Monday, February 05, 2007
When we last left our mighty "heroes", we learned of the grizzly incident that left them with their phenomenal powers. It looked something like this....
The Fabulous Foursome had uncovered a plot by Mister Cold Miser to unjustly punish the people of Springfieldville for all of the years of torment he had suffered at the hands of his hot-blooded brother, Mister Heat Miser....and they ate some egregiously undercooked, taco-flavoured meat log accompanied by mashed potatoes with NO GRAVY! Tell me, what is the real crime here?
As our heroes come to terms with their new abilities, they decide to begin their reign as the new super troupe in town by easing the traffic woes in their own little slice of Springfieldville, prior to saving the rest of the world. The previous super heroes of Springfieldville, The Human Butthole and The Flamer had mysteriously relocated to San Francisco with their super dog Yorkshire Terrier under rumours that they were more than a dynamic duo, but that's a story for another day (and audience).
As the freezing rain pelts our heroes, IT exclaims,"We must ease the suffering of the people," while pointing to a large ice and timber obstruction in the quaint but moderately creepy looking avenue.
As our heroes go to work clearing the Chrysler-sized roadblock, an innocent townsperson drives up to the obstruction and exits his vehicle in a effort to help, or at least look like he was thinking about helping just in case God or a hot chick were watching.
"Sir, don't worry, we're specially trained," explains IT while gingerly tossing a 2-tonne tree trunk from the roadway and grasping the fully-charged electrical livewire sparking on the wet asphalt. "I sure get a CHARGE out of helping people, " says IT while tying the cable to the pole from which it had broken.
"Dude, you're busted." retorts En Fuego.
"Oh, come on, that was good stuff right there. Who ever heard of a superhero that didn't use corny one-liners?" argues IT.
"I don't know what you two are going to do, but ICE gonna keep cleaning the road," slips in Elasto-Dude (ED), chuckling under his breath.
"You're both stupid," scoffs Fuego, "Aren't they, Heath?"...silence..."Damnit, we really need to put a bell on her. Lets go down there, it looks pretty messy." As they walk down the road (and En Fuego flies because he's a dickhead), they move small branches from the road. "What a DRAG...he he" En Fuego mutters as he slides a half-tree from the roadway.
With the roadway now clear, the foursome (well, three of the four as Transparent Chick has conveniently disappeared to go look at some flashing blue police lights...not that we'd know if she were there or not...she's friggin' invisible) look around with a sense of accomplishment and in unison orate their new-found hero slogan...."Passable".
After several hours of triumphant heroing, our mighty band of brothers encounter wreckage of the likes you have never seen. One tree the size of a Cadillac is sitting entirely ACROSS the road. "This is a catastrophe," exclaims Elasto-Dude.
"And I think it is a Leadwood tree, meaning it is way too heavy for us to move, brother," sites IT. "It may also be cursed by the devil and be held in place by a rip in the space-time continuum, plus a tractor beam and a point discontinuity like the origin of a black hole."
""Let's try it, even though there is no way we can move it without some sort of laser cutting tool and a vanishing ray," comments ED. "We should be able to roll it over...."
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA Yeah, right.
So the threesome dick around unsuccessfully with the Californian redwood Sequoya weighing approximately 300,000 tonnes....yeah, I'm a bit sore over that damn tree. If I'd had my druthers, I would have gone after it all Thor like with my big-ass hammer. It would have looked a bit like this....
due to copyright issues, may I say this picture was sourced from Marvel Comics, www.somewebsitewhereIgotthispicture.comSo I wanted to go psycho on this branch, see. It was a prick let me tell you.
As our heroes complete their mighty task, they begin to retire one by one to their humble abode to rest for the evening, wet but mostly triumphant.
Upon waking the next morning, our heroes are back to normal. En Fuego is back to being K2, and Transparent Chick has returned to the mild-mannered Heather. K1 and K3 are once again average fastly approaching middle-aged guys with moderately hip dress sense and smaller than average....um....hands? Did this tale happen in an alternate universe, or did the effect of the nuclear-waste fueled blast just wear off?
Well, friends, I believe this all happened in another dimension. I assume so because when it was freezing rain, it was, in fact, too cold to snow! Oh yeah, and transformers up in the sky were popping left and right.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
I must first apologise to my adoring fans for the hiatus. I have been impersonating a world traveller for the last month, and have thus entertained only myself and not any of you. Hopefully spending the holidays with your own dysfunctional families have served as entertainment enough. Yo HO HO and a bottle of RUM!
