Nuklear Age

by Clevinger, Brian

  The Cap’n Salty boat bobbed in the waves as the water dervish ran through a wide circle in the harbor.

  “This is gonna scare off the fish,” the captain surmised at some length.

  “GET IT OFF! EEEEWWWWEEEEARGH!”

  The first mate wiped the fresh sea-mist from his face. “Yep.”

  __________

  Class ended after fifty minute-long eternities. Atomik Lad tried to find Rachel in the seething ocean of humanity as it flooded out the classroom, but to no avail. He strolled through the campus’s symmetrical lawn arrangements with sidewalks sliced through them like veins pumping so much young blood to vital building-organs. “Yo, Atomik Lad!” Mighty Metallic Magno Man’s voice was deep, like a resonating grand royal gong.

  “Hey Norman,” Atomik Lad trotted up to MMMM. He usually wore blue jeans, sunglasses, and a white tank top to contrast with his dark skin while showing off enough of the “Norminator” that he didn’t feel the need to try to impress passersby with his physique. They were plenty impressed all on their own. And today was no exception.

  Atomik Lad stood a full foot shorter than Norman, who was even taller and more musclebound than Nuklear Man himself. Standing next to each other, Norman and Atomik Lad looked like the co-stars of some wacky and particularly ill-conceived buddy comedy that they’d probably call Big Blackie and Tiny Whitey.

  “To the Magnomobile!” Atomik Lad gestured with an exaggerated impersonation of Nuklear Man's voice.

  MMMM laughed and walked Atomik Lad to the “Magnomobile.” Luckily, it was stowed in one of the closer parking lots. And there it was: a large convertible Cadillac with a bright, sparkling metallic purple paint job. It was the envy of all who looked upon it.

  __________

  Nuklear Man gasped desperately as he floated among the waves. The battle had been a fierce one.

  The Golden Guardian thought he had read somewhere that spiders could only distinguish between light and dark. Since the Sinister Spider had clapped off the lights and the Danger: Reactor Core was thus enshrouded in darkness, Nuklear Man was certain he had the advantage.

  He changed his mind when the spider pinned him against a wall and covered him in a cocoon of super tough mutant spider webbing. He struggled against his bonds until he remembered that whole “Plazma Power” thing and burst from the disgusting secretion with a flash of fusion light.

  It was like the flash to the camera of Nuklear Man’s mind. That brief moment burned a horrible image into his brain: the spider hovering over him. What happened next made him very happy that he couldn’t see a thing. He felt the huge fangs grapple his shoulders and shove him, head first, into the spider's gaping maw. He could feel the esophageal muscles pulsating to squeeze him down its tract and into its gut. It was less pleasant than it sounds. He heard and felt a burp from the inside. Nuklear Man sat in the belly of the whale of a spider for exactly 1.2 moments before freaking out. If anyone asked, he'd later refer to it as a “strategically random outbreak of violence.” Heroes simply do not “freak out.”

  The spider felt a rumbling in its gut. It thought that perhaps humans were too spicy to be eaten whole and considered merely tearing them to shreds when it went on its rampage. It gave out a pained moan as the warm sensation took on a level of severe heartburn before finally reaching all out lava-like proportions. It could smell and taste burning spider flesh from inside itself. This didn’t worry it as much as it perhaps should have, but how was it supposed to know what its own insides tasted like? All its liquids spontaneously vaporized from the intense internal heat.

  This had several effects.

  1) Steam takes up much more volume than the water it comes from.

  2) This caused an explosion that shattered the spider's exoskeleton and splattered hundreds of pounds of cooked spider guts all over the Danger: Reactor Core.

  3) That's really disgusting.

  4) Nuklear Man clapped the lights back on to only confirm by sight what he knew by touch. He was standing in the cracked open spider’s shell and covered in gooey spider organs from head to toe.

  With a girlish—yet Heroic—shriek, he bolted out of the Danger: Reactor Core and tunneled through hundreds of feet of rock before bursting from the earth covered with spider innards that were themselves covered with dirt. A mess of epic proportions needed a bathtub equal to the task and so he sought the ocean. After zooming around and around the water at speeds in excess of 800mph, he at last floated calmly on the water’s still roiling surface. He was exhausted from the cleansing and hoped he’d never have to think about the spider again.

