Gamma Girl says I should get one of those gizmos from Sharper Image that you attach to your keys and whistles when you push a button on the base station. Anesthesia said I wasn’t about to buy a gizmo, as I had a perfectly good Super Lab in the Hero Cave. Sometimes she can be such a nudzh. Like I know how to make a key whistle. I studied nuclear physics for Pete’s sake! If it doesn’t have a pulse generator on it, it might as well be a fish tank – and I don’t think I need to remind anyone of that fiasco. The Wonder Dog certainly likes Jell-O as a treat, so should fish, right!?

Anyway, I feel like a total dork without the cape. It’s not that I technically need it, but I’m not the young super hero I once was – no, I’m not – and the caboose is getting a little thick. It takes just one photographer getting a shot of me saving the city from Dr. Fiend with my big ass showing and there come all the J-Lo jokes. We super heros don’t get into this biz because we have tons of self esteem, let me tell you. And whoever came up with this profession wearing nothing but tights, never had to deal with the hairs on your leg poking though your uniform. Man it itches. (OK, I think AmazeMan was reading that last bit over my shoulder and my super hearing definitely heard something like “wuss”. Hey, I’m not the one who up sized his codpiece)

Oh, and FYI: Don’t think that you can have “just a few” drinks and be able to stop a derailing train without it giving you a splitting headache. All that screeching and crashing…, which reminds me that I need to put more advil in the utility belt. I swear, next New Year’s I’m off the sauce. Which I might also suggest for a certain gal who decided flashing open her breast-plate was a good way to ring in the new year (you know who you are).

Well, there goes the Super Signal, off to save mankind!

So the other night we have to go to the reservoir because it looks like someone might have planted a Bio-Bomb on the little island in the middle. AmazeMan and I were at his lair playing Pachinko when we got the call.

Now a little back story: Last Fall when we were chasing the Creeper through the city to keep him from setting up his “Quake-A-Matron”, one of the buildings collapsed and did some major damage to the Justice Mobile (and I had just gotten it washed). So, it’s been in the shop getting fixed and having a whole bunch of doo-dads added. Anyway, I finally got it back and it looks great. I mean really great. New paint job, thrusters out the wazoo, and even one of those rainbow mirror windscreens. I drove it over to AmazeMan’s place to show him, take in a few games of Pachinko, and basically have a guys night out.

So, we get the call and he’s like “We should take your car, as I need to fill the tank in mine”. I’m like “Dude, you’re blocking me in! We’ll have to move your car to get mine out. It’s only 5 minutes away, for Pete’s sake!” And he’s all “Blah Blah Blah”…, Long story short, we end up taking the Justice Mobile. Of course we arrive just in the nick of time (had to park in the visitors lot ’cause all the spaces were full near the front) and save the day. We get back to the Justice Mobile and some jerk in a Gremlin has put a huge ass ding in the passenger side door. OK, first I want to know what the hell they were making Gremlins out of that could allow them to dent the Justice Mobile, and second, how hard is it to take 2 seconds to make sure you don’t throw your door open into the one next to you!? And there were like 8 empty spaces. Why take the one next to the Justice Mobile? Oh the humanity.And what’s the deal with the name “Justice Mobile”? Christ on a cracker, can’t they come up with something a little more sexy than that? What are my union dues paying for anyway?

Oh, and remember kids, don’t steal music.

So, I’m like “Hey, Thor. How’s it hangin’?”

“Good, very good”, of course with his thick accent it sounds a lot more like “Goot, fairy goot”. Gotta love that guy.

“So, Thor, meet any nice ladies recently?” Thor was always trying to get some action, although to be fair he was always a gentleman about it.

“Ah, as a matter of fact I met a very wonderful woman. But, you know I don’t like to talk out of class”, Right. He’s the biggest braggart I know.

“I actually met her at one of your ‘Singles Bars’”.

“What the hell are you going to bars for? You could get anyone you want, anywhere you want”.

“True”, says Thor, “but sometimes I don’t want to deal with all the hero stuff, so I put on regular clothes and meet women at the disco”.

“It’s called a ‘club’ now”.

“Ah, of course, ‘club’. Anyway, I met a very attractive woman at the bar. I didn’t even get a chance to introduce myself when she just grabbed my hand and took me to her place.”

“You are shitting me!”

