Superhero Universe: Tesseracts Nineteen (33 page)

THE BRAT

All I needed to do was lock eyes at Steinberg, and, if he wasn’t out cold before I saw him, he sure was after. I have that kind of effect on my enemies. After the fight, I called the cops and they took him back to jail. Simple as that.

POWER BUNNY

Rabindranath and Crack did the same “You goin’ down, bitch!” kung fu schtick they try to use against me every time. Ho hum. I swept in and bound the two of them up in each other so they couldn’t do anything else.

CERBERUS

Dumbell ran in front of me as soon as she spotted me, and we locked noses. Her shaggy yellow fur looked like it hadn’t been groomed in quite a while, and her black T-shirt with the white “D” on it (is she a copycat or
what
?) looked like it hadn’t been cleaned for the same amount of time. Naturally, we weren’t pleased to see each other.

“Get out of here,” I ordered, “and take your
servant
with you!”

I pointed to McGoon at this point. Despite his nickname, he isn’t “bad” in the least, just easily dominated. He quickly fled before I could do any damage to him.

Dumbell, however, did nothing. I returned my attention to her.

“I
told
you to…”

“I
heard
you!” she snapped, in her deceptively mild working-class Southern accent. “You want me out of your sight ‘cause you’re afraid I’ll
beat
ya! And I
will
!”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I retorted, holding my temper in check with a powerful effort. “My strength and speed are
greater
than yours…”

“Not by as much as you
think
they are,
hotshot
!”

“…and, as you know, my intelligence is
considerably
greater!”

She called me a
very
dirty name, but I ignored her.

“Face it, Dumbell,” I responded. “You may outweigh me by a few pounds, but that’s the only category in which you’re better than me. You’ll
always
be number two.”

“I may be number two,” she snarled, “but I TRY HARDER!”

With that, she took a vicious swipe at me, which I ducked. Then she started chasing me around the ship. This continued for a couple of minutes, until she cornered me, and forced me to fight her by encasing my small forepaws in her larger ones. We stood upright, wrestling with such force than the ground shook. I was at a disadvantage, as she was larger than me and had obviously — and lazily — conserved much more of her strength and energy than I had that day. Nevertheless, I prevailed. With a Herculean effort, I broke free of her grip, and before she could go any further, I snatched her by her shirt by my right forepaw and held her aloft.

“Let me put you in the
driver’s seat
!” I said, as I cocked my left forepaw back.

Then I punched her so hard that she flew out the ship’s wall and extremely far away.

Haven’t heard from her since.

MUSCLE GIRL

So, that was it.

THE BRAT

No, it wasn’t. We went back to seal up the hole, which was a bitch of a job, even for us.

CANDY GIRL

You’re exaggerating. You guys just cut up some rocks with your powers and stuffed up the hole with ‘em. Typical show-off stuff.

POWER BUNNY

Somebody’s
jealous
.

CANDY GIRL

Yeah, I guess I am. I’ll admit that. I don’t want to seem
useless
.

CERBERUS

Which you are
not,
Candy. We all have things we can’t do, and things we can. Doesn’t mean you’re any less valuable to us.

CANDY GIRL

Thanks.

MUSCLE GIRL

I think we all learned a valuable lesson. Being able to do stuff on your own is all well and good, but sometimes you need to be part of a team to understand how valuable you can be. And who your real friends are when your back is against the wall. Am I right on that, girls?

THE OTHERS

Right!

* * *

Winnipeg writer David Perlmutter is the author of
America Toons In: A History of Television Animation
(McFarland and Co.).

The Rise and Fall of Captain Stupendous

P. E. Bolivar

Greetings, avid readers! This is Myra Moon reporting from her prison cell, in an attempt to set the record straight.

You’ve heard how I was kidnapped by the villainess Jaguar while on assignment in Brazil, gassed by a mysterious Amazonian plant she’d left in my hotel room, and how Captain Stupendous and his Canadian Super League rescued me, but you haven’t heard my side of the story. The story of my life, and how it all came crashing down.

