Look at that strange beast! Such enormity! Such fearful presence! Its
gaping, gruesome maw; its sloping, scaly flesh; its beady, baleful
eyes! It comes crashing through the hallways of Victory Castle, and it
burbles as it comes! “Mole Man!” chided the Wizard, “Tame your beast,
before it destroys us all!”
“No need to for dramatics,” says Mr. Victorious, although this wasn’t what he expected when he allowed the Mole Man to move one of his monsters here. His mastery of arcanotech allowed him to catch a toppling vase in a telekinetic cushion of purple-hued magicks. The Fantastic Girl sprouted wings to carry the Mole Man ahead of the creature. The Mole Man explained that it wasn’t the beast’s fault—it was merely reacting to something bombarding its extrasensory perception. “Hie, Jabberwock!” he commanded, his small frame belying his strong empathic link with his creatures. The Jabberwock stopped short in front of its master, calmed by his presence. After communing with it, the Mole Man explained it sensed the coming of another—an ancient, terrible beast that had risen from beneath the waves and was on its way to New York!
The Sky Carpet carried our heroes to New York’s coast in mere moments, just in time to see the monstrous Leviathan rise from the depths! Its one mile-long bulk dwarfed the harbor and its buildings! Its roar deafened and scattered its bystanders! “We’re gonna need a bigger boat,” deadpanned the Wizard.
“To battle, for VICTORY!” rallied Mr. Victorious. The Wizard flew in front of it—placing both hands on its hide and pouring on the anti-gravity force from his Wonder Gloves. Wondrous, indeed! The monster halted! The Fantastic Girl landed on its hide in the form of a giant meeprix beelte of Solgon VII, her pincers failing, however, to pierce its flesh. Mr. Victorious produced eldritch blasts from his fingertips, zooming by on the Sky Carpet. The Mole Man, atop Jabberwock, gave a command, and his mount huffed and puffed, ballooning to 3/4 of the Leviathan’s height! The two monsters grappled, and nearby buildings felt the effect. Columns crumbled, porticoes were tossed, and walls fell!
“Fantastic Girl!” called Mr. Victorious. He was swooping down to save pedestrians. The Fantastic Girl called back, dropping from the monster. Now, with her lower body transformed into a more octopoid form, she tethered herself and caught different chunks of debris with her tentacles. Victorious zoomed back to the Wizard, and he urged the Wizard to take over saving the citizens from the collateral damage. “But I can do this!” the Wizard gritting his teeth—the forces cursing around his body must be enormous! Mr. Victorious agreed, although he noted the creature was straining against the anti-grav force, and it was only a matter of time before it broke free.) He ordered the Wizard to let the Mole Man’s Jabberwock keep the Leviathan at bay, because Victorious had a way to make the creature return to the sea.
“Of course you do,” the Wizard remarked, albeit to himself, “Why is the fact that he can do anything so annoying!”
Mr. Victorious took a strategic spot at a nearby rooftop and began. He drew forth a vial from his belt. Pouring a silicon compound in a thin stream, he sketched a design on the roof. No mere mystic symbol, this. Instead, the lines crossed and intersected like the pattern of a circuit board. Then he began the chant! “Zero one one one zero one zero zero zero one . . .” Tremendous sparks of eldritch electricity crackled upon the rooftop. He had done it! Mr. Victorious had found the sympathetic frequency for the Leviathan’s primitive brain! The two spirits touched, man and monster, and the man had won! The beast, placated, turned its massive head back towards the ocean.
That’s when they heard the bellow. A deep, sonorous tone echoed across the sky. The Leviathan turned once more towards New York! Victorious’ circuit pattern erupted in an explosion! “Someone is calling to it!” the Mole Man figured it out from atop the Jabberwock, “controlling it! Find that horn!”
“You mean… this horn?” a disembodied voice taunted near Mr. Victorious’ prone figure. Who--? The horn floated nearby. In moments, however, the figure revealed itself to be non other than Malice, Mistress of Hate! “Thing! Scorcher!” she cried out. “They want to take away my pretty toy!” In no time at all, the Scorcher flew into the scene, blazing a trail of fire, and the Thing leaped up from the streets, crashing into a crater of his own making. “The Frightful Four?” Victorious started.
“Go! I’ll deal with the beast!” the Mole Man told his teammates. With that, he took a running start off the Jabberwock’s head, leaping through the air in a heart-stopping catch-your-breath moment of silence, and landing on the very nose of the whale-beast Leviathan! “Harvey!” called out the Fantastic Girl, impulsively. This was the first time she had called him by his first name, but the Mole Man couldn’t think of the implications of that right now—he had a monster to stop!