“No, this is a true statement”.

“So what happened next?” I can’t believe this guy’s luck. Now I don’t have any problem with the ladies, but this guy!

“Well, we immediately started to make the love and this went on for many hours.”

“…”

“Yes, well, after about 5 hours she left me to go to the bathroom and I started to feel uncomfortable”.

“Umm, I bet”.

“No, you see, I never had a chance to even ask her name. We had yet to speak even one word to each other”.

“Well that’s a little awkward”.

“You betcha’. So I was lying there thinking that I should tell her that I am a super hero – as she must be very concerned about how long we have been making the love”.

“So, what did you say to her?”

“I waited for her to come back from the bathroom and then I just told her the truth”

“What truth?”

“That I was Thor”.

“And what did she say?”

“She said, ‘You’re thore?, I’m tho thore I can hardly pith’”.

To say that we are banned from Tippy’s Tex-Mex is putting it nicely.

Besides, it kind of smells like cat pee.

People are always saying “Why don’t you just have your clothes custom made?”. Do you know how expensive that is? You know, we don’t get paid for saving mankind from the tyranny of despots. This is a charity, baby. And unlike a certain crusader I know, my parents didn’t leave me a billion dollars.

OK, that was a cheap shot, but the guy doesn’t have to rub our faces in it. Who wears a tux every evening? I mean, come on!

Well, the answer is pretty simple. As a rule, we don’t get involved in problems that the masses create for themselves. If we did, we’d never get any sleep done. Besides, most of us think the current Administration is full of putz’. We tend to be apolitical, but generally you can bet your bottom dollar that super heros are all about helping people. So I guess we all tend to be about social justice. Our motto is that those who are strongest need to help those who are weaker. Not a popular sentiment in todays society. Everyone seems to be out for themselves. So be it.

Now, when Dr. Fiend and his ilk start sending warheads to major world capitals, we’ll step in and save the day. But if the US wants to go to war with everyone else, well, they made their bed…

Anyway, we had been stuck in that sphere for what seemed forever when I got a pretty great idea, if I do say so myself. One of the things about getting older is that you tend to produce a lot of, how shall I put this?, gas. To say that we can ‘break wind’ would be like saying a tornado creases a house. Now the cool thing about villains is that, by and large, if they don’t kill you outright they keep you imprisoned forever. Not sure what the psychology is about that, but there you go. So if you are lucky enough to be imprisoned rather than impaled, you are fed pretty well. So I get this idea to ask for only high fiber foods. You know, garbanzo beans, bran muffins, corn, etc. Now the kicker here is that I am severely lactose intolerant. No joke. One ice cream cone and I am tooting out the 1812 overture. So I load up on all the fiber I can and then wash it down with a couple gallons of whole milk. Didn’t take more than 15 minutes to get things going down there, if you get my meaning. So I tell AmazeMan to hold his breath and I let loose a barrage of methane loaded butt burps that pretty much fill the ‘sphere of isolation’ with a noxious, and explosive, level of hydrocarbons.

Now this plan would be a death sentence without a quick and certain method of ignition. Hello wintergreen lifesaver! Now, a few of you might remember that if you bite down hard on a wintergreen lifesaver, there is a neat blue spark. Great fun when you are out camping in the dark. Anyway, one well timed chomp and the ‘sphere of isolation’ disintegrated into the ‘jumble of destruction’. I’d like to say it was planned, but I totally lucked out that the resulting explosion knocked out Doppleganger (both of them) and we were able to capture them (him) and escape. The only downside is that AmazeMan kinda lost most of his left eyebrow (you never know how these things are going to work out) and now he has a ‘Six-Million-Dollar-Man’ look about him. He’s getting really tired of me making that eye zooming “doo doo doo doo doo” sound effect when ever he looks at something in the distance.

Good times.

Since this is not a paying gig, I decided to make my own. Now with Nike and Adidas all coming out with spandex this and lycra that, it has been relatively easy to find something to wear. If you are good with a needle and thread you can certainly find enough silver lamé and microfiber to make a ensemble that is quite laudable. But shoes are another thing. It’s just not possible to make them yourself, and believe me I’ve tried. I don’t care how many glue guns and leather uppers you have, you just can’t get something that will take the wear and tear of fighting crime.So we all are at the mercy of the market place to come up with something that either hits a bullseye style-wise, or can be easily jury-rigged into something useful.

