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Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Brimstone and Rice Pudding – A Treatise on the Various Definitions of Hell Saturday, 23-Oct-1999 12:15:52
#26: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Brimstone and Rice Pudding – A Treatise on the Various Definitions of Hell “I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.” Stubb, from Moby Dick? The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. That’s been pretty well documented over the years. The manhole covers are probably broken promises, the yellow no-parking lines are things we always intended to get round to saying or doing, and the dog dirt (of the kind that would make that Star Wars woman want to lick the normal kind off her five hundred dollar shoes) is definitely the things we’ve never admitted even to ourselves. Strangely, none of the great poets, writers, theologians, visionaries, or lunatics have ever mentioned a comic shop being there. This omission isn’t quite as remarkable as you might expect. You see, hell isn’t just one of the Ditko dimensions, filled with strange and inexplicable ribbons going through Daliesque mounts and improbably floating geometric shapes. Nor is it Heironymous Bosch’s bizarre concatenation of impossible torments with giant household objects. It’s not even the default version of red-horned devils with agricultural implements forking people into blazing fires – although admittedly the denizens of Hell do trot that one out for visitors in the same way the natives of Hawaii greet tourists wearing grass skirts. No, Hell is one of the few places left that prides itself on Personal Service. So to get a comic-book store in Hell, you’d have to be a comic-obsessed enthusiastic, idealistic, eidetically-retentive young man like Dreamcatcher Kokopelli Foxglove. And then you’d find that the shop had no decent back-issues, that all the best talents in the industry had succumbed to Byrne’s syndrome, and that every childhood bully that kicked the snot out of you through high school was lurking in the darkened aisles waiting to have another go at you. And you might find that your grandfather was the proprietor, the one who your mom never talks about, the one who forced her to leave home at seventeen and get sucked into the porn industry because it was better than staying around near him. “Wh… what do you mean about my mom?” CrazySugarFreakBoy stammered. Growing up with a mother whose work output could be rented from the under the counter of the XXX video store by any classmate with a fake ID or obliging older brother had immunised Dream to the usual jibes about her. In fact CSFB! saw absolutely nothing wrong with the art form his mother had chosen to specialise in and had shocked some of his Lair Legion colleagues by brining in a selection of her finest efforts like other people bring home their holiday snaps. Finny was still in therapy. But there was a nasty little smirk around Commodore Hastings’ mouth as he talked about his daughter Melanie, and Dream had just stepped in some of that metaphorical dog crap of self-denial. “I mean she destroyed our lives, boy,” the sweating man in the crumpled business suit told him. “She destroyed our family, broke her mother’s heart, robbed you of your true inheritance as a Hastings male by mingling our line with a stinking Redskin. And she sure as hell failed both you an’ me in every way it’s possible for a woman to fail.” “Whoa, reality check!” Izzy Shapiro interrupted. This was the now-living-because-the-Hooded-Hood-had-retconned-it-that-way-so-CSFB-had-a-guide-through-Hell Izzy, not the possibly-ghost-but-certainly-comes-and-chats-with-Dream-from-time-to-time Izzy who was also tagging along. “Dream’s mom and I never exactly saw eye to eye but it’s pretty clear to me that her experience with you wasn’t exactly a picnic.” Hastings senior gave Izzy a stare that summarised all that he resented about the soiled, Semitic, former resident of Hell. “You an’ me are going to have an appointment, bitch,” he promised her. “Soon as Dream here fails and you return where you belong. Look for me. I’ll be waiting.” “Don’t let him fake you out, Iz,” Ghost-Izzy called out. “After all, Admiral Sweatstains here ended up in the Bad Place for a good reason. And I’m betting he’s got pretty limited visiting rights, haven’t