Mr. Sandman
Page 10
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Sweet Dream: ...and stop you from interfering with our mission here. Now doesn't that feel good?
Lullaby starts to smile and crumples limply into Sweet Dream's waiting arms. The girl has been incapacitated by waves of overpowering pleasure.
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Closeup of Lullaby's face. She is ecstatic, relaxed, gazing joyfully into space as the pleasure flows through her.
Lullaby: Yesss...thank you...
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Cut back to the fight between Symbol and Dream Lord. As the metallic praying mantis, Symbol is slashing at the Dream Lord with his huge, jagged forelegs, trying to hack him up.
Symbol: Adams, your time is up! You are going to pay for betraying your country!
Dream Lord: What the hell are you talking about? For God's sake, I saved the President's life! That's how I ended up here!
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Symbol: One small act does not balance your subversion of Slumberland! Don't you have a conscience?
Dream Lord (flipping away another slashing forearm): What is this garbage? I'm the Dream Lord, you idiot! I've saved the world more times than you've said the pledge of allegiance!
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Dream Lord: Why don't you just leave me alone!
The Dream Lord is sweating and tense with the effort of sustaining the battle. He is still feeling great pain from his earlier wounds and his mind is a mess.
Summoning all his strength, he hurls a huge column of flame right at the Symbol/mantis.
Page 13 (8 panels)
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The blast of hot fire hits the metallic mantis right in the abdomen, and harmlessly pours off the impenetrable hide.
Symbol: You can't hurt me, Adams! You're weak! You know what you've done is wrong!
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Symbol: And you know that we are right!
The Symbol/mantis again slashes its sharp forearm at the Dream Lord, and this time makes contact -- slicing right across his body.
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The Dream Lord is furious and reeling from the pain as he musters his power to again face Symbol. As the gash across his arms and chest bleeds, he summons a swarm of meteors from thin air.
Dream Lord: No more!! This has gone on long enough!!
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The meteors bombard Symbol, thudding into his insectoid form with the impact of hand grenades.
Symbol: AAAGGGHH!!! Zed, help me!
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Dream Lord (turning to look for Lullaby): Stacy? Are you...
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Medium shot of Sweet Dream holding Lullaby in her arms, keeping her helpless with pleasure while Catnap holds a gun at the girl's head.
Sweet Dream: She's doing fine, Dr. Adams. Don't you give her another thought. She likes us.
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Dream Lord hurls himself toward the women, enraged.
Dream Lord: Let her go!!
Night Terror (off-panel): Adams, I think you should worry about yourself right now.
Narrator (vet): They shot down my partner! I saw them standing there, holding his dead body like a mannequin, and I went crazy! I charged them, firing my rifle at everything I could see.
Narrator (Farley): This is it! Stoltz is moving in! Adams is about to get a real surprise!
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Dream Lord looks up, sees Night Terror hovering above him, with Coma, the black man, by his side.
Dream Lord: Wha--?
Page 14 (6 panels)
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Suddenly, the Dream Lord convulses and shrieks madly.
Narrator (vet): I screamed as loud as I could, trying to just make it all go away...but it wouldn't.
Narrator (Farley): There he goes! We've finally got that son of a bitch! That'll turn him to peanut butter!
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The Dream Lord hurtles wildly across the dreamscape, holding his skull, completely out of control.
Dream Lord: YAAAAAA!!
Night Terror: Do you like that, Adams? It's called a "night terror"--a sudden, unreasoning, overpowering fear. It's like a nightmare, only hundreds of times stronger, with no known cause. I thought it would amuse you.
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Dream Lord (again spinning and careening insanely past the Brigade): AAAAGGGHH!!
Night Terror: I named myself after it, because I have the power to create and control it. I can turn it up or down...make you a little frightened...or rabidly insane. The night terror is a potent weapon, don't you think?
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Night Terror: But don't worry, Doctor...I won't prolong your agony. We have orders to capture you, not torture you. My friend here will end your misery.
Coma moves away from Night Terror, toward the Dream Lord.
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Night Terror (off-panel): His name is Coma.
Coma ominously approaches Dream Lord, like a shark.
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Night Terror (off-panel): Guess why?
Coma fires a pencil-thin black beam of energy from one fingertip. The beam strikes the Dream Lord in the head, and he collapses.
