All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Cover Design by Steve Beaulieu
Print and ebook formatting by Steve Beaulieu
Contents
JOIN THE CAUSE
Foreword
Application Letter, Lord Damage
A Word From Thomas A. Farmer
Who Will Save Them When I’m Gone?
A Word From Valin & Martinez
The Hunt
A Word From Ben Mason
Law: Three
A Word From Rob Edwards
Jingle
A Word From JDC Burnhil
Assignment Alpha
A Word From Bret Bernal
That Which Does Not Kill
A Word From C.Steven Manley
Agents of SCRAM
A Word From Jon Frater
Superhero Talk Show
A Word From Dean Floyd
Date Knight
A Word From Gary Smith
Broken Nights: Shock and Awe
A Word From Matthew Davenport
JOIN THE CAUSE
A Short Word from the Presenter
This book is dedicated to:
STAN LEE
Who else?
December 28, 1922, – November 12, 2018
JOIN THE CAUSE
If you love Superheroes and Vile Villains, sign up to join the cause! Every hero (or villain) needs a “person in the chair” to direct them!
Sign up now!
Foreword
“Now, I have nothing against comic books—I read them now and then when I was a kid [when] I was all out of Hardy Boys. But the assumption everyone had back then, both the adults and the kids, was that comics were for kids, and when you grew up you moved on to big-boy books without the pictures.” —Bill Maher
I like to think I am respectfully controversial.
I like to think everyone’s opinion matters.
I like to think people can make their own decisions about what is valuable to their own lives.
But let this be clear: Stan Lee was a legend. Stan Lee was one of the most influential men to have ever lived.
The above quote from Bill Maher set nerds and jocks alike clamoring for a chance to tell Mr. Maher what they thought of his words against the Father of Funnies.
It may seem silly to some that I would believe Stan Lee has done more to shape this country than most presidents. It may seem childish that I have a collection of thousands of comic books and my office walls look like Marvel threw up on them. But to me, superheroes are more than ink on a yellowing page. To many, superheroes are an escape from the mundane, a chance to imagine bigger, greater things. Comic books take us to a world where the bad guy doesn’t win. Where he gets his tail kicked and we can all cheer about it.
Stan Lee set out to do—and achieved—the impossible. He gave America hope that Captain America isn’t just a man from a bygone era when it was as simple as punching a Nazi in the face. His heroes were super and his villains were vile, and that is what this collection, all those before it, and all those yet to come are about.
Within these pages (or virtual pages) you will read stories from both veteran authors and newbies who all have one thing in common: they freaking love superheroes!
The world around us is scary. How often do you wish Superman or Ironman would swoop out of the sky and carry some evil villain into space and leave him there to float? Did you ever wish Spider-Man would swing through the streets of your city webbing up the criminals and hanging them from a light post for the police to find them? I have.
My hope is that you’ll be able to escape from the horrors of today for just a little while. Take a respite to dream with us as the good guy prevails.
Although it was first spoken by J. Hector Fezandie in an 1894 graduation address at The Stevens Institute of Technology, Stan Lee gave the phrase the umph! it needed: With great power comes great responsibility.
Remember, you have the power to change someone’s life with a word or deed.
Be a hero to someone.
Application Letter, Lord Damage
BY THOMAS A. FARMER
From the desk of
Lord Damage
To my most esteemed rivals in the United Justice Society,
I, Lord Damage, would like to humbly offer my application as a superhero. I'm sure this must come as a terrible shock to most of you, but I assure each and every cape out there that I am completely serious. I have, to put it simply, gotten fed up with evil, villainy, deviltry, and everything else.
I'm sure, especially after the stunt Astral Cyborg pulled two years ago, that you're going to be quite skeptical of my application. I am, after all, Lord Damage. We've been butting heads for at least ten years (sometimes literally. I'm looking at you, Bronze Lady), but it's simply time for all that to end.
Ordinarily, in a letter like this, one would be expected to explain one's powers, perhaps give them some sort of useful rating system or equate them to superheroes of the past. Perhaps, were I feeling edgy, I might equate myself to supervillains of the past, but why would I waste my time and yours on such a trivial matter?
The fact is, I'm quite sure I've punched each and every one of you in the face at least a dozen times. I've also been punched squarely in the nose (or shot, or zapped, or mind-crushed, or whatever it is Crimson Crown calls it when he does that thing) more times than I particularly want to count.
But that's why I'm here.
Let's face it. When I've fought you in single combat, I've beaten each and every one of you. I even out-fought Ironjaw and out-raced Clockbreaker when you lot convinced me to take part in that ridiculous Christmas contest last year.
Ok, when I said I wasn't going to compare my powers to yours, that might have been a bit of a lie.
