With Great Power Comes Great Irrelevance

Batman's Insurance. Batman is making a public appearance at a grocery store, dressed as Adam West in a Batman costume, as part of a plot of his to smoke out some criminals. His Batmobile is on display nearby, just in case he needs it. But he's saving it for then, so my car and I see some action in his cause.

Dragon's Egg. Last year I found out, my blood cells had formed their own civilization. Now I know why; I've been infected by Oversaur's blood.

• The Oversaur was an alien dinosaur which could "learn" superpowers, and now I can do that too. In fact, it seems my blood cells have been storing superpowers for several years.
• Actually, it seems my grandpa found one of these Oversaurs, waaay back during the pulp fiction era. He is himself infected, which explains his own long lifespan, plus those of my father and myself. We all have our reasons to be dead by now, but here we are. Anyway...
• Last year, I found my blood cells were intelligent! During one of those superhuman brawl episodes I sometimes have, the blood cell leadership fled my body for safer havens... but they left the working class blood cells behind. The working class have the same powers as their leaders do, but now I'm their leader. Which explains why my powers were unpredictable back in the day and controllable now. Cool!
• Now I have a reliable set of superpowers anytime I want, like Ultra Boy or something. I really can fly when I concentrate, though so far it's more like levitating. I do it regularly now, in places like school hallways and strip mall parking lots. I can also become a "Bant", half-bat half-ant, just like in the video game ads.
• There's a down side, though. All the power around me has strange effects on computer systems; it tends to suck databases dry at computers I sit at. But luckily I sit in Illinois and work on databases in Texas.

But let's face it, I'm only as reliably powerful as an average Marvel superhero. The Fantastic Four and the Avengers seem to have successfully converted their superhuman abilities into a living, but most everyone else with superpowers has made a lifestyle out of hiding from police because of vigilanteeism charges (which is to say, road rage without the road). I don't see the attraction. (6 and 16 March, 9 April 2003)

Ultimate Hide and Seek. I get stock quotes from the DC Universe. So does Alice Cooper; that's why he's moving there and declaring himself one of Superman's supporting characters. Utility stocks there are down 30% for the year, but at least it's safe to live there. And it might be a good time to move, because ...

• Franklin Richards has an evil twin, from a counter-Earth or an ultimate-Earth or something, and they're playing Hide and Seek for the fate of the universe. I'd better not screw things up.

My Valkyrie Girlfriend. I arrange with an Oriental restaurant for me to rent a cheap martial arts flick every week, them to show it on Tuesday nights, and us to split the profits. I'm sure I can get my girlfriend to go. Why? Because she's the new Valkyrie.

• Her name's Samantha Parrington (though she prefers "Val"), and she's a sorority girl. That makes her about half my age. A normal girl like that wouldn't see anything in me, but she's hardly normal; she's a Valkyrie... sort of.
• She's not deputized by Death or Asgard or anything (I would know if she was; I'd tell you how, but it's a long story), so she's not a real Valkyrie. But she still has super-strength and a magic sword, and she's a platinum blonde (for real, as far as I can tell), so she vaguely resembles a stereotypical Valkyrie. She got those powers by accident; she kind of got into the path of a Valkyrie-inducing spell. Really! I couldn't make up stuff as silly as this.
• She's not the most mentally stable person (women with Valkyrie personality imprints never are), but she's fun to be with. She likes to ride around on my back, and jump around onto moving cars. She's not exactly a functional member of society, but her parents are rich, so nobody cares.
• She says she was with the Defenders once. Yeah, the same ones that tried to take over the world. But don't ask her whatever happened to them, or why they didn't invite her to join their plot; she's touchy about that. (19 March 2003)
• How'd she find me? Well, Samantha does have enough connection with Asgard to think of Odin as a father-being. And apparently she doesn't like her own father that much, even though she's still in his will. She's been tracking down Odin sightings all around the country. And I showed up on her list, because Odin was my roommate for a while. And Samantha does have just enough Valkyrie-power to recognize me as a Champion of Death, so she has to respect me. I guess I'm her father figure now.
• I wonder if I should be trying to "cure" her. I could probably come up with "Induce Sanity" as a superpower if I wanted to. But she seems happy around me, and I'm happy around her, and she hasn't hurt herself yet. Or anyone else either, unless they had it coming; she likes to get in fights, mostly with people who hit on her at bars.

Anyway, I think I'll leave it alone. Girlfriend situations, like roommate situations, never last long with me, so this isn't really a long term problem. Besides, superpowers aren't nearly as useful as having fun. But still, I think I'll try to track down Doctor Strange, just in case his old friend the Valkyrie should ever need his help.

• When I get a chance on a business trip, I go looking for Dr. Strange's house among the hills of San Francisco. I've heard he built his house in Manhattan, but it's a magic house and it could be anywhere by now. And if I were him, San Fran is where I'd go.
• And I think I saw the house in the Twin Peaks area! At least, I think that circular attic window with the cross-hatching is unmistakable. That puts me ahead of the Federal authorities who want to interrogate a certain retired medical doctor and mystic hobbyist named Stephen Strange about that whole "conquering the world" stuff that a masked man calling himself Doctor Strange tried to do last year alongside a bunch of disgruntled superhumans. (23 March 2003)

Infinity Stuff in Texas. Every now and then, all the superheroes have a mass meeting. It's kind of like a National Rifle Association convention, only with a more exclusive membership. Now that I have reliable superpowers, I'm part of this. Oh joy.

