Superhero Universe: Tesseracts Nineteen

Superhero Universe: Tesseracts Nineteen

selected and edited by
Claude Lalumière and Mark Shainblum

Copyright © 2016
All contributions copyright by their respective authors.

E-Book Edition

Published by

EDGE Science Fiction and
Fantasy Publishing

An Imprint of

HADES PUBLICATIONS, INC.

CALGARY

Notice

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This book is also available in print

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Contents

Foreword: A New Universe of Canadian Superheroes
by Claude Lalumière

Diary of a Teenage Grizzly
by Patrick T. Goddard

Jessica and the True North
by Kevin Cockle

Pssst! Have You Heard... The Rumor?
by D. K. Latta

The Island Way
by Mary Pletsch & Dylan Blacquiere

Blunt Instruments
by Geoff Hart

Bloodhound
by Marcelle Dubé

The Jam: A Secret Bowman
by Bernard E. Mireault

In the Name of Free Will
by A. C. Wise

Nuclear Nikki versus the Magic Evil
by Jennifer Rahn

Spirit in the Clay
by Bevan Thomas

BLACK FALCON SAVES CITY, WORLD
by Sacha A. Howells

Bluefields Reharmony Nest
by Kim Goldberg

Lost and Found
by Luke Murphy

Crusher and Typhoon
by Brent Nichols

Black Sheep
by Jason Sharp

Midnight Man versus Doctor Death
by Chadwick Ginther

SÜPER
by Corey Redekop

Bedtime for Superheroes
by Leigh Wallace

A Hole Lotta Trouble: A Tale in Five Voices
by David Perlmutter

The Rise and Fall of Captain Stupendous
by P. E. Bolivar

Friday Nights at the Hemingway
by Arun Jiwa

Apollo and Greta
by Evelyn Deshane

In the Kirby Krackle
by John Bell

A Week in the Superlife
by Alex C. Renwick

Change as Seen through an Orrery of Celestial Fire
by Michael Matheson

Afterword: The Death of the Death of the Superheroes!
by Mark Shainblum

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Foreword: A New Universe of Canadian Superheroes

Claude Lalumière

I first met Mark Shainblum way back in 1989, when he walked into my (now defunct) Montréal bookshop Nebula. We instantly hit it off and have stayed friends ever since, in part because of our profound but complex passions for superhero fiction, comics, SF, and, yes, Montréal (where neither of us live anymore).

By then Mark was already an accomplished writer and publisher, having co-created the iconic superhero comics series
Northguard
, to name his signature work.

Years passed. I said farewell to bookselling and started editing anthologies (and writing for them, too). One of my dream projects was to put together a Tesseracts volume dedicated to the superhero genre. I always knew I wanted Mark, one of Canada’s leading experts on this particular theme, as my co-editor, should I ever bring the idea to fruition.

EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing — publisher of the Tesseracts anthologies — perhaps tiring of my ceaseless pestering for this volume to happen, finally acquiesced.

Canadian writers sent us 221 submissions, with more good superhero fiction and poetry than any one volume could contain. Mark and I read and debated and reread and debated some more… until we narrowed down our selections to these twenty-five texts.

Within these pages are superheroic scenarios unfolding all over the Canadian landscape— but our authors also let their imaginations roam beyond our borders to tap into whole universes of superhero tropes, subgenres, and archetypes.

—Claude Lalumière

Vancouver, BC

April 2015

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Claude Lalumière is the author
Objects of Worship
,
The Door to Lost Pages
, and
Nocturnes and Other Nocturnes
.

Diary of a Teenage Grizzly

Patrick T. Goddard

Dear Claude and Mark,

Sorry I couldn’t come up with something new for your anthology. But I remembered telling Claude at a party once that I’d been a teen superhero in the 1980s. I dug up my diary from 1983, when I’d just gotten my powers and Calgary was turning into the epicenter of superheroic Canada. The Time Crash of ‘86 retbombed our powers, but words on paper somehow always manage to survive these crises…

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Saturday, September 10, 1983

Dear Diary,

This summer, I got a chance to start fresh. We got posted from Edmonton to Calgary,* which I was very glad for. Shortly after moving in, we took our holidays in the Rockies. I sort of enjoyed myself, except for having to deal with my brothers. I went for a long walk by myself and got lost. I found a bear cub, and I knew to be careful, except that he looked like he was hurt. I got closer, and that’s when I heard a big roar and before I could run away there was a giant grizzly bear in my way. Then I don’t remember anything. It was weird that I didn’t wake up in the hospital or something, because I guess I got attacked. But I was okay. Except for the fact that I didn’t have any clothes, they were all torn up on the ground.