There are, of course, those who cheat and basically wear a dance shoe covered up by a lycra ‘sock’ that matches your outfit (*cough* Superman *cough*), but by and large most of us just go with something off the shelf. The Italian designs are the best when it comes to color combos and fashion forwardness. The Germans seem to have utility on the nose. But my little secret is the plain old wrestling shoe. Sure the support is for shit, but throw in a few Dr Scholl arch supports and you are good to go. The selection of colors and styles is fantastic. A close second is the boxing shoe, but those things are lace crazy and the last thing you want is to be late saving the planet because you were too busy tightening up your booties.

So Gamma Girl and I have been paired up, which is a blast. She is a lot of fun to hang around with and if AmazeMan and she got along better, we’d probably spend a lot more time together. AmazeMan is still mad that Gamma Girl was making his codpiece glow orange and green while he was hitting on Shelly from accounting. (btw, Shelly is TurboTron’s cousin). It was all in good fun, but he never forgave her. Oh, and little known fact. Most guys keep their wallet in their codpiece. I tell you, if you don’t have a utility belt, there aren’t that many places to hide your ATM, BlockBuster, and AAA cards. Poorly hidden keys have been a real problem in our industry. I think the real reason that AmazeMan is mad is that all that radiation erased his membership ID at Bally’s and they charge you $25 to replace them.

Anyway, Gamma Girl and I were sent to the stadium, as there was a report that “M” was going to do something bad. To this day I still don’t know what the M in “M” stands for, and the one time I asked him during the obligatory idle “fight” chat he told me that crap about “if you have to ask…”. Now I’m just embarrassed to ask anyone else and admit that I don’t know.

Now “M” is terribly consistent in his methods, which is typical in this business. If I had to give one piece of advice to any up and coming criminal genius, it would be to alter your methods once in a while. Use a different M.O. I mean when the ransom always comes as a riddle, you don’t have to do a lot of legwork to figure out who sent it. So “M” likes to always do things that have some kind of “M” theme. It’s his trademark and all that. Usually he will rob banks in an M shaped pattern, or only kidnap wealthy people with names that start with M, you get the gist. The reason we were on the lookout for “M” was that the evenings concert being performed at the Colosseum was none other than, you guessed it, Eminem.

Now, I’m not that familiar with all the hipster music these days. Hell, until Gamma Girl told me, I assumed Eminem was the mascots for Mars Candies. Personally, I don’t care much for his music. I’m more of a Bossa Nova guy myself, but you get the mission that is dealt. So we go down there and scope out the place, check in with the local security, and pretty much try and keep out of the way. Good thing too, because the place was packed. And I forgot how mean kids can be. Remind me to never again walk around a bunch of teenagers wearing colorful tights. Some of those comments were just uncalled for. I think if Gamma Girl hears “Do I get fries with that shake?” one more time she is going to go nuclear on someone. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.

So we wait through the whole concert (me with my earplugs in) and all goes off without a hitch. False alarm it seems. Not until we get back do we learn that “M” was about as un-hip as I am and mistakenly kidnapped the big yellow peanut from the candy commercial. Needless to say his request for a $100 million ransom has not put a fire under anyone’s feet.

Mom: So, when are you going to find a nice super girl and settle down?

Me: < ...>

Mom: I was just talking to Shirly, you know, Captain Famous’ mother, and he’s getting married next month.

Me: I know, you sent me the announcement last week.

Mom: You know he’s got a sister about your age. Darling girl. You should call her.

Me: She’s called the “Cyclops” for a reason.

Mom: Still, she’s not going to wait around forever. What about that girl you work with, what’s her name?

Me: Gamma Girl?

Mom: No, the nice girl with the big hips.

Me: I’m not having this conversation with you.

Mom: Such a fuss you’re making. If you spent as much time taking care of your social life as you do saving the world I might have some grandkids by now.

Me: You have several grand kids. Both Paul and Chris have kids.

Mom: I know, but you were always my favorite. Such a nice boy. Always respectful with the other mothers, and such hair. You could make silk out of that hair.

Me: Can we just get off this subject?

Mom: Fine, what do I care if you die a lonely and childless old man?

