MV1 October Year Four
"Monkeys with Typewriters"
by Russ Anderson, from a plot by Barry Reese
10 YEARS IN THE FUTURE
"Ant-Girl tells me it's partially based on Dr. Doom's time machine." Greg Wallander shrugged with a disarming smile. "She's the brains of this outfit, so you'll have to do what I do and just smile and nod."
"I heard that!" Cassie Lang warned from the other side of the room, where she stood with the Flash, looking over some calculations for the approaching time jaunt.
"The machinery just gives you something to hold onto," Greg continued. Once, long ago, he had been Sorceror Supreme of the Earth dimension. Now, in his mid-twenties, he no longer held that mantle, but like any good magician, he still had some tricks up his sleeve. "The chronal jump comes from a jewel called the Momentary Princess.* I managed to harness some of the Princess's power last time it appeared in this reality - it does so approximately every twenty years - and Cassie adapted Doom's technology to give us some aiming ability in the jaunts."
(* See Marvel's Gambit #10 for more on the Momentary Princess - Russ)
"What exzactly do you mean by 'zome aiming ability'?" Batroc the Leaper asked.
Greg grunted and rubbed the back of his neck. "I mean the device isn't always completely accurate. Really, I wouldn't worry too much," he hastened to add. "Aeon made it clear that he wanted you guys to return to your own time,* and with somebody like that watching your backs, I imagine clicking your heels and chanting 'there's no place like home' would get you where you're going. In any case, if it doesn't take you all back to your own time, all you have to do is press this button on the opposite side. It's like a reset switch, it'll zip all of you right back here and we can try again."
(* Aeon told the Champions to return to their own time at the end of last issue - Russ)
"Assuming we don't appear on top of Mount Vesuvius just before it erupts," the Black Widow sighed.
"Right."
"So be it!" Hercules exclaimed, nearly knocking Greg on his face with a friendly slap on the back. "Let us depart then! The Son of Zeus yearns for the sight of hearth and home! There shall be much weeping and gnashing of teeth 'mongst the women of our time should he not return soon!"
This outburst was enough to bring the other Champions from their own activities, and once all of them - Batroc, Hercules, the Black Widow, Firebird, Diamondback, the Flash, and Cerberus - were gathered close together in the spacious training room, Greg handed the device to the Widow and stepped back so he wouldn't be within its effective radius.
"Just push the button," Greg prompted, slipping an arm around Ant-Girl's waist as she stepped up to join him.
The Widow looked around uncertainly at her teammates. When her eyes met Diamondback's, Rachel Leighton grinned nervously and began tapping her heels together.
"No place like home," the Widow agreed, and pushed the button.
With a completely unspectacular plop of imploding air, the team was gone. Greg and Ant-Girl stood there for a moment, as if waiting for them to reappear. When they didn't, Greg blew out a breath he hadn't even been aware he was holding and gave a satisfied smile.
"You did tell them about that one... um, side effect, right?" Cassie asked suddenly.
Greg looked at her blankly for a moment, then his eyelids dropped shut and he slapped himself in the forehead.
"You didn't, did you?"
He shook his head.
Cassie laughed. "Greg, m'love, something tells me those Champions may want to have words with you next time they visit."
THE PRESENT.
"So... THESE are the new Champions."
Zaran looked around the livingroom of the house that had been home and headquarters to the Champions until their recent disappearance. Beside him, Machete nodded solemnly, belched, excused himself, and nodded again.
Stretched across the couch was an unconscious woman in a diaphanous silver costume. Diaphanous silver costumes were no oddity as far as combat apparel went for superheroines. What was odd was the young man passed out on the other side of the couch, one cheek pressed to the woman's hip. His costume resembled fuzzy pajamas, complete with booties and a hood crowned with tiny ears. She was the Emasculator, he was Guinea Pig, the Expandable Cheeks Warrior. Both of them, in celebrating their induction into Machete and Zaran's all-new, all-different Champions, had drank too much.
"Where's Nightman?" Zaran asked, referring to their fifth member.
Machete made a derogatory sound and gestured toward the back patio door. "Outside lurking mysteriously, prob'ly. Whatta grouch that guy is! I'm tellin' ya, we shoulda invi-... invat-... asked that Ultra Man guy to join.* There's a guy knows how to have a good time!"
