From the Home Office in Satan T. Lucifer Jones's Sock Drawer (EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) The Top Ten Reasons It's Been So Long Since Last Episode 10. Thesis research was using up valuable Inspiration Dust. 9. The Author was replaced by Folgers Crystals. 8. Contract negotiations broke down and the charactes were Locked Out by management. 7. Tony Pi. 6. The Author was put in the penalty box for cross-checking. With a real cross. 5. That switch off daylight savings time was a real killer. 4. The Sun got in my eyes. 3. Squirrels got in my eyes. 2. Hauling his hinder out of bed to teach an early class sapped the Author's will to write. And the number one reasons it's been so long since last episode.... 1. Jack was subpoenaed by Ken Starr for unclear reasons which may have had to do with the Chinese fund-raising scandal. Now, since it *has* been so long since the last episode, we've brought in lovable noir parody Hans Kartoffelkopf to recap what's been going on in the storyline so far. Take it away, Hans! Time dragged on like a syphilitic soda jerk drags on his last Mr. Pibb- splattered joint, the readers waiting in breathless indifference for the toenail-pulling climax of the "Jonkatta Inside The Hollow Mars" arc. Their enfeebled synapses sputtered messily as they tried to dredge up foetid memories of Jonkatta arriving on the barren planet of Mars aboard a mass- produced Sojourner unit. Red dust like dried blood from a particularly messy accident with a food processor and a small furry animal covered the dead world in a shroud, and Jonkatta was peeling away that shroud to peer into the half-rotted flesh hanging from the yellowing bones of the planet. Pursued by green mutant squirrels that would sooner use Jonkatta's entrails as unwaxed mint dental floss than greet him with a perverse local ritual involving body parts that normal squirrels didn't even have, the red squirrel found himself thrown through time and space like a brick hurled through the front window of a day care center and landing on the head of a particularly snotty young child, arriving in a land straight out of bad pulps. As for Jack, a stand-up fellow who'd never do something like program Furbies to extend sharpened, rusty knife blades when cuddled, his latest job from the Duke of Smelly Feet was to take a little look-round of a Texas-sized starship lost by the forces of Hell(TM...for now) and see why the previous repo men had never returned, like anyone would voluntarily return to a boss whose management style includes inserting ear candles full of jellied gasoline in the nostrils of employees and charging it as a health plan benefit. The simplest reason turned out not to be that, though, but rather the fact that the ship's guns were active and blasted repo men into tiny gobbets of steaming flesh that rapidly freeze-dried in the depths of space, becoming something not unlike organic trail mix. Jack and his magic squirrel crash- landed on Mars and soon found themselves wrenched through time and space like pigs shot from a gun and into a wall containing a hole only large enough for an anemic hamster while smirking camera crews filmed it all for a webpage ad. Meeting Jonkatta, they found out that the Roquis, a pack of vampiric flying squirrels who would make a box lunch out of your average third grade homeroom while being about as uncute as a squirrel-based lifeform can possibly be, which is pretty damn uncute, if you've lived in the city as long as I have and had the things bumming smokes from you and trying to overthrow your government and alter the curriculum at the local community college to include things like "End User Training for Windows." Turns out the Roquis planned to rip the space-time tubes out of Mars like IV's pulled from the veinless arms of hardcore addicts sitting in the back room of a 7-11 and watching Jerry Springer's "Too Hot For TV" on an endless loop on a TV with the vertical hold broken, and ram them into the juicy flesh of planet Earth, sucking all the life from our world and turning everywhere on the planet into Yonkers after 9PM on a Tuesday. Now, if you'll excuse me, I gotta go meet Archer Sloane for a drink. Hey, this is a recap, it's not in continuity itself. Go steamroller a cat or something, you voyeurs. Ah, thank you Hans. I think. Coherent Comics UnInc. Presents: ___ __ __ ___ _ _ ___ _ _ _ _ CRAZY GUY #29 / '/ | / | / \/ / ' / / \/ "Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut" / /--' /--| / / / __ / / / copyright 1999 Dave Van Domelen `___ / | / |/__ _/ `__/ \__/ _/ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ As the one man and several squirrels worked through the underbrush, one of them stopped and leaned into the tall weeds, making retching sounds. Buroh called a stop and looked over to the vomiting Louie. "What is wrong?" he asked via telepathic translation. "Do the morpho-nuts disagree with you?" As far as Jack could tell, Buroh looked mildly