you? I’m betting that if you somehow fail to snare our Dream here there’s going to be, well, Hell to pay. Right?” “What did you mean about mom?” CrazySugarFreakBoy repeated. He needed to be very clear about this. “She was always a slut,” Commodore Hastings declared. “Always paradin’ herself, always leading boys on, and men. I had to teach her a lesson.” “You beat her up?” Dream frowned. “He raped her,” Living-Izzy surmised. “Didn’t you, you pathetic paedophile? That’s why she ran away when no-one believed her, right?” “She loved it,” the sweating man laughed. “She loved every hot, screaming minute of it, all those years.” Both Izzies noticed an expression cross Dreamchaser Foxglove’s face that they hadn’t seen before. “Dream?” Ghost-Izzy checked. “You OK?” “Sure he’s fine,” Hastings senior told them. “It’s not like I did anything to Melanie that he hasn’t dreamed of doing all his life.” Dream’s fist closed tight as his grandfather spoke. “What’s the matter boy?” the Commodore asked. “Can’t handle the truth? Thank your mother for raising a wussy half-man who can’t hunt or shoot or even bed a proper girl ‘cept for a skank reject like your little friend here.” Dream took a step towards the mocking man. “My mom,” he began, “my mom is the best person in the world. In the world. She’s had it real tough. I didn’t know till now just how tough. But she raised me just fine. She was always there when I needed her, and she loves me. And I love her – not like you said, but real love ‘cause she deserves it, love like Peter Parker for the real Aunt May ‘cause she gave him everything to help him become the great guy he is. So you might be my grandpa, but I’m sure glad I wasn’t raised up to be like you. I’m proud of my dad and his heritage, and I’m proud of my mom, and I love Izzy, both of them…” “And I’m going to have them all, boy, each in their time. So what do you intend to do about it?” Live Izzy moved forward to help Dream beat the sh*t out of his granddad. Ghost-Izzy stopped her. “He’s got to do this himself,” she warned. “Everything depends on what he does next.” “So what’re you gonna do, boy?” Commodore Hastings challenged. CrazySugarFreakBoy drew back his fist. Then he paused. He thought. Then he swung around to the dark and menace-filled aisles. “I’m gonna hit the back-issue bins,” he decided. “What?” living Izzy gasped. “Dream, he raped your mother!” “I know,” CSFB! answered. “And it’d be great to kick his punkass from here to the hidden realm of the Cat People, but we’ve all got to do what we do best. And what I do best is glom comics.” “You wimp!” old man Hastings spat. “You sissy half-spawn mommy’s boy!” “He’s got you, slimo,” dream-Izzy told the store proprietor. “Hate and anger and resentment are what bind people to this place. If he’d clobbered you he’d have been applying for citizenship, wouldn’t he? Your job was to get him to beat you up. Then he’d be Hell’s forever. Instead he’s getting on with the mission he came here for, to find that thing the Hooded Hood sent him to get.” “Shut up, dyke!” the Commodore shouted, backhanding her to the floor with an unexpected blow to the face. Something hard and angry kicked him in the back of the knees, knocking him to the floor. “Been hoping you’d do that,” living-Izzy told him as she leaped on him. “Dream can’t do this, but there’s nothing to say we can’t. Come on, Iz!” Ghost Izzy picked herself up and joined in. It was payback time. Bedlam (more properly the Bethlehem Home for the Insane) was an infamous lunatic hospital in London, and gave it’s name to mean a chaotic place of howling, sorrow, chaos, and torment. People were condemned there not only for mental illness, but for poverty, unchastity, political and religious dissidence. Once through its gates there was little chance of treatment and less of release. Inmates were at the complete mercy of brutal and exploitative keepers. Some people felt that Bedlam was the nearest one could get to Hell on Earth. Somewhere in upstate Gothametropolis there is a high promontory where a clean modern mental health facility treats a comatose patient called Ioldobaoth Winkelweald. But that’s not the real Herringcarp Asylum. The real place shares the same Georgian gothic architecture, the same bleak grey stone and despair-washed halls as its more famous London counterpart. The real place has forgotten