  __________

  Mighty Metallic Magno Man drove through the streets of Metroville while Atomik Lad leaned back in the passenger seat. City traffic perplexed Atomik Lad to no end. He’d always been a strong proponent of the idea that if God had intended overheroes to drive, he wouldn’t have let them fly. Unlike Atomik Lad, Magno Man came into his powers relatively late in his life, so he still considered the act of flight to be something that you saved for work. Even when he took to the skies, he’d be low about it.

  Atomik Lad just sat back, took in the pleasures of excessive legroom, and tried not to think about the horrible vehicular anarchy around him. It seemed to him that lanes had been relegated to the status of suggestion some generations ago. He assured himself there was something like a system at work, or else the entire city would grind to a halt as the streets choked on the scrap metal of every vehicle colliding into those around it. “Hey, I didn’t tell you yet, I've got a date to Nuke's party,” Atomik Lad said with a smile too big for his head.

  “Awright! Working that ol’ Atomik Mojo, huh?”

  “I wouldn't say that.”

  “Oh?”

  “Nah, it's my natural charm. It's a curse.”

  “Whoa, excuse me, Dr. Love,” Norman said with a chuckle as Atomik Lad basked in a few minutes of normality.

  __________

  Nuklear Man felt calm, serene, pristine, free. Very, very free.

  Too free.

  “My Overoos! They’re...they’re gone!”

  He ducked underwater, shot into the air, and hurtled toward the Silo as fast as he could. Gotta fly faster than I've ever flown before! he thought to himself. Truth be told, however, he was a good forty miles per hour slower than his Earthbound top speed.

  __________

  The Tungsten Titan and Atomik Lad strolled through the wide alleys of the largest mall on the face of the Earth: The Metroville Mall. The Mecca of Shopping. A cult, the exact size of which was under debate, was believed to bow west four times a day in honor of its Biblical importance to capitalism. The Metroville Mall seemed to exist in a reality all its own. A very manicured reality that hadn’t yet invented dirt.

  “So what do you think we should get him?” Norman asked as they walked among shoppers and shops.

  “I don't know. He’s so hard to shop for,” Atomik Lad said.

  “Does he need anything?”

  Atomik Lad stopped and thought. “Nothing with repeatable uses.”

  Norman nodded in agreement. “Oh yeah, the Label Maker Incident.”

  “You know I had ‘Danger: Sidekick’ on the back of my outfit for a week before I noticed it?”

  “Hmm. Well, who else is gonna be there?”

  “You, me, Rachel, Angus, and Dr. Genius if we can get her out of the lab. Oh, and I was thinking about inviting The Minimum Wage Warriors.”

  “Nah, they gotta work weekdays.”

  “Guess you’re right. Just us then.” They continued their walk down the endless road of entrepreneurialism. “Hey, where do you think we should have the party?”

  “I like the beach,” Norman said. “Ooh, especially Larson Beach. Lots of sun and lots of chicks. And according to the weatherman, tomorrow’s waves are going to be sweet!”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  Norman nudged Atomik Lad in the side, which had the effect of nearly knocking him over. “Even get to see this Rachel of yours in a swi
msuit.”

  Atomik Lad's retort was interrupted by another retort from behind, “Hold it right there, Mr. Muscle-Oil and Spandex Kid.”

  The heroes spun around and faced a motley group of seven individuals who, judging by their outfits and demeanors, must’ve thought of themselves as villains. The heroic duo reflexively jumped into defensive stances. The rest of The Mall seemed strangely empty of the shoppers it usually contained at this time of day. Atomik Lad could feel it. A showdown was a-brewin’.

  “What are you guys supposed to be?” Atomik Lad asked.

  A wiry man stood in front of the other six. He had the angry, weaseled face of a man who’d had too much of what life was offering with creases forged by the frustration of not knowing what to do about it. He was clearly the leader, though it seemed to Atomik Lad that h attained that lofty position by being the only member of the team with enough petty ambition to take it. “Allow me to introduce us.” He pointed to a rocky mammoth of a man, “This is Granite, the Mammon Mauler. He can turn his body to pure stone, as you can see, and has the powers to control the very elements of earth. Very messy. And evil!”