The story I am going to tell you today will be hard for you to believe. It is hard for me to believe, and I was there (well, physically at least). This is a story of unlikely heroes, and I surmise that the new TV show of the same name is loosely based on the actions of a small group of simple Midwest folk, who under extenuating circumstances and a chance gathering, forged a new alliance to protect the world against evildoers (and incliment weather).
Prerequisite power of people blather....
You see, folks, every person has within them a special gift that can only be tapped into when placed in extreme conditions (or if they are bitten by a radioactive spider, or witness their parents' murdered as a small child, or born on another planet, etc etc). Do you remember the story of the woman who lifted a car off of her child or husband or whoever it was? Amazing, huh? Well, not really, she was just on crystal meth, so ignore her story...tweakers strength they call it. I think she dropped her pipe under the car and was fiending for a hit...oh well. Regardless, there are people who do things well above the normal abilities of human beings and when they direct those actions to help their fellow man, they earn the title of hero!
Now my story...
Dateline: Small town in the midwest, wintertime. 3 brothers ("K1"=Keith, "K2"=Kris, & "K3" = Kelly) from the three corners of the globe descend upon their place of birth, which for the sake of this story will be called Springfieldville (a suburb of Superheroville...ironic, huh?). The brothers are to attend a holiday meeting of "the family", in which they plan not to accomplish anything in particular, but you can be damn sure Mom will take pictures of it. As the brothers (and girlfriend of K2) arrive one by one (or 2), a sequence of events that will forever change the course of human events is initiated.
Due to El Nino or global warming or the evil work of a criminal mastermind, a winter storm has befallen Springfieldville. For the sake of this story, I am convinced it was this guy who brought the wicked weather...
Yes, that's right. Mister Cold Miser is the archvillian of this tale. He was always jealous of his brother Heat Miser, and decided to take his sibling rivalry-driven frustration out on the unwitting inhabitants of this sleepy little village. How do I know it was him? Because of the shifty eyes, the furled brow, and I couldn't find a good picture of the Winter Warlock from Santa Clause is Coming to Town (1970)...sue me. The wintry onslaught was so unexpected that the eldest brother (K1) was not even travelling with any outerwear on his trip from his palace of newfound solitude (sorry for the dig...hah!) in New Kentuckyville.
We now have our brothers assembled in the main quarters of the family home as the world is freezing around them due to an overzealous and unconcerned Rankin-Bass stop-frame animation holiday special character....what an abomination to people who aren't on psychosomatic drugs! As jet airplanes fall from the sky (or maybe just tree branches) and large skyscrapers crumple under the weight of the tremendous hydrocrystalline nightmare (again tree branches), the brothers become concerned for the welfare of their humble quarters. "We must survey the situation outside", states the youngest of the brothers (me-K2). " We both agree because you are so smart and also very handsome", exclaimes the other 2 brothers. (Heather is quiet because her special diet does not allow her to talk after 7pm at risk of swallowing some dust, a fly, or some other source of extranneous caloric value!!)
As the 3 brothers and "the silent one" emerge from the house to observe the carnage of "The Miser" and his deadly drops of frozen precipitation, a branch falls, pulling the power lines from the house. Before the startled troup can react, the power line lands in a vat of radioactive waste (of course)........Okay, before I go any further I must explain that there has to be some degree of fantasy to this story. Also, our family is one of packrats, and it would not be entirely unheard of that Grandpa would have stashed back a barrel of radioactive waste that he found on the railroad tracks because he figured he could clean it out with terpentine and store rhubarb or something in the contaminated drum. Plus, there wouldn't be any radioactive insects out during an ice storm, nor would we all be hit by an asterroid. There's always the genetic freak thing, but we would have discover that several years ago when we were still cool enough to be mutants, not when we're all pushing middle-age!.....so branch, power line, radioactive waste, and BOOM. A massive expolsion throws our lackluster soon-to-be heroes to the ground.
As they regain consciousness, they feel a bit disoriented and strange. K1 looks around, and immediately freaks out as he sees his body laying 5 ft away.
"Holy Shit, my head's gone! Oh, wait, whats this thin strip of stuff linking my head to my body? Oh, it's my neck. Ain't that cool? Hey, K3, check it out, I'm all like bendy and stuff. Think about the fun I could have in the bedroom...even by myself!".