Dream Lord: Unnnhhh...
Page 15 (7 panels)
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Narrator (vet): They finally hit me, right in the head with a bullet. I felt it...oh God, Mike, I felt it go right through the bone...right into my brain... I felt myself falling to the ground...
Narrator (Farley): Now, tell Stoltz to bring him in! Kochar, Riblett--enable the transition pod! Get a security team up here immediately!
Closeup of the Dream Lord as he slips into a deep coma
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Night Terror (waving at Coma as he carries the Dream Lord over): Coma, get him over here. Snap an aural beacon on him.
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Closeup of the Dream Lord's arm as Coma fits a metallic bracelet around his wrist. The bracelet has a number of tiny lights and circuits.
Coma: Got it. He's ready for transport.
Night Terror: Good. Now get out of the way.
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Night Terror: Goodbye, Dr. Adams. You are going on a long trip. I can't say it's been nice knowing you, because it hasn't.
Coma moves away from the Dream Lord's body, leaving it hanging in mid-air. Night Terror points a flat, rectangular device at the hero, just like the device Lullaby stole from Symbol. There is a click and a hum as the mechanism is activated.
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Night Terror: Have a nice flight. We'll send your luggage along later.
Hangover: See ya', you fairy!
Narrator (vet): Then, I had the strangest feeling, like I was being lifted up, way up. I seemed to be floating, rocking around like I was on a raft. I felt lonely, completely isolated from the world...and I wondered if I was dying.
Narrator (Farley): They sent him through! Is he being received?
Kochar: Yes, sir. All systems are functional, all life readings are positive. Conversion reservoirs are awaiting deposit.
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Wide shot of the Dream Lord drifting through a gray netherworld.
Narrator (vet): And I kept thinking...I wondered what it all meant. This stuff never bothered me before. I was miserable in Nam, but I made it out and forgot about it. Maybe that was it...maybe I shouldn't have forgotten. Maybe it should have bothered me.
Narrator (Farley): Status of the transition?
Kochar: We've got him, sir! Matter and electrical pulses are filtering through the dimensional envelope! It's collecting in the reservoirs!
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Closeup of the Dream Lord's entranced face as he continues to drift.
Narrator (vet): Or maybe...maybe I was meant to die there.
Narrator (Farley): Here he comes!
Page 16 (4 panels)
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A 3/4-page splash pan
el, showing the unconscious Dream Lord appearing in a big glass tube in the middle of the command center of the Night Brigade. Technicians are running around the tube waving equipment and scribbling on clipboards; a squad of men dressed in Project Dream Lord uniforms encircles the area, aiming weapons at the Dream Lord; colored lights are flashing and sirens are whooping; and Commander Farley is standing triumphantly in front of his captive, watching him.
Farley: Well, I'll be damned. We caught that son of a bitch.
Narrator (vet's voice -- in narrative box): Then, I woke up.
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Narrator: In a barren, distant stretch of the Dream Zone, someone goes for a scenic drive.
Wide shot of a huge, sprawling plain. It rolls like furrowed farmland, but is desolate--only an occasional dead tree scratching from the soil. A Model T is driving through this landscape, along a narrow black road. Along the road, gray cement block walls are visible at intervals. The walls stretch upward into the gloomy, cloud-smothered sky, and their tops are not visible.
These are the Fields of Sleep--the areas where people's dreams are physically manifested. Each person has a section of the Fields, walled off on both sides by the impossibly high gray block walls. These fields are now barren and dark, however, because they are inhabited by madmen and evil men. Here, the most gruesome and twisted dreams are played out in three dimensions. It is the heart of the Bogeyman's power.
Bogeyman is cruising through these fields in the white Model T, driven by a proper English driver with a white chauffer's uniform, including old-fashioned cap and goggles.
Bogeyman: Aha! I made the right decision!
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Medium shot of the Bogeyman and his chauffer swooping past in the Model T. Bogeyman's face is buried in a newspaper.
Bogeyman: I was about to murder him, to actually squeeze the soul out of him like toothpaste and cast it upon the flaming pit--when I had a second thought. Not from mercy, mind you, because I am of course a merciless fellow--but because I realized there was more sport to be had.