Me: Look, it’s not easy meeting women in my line of work. And what about Carrie? You couldn’t stand her.

Mom: You were too good for her. Besides, what kind of super power is ‘dressing nice’?

Me: She was a fashion designer!

Mom: And I should be excited about that? You should be meeting someone of your own kind. Someone who will give you nice super children.

Me: Dad married you, and you don’t have and super…

Mom: Don’t speak about your father that way! He always wants what’s best for you.

Me: He liked Carrie.

Mom: Your father is an idiot.

Me: Ahh, there goes the Super Signal, Mom. I gotta go.

Mom: Fine, but don’t be a stranger. I shouldn’t have to try to blow up the world just to have my son stop by for a visit.

Me: Good talking to you too!

And here I’m being lumped in with some story about a movie character. And an evil one at that!

That’s just mean, man.

Invisy

So I had to re-create the site and I lost all the comments. So, any of you that registered for the site, will unfortunately have to do it again.

Sorry for the inconvenience, but sometimes things don’t go the way you planed…, like that time in Phoenix…

So I was understandably perturbed when AmazeMan brought home a parakeet named George. Now I like parakeets just as much as the next guy, but cute little parrots just aren’t kosher.

Me: So…

AmazeMan: Yeah!

Me: It’s a bird.

AmazeMan: It’s a budgie!

Me: Don’t call it that. Seriously.

AmazeMan: What? He’s great!

Me: You realize, of course, that your “he” is a “she”.

AmazeMan: No he isn’t, he’s…, how the hell do you know it’s a she? There ain’t no bird boobies.

Me: It’s the color above their beak. If it’s colorful, it’s a he. It ain’t, so you got yourself a she-budgie.

Named George.

AmazeMan: But the guy at the store…

Me: What were you thinking? How on earth can this thing fight crime?

AmazeMan: It’s not a “thing”. He’s…, she’s a…

Me: Whatever. What can “George” do?

AmazeMan: He…, she can repeat anything you say right back to you.

Me:

AmazeMan: Come on, that’s terribly useful.

Me:

AmazeMan: Look, say you were just out of earshot of hearing Nefaro’s next diabolical scheme. You send George in, he…, she flies over – undetected – and listens to the conversation. Then he…, she flies back – undetected yet again – and repeats everything he heard.

Me: Actually, that’s not half bad…

AmazeMan: It’s awesome!

Me: But still, he’s…, she’s a parakeet.

AmazeMan: Budgie.

Me: Whatever. If you get caught traipsing around with that bird you’ll never hear the end of it. It’s just not Cricket.

AmazeMan: But it repeats…

Me: I know.

AmazeMan: And it barely eats anything at all…

Me: I hear ya man.

AmazeMan: This sucks.

Anyway, the one birthday celebration I hate the most is coming up and we just pitched in for something to buy. The problem is the present is for Know Man. And like his title, he knows what you are thinking. So every year we get him something, and every year he acts all surprised. Everyone plays along, but it is rather pathetic. I keep saying that we should just give him the money, but Anesthesia is all like “That is sooo inconsiderate. What if we just gave you money instead of a present?”

“If the present was anything like last year’s, I’m all for it. Who cares about feminist theater?”

“You are so uncouth.”

“Can you even be couth?”

“Don’t be an ass…”

It went on like that for a while. Regardless, I ended up pitching in. It’ll be a several more days that Know Man has to act like he doesn’t know he’s getting tickets to the Vagina Monologues. I can already see him starting to get depressed.

Clark Zupfermann was born in Kent, Iowa in 1893 to a couple of immigrants from Warsaw, Poland. His parents were in their 50′s when he was born (they had thought they were unable to have children). He was more then the usual “miracle baby” in that he had a rare genetic disorder. His body had an unusual mutation that caused increased muscle growth and strength, as well as a type of psoriasis that made his skin virtually impenetrable. His skin was basically a natural version of Kevlar.

Clark was extremely fast for a person, but not faster than a speeding train of course. He was able to run at a sustained speed of over 30 mph for several miles – this at a time when most people didn’t have cars. He could weather being stabbed by knifes and once famously for surviving a blast of buckshot from a misfired shotgun. The problem was that, although he wouldn’t be cut, he still felt the pain of being shot and poked.

