and then more things blow up and some of the bad guys get chopped up and the Legion wins? That would be cool. 9. How do I get an origin? Is there a waiting list? 10. Who is badder, the Hooded Hood or Baron Zemo? They are both pretty cool, but Lisa could rule them both. Lisa rocks. A Junior Reader The nostalgia-fest continues as we meander our way through the back-catalogue of stories from... the Hooded Hood |
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