Ever since my first interview with Captain Stupendous, with that accompanying photo of me flying through the air in his muscular arms, I was assumed to be his girlfriend. Love at first sight, it was said, but it was never love. I was dating my photographer, Mikey Bell, and at the time we were happy together.

The roof of my condo complex was freezing cold the night of the interview. For months I’d been writing article after glowing article about the Captain’s many exploits in the hopes of catching his attention. How he’d flown in to save those people trapped on the sinking ferry off the coast of Vancouver Island; how he’d foiled the Scandalbug’s attempt to blackmail Parliament; how he saved his fellow superhero Sufferjet, prevented her from marrying the villain Pherognome, who’d put a spell on her with his magical perfume.

It was that article that made the Captain finally agree to speak with me. Mikey was the one who captured the famous image that accompanied it. Captain Stupendous in his tights and knee-high boots, his red cape fluttering behind him as he hoisted that ugly little man into the air. Pherognome was outfitted in black tuxedo and top hat and trying to hit the lantern-jawed hero with a cane held in his comically too-short arms.

They called the photograph a classic. It won awards, but I never considered it to be one of Mikey’s best. Something always bothered me about the way it captured Pherognome’s spellbound fiancée. Sufferjet lay sprawled on the ground, dressed in her shining white armor, hand on her dazed head. A veil crowned her long black locks in place of her usual half-helm, her head almost resting on the Captain’s rippling thigh.

To my mind she deserved better than to be portrayed as a damsel-in-distress for him to save. She’d singlehandedly stopped the Venusian Horde from destroying Earth, to name only one of her exploits.

When I suggested not using the photo for the story, Mikey balked. “Come on, it looks great,” he said. “They look like they belong together! People are going to eat it up.” Turned out he was right, and since it got me my interview I couldn’t complain too much.

The Captain agreed to meet me on my rooftop, but only if we were alone. Too bad, I would have liked Mikey’s company, and to be honest I was incredibly nervous. He could melt me with his eyes, crush me with one hand. That kind of power instilled an instinctual fear in people. I was no different, even if I did write glowingly of his many adventures.

When he finally arrived, his entrance did not disappoint. The clouds opened up with a flash of light, his laser vision burning a hole in the cumulus layer. He slowly drifted down toward me, giving me time to admire him. His suit was white with red stripes down the sides, a stylized C emblazoned on his chest. No maple leaf adorned the uniform, but it was obvious which country he represented.

He touched down on the roof and walked up to me, offering his hand. Before I knew it he was kissing my knuckles, his deep voice so full of bass that it rattled my ribcage.

“Myra Moon, it is a pleasure. I am Captain Stupendous.”

And that’s how my adventures began.

After a lengthy interview, which included showing me his Chalet of Secrecy up at Whistler, he flew me home. I was exhausted, the night having lasted much longer than I thought it would. He seemed eager to talk about himself and even more eager to impress me, like a schoolboy showing off for a girl he liked. To be honest it turned me off a little, but I knew I’d be writing something more positive than that in tomorrow’s paper, especially if I wanted another interview.

Once he disappeared back into the clouds in a streak of light I hurried down to my apartment for a hot shower and a bottle of wine. Even though my article later talked about feeling warm and flush while flying in his muscular arms, in truth I’d felt frozen the whole way.

I’d finished drying my hair and was on my first glass of red when the doorbell rang. There stood Mikey, a bottle of champagne in one hand, his camera in the other. “Did you get the shots?” I asked.

“Yep. Perfect view from the apartment across the street, just like you said. Want to see them?”

“Later,” I replied, pulling him inside for a kiss while slamming the door with my foot.

* * *

Captain Stupendous didn’t seem surprised by the photos of our rendezvous, but their unintended consequence surprised me. The other news agencies dubbed me his girlfriend, but not with kindness: “that mousy brunette”; “lacking in style”; “too plain and chunky for such a super man.” They were jealous of my impending Pulitzer, and all the exclusive interviews with him that followed.