corners, oubliettes where ancient secrets fester and hate. There are rats the size of small dogs, and worse things in the dark which feed on them. There are rooms decorated in fantastic geometric patterns in the blood of their inmates, and a damp cellar with a forbidding oak chair complete with leather straps and electrodes. That Herringcarp Sanatorium can be wherever it needs to be, a sinister mansion on a storm-wracked horizon wherever a house of horrors is required at the moment. And in Herringcerp, the lunatics have taken over the asylum. That’s the Herringcarp that Troia 215 and Joe Pepper (a.k.a. the sentient knife-wielding, Elvis-impersonating ManMan) arrived at that stormlashed evening, where the breakers pounded on the nearby cliffs sending wild spume up to the thick black main gate of the bleak, cheerless mansion. That’s where a gloating hunchbacked retainer led the two young people along dark corridors with swinging naked lightbulbs, through halls that seemed to stretch forever and twist their perspective in the distant gloom. And that’s where Troia and ManMan climbed to the tower study of the evilest man in that evil place, the black heart of Herringcarp Asylum: the Hooded Hood. “Ah, daughter, how filial of you,” the cowled crime czar declared without turning round as the two young heroes were shepherded into the room. “Finding time in your busy schedule to visit your old, neglected father.” All the time he spoke he was staring deep into the mirrored mysteries of the Portal of Pretentiousness, watching some superhero struggle with protagonists who were unfamiliar to the visitors. “I found out about mother,” Troia admitted. “But it had some… some unexpected consequences.” “Your inadvertent betrothal to Mefrothto?” the Hood suggested. “That is why you and your minion have come to speak with me, isn’t it?” Troia gulped and nodded. Why brave the darkness of the next best place to Hell if not to avoid the real thing? ManMan swallowed his protest at the villain’s description. He reflected that ‘you and the worm who has been trying to get into your pants’ would have been a damn sight worse. “We… we were hoping you could, well, do something about it,” he answered cautiously. The glowing green eyes of the Hooded Hood turned on him for the first time. ManMan felt Knifey flinch. “You are the so-called superhero with all the proportional powers of a man – allegedly,” the Hood noted. The images on the mirror behind the archvillain shifted to depict scenes of the Elvis-suited swashbuckler being pounded by strange villains. “What are your intentions towards my daughter?” Troia 215 blushed. “Father!” she hissed. “Um, well, she’s real cute – notthatI’vebeenlookingorthinkingaboutthatnosir – I mean, we’ve had like one date and about a zillion adventures… sir. I mean, um…” answered ManMan incoherently. Then his mind caught up with what his eyes were seeing in the Portal of Pretentiousness. “Hey, that’s me there, but none of that ever happened to me!” “Yet,” replied the Hooded Hood. “There is another reality storm blowing, where some all-powerful being or other seeks to conquer the multiverse. At times like this I find it expedient to wait things out and pick over the debris after events have been concluded. The great powers tend to be rather distracted at those times, and distracted greater powers are vulnerable. You are looking at events which haven’t yet quite happened.” “That’s my future?” Joe Pepper wondered. “One of them,” the cowled crime czar agreed. “If I allow you to survive this interview.” He gestured to another scene, where the Hood himself was falling to the odd antagonists. “That’s Herryington Asylum (a little diversion of mine), where I am being captured and neutralised – and thereafter ignored – in the great conflict. But I am videoing it all to entertain me later.” “It’s great to have hobbies, dad,” Troia interrupted, “but I’ve had to sign a pre-nuptial agreement with a Spawn of the Pit. So has ManMan for that matter. So unless you want Mefrothto as a son-in-law you’d better retcon me out of this, ‘k?” “Don’t,” Knifey hissed to Joe Pepper. “I know you, you were about to ask about the Hood’s real son, Troia’s brother. Take my advice. Pretend to be a wall. I don’t want to have to go through all the palaver of finding a new wielder again just yet. And I especially don’t want retconning to