Clark gain some local fame when he rescued a young girl named Lois Strassman, who had been trapped underneath a tractor that had rolled. His strength made easy work of lifting the tractor, and then he ran the girl to the local hospital in his arms. The rescue saved the girl and would have been a much more publicized event, barring one fact. Clark and Lois were Jewish. Rather than see the situation as heroic, many locals became afraid of him and took great pains to minimize his effort. Adding the fact that his skin condition made him look somewhat mannequin-esque, it was easy for people to dismiss him as some kind of freak. Regardless, Clark lived a simple life of doing whatever he could for his community and his fellow townsfolk.

Clark died in 1937 and was buried as a pauper. He truly was an unsung hero of the people. Luckily, the spirit of his good deeds and love for his fellow man live on in legend.

Unfortunately, Clark is typical of your run-of-the-mill super hero. Most of us are born different and have to deal with being outside the norm every day. The majority of us try to do good, but there are many who grow up resentful and angry – thus turning into the villains that we deal with to this day. I’m always asked why we don’t just kill the evil guys when we have the chance, instead letting them have the opportunity to reek havoc again and again. The simple answer is that we can empathize with their anger. There but for the grace of God, go I…

The reality is that very few of us can fly or teleport ourselves anywhere, especially across an ocean. And since we don’t make any money at this, the travel is usually through discount airlines and freight consolidators. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve traveled as cargo. So, I have recently been dealing with Time Zone. He’s a rather silly bad guy, but a bad guy all the same. His schtick is that he always commits his crimes at 3:33AM in a specific time zone on the planet. Rather than, say, always commit his nefarious deeds along the East Coast at 3:33AM, he moves along each time zone committing crimes every hour for 24 hours or 24 days, depending on which direction he travels. But once he gets going you know it’s gonna be a day or month of wandering the planet figuring out his current crime spree “theme”. Once it was robbing bank vaults that were secured with timers. Another time it was kidnapping a famous celebrity or leader until he could ransom 24 of the worlds most notable people.

Anyway, he’s at it again. Usually one just has to wait to see which direction he is traveling and then start trying to figure out the “theme” to his current crime spree. Once you figure it out, you just get ahead of him and wait to spring the trap at the next location. Sometimes it is easy to figure out (there is only one bank safe in Kiribati) and other times it’s a race around the world.

So I find myself needing to get to the US on short notice. Unfortunately, the Airlines know they have you by the short-hairs. Damn if I can find a flight for less than $2,800. I know that if I did this 2 weeks ago I could get something around $1,500. You’d think that there would be some kind of Super Hero discount or something. At least an upgrade from coach. But no. Super Hero money is no better than that of a mere citizen. Anyway, I got my ticket and headed off to the airport. Of course the only flight that gets me to where I need to go isn’t one that I have a frequent flyer card with. In fact, I have like 15 frequent flyer cards and I rarely, if ever, fly the same airline more than once a year. I don’t know why I bother.

AmazeMan was nice enough to give me a ride to the terminal – although I had to endure all the wise cracks that we were now an “item”. I didn’t need to check any luggage, but I headed off to the check-in counter to see if I could at least get seated in Economy Plus. They have that extra leg room, which is nice. No luck. In fact, I ended up in what best can be described as “steerage”. It was the aisle seat next to the galley and the lavatory. Not only was it impossible to not get my elbows slammed every frickin’ time the drink cart went by, I had to listen to the symphony of flushes every 3 minutes. Sure it doesn’t hurt me to get whacked by an aluminum aisle cart, but it’s harder than you think to get tomato juice out of a super suit. And how can they not have iced tea on a trans-oceanic flight? I mean it’s just tea and ice, right? Needless to say, I didn’t get any sleep. And if you think it’s annoying having to talk to some sap sitting next to you for 19 hours straight, just try it when you are wearing tights. If I hear “Who would win a fight between Batman and Superman?” or “Do you wear boxers or briefs under that suit?” one more time I’m gonna snap a neck. For the record, I go commando – but that’s another story.

And I know everyone who has ever traveled complains about the food in flight, but honestly, scrambled eggs should not have a distinctly “fishy” taste. That’s just wrong, man.