(* Ultra Man was at the tryouts last issue... but he's far too busy over in Shan Kelley's FORCE WORKS to slum with the Champions - Russ)
"You know..." Zaran said, crossing his arms and eyeing his comatose teammates, "I doubt Guinea Pig is even drinking age."
Machete frowned, turned, and squinted disapprovingly at Guinea Pig. "Y'don't think sho?"
"He's not," Nightman announced, appearing suddenly at the kitchen door. This inspired a little shriek from Machete, who grabbed at his chest and put a hand on the table to steady himself.
"Y'wanna warn a guy next time, Nightmashk? Little advance warning to keep me from killing you with theshe hair-trigger reflexshes of mine..."
"Nightman," he corrected. He looked toward Zaran, obviously the room's only sober occupant. "I've been keeping an eye on the puppies."
Zaran rolled his eyes. "What did they do?"
"For the moment, they seem to have adopted Cassie. They're sleeping with her in her room. They managed to chew a hole in the refrigerator first, though, and I think they're responsible for the missing bumper on Emasculator's car. They also made a... um, a bit of a mess in Machete's room. I fear it may be uninhabitable now."
"What?" Machete demanded. He turned to stomp toward the bedrooms. Whether he was heading for his own or Cassie's, they never found out, because he picked that moment to fall full-length on the carpet.
"Machete," Zaran said after a moment, giving him a kick.
"Rubber baby buggy bumpers," Machete muttered with perfect diction. Then he began snoring.
Zaran and Nightman looked at him in silence for a moment, then Zaran shrugged and said, "Did I hear you right? They chewed a hole in the refrigerator?"
"I'm afraid so."
"What of my matzo balls? Are they alright?"
"Yes. The puppies are well-fed, so they didn't go after the food. I think they were just sharpening their teeth on the appliances. And Emasculator's car."
"You know," Zaran said, eyeing his new teammate, "you've got a good head on your shoulders. You may be the only good catch we made for this team."
Nightman looked at the three comatose bodies in the room, opened his mouth to say something, then shut it again. He looked uncharacteristically speechless beneath his frightful blue mask, with its big scarlet eyes. Finally, he said, "Guinea Pig's a good kid, and Machete is a skilled warrior. We'll see how Emasculator does, but I'm sure she makes up in sheer aggressiveness whatever else she lacks. Give us some time, we'll be a team to make the old Champions proud."
"Assuming the old Champions ever return."
"Right. Assuming."
The two men stood facing each other for a moment longer, then Zaran excused himself and, being careful not to step on Machete, turned and moved down the hall toward the bedrooms. This part of the house was dark, save for the faint glow of Cassie's nightlight showing under her door. Zaran paused at her room, then - very slowly and quietly - opened the door and peeked in.
Ten year-old Cassie Lang was curled up under a single quilt, a contented smile on her sleeping face. Huddled around her were seven slumbering Collie pups, snoring and kicking in their sleep as puppies are wont to do. The only thing that kept the scene from being straight out of Norman Rockwell was the fact that every single puppy had three heads, the result of Cerberus's unexpected romance with the Collie next door.
Zaran had to stifle a very tired laugh at that. The Guardian of Hades getting it on with Lassie. This kind of stuff never happened to the Avengers...
His primary concern wasn't the pups, tho. It was Cassie. Her father, Scott Lang - a.k.a. Ant Man - was one of the Champions who had disappeared nearly a month ago, following a fight with Zemo and his Masters of Evil. Many - including Zaran himself, he supposed - were already giving up hope that the "real" Champions would return. But not Cassie. She just played her video games and went to school and asked daily if her father had returned yet, completely unfazed when the answer was always "no".
She was quite an extraordinary little girl. It was obvious her years as daughter to a superhero had hardened her to his absences, without killing her childlike faith that he would eventually return to her.
Zaran hoped he did. For all his dreams of making his "new" Champions work, he hoped Scott Lang and Batroc and the rest walked through that front door soon. For Cassie's sake.
Zaran sighed and pulled the door quietly shut.
Morning.
"Hemorrhoids!" the old man exclaimed.