have always been a sentient banana or something.” “You misunderstand the extend of my power, Troia,” the Hooded Hood replied to his daughter’s request. “There are giants in the playground. The rest of us will do well not to be trodden on. It would be impossible for me to undo your betrothal without causing greater damage.” Troia bit back her tears. “But daddy, I don’t love him!” The Hood shrugged. “Sometimes the gods demand the occasional virgin sacrifice.” “That’s it?” ManMan demanded, over Knifey’s hissed protest. “That’s all you can say to your own daughter? You set her up to help you pull off some scam with the Celestians, you used her to get at your enemy Dormaggadon, and now she needs you you’re just blowing her off? That’s wrong, Hood!” The Hood’s eyes flashed with green fire. Troia and ManMan each took a step back. “You may stay for dinner,” the Hooded Hood told them. For some hell is not about pain, torture, and revenge. For some it is about rebellion, about ruling rather than serving, about taking risks without a nanny universe. For some hell is about freedom of choice. For some, it is the Seduction of the Innocent. When the tapping came to her bedroom door, the Sorceress raced across and flung it wide open before her common sense had time to stifle her sensuality. Her face fell when she saw that her visitor as only Yo. “Has Yo come at a bad time?” the genderless alien thought being asked, peering past the peignoired Sorceress into the candle-lit room. “Yo only was coming to be returning friend-Whitney’s storybook.” Sorceress received the proffered spiral notebook cautiously. “I wondered where I’d left that,” she admitted. “I just needed to look something up in it so I conjured it here. I haven’t read it in years.” “It is very good story,” Yo congratulated her. “If it is being a bit spooky. Yo thinks that the girl in the story is being very well seduced, but she will be being come to grief if the old woman she is being frightened off finds out about it. And the man is being not only a little bit sinister as well as cute.” “Yes,” Sorceress agreed carefully. “That was what the… the story was about. Thanks for returning it, Yo. I’d better go to bed now.” “Yo is saying goodnight to cute Sorceress, then.” “Goodnight,” Whitney replied, closing the door with relief. Yo was a fine friend, but right now there was only one person she wanted to see. “I thought it would never leave,” the man on her bed said. “You! But you didn’t knock. I didn’t open any doors!” Now that he was here, the Sorceress was almost panicked. Her heart pounded and suddenly she was the uncertain teenager who had first disobeyed her grandmother’s edict and given herself to the entity imprisoned in the attic of her family seat. “I don’t need to knock now. I’m free. I can come and go when I want. I can take what I desire.” “And… what do you desire?” Then the only sound was the sudden ripping of a silken peignoir and a soft sigh of surrender. Fin Fang Foom’s draconic senses alerted him to the sound of weeping. As he woke from his slumbers he became profoundly aware of the woman curled up next to him in the bed. “Er… Moira? I don’t remember you being there when I got in.” The faerie woman looked up at him with wide frightened eyes. “Something wicked this way comes,” she warned him. “It’s in this house. Something wicked.” Along the darkened back-issue racks CrazySugarFreakBoy searched with all the skill and diligence of a lifetime hunting for rare back-issues. The stock had been shuffled by uncaring browsers, soiled by uncommitted readers. There were eleven hundred unsold copies of Fighting American. Yet all Dream’s attention was now focused on the quest. There it was: Pooty #1. The cover depicted an old, threadbare teddy being held close by a figure in dark grey robes. It wasn’t even important enough to wrap in mylar. The original price was written on the cover in marker-pen: one soul. The store price was twenty-five cents. Dreamcatcher Foxglove took the tattered back issue to the counter. “Mr Hastings can’t take your money just now,” living-Izzy instructed her boyfriend. “Leave it on the counter.” “Let’s get back,” Dream told the girls. “This place is much nastier than any of the hells this side of Hellblazer.” The Izzies exchanged glances. “Dream, I’m not coming back with you,” living-Izzy told him at last. “What?” CSFB! gasped. “What