Now, being a citizen of the world means I’m not a citizen of the US. And due to this stupid Homeland (or should I say Motherland?) Security thing, I, along with 500 hundred other people, had to wait in line to get my finger printed. If you’ve ever had to go the bathroom wearing a body suit you’ll have some idea of the inconvenience that presents. Most people think I’m wearing gloves with this suit. Gloves fall off – especially at the worst time possible. No, these gloves are attached to the suit. So, if I need to present a finger for “security” reasons, that means the top of the suit comes off. To be fair, they allow me to do this in a separate room, but what a royal pain in the ass it is to get in and out of that thing. “Form fitting” and “easily removed” are definitely mutually exclusive.

But after getting through customs and unfortunately having to prove that I wasn’t carrying anything undeclared in my codpiece, I was off. I met up with Sonic, who was nice enough to pick me up at the departure gate. After enduring more wise cracks about us being an “item” now, we found ourselves at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, where the NIST-F1 was located. This was the ultra-accurate atomic clock used as the source for the nations time. We had pieced together a scheme that Time Zone was going to alter the definition for “time”. He would presumably try to alter the standard for the second by messing with the cesium clock. This would cause havoc around the country, affecting air travel, banking, and GPS signals at the least. He had to be stopped and we were ready for him!

More to follow…

Anyway, before I completely lose track of my point, I am obliged to work to pay the bills. I’ve always felt that the “bad guys” were just like us, except they figure they should be able to make money using their super powers. That invariably leads to doing it the easy way, and that slides quickly down to “shaved head and a cat” territory. You might think that, with all the good we do for society, we’d be paid by some level of charity or government subsidy. Well, originally I thought it could work out that way too. Who wouldn’t want to pay a few bucks a month to be sure that they had some level of protection for society? Much like universal health care, it sounds like just the ticket and everyone is behind it until they say “and you know you’ll have to pay for it”. Then, everyone is out for themselves. So be it. We do this because we have to, you know? If it was about the money I would definitely be turning down the less interesting gigs.

So, long story short, I need to get another job. My last one was lucrative, but the hours just didn’t jive well with having to fly off on a moments notice to keep evil doers in their stead. Plus, one of the guys in the Marketing Department was always trying to arm wrestle me for beers. I think it was just ’cause he wanted to hold hands, but that’s a whole other issue altogether. I’ve now been looking for something that will make me enough money, but give me the flexibility to “make my own hours”, as it were. And that is where I get stumped. ‘Flexibility’ is out there and ‘Good money’ too – but they seldom live together. On the plus side my needs are quite basic. I am never at my place, so I really only need a bed to sleep on, a place to keep my clothes, shower, and a microwave oven. You’d think I would eat better as a super hero, but you just don’t have time to shop and anything fresh just goes bad before you have a chance to eat it. I admit that I go out to eat way more than I should, or is even healthy, but convenience reigns in this profession.

On the more practical side of things, I have discovered several vocations that are right out due to one major issue or another:

Fast Food – It would seem like a no brainer. “Want fries with that?” is the requisite skill, but I just can’t fit into those standard company uniforms. They assume that “big” means “belly” and I have yet to come across a sleeve that doesn’t shred as soon as I lift my arm up. Plus it isn’t a living wage, even with my basic needs.

Pizza Guy – This had appeal the first time I tried it. On the plus side is that I could work when I wanted to, and you made tips over your base pay. I didn’t need a car and could deliver more pizzas an hour than pretty much the entire group combined. The problem was that I felt compelled to make quick work out of those that would order a dozen pizzas for someone named “Richard Hurtz” or some such and give a fake address. News Flash: I will find you and hurt you.

Anyway it was a problem.

Temp – This is what I’ve done plenty in the past, but it does require wearing a suit and tie every day and I only have the one suit and 3 ties (two of which were joke gifts from Gamma Girl). I usually am the butt of the office jokes and am never offered to join the group for drinks after work (not that I ever have time, but it would be nice to be asked once in a while). The gigs are pretty short and when I invariably have to miss a day or leave on a moments notice (and then get fired), I can always find another job in a day or two.

Bouncer – this seems great at first glance, but the hours coincide with when most nefarious acts are committed. So it becomes a decision of ‘bounce’ or ‘save the world’.

Anyway, I’m really just whining now. I’ll figure it out, but I’m gonna have to do it soon as I think my DSL bill is coming due and I just spent my last $30 on a new high tech green laser pointer.

Hey, the Wonder Cat loves it.