• I've come to Texas as part of a plot by the Egyptian god Horus, to declare the Marvel super heroes as patriotic representatives of their home states. Horus is apparently recruiting for a godwar or something in another reality.
  • He can't find a lot of godly or godlike heroes, but patriotism is just like religion nowadays, and there's plenty of wannabe patriots. In fact, there's too many to organize neatly. The state of New York has more than one patriotic hero now, and nobody's sure where to put Thor or Namor.
  • I try to demonstrate why my new powers are perfect to represent the State of Indiana where I was born, by shooting stars out of a walking stick so I look just like the Indiana state flag, but nobody cares.
• So while the heroes are arguing, I sneak out and watch a high school football game. It's raining out, but the fans build great tent cities here.
• Then I take a ballistic flight path back to my fancy hotel. (Like I said, I have some pretty cool powers now.) It turns out that one of the rainclouds is a Captain Marvel, a sweet-looking black woman who now has molecular-level self control.
• Back at the hotel, they're having trouble with a party of room trashers. They've made it into my room, but now that I'm back, I manage to lock their leader out.

One of Those Nights. Though I've successfully ducked some superhumans, I have other problems. (12 April 2003)

• I'm under siege by vampires in a hilltop house, and worms have eaten my superpowers. Good thing I now have my own squad of flying robots which can teleport anywhere on Earth and eat mystic powers. Vampires need those mystic powers to live. If something sucks them out, it's like turning them off. Then I roll some worms in my hands and absorb their powers.
• ... This happened while I was visiting some friends from the Chaos Mage newsgroup on Usenet. They're kind enough to let me sleep on their couch, and I'm cheap enough to do it - especially when the local hotels aren't too secure. When things get too close inside their apartment, I can fly out for aerobics classes. On my way there, the vampires forced me to ground on that hilltop, and you already know how that turned out.
• But while I'm out, supervillains attack my friends. Apparently this is a coordinated attack by evil mages; the vampires and the worms were supposed to take care of me, but not so. I make it back for a confrontation. Oh, but first I call 911 on my cell phone. Isn't that the right thing to do in an emergency?
• The villains all look like they had their skin ripped off them and replaced with epoxy. They say they made some deals with demons: the demons get their skin in exchange for mystic powers. Wow, I guess it's more polite and makes a better sacrifice than giving demons someone else's skin like some mages do, but it still sounds like a bad deal to me.
• Of course, there's still a fight on my hands. If you'd rather skip the details, suffice to say, demons always play tricks.
  • The first villain tries to throw lightning at me. But I do have a walking stick that was blessed by Odin, and perfectly capable of sucking all that lightning into the ground. Come to think of it, any good lightning rod could do that.
  • The second is big and burly. But that gives me a chance to do something I saw someone do once or twice. I was once a martial artist, and I still know enough to make a big guy trip over me. And now that I have super-strength on demand, I can flip him over and over again. Boingy Boingy Boingy Boingy Boingy Boingy Boingy Boingy... aww, he's breaking up the pavement and leaving some serious stains now, I'd better let him go.
  • The third won't tell me what his powers are, he just says I should fear them. Fine. I neutralize them. If worms can do it, I can too. That leaves us both powerless, because that's how that particular power works... but there are now sirens in the distance. Did I mention, I called 911?

I've just gone to my friends' house after a superhuman fight, and I'm watching the local news. The local WB 71 channel reports a fire in a local school, where a PTA meeting is going on. Reportedly, one Brother Odin is holed up in there and making demands.

Odin? Really? Uh oh.

• The actual Norse god Odin was my roommate earlier this year, but then he disappeared.
• And he was my responsibility to watch. That responsibilty came from Death Herself, because Odin's dead. And the responsibility came with power to discipline the dead... at least the ones Death gives over to me.

Without delay, I go to the fire site. The fire's spread to several school rooms now. It's time to call "Brother Odin" out. So I use my command voice: "DEAD CREATURE! REPORT FOR JUDGMENT!"

• One very frightened ghost comes out... but it's not Odin. Instead, it's a corporate flunky who was running late for a PTA meeting and couldn't find the right room.
• According to the ghost, an old bearded guy just casually backhanded him through a wall and left him to die in the flames. It may not be Odin attitude, but it's Odin power, more or less.
• Okay... assuming it's Odin, he must be alive right now, because if he were dead, he'd have to obey me. Time for Plan B...

One of my oldest and most trustworthy powers is Summoning. And I have a Valkyrie girlfriend. Not only is she a freelance Chooser of the Slain, she's been looking for Odin herself. But I do the right thing, and call her on my cell phone first.