K3 shudders at the sound of his brother's voice and the image of his eldest brother finally being able to perform the death-defying self-felatio..."Oooh, that's nasty, dude. Why not just stretch your Pee-pee out and once and for all break the Fleetwood curse?"
K2 rolls over with a grunt, not realising that the blast has ignited his jacket sleeve. "Oh great" he exclaims, "I'm on fire and shit. This must be one tough-ass SRC jacket, because I don't even feel it. But damn I'm burning up. Guess I need to take some Tylenol."
K3, having shaken off the horror of K1 being all stretchy and shit, and K2 being on fire, has noticed that his skin is all hard and crusty. "Great, I'm all burned up like Bubby. But wait, it's not ash and sizzled flesh, it's friggin orange leggo material. What exactly is this all about?"
Extinguishing his arm and sitting upright, K2 begins to look for Heather. "Heather? Heather?"
"I'm over here by the car", she yells out.
"Where? I don't see anything but a big dent in the snow.....Oh, so I guess you're friggin' invisible" he says as his arm re-ignites. "Are you guys sure we're not dead?"
Being the civil minded, strapping, heroic man that he is, K3 stands up and places his hands on his hips. "Guys, I think we have special powers now, and we should use them to help people."
"Yeah, I will stretch my ass up and rescue people's cats out of trees...woohoo. They make ladders for that. Some superhero I could be. They would say, 'Hey stretchy guy change the friggin' lightbulb while sitting on the couch...and fetch us a beer while you're at it'. Stellar."
"What about me? What am I going to light people's cigarettes? 'Hey firey dude I lost my matches and these S'Mores aren't going to make themselves'. And my girlfriend is invisible, how am I ever going to get laid again when I'm on fire and I can't even find her unless she's flapping her gums? This sucks"
"Guys, I don't think you are seeing the big picture", assures K3,"I am covered in orange graham crackers or something. Given, I may be the most popular person at a toker's party once the munchies hit, but I want to find a way to make my special gift count for something."
"Whatever, dude", retorts both brothers. "We've got some meatloaf waiting inside for dinner. Let's have that first and tell mom we're all freaks now, then we can figure out what to do later."
K3 looks around and raises his eyebrow in The Rock fashion, sensing there is an evil plot afoot that he and his merry band of radioactive misfits must investigate."Splendid, En Fuego....and Elasto-dude...and Transparent Chick. We are now a band of superheroes, The Fabulous Foursome (ha ha screw you Marvel, no trademark infringement here)".
"Dude, this isn't meatloaf....it's seasoned meat log!"
After dinner, and a short explanation to Mom, the Fabulous Foursome fashion some matching outfits so that they will really look like freaks on weekend release from the carnival. "Hey guys, we need to bust out of the house all cool like just in case anybody is walking by..." says K3, now know as "The IT". "Wait, boys, let me get my camera," replies Mom.
"Okay, 1....2....3....go"
"No fair, dude, you can fly. Maybe you should fly your ass around and heat some of these people's homes while the rest of us stretch and rock and invisible our ways around and try to impress people with our whimsical abilities. What we need is a mission. Yes, a purpose. What we need is a SLOGAN!"
As the Fabulous Foursome scour the neighbourhood for something to do other than get wet and be freaks, the idea hits them.
"I saw some frozen looking dude hanging around when I was driving in," mentions Elasto-Dude. Maybe he is responsible for this storm and all of the chaos. "We could find him and ask him what's up with all of this mess. Plus I bet he makes a mean slushy!"
"Or maybe we could forget him and just drag limbs out of the road for all of the regular car driving derilicts in the neighbourhood to get to the store and buy beer and batteries," IT reverbrates in his masculine but compassionate tone.
"I don't care what we do, but my glasses are getting wet," En Fuego scowls, "And where's Heather...I meant Transparent Chick?"
"I'm right next to you, retard," a ghostly voice replies.
"Maybe we should paint her or something...that's creepy with her sneaking around," Elasto-Dude smirks.
"I'll just turn it off, duh," Transparent Chick barks.
En Fuego looks at his 2 brothers, "Chicks. Why would you turn it off? It's like putting the toilet seat down...UN-NECESSARY".... both brother's chuckle.
So the merry band of heroes go about their duties clearing the roads for the inhabitants of Springfieldville to go about their normal, but power-free lives.....or do they?
Stay tuned for part 2 of this magical tale....