The Scorcher let loose a torrent of flame upon the prone Mr. Victorious, but the Wizard intervened, throwing himself into its path and extending his gravity-bending force field as much as possible. The Wizard thanked himself on Victorious’ behalf, but Victorious had more on his mind. There was one member of the Frightful Four who was conspicuously absent. He placed the Wizard in charge (“Really? I mean... Naturally!”) while he sought out his nemesis, taking to his Sky Carpet.
The Wizard fired an energy blast to keep the Thing at bay, and his force field remained up to block a focused blast from the Scorcher. Thankfully, the Fantastic Girl arrived, crashing into the scene just like the Thing—literally, just like the Thing! Her now-lumpy hide enraged the man-monster, who thought she was mocking his woeful condition. He leapt to pummel her but she grabbed his arms with almost comparable strength—stalemate!
FWOOSH! The Scorcher’s fireball threatened to affix on the Wizard’s head. Even if his force field held, he would be effectively blind! The Wizard hoped to take to the skies after the Scorcher, but let’s not forget about Malice! She used her invisible whips to lash the Wizard’s feet as he took off. The momentum carried him around, over the side of the building, and into the wall! OOF!
The Jabberwock and the Leviathan faced each other, swaying as if looking for an opening. But the Leviathan had a Mole Man scaling its massive head (much like the man had scaled many a mountain cavern wall), and his proximity allowed his empathy to take a stronger hold. The Mole Man sympathized with the creature—it, too, knew an existence of little but rejection and isolation. It wanted nothing more than to find a hidden corner of the ocean. To sleep? Yes, to sleep... sleep... The creature’s swaying became more and more pronounced. Slowly, the Leviathan lowered to the ground. Although it crunched a few more cars and lampposts, the beast lay in the street, it’s eyes closed.
“No!” Malice screamed. “Arise! Destroy!” She once more lifted the horn to her mouth. But the Wizard zoomed up, snatching the horn away. He flew a short distance and tossed it to the Mole Man. “Got a perfect present for you.”
The Scorcher zapped the Fantastic Girl, making her drop her grip on the Thing. “Haw!” he scoffed, smacking her so hard she flew over the rooftop! Good thing she could shape-change! She transformed into a Skrullian Horrek bird and circled the scene. “Stand back!” warned the Wizard. He took one of the gravity discs that propelled him through the air, twisted a diode, and tossed it onto the roof. “Wha?” began the Thing. His feet were stuck! Not only that, the Wizard explained, but the whole rooftop would experience an increase in local gravity. Slowly, just like the Leviathan, the Thing and Malice drifted to the floor, pinned!
The Scorcher would have none of this. He started to fly away, but he came up short, suddenly, in the face of the Jabberwock! “Blow him away!” encouraged the Mole Man from below. The Jabberwock blew out the Scorcher like a candle, and he landed into the rooftop with his teammates, snuffed!
And what of Mr. Victorious? The Sky Carpet took several moments, precious moments, to align itself to Dr. Frightful’s presence. Thanks to Victorious’ arcanotech, it pinpointed the villain in a little-used medical supply warehouse. Victorious smashed through the shipping doors, his presence commanding, his tone demanding. But what he saw left him speechless. Dr. Frightful, bent over the limp form of some person, had surrounded himself with surgical equipment.
“It’s a sub-mariner!” explained Frightful, as if Victorious would appreciate it. He told how the Scorcher had found the man in the Bowery, and rightfully guessed that Frightful would enjoy a new specimen. He learned of strange artifacts from none other than Atlantis itself, and sent Malice and the others in search of them, to do with them what they wanted. As for himself, Dr. Frightful had enough to play with right here. “Such a fascinating physiology!”
Victorious furiously challenged his enemy, but Frightful wasn’t interested in battle. At any rate, he had learned all that he could anyway, and was done. Using his elastic body, Dr. Frightful slinked away in a flash, leaving Victorious to see if he could save the Sub-Mariner. But it was too late! Don’t look too close, reader! You can see the body, draped in shadows, and can only guess at what dread experiments Frightful might have used on the now-cold, lifeless body.
“I saw many a various creature today,” Mr. Victorious intoned, standing above the shadowed body in a doleful spotlight, “but there was only one, true monster . . .”
Cover and text by Danny Wall
Behind the Scenes:
In Marvel's Fantastic Four, the Sub-Mariner is one of their most frequent antagonists. So in most of my early ideas, the Flipside's Mariner was going to join 4-Victory (although which member he was going to replace varied constantly.) However, this was a case of characters "doing" things that you don't expect, and Dr. Frightful got his way instead. This is definately going to impact the Flipside universe, as you can guess, and lets us know that no character is safe!
Posted by: Danny Wall | October 09, 2006 at 10:56 AM