When I got back, there were Mounties all around. I’d been missing for three days! Mom & Dad were really worried, of course. But I didn’t want to answer a bunch of questions. I didn’t even know what had happened! I was just really, really hungry. I got very upset and then I just stood up and roared! Everyone was scared. I had turned into a grizzly bear! All I wanted to do was eat something. My mom calmed everyone down (she’s a nurse, so she’s good at that), and then she calmed me down, and then I turned back into Patrick. It was really weird.

School started last Tuesday. The bus dropped me off about ten blocks from my new school, Notre Dame, which is downtown.** It’s a Catholic school, so we have Religion for homeroom. They gave us a New Testament on the first day. I sing in the church choir on base and I do the Readings sometimes, so I already know a lot of it. I think Jesus would have been a good superhero if he had fought the Romans instead of being crucified.

Mom and Dad don’t want me hurting or scaring anyone, so I have to go to this school to learn how to control my powers. My class is 8X. So far school is all right. The only thing that peeves me is that we have to take extra classes because of our powers, so we don’t get options, like Music or Drama.

Anyway, remember how I swore I’d never repeat “the Chantal Syndrome”? Well, there’s this girl called Michelle. She’s fairly short, and has blond hair, and… well, I can’t exactly put it on paper. But I saw her on the first day and she had a cold and I wished she was in my class and she was.

* My father was in the Army, which made me an Army brat. This was my eighth move in thirteen years.

** Normally I would have gone to Sir Samuel Steele Junior High, on base, but it didn’t have an X program. Besides Notre Dame, only North West Academy offered superneeds classes, but it was private and we couldn’t afford it. A couple of my classmates left Notre Dame for North West and joined the T-Force in grade 9. I hated those guys even before I found out they were funded by the Think Tank.

Monday, September 12, 1983

Today has not been that great. Religion was boring, as usual. We’re always talking about Great Responsibility. The teacher is, anyway.* It was in that class that another thing about Michelle came to my attention: her voice. It’s so-o-o tiny! I mean, you can barely hear her, except when she’s not in class, strangely enough. It’s like a version of my particular type of schizophrenia. I’m grim and studious in school, and at home I’m the opposite. Anyway, at lunch, I was in the library sitting by myself and doing my work when those troublemakers, the Sick Six, came in. They annoyed me so much I barely managed to stay in Patrick-form!

* Since homeroom was also our Religion class, every teacher was potentially a Religion teacher. Ours that year was also our French teacher. None of my teachers were nuns or priests, except for Brother Jakob, who was a Jesuit and taught Language Arts. They all must have known that we had superpowers, but not all of them acknowledged it openly. They also had to teach the rest of the school. Some of them made a real point of
not
giving us special treatment, even while they had to follow the special lesson plan they were given. It was very slapdash and patchwork.

Tuesday, September 13, 1983

When I got to school this morning, one of the first things I did was get out my drawing equipment. I started drawing and reluctantly attracted a crowd. After having my binder passed around for a while, I got nervous, so I took it back and went to class. Religion period was stupid! We had to find twenty-five good points about one supervillain— in my case, the Black Angel.* How dumb! Then we found out that we had no choice in going to Weapons Shop or Costuming. All the guys had to go to Shop! Talk about reverse chauvinism! Lunch period finally rolled around, and as usual I went to the library to do my work. In Danger Gym that afternoon, I learned — the hard way — that Mr. Bentley really was the Drillmaster!**

* The original Masked Marvel’s WWII arch-villainess, a homegrown Nazi who went to prison after the war and disappeared. I wish I could remember what I’d written! I remember mentioning that she had nice hair, like an opera valkyrie.

** Some teachers had genuine connections to the super-world. Bentley had the ability to not only imitate the powers he could see but also transmit them through some kind of low-level telepathy. Acrobatess told me he’d tried out for the Action Gang in ‘76, while he was at university, but they turned him down (even though he was a friend of her brother, Acrobatic Lad). They did keep the Drillmaster on for some of their training sessions, but after Acrobatic Lad was killed in ‘77, Bentley went back to school and became a Phys. Ed. teacher.