do you mean? Iz, you can’t stay here.” Izzy clasped her arms around herself. “Dream, I’m being used against you. That Hooded Hood guy’s not going to let you off this easily. He’s given you a trial run here, and although it’s been tough it’s not made you do anything against your nature, anything you’d regret. But what if next time he wants you to steal something? Or hurt somebody? What if he makes you commit murder to keep me alive?” “It’s the only way, lover,” ghost-Izzy told him. “We had our time together. It was great. But we can’t steal more at the cost of you being… well, becoming less than you.” “That’s right,” live Izzy agreed. “Hey, I’m willing to die for you, so it must be love, right? And every major hero needs their Gwen Stacy, huh? So I gotta stay. You just go out and become as great as Spidey for me, CrazySugarFreakBoy, cause with great power comes great responsibility.” “I’m not leaving you here. In Hell. Alone,” Dream answered. “I’ll stay with you if I have to. You don’t belong here with… with my granddad.” “I’m not staying here either,” living-Izzy replied. “I hope.” “What do you mean?” “I remember all of this,” ghost-Izzy replied. “If I’m real, that is. I remember being her, at this moment, in this discussion with you. That’s why I got involved, to screw up the Hooded Hood’s plans for you. He’s out to destroy you though this, one way or another, and living or dead or just a figment of your ever-active imagination, this little Izzy’s just not going to let that happen.” And Dreamcatcher Foxglove knew they were right, because honesty is the only way back from that path that leads to Hell. “This isn’t over yet,” he promised as he made his tearful goodbyes. “One day, I’ll coming back here to sort this place out.” “Are you sure this is the place where Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme hangs out?” Fin Fang Foom asked doubtfully, looking round the rather decrepit watch-repairers and plumbers’ shop. “Sure,” Banjoooooo answered, completely failing to reset the jack-in-the-box which was acting as temporary doorbell on the little store down the dead-end alley in the Hell’s Bathroom slums of Paradopolis. “This is where we came that time spiffy was a werewolf.” “Sometimes it’s much harder to put things back in their boxes than to let them out, isn’t it?” Xander the Improbable asked, appearing from the backroom and observing the King of the Sea Monkey’s jack-in-the-box struggles. “I take it you’re here about the Sorceress?” Foom and Banjooooo looked blankly at each other. “Er, no,” Banjooooo admitted. “Oh, sorry, that’s next week,” Xander corrected himself, peering through glasses he didn’t need at a large appointments ledger on his counter. “I thought you were a little bit tall for spiffy. And less frondy,” he told the Makluan dragon. “I just wanted to ask a few questions about… well, about faeries,” Fin Fang Foom admitted. “Do you believe in Faeries?” Xander asked. “I believe in the one that’s sitting on my bed right now reading everything I’ve ever written. Moira says she needs to feast on the products of my imagination to survive in this world. And while it’s great having somebody who really appreciated and understands my work, it’s…” “Classic fear of commitment,” Xander diagnosed. “The diagnosis is that you are a male. I don’t recommend the surgical cure.” “I just need to know more about faeries,” Finny persisted. “It’s getting costly in bathrobes.” “So he claims,” muttered Banjooooo sceptically. Foom didn’t say anything about his midnight visitor. “Tell me about this Fate woman, then,” Xander suggested. “She’s called Moira,” Foom corrected the red-robed mage. “Moira, Fate, Destiny – same word in different tongues,” shrugged Xander. “Pray proceed.” “Well, I rescued her from being sacrificed back in the Mythlands,” explained the dragon. “And when she found I was a writer she attached herself to me…” “The Lhiannan Shee is a Celtic spirit which becomes the dark inspiration of bards and poets,” mused Xander. “It leads them to new heights of brilliance, burning them out in a brief blaze of genius.” Fin Fang Foom hoped the dark shadows under his eyes where he’d been up all night writing for Moira didn’t show. “Anyway, I rescued her. She’d been captured as she was washing some clothes in the ford and…” “A washer in the ford?” Xander frowned. “Oh dear.” “Oh