  He gestured to an anthropomorphic feline, “Meet Zeeroks, the Copy Cat. She can mimic any overpower she sees and is a master of disguise.” She changed her body to living stone and back again to emphasize the point.

  He motioned to what looked like a very militant Porky Pig dressed in combat fatigues. Bandoleers of ammo were slung around his small body. “This is El Puerko, the Savage Swine. He’s a Central American revolutionary and has more weapons in his personal stockade than most countries.” El Puerko oinked irritably.

  “This,” he signaled to a dark corner, “is Okenshi, the Nasty Ninja. His combat skills and clandestine abilities are unmatched.” Okenshi remained completely invisible to punctuate the greatness of his skill. Unfortunately, it wasn’t easy to observe him being impossible to see, so he merely managed to punctuate the moment with the awkwardness of his absence.

  Almost under his breath the leader said, “And here’s Chronotor and Lord Obese.”

  “Wait. What do they do?” Mighty Metallic Magno Man asked.

  A disgustingly enormous girth of humanity stood behind the others and burped, “I am Lord Obese, the Rotund Raider!”

  “And?” Atomik Lad pressed on.

  “And I’m really bitter about it so watch out!”

  The sidekick backed up a step. “Okaaay.”

  A man wearing nothing but watches of various designs wrapped around his limbs and body with a large wall clock mounted on his chest jumped forth. “I am Chronotor,” he said among a cacophony of little watch ticks, tocks, bells, and whistles. “The Temporal Terror! I have the power to mess with the time displayed on clocks!”

  Mighty Metallic Magno Man gave an unimpressed, “Pffff! Is that it?”

  Chronotor grinned madly.

  Norman could feel a tingle on his left wrist. “Hey!” The hands of his watch were spinning out of control. “That’s not funny, cut it out! I could be late!”

  “And I am,” the evil introducer said without regard to what was going on between Chronotor and the Tungsten Titan, “Blazer, the Photon Felon! I have the power to shoot really neat purple energy beams from my eyes!” He, of course, neglected to mention that using the power blinded him making it, at best, an exercise in futility to hit a moving target. “Collectively, we are known as The Socially Maladjusted Overvillains Who Can't Agree on a Name!” he said in all seriousness.

  “I thought we decided on ‘Malcontent’.”

  “Yeah, ‘maladjusted’ makes us sound like fuggin’ weirdoes.”

  “Shut up,” Blazer said.

  “It's too long anyway. Why not The Sinister Septet?”

  “That’s too elitist. Most people don't know septet stands for seven. They’d be confused.”

  “No, septet is six. Heptet is seven.”

  “That just proves my point then.”

  “Shut up!” demanded Blazer.

  “It’ll never fit on a T-shirt.”

  “Ooh! How about an acronym?”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “You’re always hungry.”

  “An acronym, eh? So that would be, what? The T-S-M-S-W-C-A-O-A-N?”

  “The TSMSWCAOAN? That doesn't make any sense and it’s still too long to fit on a T-shirt.”

  Blazer turned to face his gang and roared, “Would all of you just shut up and let me do the talking?! This is why we elected me leader! To avoid these embarrassing arguments! No one’s going to take us seriously if we can’t show some real initiative.” His underlings quieted their prattling. “Finally. Now then, Mighty Metallic Magno Man and Atomi—hey!”

  “Looks like they got away, boss,” Granite said.

  “Amazing observation, Granite. Now I know why we keep you around.”

  “Shucks, boss. Twern’t nuthin.”

  “Shut up!” Blazer pondered quietly while his gang looked on. “No matter. We know where they plan to have this birthday party of theirs.” He rubbed his hands together maniacally. “I think we will have to make an unexpected appearance. MUWA HAHAHAHAHA!!!”

  “But we weren't invited.”

  “Yeah, it’d be rude of us to just show up like that.”

  Blazer turned to his rabble of ruffians. “You just don’t get it, do you?”

  __________

  Nuklear Man, fully dressed in classy spandex and ever-billowing cape, confidently strode from his Danger: Nuke’s Room into the Danger: Living Room. He crept as silently as he could to the Danger: Reactor Core.

  WHAM!