"Excuse me?" the young black man sitting next to him on the Phoenix city bus replied.
"Hemorrhoids! They're the bane of my existence, laddie! I'd be a happy man if 'tweren't for hemorrhoids!"
"Ah yes," the large black man agreed. He turned and looked out the window again, the sunlight flashing off his mirrored sunglasses. "I know what you mean."
"There's nothing more miserable than a burning bum, m'boy! Take my word for it! I've lived pert near seventy-five years on this Earth, had some diseases that'd make your skin crawl... but nothin' was like hemmorhoids!"
"Well then, I hope I never have to suffer through them, old-timer." He turned a brilliant smile on the old man, his white teeth flashing out from his ebony face. "What if I told you I could take away your... discomfort?"
The old man's eyes narrowed. "You some kinda salesman or somethin'? I've tried all them creams..."
"No, no. No salesman. The only thing I'm selling is ideas, old-timer. And my ideas are absolutely free. Utterly gratis. Are you interested?"
"Son, I ain't never met an idear could fix a butt-sore..."
"Oh, mine can. Mine can fix many things," the young black man insisted, still flashing that smile. "It's like this: in the grand scheme of things, you know how much all the suffering you've gone through in your very long and very rich life amounts to?"
"Not very much, I 'magine..." the old man replied cautiously.
"Sure you say that. But does anybody truly believe, in the depths of their soul, that nothing they do or experience can make a difference? There's always some small conceit at work, something telling us we do matter, at least a little. If we didn't have that idea, what would be the point?"
"Boy... what's this got to do with my hemorrhoids?"
"In a moment," his neighbor assured him, flicking his eyes up toward the front of the bus, and spotting the red light a block away. "The problem is this: that conceit is just that - a conceit. Even the biggest of our accomplishments - say the atomic bomb, the Panama Canal, the first man on the moon - ultimately mean nothing. There's no design, no fate, and therefore no meaning. It's all just a bunch of monkeys banging on a bunch of typewriters, hoping to produce Hamlet."
"Well, that's a downright d'pressin' idear, feller," the old man opined, inching cautiously away from the man he was now convinced was some kind of weirdo. Lordy, you try to start a simple conversation with some people...
"It's not an 'idear'," the young black man said. The grin remained in place while one hand slipped up to his sunglasses. He tilted them downward just a notch, giving the old man a first look at his eyes.
"I know."
And the old man gasped in fear and wonder, because the weirdo's eyes weren't really eyes. They were black portals into outer space.
And there were stars in them.
The old man tried to scream, but the other man's hand came down on his and he suddenly found himself unable to form even that much sound.
"You'll never have to worry about hemorrhoids again, old timer. 'Cause, you see, before I got on this bus, I cut the emergency brake cable. Me, Mondo Kane. Remember that name for St. Peter, cause the real brakes will be giving out before we reach the next light. We'll crash and everyone on this bus will die... except me. Because this is the one safe seat."
"How - how c'n you know that?"
"Same way I know everything, pops. The stars told me."
The old man opened his mouth to reply, but there was a screech of burning rubber, a distant scream, and suddenly his world was swallowed in blood and thunder.
Outside Phoenix.
"Okay, one more time," Machete said. "Guinea Pig, I want you to take Night Man down with that aikido throw he just showed you. Night Man, go easy on the kid at first, okay?"
"Okay," Night Man rumbled darkly (he did everything darkly, Zaran had noted). Guinea Pig shuddered, but went ahead and got into position anyway.
While the two charged at each other, Zaran glanced over at the Emasculator, who was sunning herself on a rock and looking amused. Zaran had decided this 400-foot butte to the East of Phoenix would be the best place for their training - not everyone had a high-tech danger room in their basement, after all. Emasculator was the only one dressed for the heat up here. He would get around to making her train in a little while, but for now...
Well, the truth was, she intimidated him. He still had no idea what, if any, special powers she had. That morning, she had made a hungover Machete cook her breakfast, but that could hardly be considered a superpower. She also carried a collection of small knives that she liked to toy with. Zaran had no idea where she was keeping them in that skimpy costume, and frankly didn't want to know.