dear?” Banjooooo echoed. “What else could she do? It’s not like we saw any elven launderettes out there.” Xander shook his head. He lifted a book from beneath the counter and removed a stone paperweight in the form of a hamster from between it’s pages. He showed them a mediaeval woodcut of a young woman in tartan scrubbing a shirt on a rock by a stream. “In Celtic legend, the washer-in-the-ford is a kind of banshee – which itself is derived from the words for ‘fairy woman’ – who appears as an omen of death for a great hero. She’s seen wailing as she washed out the bloody garment of the hero who is to fall.” “This stuff she was washing, dragon-dude,” Banjooooo checked. “It’s wasn’t kind of a scaly sort of hide, was it?” “No,” Finny remembered. “I think it was a long, dark cloak…” “How is the decrypting going?” spiffy asked, cautiously peering into the Lair Legion’s workshop. Since nothing exploded immediately he allowed himself to enter and join NTU-150, DarkHwk, Zebulon and Tina at the workbench. “Awkwardly,” HALLIE, the Lair Legion’s sometimes-resident computer answered. “Maximillian Deathspoon has put all kinds of encryption protocols on the hard drive the Abandoned Legion liberated from him, presumably to stop Zemo’s henchman Millennium Bug from hacking in and reading it.” “We’re having to try every one of eleven billion possible code combinations to get pack the lock-outs,” DarkHwk explained. “We’ll get it eventually, but it could be days, weeks, maybe months.” “I don’t mean to nag,” spiffy answered. “It’s just that Cap’s fretting about it. He wants to get up and go back for more info or something, even though he’s still in the sick bay – I mean lounge.” “We’ll get there,” Enty assured the fern-wielder, “It’s only a matter of…” The armoured legionnaire was interrupted by the shriek of the front door stun cannons cycling into full disintegration mode and launching a full barrage. “We’re under attack!” Darkhwk shouted. “Who’s leader today?” “Starseed,” Tina answered, “but he’s off with Hatty explaining to the insurance people about Space Ghost’s tenure as leader. Let’s go!” The heroes rushed to the entrance foyer, arriving at the same time as Donar and Lisa. Exile and Avatar were already there, Exile struggling to get the command console to disengage the blasters. “Who is the foul felon that attaketh us?” the hemigod of thunder demanded. “It can’t be a baddie, the defences are working,” Lisa suggested. NTU-150 shot her a withering look. “Actually it is Cheryl and Visionary,” Avatar explained calmly while Exile swore at the board. “Fortunately the targeting computers have been baffled by a logic flaw. They are programmed to target the intruder’s brain, and they are having trouble locking onto Visionary.” “There art never a fell villain to smite when one wanteth one,” complained Donar. “Then three will cometh all at once.” “Do something, Enty!” Spiffy called out. He dived through the sealed front doors to shield his friends with his fernal force-field – or rather that’s what he would have done had the doors not been reinforced with adamantium alloy recently. He should have read the memo. “Ouch!” he commented. “Let me try, Exile,” DarkHwk suggested. Three deft keystrokes later the cannons disengaged. “I don’t understand,” complained Exile. “I already disengaged the defence systems before I cleared Vizh and Cheryl to come in.” “Perhaps you might want to disengage them a bit more next time, dear?” the Duchess of Lake Superior suggested as she helped her husband in and sat him on the couch. “Could be a protocol glitch,” Enty theorised. “HALLIE, we have got Exile on the security register at guest level, haven’t we?” “Absolutely,” HALLIE agreed. “Why? Is he coming?” “I’m here,” Exile pointed out. “It was me disengaging the system for Vizh.” HALLIE ignored him. “HALLIE,” Lisa ventured. “who is currently in this room?” “You, NTU-150, Tina, DarkHwk, Donar, and Cheryl. Oh yes, and spiffy and Visionary.” “Not Exile?” “Of course not.” “I’m real dammit,” Exile complained. “HALLIE, it’s me. Say you can hear me.” “Type something on this keypad, Exile,” NTU-150 suggested. The computer didn’t register anyone touching it. “I can’t track him with my mechanical systems either,” Enty reported. “Not me,” agreed DarkHwk. “Guys, you’re weirding me out here,” Exile complained. “Bad enough that nobody’s answering the