• To my surprise, she summons herself there in a puff of smoke! She's with a couple of people in superhero costumes, who are mostly of interest to me because I can tell they've both been dead. It must be an occupational risk of hanging out with a Valkyrie.
• But then a little guy behind the superheroes speaks up. "Hey, mon, be you de great Wyatt Ferguson?"
  • "I be... kind of great. And you be...?"
  • "I be de great Papa Hagg!"
  • "Hey, Papa!" PapaHagg@aol.com is notorious among us Chaos Mages. And he's probably the one who poofed my girlfriend and her pals here.
• Papa says (and I'll try to spare you his outrageous accent from here on out) his pals have connections with Gaea the Earth Goddess, and they're on a mission to track down some unauthorized crossovers from Death into Life. That would explain Odin and those vampires I saw earlier tonight (is it still the same night?)
• Unfortunately, if my "Summon" power worked on Odin, I wouldn't have misplaced him in the first place. But Papa knows how he and I can get "Brother Odin" out of that school, assuming he's ever been dead... send our Valkyrie after him. After all, she is a Chooser of the Slain.
• We can enhance Val's sword to control dead people... but only within line of sight. And Odin's staying away from windows, so she'll have to go in to root him out... from the flames. And the only way she'll survive that, is if I go inside with her and turn on a "Thermocouple" superpower to convert heat into other forms of energy. She likes riding on my back, so we're okay.
• Meanwhile, Val's friends can go help the firefighters or the traffic cops or something.

Oh well, Odin's my responsibility. Suffice it to say, we go in.

• Odin ambushes us and separates us, so Val starts feeling the flames. Oh, that's gotta smart.
• And then Val says, "But you are my Father God! How could you strike me down?"
• And then I immobilize him long enough to Val to shoot the sword-bolt at him. But she doesn't shoot!
• Then I yell some more, and Odin yells some more, and she yells some more, and finally shoots.
• (Yeah, I could have made up some dialogue for the record, but it wouldn't have been what we really said. I challenge anyone to keep track of all the dialog while actually going through the battle in question.)

Then, we all end up... somewhere else. I look around, and there's grass. And there's me and Val and Odin, and Papa Hagg and the superheroes, and that ghost from the school. But we're in a pit the size of a city block, and there are tall buildings all around. Hey, it's the World Trade Center site!

• But first things first. Val's hurting. I manage to draw some heat out of her and numb her burns, but she's still got those burns.
• Then Odin starts peeking over my shoulder. Well, I'm kind of annoyed at him right now, so I yell at him.
• He cringes. He never did that, even when he acknowledged me as his feudal overlord of Death. Man, what happened to him?

But then things start happening. The Tower lights flare up, but one set is purple, one green. Two giant robed female figures appear within the lights, shrink down to human size, and step out.

• I recognize the purple one; she's the Boss, Death Herself. We share a glance, so she knows I'm on duty. The Boss really isn't much into protocol.
• Papa Hagg apparently recognizes the green one; he says, "Hey, Boss." And he whispers to me, "Hey, mon, that be Gaea de Earth Goddess. Show some respect." So I bow.
• And Gaea nods her head. Hey, the Earth gives me some honor! Maybe all that bike commuting I've done is finally paying off.

It seems Gaea and Death are here to resolve this matter of Odin coming back to life and killing someone, which is an imbalance between Life and Death. They chose the nice green grassy WTC pit for the trial, because it makes the world's best interface between Life and Death.

• The superheroes have a job for this trial; they can act as bailiffs. Gaea does Val the mercy of healing her burns for that purpose.
• But Papa Hagg and I have some more important jobs to do. We are to act as advocates for our respective Bosses. They hand us scrolls which serve as evidence.
• According to the scrolls, Odin is rightfully alive, because someone from the Heid-Ketzel Temple sacrificed himself to bring him back. It happened while Odin was assaulting their Chilean headquarters alongside my fellow mages. At the time, Odin was an ectoplasmic being (more commonly referred to as a "ghost") who had the ability to suck up all the Heid-Ketzel robot power sources. So one of the enemies died willingly to neutralize him.
• And so, Odin came back as a normal human old man... in the care of a Heid-Ketzel cultist in Texas, who promptly screwed his mind right over. Which led to his going crazy and killing someone in a public school... which led us here.
• I was Odin's guardian when he was dead; The Boss gave me that duty. I would have been responsible if he'd killed someone as a ghost... but once he came to life again (with the proper price paid), he's the responsibilty of Life, not Death. That makes him Gaea's problem.
• When Odin hears all this, he sobs. Then he says, his proper place is among the dead. He would willingly give his life to bring back the mortal he killed. (Good thing for him he only killed one, huh?)
• Most killers who say this in court don't have to make good on that promise. But here with Earth and Death Themselves presiding, there's no such excuse.
• And so, Odin's victim goes back to the realm of the living, and Odin goes back to the realm of Death. But the Boss lets me know, she'll try another guardian for him this time.

And so, with all my new power, at the moment of crisis when gods are fighting while universes hang in the balance... I accomplish the grand total of defending my friends and saving one human life. When I put it that way... isn't that enough?