So why am I telling you all this?
It's not just because it's fun, I promise. If that's all I wanted, I could just send a letter to the Super Library and have them make a nice compilation. I think they have every fight on record except the first few, back when they were just getting started, and no one recorded anything except Sunfist, or maybe Major Paine if they had a thing for old-school villains.
Listen to me. It's a good thing I don't have one of you tied up over a pit of spikes or something because, guess what, you caught me monologuing.
I'm going to get right to the point, I think.
Even if I win the first few fights, you manage to best me in the end. It happens every time. I had Black Spot and Captain Courageous knocked out, five-seconds left on my death ray's charge timer and what happens? Kitty Chaos comes out of nowhere, distracts me by turning my throne into cheese, and then Flux kicks in the door. You remember the rest.
Or what about the time I stranded the entire Alpha Team on Enceladus? Frozen under ten meters of ice, you were. I actually had you helpless for three whole days, and then Sun Guy shows up. He's a glass cannon, I think, and the irony of it was he brought Glass Cannon with him, except they also brought Big Jake. The less said about my dental bills after that fight, the better.
Early on, I thought the problem was teamwork. You know, that thing the Good Guys are always going on about when they're not talk
ing about “the power of friendship” or “my bones! You broke all my bones!”
So I got some help.
And guess what?
It.
Got.
Worse.
So, maybe I just picked the wrong sort of help, I think. I kept looking, and each and every one of them, except one, let me down. For some of them, having a minion was actually worse than fighting by myself!
Then, last week, I was talking to Mister Sinister, and we realized something. Evil is dumb. I don't mean that evil is stupid, no. Otherwise, we'd never have any Mad-Scientist villains or Slightly-Disgruntled-Engineer villains, or that one time we had an evil math teacher. No, when I say evil is dumb, I mean the vast majority of the people I've worked with over the years just have no common sense.
Frankly, it's gotten embarrassing.
So, consider this my formal application. I'm not going to attach a resume, because you are my resume. Well, you lot and that big hole in the moon, but I maintain that's at least 40% Sunfist II's fault. I certainly didn't ask him to flare up right there when we all know how flammable Exodus Dust is. I mean, isn't that the point of using it in the first place?
I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that most of you still don't believe me. I'm also going to assume this letter isn't staying on Doublecast's desk, no matter how much she tries. I half-expect that, by the time she finishes with it, at least ten of you will have copies.
You're looking around you now, aren't you? Wondering who else was gutsy enough to steal from Doublecast. I like that. We'll be good friends.
Either that or Doublecast just out and gave everyone a copy. I suppose that could happen, but it's much less dramatic.
But, hey, if it helps my case, I'll throw you a bone, and maybe it'll amuse you in while you're deciding the best way to say, ‘yes’ to this. You want to know why I decided evil was dumb? Here, let me tell you a couple of quick stories about all the ways evil henchmen have let me down:
After cutting my losses early on, especially after the first few encounters where I had to fight more than one of you at a time, I decided that what I lacked was numbers. I may be incredibly good-looking, talented, and strong, but I'm still just one person. There's only so much I can actually do when I have to deal with a half-dozen capes with who-knows-what powers.
So, I made my first classic villain mistake. I was Lord Damage, after all, and I didn't need a partner, not like you heroes. What I needed were minions!
I'm sure you remember them. I disappeared from the planet for about six months, then rumors of a great faceless army reached Earth? I conquered an entire planet in that time!
As a side note, remember Shooting Star? This was why he up and quit villainy altogether. He got it in his fool head that you could conquer a planet in just a few hours! Can you believe that? When I told him it took longer than that just to get a decent map of the surface, he threw up his hands and said he quit.
Additional side note: Shooting Star wasn't my partner, we just happened to meet up on the way to Kelthus 7 and he tagged along.
Anyway, I'm off track here. I hired an entire army of Abraxian mooks. They looked amazing, let me tell you. I don't think any of you ever saw them before Kelthus 7, but the first time they put on a parade, it was shiny. All that black leather and those glossy face masks? It did my heart happy to see that much competence in one place.
The plan was simple. I was going to take Kelthus 7, then on to Morian 2, and then probably roll over to New Space Atlantic City for a few days of downtime.
Except, I didn't.
You lot showed up about six weeks after I conquered Kelthus 7 and gave some speech about freedom and light, and to be perfectly honest, I stopped listening. There were seven of you! Seven! What good were you going to do against my legion of Abraxians?
Well, you remember.
It turns out you can't conquer a planet in hours, but you can liberate one in, let’s see, four days, was it?
I was incensed!
I went and hired another Abraxian army, twice the size. Looting an entire planet made me rather wealthy, after all. This time I opted for the “deluxe” troops. Each one was supposed to be a hundred times more deadly than any other soldier in the universe.