phones when I call ‘em up today and that my VCR hates me. This is…” “Part of the same thing?” Avatar suggested. The alarm systems went off again. Goldeneyed teleported in from the monitor room. “We’ve got trouble guys! The situation monitor’s reporting a giant tellytubbie rampaging in the heart of Sydney, Australia.” “We’d better get there right away!” spiffy reacted. “Lair Legion, line-up!” “We really don’t say that any more,” Lisa assured him. “Hey, what about my problem?” worried Exile. “There art fell villains to smite,” Donar pointed out. “Later for thy problem.” “First we save the world,” Lisa suggested, “then we work out why your VCR is ignoring you.” Space Ghost watched the LairJet speed away before he set HALLIE onto her shutdown/regeneration cycle. If G-Eyed had watched further on the manufactured news report he’d have learned that the tellytubbie was chasing people round the civic centre to the tune of A Hard Day’s Night. The pantsless wonder pulled back his mask, slicked his hair down, replaced his mask, and went to answer the doorbell. “Hello, lover-pie! They don’t suspect a thing! The place is ours. C’mon, my broom-cupboard awaits! Let’s do that hot Hoover-love! I’ll help you chase away those Jarv-is-dead blues.” “Hello, Space Ghost,” Lo-Chi answered. “How kind of you to invite me.” Troia rose, stretched, pulled on her jeans and t-shirt, and padded down the hall to join the Hooded Hood for breakfast. She was surprised to find he already had a guest. “ManMan has had to depart,” the Hood told her. “I trust that CrazySugarFreakBoy will make a suitable table companion?” “Hi Troia!” CSFB! called out. “I was just telling ol’ Hoody here that his plans to make me one of his dark horde of minions had failed for the same reasons that the Mad Thinker always screws up which is of course the X-factor, not the comic with Cyke and co and then Havok’s team but rather the unexpected, in this case true love, which conquers everything as anyone who’s seen Sleepless in Seattle could tell you or perhaps Flash Gordon with that excellent Queen soundtrack and the bit where they go, ‘Gordon’s alive!’…” “Hold it a minute,” Troia demanded. “Not that I’m not glad to see you, but where’s Joe?” The Hooded Hood sipped his Earl Grey. “Your erstwhile suitor has gone to… demonstrate his suitability,” the Hood explained. After all, he reflected to himself, when there are goliaths in the playground it is always useful to have exactly the right kind of slingshot bullet to hand to David. He might not have the power to directly oppose such entities, but a small retcon in the right place could bring down the biggest adversary. “And I recovered HH’s teddy,” CSFB! added enthusiastically. “Of course, when I found it in hell it was in the form of a comic book issue, but that’s kinda like how Captain Sisko saw this vision from the Prophets as a 1950’s sci-fi writer and his editor said…” “Ah, Pooty,” the Hood smiled, recovering the precious childhood toy. “Each year since you were lost to me I have wrestled with Mefrotho on Midsummer’s Eve to seek your return. Now, at last, you have been liberated.” And the Hood laughed. “I don’t believe it,” Troia remarked. “The terrible Hooded Hood arranges a raid on Hell just to save his old cuddly toy?” “Hey, even nasty arch-baddies gotta have a soft, compassionate side,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! explained. “It’s in the manual.” “Well, I guess it’s a pretty harmless eccentricity,” considered the Amazon administrator. The Hooded Hood held Pooty close to him and ripped the bear’s head off. He reached inside and pulled a small object from it’s chest cavity. “With this I now have the power to rule the universe!” he declared. His laughter echoed down the damp corridors of Herringcarp Asylum and out into the darkness beyond. “Or not,” added Troia. Next time: The prologue to the Act of Ambition, ManMan's little problem, DK's big problem, Finny's huge problem, Sorceress is a problem, and Starseed gets an entirely new problem. Due when I'm back from foreign parts. The Hooded Hood strikes from the heart of Wales |
| Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Brimstone and Rice Pudding – A Treatise on the Various Definitions of Hell (The Hooded Hood strikes from the heart of Wales) (23-Oct-1999 12:15:52) |
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