concerned at the idea that the semi-mystical morpho-nuts might have failed in their task of providing nutrition to any who partook of them. Or maybe his robe was riding up on him. Squirrels are somewhat inscrutable. "No," Louie gasped as he tried to regain control over his innards. "I wuz just readin' th' summary. Forgot how nauseatin' Hans can be sometimes." "Come on...he's not THAT bad," Jack chided. "Yes he is," Louie was firm in his stance. Well, he was wavering somewhat in his stance, but his opinion was rock-solid. "Come along, we must reach the city by nightfall, for it is then that the Roquis come out in number," Buroh warned. "Right, we...waitaminnit!" Jack protested. "This is a hollow world. The Sun never sets. What's with this nightfall stuff?" "Um...dramatic license?" Jack glared at the brilliantly red squirrel. "Fine. Be that way. We only have a short time to prepare before the Roquis put their plan into action, and we must reach the city well before this happens. Happy?" Buroh asked. "Ecstatic." * * * * "Here we are, in the mighty domed underground cities inside the Hollow Mars!" Buroh dramatically proclaimed. Jonkatta reeled at the sheer grandeur of the buildings, how they managed to soar visually while still trapped under the stone. Ancient architecture only hinted at in the warrens of the Reds back on Earth, true markers of an advanced civilization. He tried to imagine the glory that could be had if not for the need to hide from the vile Roquis. "Um, problem?" Jack grunted from within the entry tunnel. "I'm stuck." Suddenly the grand scale came crashing down around Jonkatta's metaphorical head. If the human were to enter the city fully, his head would brush the dome's top. The illusion of scale and size was only that...an illusion. Hedga and Ryezz struggled to help the human through the gateway, and he gingerly crawled into the open plaza at the threshhold of the miniature city. "Nice place," Jack commented. Louie snorted, as if he'd seen better, and Jonkatta scowled at the Grey in response. But to extoll the virtues of the city now would only play into the cynical Grey's paws, and allow him to make Jonkatta look the country bumpkin. "Thank you. It is the result of centuries of work by our greatest artisans," Buroh beamed, either having not noticed Louie's reaction, or choosing to ignore it. "But we haven't the time for a tour, nor would you be able to experience the true beauty within the structures due to your size in any case, sadly. No, we have come here to arm you as best we can against the Roquis. We have a small cache of radium rifles captured from those few Greens who stumble into the portals," he gestured, and a rack of slender yet deadly weapons was wheeled in. Louie picked up one of them and hefted it experimentally. "Mine's bigger'n yours," he sniped at Jonkatta. "Size does not matter. Skill does," the Terran Red retorted. "Yeah, that's what they all say," Louie snickered. Jack gingerly picked up one of the metal rods while this exchange was going on, and looked at it dubiously. "Um," he broke into the argument before it could get deadly, "aside from the fact I'm afraid I'd break it as soon as I tried to fire it, I can't get my finger in past the trigger guard. I'm not much of a gun-user anyway," he added, "I'll just stick to my staff." To demonstrate, he pulled the needle-sized red and gold rod from his wristband and willed it to grow to a few inches long, enough to be seen without knocking a building over. Buroh shook his head. "It is magic in nature. The Roquis will feed on it, and through it, you. You need a product of technology to safely attack those vile creatures." Jack cast his eye around, looking for something he might use as a weapon that wasn't currently being used as a building. "Wait, what's all that stuff hanging between towers?" Buroh followed Jack's pointing finger up to a mass of spiky wire. "That is a defense against the Roquis, should they ever find this city and attack. It will force them to ground, where we may at least have a chance of fleeing. Razor-sharp, refined from the rusty iron of Mars." "Great, I'll take some." * * * * "That is one of the STUPIDEST t'ings I ever seen!" Louie proclaimed. They had returned to the surface, and Jack had just finished wrapping the bristles of wire around one end of his magic staff. "It looks like a metal Q-tip(TM)!" Louie added, apparently not done mocking the improvised weapon. "It looks like it might work against the Roquis, and that's all that matters," Jonkatta snarled. The remnants of his honor were rapidly fraying as he spent more time around that arrogant Grey. Once the Roquis were dealt with, he wasn't sure if he'd be able to resist putting a radium bolt in the back of Louie's skull. A sullen silence fell over the three warriors as they followed Buroh and his aides to the most likely site for the enactment of the Roquis plan to drain life energy from Earth. A few hours, and even fewer words later, Buroh