  “YEOWCH!” He rubbed his head as he lay on the floor. He looked behind him at the overturned couch. “Stupid Danger: Couch always jumpin’ out in front of me. Hmmphf!” The Hero crawled to the Danger: Reactor Core. He creaked open the door and leapt inside. “EAT THE CLEANSING POWER OF SWEET PLAZMA PURIFICATION, YOU GOOEY DISGUSTING SLOP!”

  An aura of Plazma burned around him. Bright globes of energy boiled around his clenched fists. His cape flapped madly to get away from the random acts of violence that certainly lay ahead. But then his scowl of determination melted into the stare of “Huh?” he usually wore. There were no Giant Spider-guts splattered about the floor, roof, or walls. There was no cracked open Giant Spider exoskeleton and the smell was all but gone. Nuklear Man’s flashy special effects subsided, much to the relief of his cape. It calmly fluttered to a more relaxed—yet slightly billowing—position.

  “Hmm. Must be one of those new self-cleaning Danger: Reactor Cores,” he surmised. He stepped back into the Danger: Living Room and shut the door behind him. “GASP! Almost time for Silly Sam’s Cartoon Marathon-a-thon o’ Fun!” He gracefully jumped onto the couch.

  WHAM!

  “YEOWCH!!! Stupid Danger: Couch always jumpin’ outta my way. Hmmphf!” He set the couch back where it belonged and reclined across it. Childish glee coursed through him at the mere thought of the cartoons that were to come.

  A small arachnid hovered in the darkness of the Danger: Reactor Core. It was suspended by a thin strand of its own making that was nearly impossible to see in the bleak darkness. Another descended, and another, and another. Thousands of the minuscule creatures hung from the roof. And waited.

  __________

  Issue 11 – The Lost Tribe of Arachnor

  “Man, what was their deal?” Atomik Lad brushed his fingers through his wavy hair to push an unruly section out of his eyes.

  “Feh, who cares?” Norman said. “I don’t think we’ll be seeing much of those guys anyway. They didn’t seem to have their act together, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, they sure were losers.”

  Norman looked at his watch. “Still, I’m all screwed up over here. What time is it?”

  “I don’t know, must be eleven thirty-ish.”

  The Tungsten Titan stopped to wind his watch. Meanwhile Atomik Lad idly scanned the ambient shoppers.

  “Stupid watch-guy. What kind of power is that any
way? ‘Ooh, look out, I can mess with your watch!’”

  “More annoying than damaging, really.”

  “Hey,” Norman pointed to the pet store that happened to be in front of them. A variety of cute animals napped at them from behind the large store window. “How about a pet?”

  “A pet?”

  “Yeah, like a cat.”

  “A cat?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m afraid he’d call it ‘Der Wunder Kat’ and force it to wear a cape or something equally inhumane. We’d have the animal rights people all over us.”

  “Oh. Yeah, you do have a point there.”

  __________

  “And now, back to Silly Sam's Cartoon Marathon-a-thon o' Fun!” the show’s announcer, as per his contract and title, announced.

  A shadow crept across the Danger: Floor. A small, elongated shadow flickering from the Danger: TV’s glow. It scuttled from under the Danger: Reactor Core door to the back of the Danger: Couch and stopped. It made a motion. Perhaps the flick of an armored leg, the twitch of a poison dripping fang, or maybe a summons...?

  Another shadow darted across the floor. It was followed by yet another and another until the silvery tiles of the Danger: Floor were carpeted in twitching shadows. The mass stretched out to encompass the Danger: Couch and waited as one for the Time of Vengeance.

  “Stupid commercials,” the Hero muttered under his breath. “Your mind control won’t work on me, vile Hammer of Capitalism.” He made a finger gun motion at the Danger: TV, muting the volume.

  Unfortunately sound wasn’t the method of mind control this particular commercial employed. A close up of a slowly revolving and succulent Cow Butt Burger Hutt “Everything but the Tail™” Triple Quarter-Pounder Bacon Cheese Burger filled the screen. “You filthy bastards!” Nuklear Man spat.

  He sat up like a mummy rising from its sarcophagus. His feet touched the ground, the shadowy mass melted away to avoid him. It was not quite time to strike. This was Vengeance with a capital V. It had to be done right.