As for Guinea Pig... well, "the proportionate strength of a guinea pig" had turned out to be even less impressive than it sounded. The kid was notably weaker than a human his size and age should be. Hopefully Night Man's training could compensate for that... at least the kid was fast and agile. Not Spider-Man or even Captain America-agile, but better than nothing. He fidgeted a lot too, which was already getting on Zaran's nerves.
The notepad in his hand was for recording thoughts on improving the team's performance. Instead, he had simply wrote:
- NEED A STRONG GUY
- NEED A FLYING GUY
- NEED A SCIENCE GUY
With a grunt, Guinea Pig fell onto his back at Night Man's feet. Zaran sighed and put a hand to his head.
The phone at his hip rang and he snapped it up. "Zaran here."
"Hi, Zaran," Cassie said on the other end of the line. "I think you guys might want to get into Phoenix. I was watching cartoons and they interrupted them with some news thing about a guy tearing up downtown."
"Is that Cassie?" Machete asked. "Is she taping Digimon for me?"
"Machete wants to know if you're taping Digimon."
"Of course."
"Fine. Now who is this 'guy'? Did they say?"
"Nobody I've ever heard of. I think they said his name was 'Blondie Mane' or something like that."
"What did he look like?"
"Just... a guy."
Zaran harrumphed. He disliked the notion of his team going into their virgin battle against 'just a guy' - surely the Scorpion or even the Living Eraser weren't too much to ask - but the people of this city needed them, and so the New Champions would heed this call.
"We'll be right there. Inform the authorities."
"Er... sure, Zaran. Hey, on your way home, can you pick up some Cocoa Puffs? I ate the last of them this morning."
Zaran jotted NEED COCOA PUFFS below NEED A SCIENCE GUY. "Thank you for your vigilance, Cassie. Zaran out."He turned to his team, who stood waiting with bated breath for his next words. "To Emasculator's car, Champions," he commanded, pausing for effect. "We've got a butt-whuppin' to hand out!"
Downtown Phoenix.
"Now this is what it's all about," Mondo Kane said, as he gazed down on the civilians fleeing the burning building across the street. "Like ants running from the anthill."
He stood up and waved at the police helicopter that was hovering overhead. One cop was hanging out the side, yelling something through a megaphone that Mondo couldn't hear. Not that he needed to hear. He knew just what the cop was saying, just as he knew everything else that was worth knowing.
The stars in his eyes made sure he was well-informed.
The cops were well-informed, too. Mondo had made sure, as soon as he started burning their buildings and wrecking their busses, to make it clear that he and only he was behind this. He had a message to deliver after all, and he couldn't deliver it if he remained anonymous.
He pulled a handful of ball bearings from his pocket, weighed them in his hand, then threw them at the helicopter.
The pilot of the chopper wasn't stupid - he'd made sure to hover out of range of hurled weapons. The bearings flew out well below the chopper's struts... and were fired downward with the force of bullets by the downdraft of the rotors. Windows were blown out, pedestrians and rubberneckers were injured and killed by the hail.
"Chaos and blood, my brothers," Mondo grinned as the chopper banked away in alarm. They would start shooting at him now... if this had been any other day. But Mondo Kane knew it was no other day. This was the day when the Champions would sneak up behind him and say,
"Put your hands up and step away from the ledge, Blondie."
Still grinning, Mondo turned to face the band of heroes he'd been expecting. "That's Mondo," he corrected as the chopper whipped his dreadlocks about his face. "Mondo Kane. For all her other virtues, young Cassie Lang doesn't have very good listening skills, does she?"
He saw the leader - Zaran - blink in surprise at that. "How... how did you know about-"
Then he recovered himself and stood up tall again. "Champions... Charge!"
The team came at Kane together... but not as a unit. The one called Emasculator reached him first, her small knives flashing. Kane grabbed one of her thrusting wrists and used the same aikido throw Night Man had been trying to teach Guinea Pig earlier that morning to flip her up and over the edge of the roof. Guinea Pig screeched to a halt at this, began to cry his teammate's name, and only got through the first two syllables before Kane grabbed him by the face and shoved him down onto the roof, tripping both Machete and Zaran. Zaran knocked himself unconscious on the building's ledge while Machete found himself hanging from it.