raised his paw as a signal to stop. "We are as near as we dare get to the 'feeding trough.' We Martian Reds will attract their attention like dinner bells should we approach any closer. It is up to you three and your less-refined minds to carry out the final strike." "Leaving aside that I think I've just been insulted," Jonkatta replied, "what do we do when we get there?" "We...don't know," Buroh admitted. "No one has survived getting close enough to gain detailed knowledge of the plan. However, we believe that if you simply get close enough and destroy anything that looks important while killing anyone who looks to be in charge, you stand a good chance of success." "So, Plan A, then," Louie smirked. "If it moves, kill it...if it doesn't move, blow it up with high explosives. Well, we needed an action sequence soon anyway...." "Good luck, then," Buroh spread out his hands in a benedictory fashion. "I wish we could help...for if you fail, our deaths will soon follow, as surely as night follows day." "But there's no night here!" Louie spat back. "Er, poetic license?" With that, Hedga, Ryezz and Buroh turned tail and ran into the jungle "Well, you heard the, ah, squirrel," Jack proclaimed. "Time for an action sequence!" * * * * [To the tune of _Chim Chim Cheree_ from _Mary Poppins_, first two verses] Action sequence, Action sequence, Into the fray.... (Jack, brandishing his wire-mass-tipped staff like a chimney sweep, charges into battle) And Jack will kick many Roquis tails today! (Jack swipes at a mass of incoming Roquis, slamming them aside) Action sequence, Action sequence, Fi-ire at will! (Jonkatta and Louie set up a crossfire that sends several Roquis to the ground in flaming masses) Take the safety off and The enemy kill! (Louie ducks as one gets past his radium rifle bolts and tries to latch onto him) Or blow them apart, And that's better still! (Jonkatta's shot splatters the guts of the Roquis all over Louie) * * * * "No more Roquis?" Jack asked, swatting aside one last defender. "Not good," Jonkatta growled. "That means they think they can get their plan to work quickly enough that it's not worth trying to stop us from getting inside." "Fer once, I agree wit' th' Red," Louie nodded. "Dey wouldn't stop tryin' ta kill us unless dey wuz about ta kill everyone at once," he added as he tried to wipe some more Roquis guts off his tail. "Which way?" Jack asked. "That way!" the two squirrels pointed at an immense tower of crackling energy which had just shot up into the sky, towards the miniature sun at the center of the hollow world. "Right, jump on!" With the two squirrels secured to his shoulders, Jack sprinted towards the source of the energy. A few Roquis sentinels tried to stop them, but were quickly blasted by the squirrels riding shotgun. Or radium rifle. Whatever. "Ooooohhhhh crud," Jack skidded to a stop as they came to the edge of a giant natural amphitheater. Thousands of Roquis were gathered around an altar at the center. Thousands of glowing red eyes did NOT turn to fix Jack with evil glares...instead remaining locked into the energy column. Meaning things were so far along they either didn't bother with Jack's presence, or couldn't break themselves away from the process. Atop the altar was a piece of matte black stone which seemed to be the source of the energy pillar. It was carved into a cylinder, with a wide lip at the top, apparently to help channel the energy flowing out of the artifact. An image from his upbringing floated to the top of Jack's mind, one of the sacred rituals of his faith [worship of 1960s and 1970s TV shows - Ed.]. Thought became action so quickly that Louie and Jonkatta nearly lost their grips on Jack's shirt. Vaulting through the air, Jack landed in the center of the amphitheater, right next to the altar. NOW he had thousands of glowing red eyes turning to fix him with evil glares. If he were in any mood to give it thought, he might have estimated that he had about three seconds to live. He wasn't in that kind of mood. "HEY ROQUIS!" he shouted. "WATCH ME PULL A RABBIT OUT OF MY HAT!" Then, as everybody (especially Louie and Jonkatta) looked on in shocked disbelief, Jack plunged his right arm up to the shoulder in the ebon-hued, wide-rimmed cylinder. And pulled. Something popped, and it wasn't Jack's shoulder. The energy column vanished. The ground rumbled. "Um, guess I don't know my own strength?" Jack ventured as he pulled his arm out during the brief pause before all Hell (TM) broke loose. Then, well, you know what broke loose. Where it had been spewing out energy, the...thing...on the altar now was ravenously devouring reality itself in the immediate vicinity. Jack braced himself against a pillar and managed to resist the pull, but several Roquis tried to fly away and were drawn into the gaping maw of the tophat-shaped artifact. Jonkatta tried to run for it, but the instant he let go of Jack's shirt, he was flung through the air and into the