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Bogeyman: More sport indeed! I never guessed I could nurse so much delight from a single suffering simpleton! It's a bit like ping pong, Hobbs -- one unguessable bounce after the next and I hold the paddle! What a fox hunt! I can't recommend it enough!
Page 17 (10 panels)
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Bogeyman: Will you look at this in the daily post? They say here that Adams was accosted by ruffians from outside the Dream Zone! "Agents of the U.S. Army's Night Brigade ambushed Dr. Emmett Adams--a.k.a. 'The Dream Lord' -- and beat him to a bloody PULP." Imagine that! And I had nothing to do with it!
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Bogeyman: What good fortune, wouldn't you say? I lift not a finger, and Adams is again tortured and crushed! Some men are simply prone to disaster, I suppose...just as those like myself tend toward supremacy. Such a wise investment I made in sparing Adams's life--I still can't get over the wonderful returns it's brought me!
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Bogeyman (lifting a cup of steaming tea to his lips while he reads): Listen--again from the post: "Dr. Adams, still terribly ill after being shot, beaten, branded, whipped and stabbed through the heart, was no match for those boys from reality! These crazy, lovable American kids laughed at his pitiful attempts at defense, and proceeded to inflict upon him sundry unbearable agonies. Final score, six to nothing against the home team." Ha ha!
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Bogeyman: Oh my! They also transported him out of the Dream Zone! He is being held captive in reality! And his crippled girlfriend--she has also been conquered! What entertainment! I daresay, it all comes out in the wash, doesn't it? That'll teach her to resist me!
Hobbs: I doubt it, sir.
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Bogeyman: And look here! The analysts predict a great deal more revilement and excruciating punishment for Adams! Magnificent! Do you believe it, Hobbs?
Hobbs (unemotionally): Of course, sir. I wrote it.
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Bogeyman flips the paper casually over his shoulder into the air and it sparks into flame.
Bogeyman: Oh, that's right. One tends to forget, in the rush of things. Nevertheless, this certainly gives me a sense of great satisfaction, of a job well done! Ha ha! I feel like a craftsman, Hobbs, like an artiste! The consummate ruination of a human being is painstaking and infinitely creative--like the work of a painter, or a potter, or a woodworker or clothier, or...or...
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Hobbs: Or a prostitute, sir?
Bogeyman: Exactly! What transcendence, what a miracle...art for art's sake. Perhaps I should move to a Emmett and take to wearing homespun.
Hobbs: No. I'm afraid that overindulgence is your maiden name, sir.
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Bogeyman: It's certainly getting darker out here, isn't it?
Show Bogeyman gazing out at the view alongside the car. The sky is clouded over and black, and the landscape between the high gray walls is almost completely dark.
Hobbs: Yes, sir. The mad ones become madder, and the pure ones become mad. You're corrupting them quite well.
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Bogeyman: Thank you, Hobbs. Again, I can only point to the artisan in myself. What majestic emptiness there is, what a tremendous canyon appears in men when their dreams become polluted. It stirs me, loyal Hobbs, like a woman with child.
Wide shot of the car moving into an even darker region. Lightning bolts crackle downward in the distance.
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Bogeyman: Very soon, it will all be like this, thanks to my puissant intervention. A stunning, lunatic landscape, uncluttered by light or reason--churning and spewing and wailing with a dead, dark vision reflected in the world of the waking.
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Bogeyman: And I will be Thomas Jefferson, the architect! Revered and emblazoned, a founding father of Hell! And Adams?
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Closeup of Bogeyman's sinister grin.
Bogeyman: Adams will be my court jester.
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Back in the lab, the Dream Lord is still inside the clear transport tube, surrounded by technicians, security men, and observers. Commander Farley still stands by the tube, looking down at the unconscious prisoner.
Farley: Gantry, go ahead and wake him up. His nap time's over.
Gantry is a technician in Project Dream Lord uniform, operating a control panel, the size of a fuse box, set into the tube's side.
Gantry: Yes, sir. Applying stimulus solution now.
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Closeup of the Dream Lord, as a green liquid drips down onto his head from the top of the tube. The liquid drips down his face and runs onto his body.
Farley: Hard to believe what this man's done, isn't it? For two years, he practically controlled a universe. He put on some tights and played Superman...but he was really a god.