In about three seconds, Mondo Kane had whittled the opposition down to Night Man.
"Whassamatta tall, dark, and gloomy?" Kane prodded. "Ain'tcha got no love for the Kane-ster?"
Night Man stood at a safe distance and considered the black man before him. "It would be foolish of me to fight you, seeing what I've just seen. You obviously have some sort of advance warning ability, maybe a danger sense."
"Oh it's much more than that, Nighty," Mondo grinned, putting a foot on the hand Machete was dangling from the roof by. "I got me what I like to call 'universal vision'. Some of your buddies in the hero biz might call it 'cosmic awareness'. I just woke up with it one day. I see everything, I know everything. I know how you got to this universe, and I know how you could get back to your own."
Night Man stood his ground, unimpressed.
"So you may be wondering why a man with such an incredible gift would use it to sow the seeds of chaos."
"I might... if I wasn't busy mulling over how I'm going to kick your ass."
"Well, I'm gonna tell ya!" Kane cried as if his opponent hadn't replied, grinding down on Machete's fingers as he spoke. "Here's the cosmic punchline, Nighty: life, the universe, and everything... none of it means anything. Even '42' is too much meaning to assign to it all. There's no rhyme, no reason... and in the end it's all going to mean diddly anyway. But the ants down there go about their lives, trying to form order from chaos. I'm here to tell them there ain't no such thing. Monkeys with typewriters, my brother. That's all we are."
"Including you, right?"
"Man... especially me."
"So where does that leave us?"
"It leaves you with two of your teammates about to go the way of Al Gore's political career. Me, I'm just gonna walk away, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it."
With that, Mondo twisted his heel down on Machete's fingers - getting a cry of pain from the man - and stepped back. Night Man was moving even as Kane was, but not for the villain. He hit the roof, slid on his stomach, and caught Machete's wrist just as his teammate let go of the ledge. This would be the perfect time for Kane to attack, but no attack came.
Night Man hauled Machete up onto the roof, and saw with relief that Emasculator had caught a window ledge two floors down. He drew a cord from his belt, lowered it to her, and pulled her up as well.
When he'd finished the rescues, Kane was gone. Night Man sat cross-legged for a moment, breathing heavily with the exertion of hauling his teammates to safety, then told Machete to revive Zaran so they could get out of there.
The New Champions had fought their first battle against one man with no physical powers...
And they had lost. Miserably.
Several blocks away, a handsome foreigner lowered his binoculars and swore in his native language. The police scanner had said the Champions would be here to fight that Negroid maniac, but he had seen no Champions he knew of. And he certainly hadn't seen the one in particular he was watching for.
<"Curse that woman! Where is she hiding?"> he said in flawless Russian.
It didn't matter. He knew her habits like he knew his own. He would keep an eye out, and she was bound to surface sooner or later.
Then Natalia Romanova, the Black Widow, would truly have a reason to hide.
Next issue: At last! The old Champions return to their own time! But what does this mean for the New Champions? What was that "side-effect" Greg Wallander mentioned? How is Cerberus going to take his sudden fatherhood? And who's going to explain to Cassie why her daddy hasn't come back? Stay tuned to find out.
Author's Note:
"Hey! What's going on here? I wanted a Barry Reese story, goldarn it! Who's this 'Anderson' guy?"
When Barry Reese took over this title, he had the unenviable task of taking one of MV1's best-loved teams (thanks, Baloo!) in a new, more action and character-oriented direction. He succeeded, as Barry invariably does at this sort of thing. And now that he's decided to step back from CHAMPIONS in favor of other projects, it falls to me to find my own middle-ground between Barry's fascinating character studies and Baloo's madcap hilarity.
I'm not alone in this endeavor. Barry had this book roughly plotted up through #50, and I'll be following those outlines pretty faithfully (probably even moreso than Barry himself :-). It should be an interesting challenge. Anybody who's read my work knows I lean more toward melodrama than humor, more toward "O Fortuna" than "Dare To Be Stupid". I hope to change that perception with this series. After all, considering my predecessors, I have a lot to live up to.
Next issue I finally get to write Batroc and Cerberus. Hot damn! Does it get any better than that?
Russ