energy sink. "Can't...hold...on..." Jack gasped as the winds tore at him. "Spells?" he tried to ask Louie. "Already tried," the magical monkey masquerading as a squirrel replied. "That thing ate everythin' I tossed at it. Good freakin' job, Jack." "Enough...with...the...SARCASSMMMMMMM...!" Jack screamed as the pillar broke and everything went into the hole. Suddenly, although Jack was no longer there to see it, the hole closed, with a satisfied belching sound. * * * * "Ow. Where are we? And why has my belt exploded?" Jack asked as he picked himself up off a rather hot and unpleasant stone floor. Louie, back in his natural simian form, sat up and groaned. "In order? Well, someplace hot and nasty...and given yer employer, I bet we're in 666NASTYNASTYNASTY, havin' been rescued from dat vortex. Although 'rescued' may not be da best toim. And, okay, I bite, why DID yer belt explode?" Before either could ponder that weighty question, a mob of pleasant- looking, if slightly dim, men in tennis outfits flooded the corridor, making "hup hup hup" sounds. "AIE! It's a herd of Quayle!" Louie shouted, leaping straight to the ceiling and clutching onto a rather hot steam pipe, the burns being preferable to the trampling. Reflexes took over, and Jack became a whirlwind of open-hand strikes, spinning whirlwind kicks, headbutts, buttheads and the dreaded three-fingered nostril spin. Quayles yelped in pain and scattered as fast as they could, but their numbers did not seem to diminish. Jack moved up to more devastating styles. The Spinning Armpit Lock Throw, made more deadly because he hadn't showered in days. Liu Kang's Ancient Chinese Secret. The Pinky Twist Of Seven Demons. The Six Agonized Stranglings Of Sprewell. Lambada, the Forbidden Dance. The Most Feared Linux/Windows Double Boot To The Head. Finally, those Quayles that had not been reduced to gristly bits or whimpering piles had managed to flee the area. "Ah, there you are," oozed a genteel voice. "There'll be a little something extra in your next paycheck for the bounty on those Quayles. Any little bit helps while the permanent solution is implemented," the voice added. Jack turned to see Satan T. Lucifer Jones, CEO of Hell (TM) Inc, Duke of Smelly Feet, and the guy who sent him on this whole fershlugginer mission in the first place. "Er, hi. Permanent solution?" "Well, I managed to fob most of them off on the People Upstairs, but they seem to be popping in about as fast as we can process them," Jonesy shrugged. "So, I suppose we can do an informal debriefing now. You didn't manage to board the Yesj, I presume?" "We got shot outta da sky," Louie spat. "Da defense guns wuz workin'!" "Hmmmm. We did suspect that might be the case, but I was SO hoping it wasn't. Oh well, it is useful information nonetheless. I'll send you on to personnel, they can get you back to 001SUPERGUY Earth in time for your next assignment," the CEO nodded to himself. "Wait...before I go, do you have any idea how I survived the vortex thing I fell into?" Jack asked. "Well," he twirled his pointy beard in thought. "It was actually a portal to Earth, but you knew that was the plan already, I presume. Most of its victims did end up on Earth, so you may have some of those nasty flying squirrels waiting back there to take revenge on you. But when you entered the portal, the morpho-nuts you were carrying also entered the portal. By their nature, they changed themselves so as to satiate the ravenous vortex, and it, well, shut down. This left you trapped between places, and the emergency recall on your phone pulled you here." "Wait, what...phone?" Jack pulled his PacHell(TM) cellphone out of a pocket. "That was destroyed as a point of plot convenience a while ago, wasn't it?" "And restored as another point of plot convenience, no doubt. Those Authors make me look almost straightforward," Jones sighed. "Anyway, off you go, can't have you hanging about too long, having living mortals here always makes things unpredictable. Well, living mortals who have Authors bothering them, anyway. Shoo, shoo...." WILL JACK MAKE IT BACK TO EARTH OKAY? WILL HE ACTUALLY MAKE THAT CAMEO APPEARANCE IN RAWLUK'S SERIES THAT WAS TALKED ABOUT ON EYRIE? ARE THERE MORE QUAYLES THAN EVEN AN AUTHOR CAN DEAL WITH? IS QUAYLE NO JACK KENNEDY, JACK YUEN, OR EVEN JACK O'LANTERN? DOES JACK KNOW JACK? DOES THE AUTHOR HAVE *ANY* IDEA WHERE TO GO FROM HERE? Answers to not as many of these as you might like, next time on... SUPERGUY! ============================================================================ Author's Notes: I swear on a stack of Kurt Busiek comics that I was not planning the whole "Hey, Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!" thing from the start. In fact, it sneaked up on my, guerilla-like, as I was writing this episode and looking for a way for Jack to monkeywrench the works. This hurt me as much as it hurt you. But perhaps not as much as you'll hurt me. Please put down that chimneysweeper....