For a while, I suppose it worked. I remember the first time you fought one of those death squads. Just four Abraxians wiped the floor with your best team. That was a good day for evil, even you have to admit that.
Then you powered up. At least it wasn't “friendship” that time. You had to find a real thing to actually increase your power, but sure enough. Six months later, Ironjaw, Clockbreaker, Doublecast, White Dragon, and Shadow Girl all showed up at my doorstep with new gear and a whole host of new powers.
The five of you cut a dashing figure, but I was no fool. I wasn't about to engage your whole team by myself. That's what I hired the universe's best mercenaries for. But, of course, I forgot one important thing. You're superheroes.
Needless to say, that army didn't last long.
When I got back to Earth, I thought the problem was that the mooks just weren't skilled enough. After all, Abraxians can't learn new things. They come out of the tank pre-programmed with everything they need to know
That's when I met Inferno.
We got along really well for quite a while, which came as a complete surprise. I fully expected him to be no help at all. I watched Major Paine lose a bunch of fights because his sidekicks were no good. Turns out being a violent narcissist with a god complex wasn't exactly good for his people skills.
In retrospect, I suppose that should have been a red flag.
But, no, Inferno was different! We got along well and even worked well in the field. The two of us even managed to take down several of your best capes. When we got that double KO on Sunfist II and Marxman, I thought it was going to be a cakewalk the rest of the way. I knew I could take Ironjaw and Inferno took out Clockbreaker himself.
Then Doublecast got in a lucky fireball. It caught me right in the back of the head (remember, evil is dumb, apparently) because I turned around after blocking the first one.
Double. Cast. Yeah. We all forget stuff.
Anyway, I'm trying to get my vision to focus again, and Inferno comes up beside me. I think he's going to cover me for a second or even engage Doublecast while I'm down, but no. He's a villain, after all.
The last thing I remember seeing before I woke up halfway into Jupiter's atmosphere was that oversize mace Inferno carried.
He was sure glad to see me when I got back, though! So I thought maybe I misremembered. Surely, he was just swinging past my head, and Doublecast got me again, then 'ported me into space. She's done that before.
We took out Dialect and Condor that weekend, strung them up, and when Kitty Chaos and Marxman showed up?
Wham.
I came to plummeting into the sun that time. When I got back, Inferno was quick to explain that it had all been a misunderstanding, but I wasn't having it. His head is probably still rolling around in Saturn's E ring.
Loyalty. What I needed was loyalty. The heroes were all loyal to each other, I told myself, so that's what I needed.
Turns out Convergence watched me take out Inferno and wanted his spot. He said he was tired of getting kicked around by you capes and even by the other villains.
Like always, the first few fights went our way. Convergence knocked capes around like it was his job. Which, actually, it was. He was quite good at it, too.
Convergence was also the one who got me to start thinking that maybe “evil” wasn't enough of a requirement. Sure, he was intelligent, but Convergence wasn't exactly the most, let's say, independent person around.
Every time I came up with a plan, Convergence thought it was a good plan.
Each idea I had? Convergence liked it.
There was one time I was fighting Marxman and Big Tex, and you guys had me pinned down. I was actually pretty impressed with your shooting. I asked Convergence for ideas, but he didn
't have any. So I asked him to use his powers to, I don't know, make the capes shoot at each other instead of me.
He did, and I used the break in the gunfire to move closer. Then Corona showed up and negated Convergence's powers. She negated Marxman and Big Tex's powers too, but that just meant they were “really good” instead of superheroic.
Convergence could have stopped Corona. She's a flier! He could have maneuvered her into the ground or a wall or into the line of fire. All he had to do was put some distance between himself and her because his powers had longer range.
I limped for a week after Big Tex shot me in the leg.
After the fight, I realized Convergence was waiting for orders. Well, I fired him on the spot. I even did it nonviolently. I think he's cheating at competitive paper airplane racing these days.
If Convergence couldn't think for himself, I told myself what I needed was someone who could, but not someone so ambitious as Inferno had been. I didn't need another partner afflicted with chronic backstabbing disorder.
I'd heard of Maestro. I'd even bought a few of his pre-packed kits in my early days, and I remembered them working. I knew he was older, so I wasn't expecting any battlefield help, but I was expecting some kind of help.
Apparently, the reason his services weren't on the market anymore wasn't because he got tired of it or because he thought he was too old. No, when he started getting thwarted more and more often, Maestro started getting picky.
Early on, it wasn't too bad. Remember when I took out the entire moon garrison? That was one of Maestro's plans. It was brilliant and so easy to follow—and it worked!—that I just assumed the month of prep time was normal.
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