Mikey and I rose to fame on the Captain’s back, and for the next few years we travelled the world chronicling his exploits, along with those of his new team, the Canadian Super League. We reported on their peace talks in war zones, their famine relief work, and big bad supervillain attacks.

Those caused me the most problems. Even though I constantly denied being involved with Captain Stupendous, the villains believed whatever they read on TMZ and kept kidnapping me to get his attention.

The Ameriterrorist was the first, strapping me to a bomb on the Skytrain while threatening to detonate it if the city didn’t pay him two million dollars. He needed the money to buy his family a house in expensive Vancouver.

Another time the henchmen of the Canadarm took me to the International Space Station, where NASA’s robotic arm held me hostage while demanding the governments of the world acknowledge its newfound sentience.

Dr. Vortex tried to turn me into a human black hole that would swallow up Toronto for daring to refer to itself as the Centre of the Universe.

Stupendous saved me every time. Mikey and I made enough money that we were able to buy a fancy condo downtown. We finally got married on a trip to Scotland, while reporting on the battle between Stupendous and the Highland Bullboy. We had to change wedding venues after the Bullboy destroyed our castle hotel with his magic horns.

Finally, there was my kidnapping in Rio de Janeiro. I’d like to say I’d gone down there to cover the Brazil-Canada trade summit, but really I was hoping some supervillain would attack the Canadian Super League, who were providing security at the event, giving me another Stupendous story.

By this time the CSL was almost as famous as the Captain himself. Sufferjet, Grizzlyman, SuperSquirrel, Ice Flow, and Stupendous were now the United Nations’ official superhero team, since few countries wanted American heroes on their soil. Don’t know why anyone would want their protection though. Trouble always followed the CSL, wherever they went, which was why I followed too. Then trouble found me.

I woke up tied to a chair in a well-furnished cave lined with glowing quartz crystal and furnished with plush couches and Tiffany lamps. I heard the unmistakable sounds of the jungle outside. The humidity was oppressive. When Jaguar grabbed me from my room I’d just removed my makeup and put on some PJs.
Good thing Mikey isn’t here
, I thought.
I’d hate for him to get a photo of me looking like this.

Jaguar was prowling back and forth across the cave entrance, her tail swishing from side to side. A stout figure with thick shoulder muscles and strong legs, the villainess truly lived up to her name. Fur covered her body, which she barely hid under a V-shaped swimsuit. I’d met her before, back when she’d still been a member of the Canadian Super League and one of the good guys. Though short she had a feline beauty about her, with more curves than a Grand Prix raceway, and a fierce intelligence I’d always admired. When she first immigrated to Canada I’d written an article on the little that was known of her origin story, but it never made it to press.

Maria Felinus was a brilliant aviation engineer in Brazil, and one of their best test pilots, when her experimental craft crashed in the Amazon. The government called on Sufferjet to help find her. Weeks later, they finally emerged from the jungle. Maria had been transformed into the Jaguar by some mystical force they’d encountered in a hidden city. Whatever adventures they shared had made her and Sufferjet best friends, causing her to immigrate to Canada.

Then one day Jaguar tried to kill Captain Stupendous. Now here she was kidnapping me, like every other villain in the world.

No point in wasting the moment, I thought. Might as well get an interview.

“So, Jaguar, why did you switch sides?”

She’d gained weight since last I’d seen her, though with her curves it only accentuated her full figure. She looked tired, her fur unkempt and mangy. She held a strange gun, probably one of the many weapons auctioned on eBay as the one thing that could defeat the Captain. Her reply was punctuated with a low growl coming from the back of her throat.

“I am no villain. Your precious Captain, he is the villain.”

“He isn’t ‘my Captain.’ Don’t believe everything you hear. We aren’t dating.”

Jaguar bared her fangs. “That does not matter. He will come and save you as he always does, and then we will have the truth.”

“What truth is that? What wrong has he done you?”

“He stole something that did not belong to him.” She paused her prowling to come up to me. With a long slow sniff she smelt me from knees to head. “I can smell him on you, and something else as well. Just like him you reek of Pherognome. What does that little
diabinho
have to do with all this?”

“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”