Nuklear Age (12 page)

“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 anyway? ‘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.

Nuklear Man felt a tingle crawl up his leg. It stopped at his knee and he swore he could hear someone clearing his throat. It was a spider. “Bug” he told it.

“Flesh-sack,” it responded, much to Nuklear Man’s complete and utter terror.

“Ack!” He instinctively brought a mighty finger to the arachnid to flick it away.

Somewhere, somehow, the transaction of kinetic energy and momentum had gone terribly awry. In a flash of confusion he was on his back between the Danger: Couch and the Danger: Coffee Table. He was surrounded by a sea of shadow.

__________

“Maybe a video game system?”

“No, he’s still trying to figure out Pong.”

“Now, c'mon. Even Nuke isn't
that
slow.”

“It’s not that. He can’t get past picking Player 1 or Player 2.”

“What do you mean?”

“He says he can’t tell which is the hero and which is the villain.”

“Ah. Yeah. I guess he would, wouldn’t he.”

__________

“I am Alan, chieftain of the Children of Arachnor, and now is the Time for Vengeance against you, the Destroyer!” a tiny but determined voice cried from atop the Danger: Coffee Table.

“Vengeance?” Nuklear Man asked like he had no idea what was going on. Mainly because he didn’t.

“Don’t play stupid with us!” Alan snapped. Before the Hero could respond with the traditional Who’s playing? line, the spider continued. “We know what you did to Larry!”

“Larry?”

“Larry” he repeated.

“Was that the guy whose car I blew up by accident when I blasted Mechanikill?”

“No, he was—”

“The leader of those cheese people I sneezed into oblivion? You kinda remind me of him.”

“
Shut up
, you bipedal buffoon! Larry was our patron god and creator, Arachnor!”

“I thought you said his name was Larry.”

“Well, yes, his name was also Larry, but that’s not exactly a striking and powerful name for a god, now is it? So Arachnor is mostly a title for effect.”

“I see.”

“I mean, I'm certain your name isn't really Nuklear Man, right?”

“Well, actually it is.”

“Enough of your stalling, endoskeletal bag! Now is the Time for Retribution.”

“I thought you said it was the ‘Time for Vengeance.’”

“Well, yes. The Time of Retribution is right after the Time of Vengeance while the sun in is the fourth house of—I don’t have to explain our time keeping methodology to the likes of you!”

“Just askin’. Sheesh.”

“You slew the great Arachnor, Lord of the Spiders, our master, our patron god and creator.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that.”

“And in the throes of death, he gave birth to us, his Chosen, who exist for a single purpose.”

“And that purpose would be...?”

“
To avenge our master’s death
!”

“And you're going to do that how, exactly?”

“You shall be devoured by our ten-thousand maws, hungering for your blood, Anti-Arachnor.”

“I see.”

__________

“A book?”

Atomik Lad didn’t dignify the suggestion with an answer.

Norman scratched his nose. “Right. How about a movie?”

“Nuke’s attention span isn’t exactly built to endure a movie. And it doesn’t help that his daily life and overactive imagination are more exciting than most movies anyway.”

“He collects comic books, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah, but he only gets
Captain Liberty and the Squad of Diplomatic Immunity
comics and they canceled those after the Dragon’s Strike.”

“A CD?”

“I'm not putting up with ‘Polkarama’ again.”

Norman grimaced. “Ooh. Yeah, that
must’ve
been rough.”

Atomik Lad’s face became a sullen mask. “You have no idea.”

__________

“But let it not be said that we are not a civilized race,” Alan said while pacing across the Danger: Coffee Table. “You may have one last request.”

“Okay. Don’t kill me?”

Alan took several steps back in alarm. “Er...”

“Well, you
did
offer me one.”

“Yes, but I didn’t think you’d ask for
that!
I was thinking more along the lines of a final meal or something.”

Nuklear Man sat up with his back against the Danger: Couch. “Feh, guess you weren’t thinking much at all.”

“Aww, c’mon,” the spider pleaded. “No one uses ‘don't kill me’ as their last request!”

“That’s because they don't have the benefits of
my
Nuklear Intelligence,” he said in a haughty tone. And while this was true, they probably wouldn’t complain about it.

“It’s an unwritten code of the last request!” Alan half yelled. “You don’t ask not to be killed! That’s not how it works! If that’s allowed, then the entire practice of last request becomes pointless!”

“You asked for a last request. I requested not to be killed. The end,” the Hero said. He crossed his mighty arms over his barrel chest.

Waves of dissent rippled through the shadow sea of spiders. Their leader darted his complex eyes nervously as he realized what was going to happen. It was law. The same law that demanded they avenge the death of their god. The same law that required they kill anything that impaired that avenge...ance. Alan backed away from the mob of his followers.

“You’ve bungled our plans for the last time, Alan!”

“Steve, my most trusted advisor? How could you?”

Another spider spoke up, “Don’t use your petty nostalgia on us, Alan. You have failed our mission of holy vengeance. And now, as it is written in the Book of Arachnor, you must pay!”

Alan turned dramatically to the new voice, “Et tu, Tom-ey?”

The sea of shadow rose against its leader with a barbaric ferocity. They flowed up the Danger: Coffee Table and devoured Alan. The Law of Arachnor would allow nothing less. Alan’s final tortured scream clung at Nuklear Man’s heart the way Hunger gripped his stomach. At long last, Alan plunged into the darkness eternal.

Or wherever dead spiders go.

Hunger, on the other hand, latched at the Hero’s stomach as staunchly as ever.

Nuklear Man contemplated Alan, his position of power, his responsibilities, his tormented demise. “Ew.”

“Judge us not, puny creature. I, Steve, proclaim that on this day, the Children of Arachnor shall have their revenge!”

Not aware of how totalitarian governments work, Nuklear Man asked, “Hey, who made you lead spider?”

Steve mumbled his response, “Well, er...I mean. You know, I led the revolution against Alan. Sort of. It only makes sense I should take his place as dictator.”

“I would have liked to proclaim this day the revenge of Arachnor’s children,” Tom pouted.

“Tom? You're just a treasurer! I’ve been Alan’s top advisor from the beginning. I have the experience to lead. Stick to the books, number-bug.”

“Excuse me,” Nuklear Man interrupted. “But if you were Alan’s advisor, and Alan was found to be unfit to lead, then isn’t his cabinet unfit to lead by extension?” he commented in a strangely lucid moment.

“He’s got a point,” Tom said while rubbing what the Golden Guardian could only assume was the spider’s chin.

“What?! You're agreeing with the Destroyer, the sworn enemy of our race?”

“Maybe you guys could set up some form of democracy?” Nuklear Man suggested. “A parliament or something.”

“I found our old system of government rather oppressive,” a faceless spider said from the sea of shadow. He received murmurs of consent and dissent from his companions.

“
Old
system?” Steve blurted. “There is no ‘old system!’ What are you thinking? You are following the heresy of the Anti-Arachnor!”

Tom rose up proudly. “This is our chance to end the tyrannical reign of one spider over many! A government of the spiders and for the spiders!”

Cries rang from the spider sea, “Hurrah! Down with the establishment!”