AvengerVerse, Volume 2, Issue 11: See You In The Funny Papers
LAST TIME IN THE AVENGERVERSE:
Normally, the narrator is interrupted by the Avenger right now, but he's unusually quiet.
Avenger? Now's your cue?
Hello?
"Um, yeah, we can't find him."
Who is this?
"Just an intern, sir."
We have interns?
"Yeah. Anyway, we can't find him. He's been missing ever since the McDonald's trip."
Oh hell. Quick, roll a rerun! We've got to find our hero!
THE INFERIOR GAUNTLET
My name is Jack Frost. You may know me as GI's crazy friend and I guess that's true. But what's also true is that I see all universes and all worlds. In fact, it's my job to watch them. I have to watch all events of significance in the cosmos, but I can never, ever interfere. I'm not sure why, but probably because I would resolve them all quickly. I'm now going to tell you the story of The Avenger, and how he journeyed through the multiverse in order to save all of us. Everyone from the OWF champions to even that nut Elias T. Azul. The fact that I get to watch brings me great joy and great sorrow.
That's when Billy Bob burst in to interrupt me. "Jack," he said sternly. "What the hell are you doing with GI's webcam?"
So I should probably go. Enjoy the show! Again!
It wasn't the first time he'd been beaten up. If he was honest, he had been beaten up quite a few times in the course of both his wrestling career and his superhero career. It came with the territory. But as he nursed his head after getting with Sebastian Steel's knee, The Avenger felt useless. He was hired as one-man security for GI's reunion party, because why would you need anyone else if you got a superhero? Yet, when push came to shove, he was shoved off the ramp.
Saying you're wrestling's one true superhero was fine, but there was a difference between saying things and getting beat by Brian Crucifix and a man who literally came out to a song declaring that he was a super villain. Sebastian Steel should have been the one person Avenger should stop. Doesn't good always triumph over evil?
"Shut up narrator," Avenger said, deep in his feelings. "You're not helping."
The Avenger seemed confused now, as he had the strangest feeling of deja vu. Either way, he should probably not say things to the humble narrator. I'm just doing my job.
Avenger groaned.
"Fine," he replied. "Carry on."
As the Avenger continued with his morose musings, he was suddenly greeted by one of GI's other party guests, Jack Frost. Yes, apparently Jack is not the narrator. Or maybe this is a different Jack. Who can keep track anymore? Jack was lost, as he grabbed onto a stage technician instead of the conga line that left the ringside era. That happened in Jack's own comic, but unfortunately it's not available anymore and hasn't been released in trade paperback. We're betting a lot of references go over your heads if you haven't heard of these people before. Well, maybe next time you'll do your research instead of being selfish and focusing only on yourselves.
"Why so glum, chum?" Jack asked, propping himself up on a nearby wall.
Avenger sighed. "I got kneed in the face and thrown off a stage. You?"
Jack got a blank look on his face and stared off into space. "I see every single possibility in the multiverse and realize I'm the same in every single one," he stated ominously.
The Avenger stared at him with a puzzled look on his face. "What?"
"Huh?" Jack replied, broken out of his trance.
Avenger shook his head. "Hey um, you ever get the feeling like you've done this before?"
"Every day," Jack answered, nodding. "But mostly because I always join the wrong conga lines. It's embarrassing, really."
Our hero stared at Frost for a little bit. The pieces were starting to come together, but they weren't quite there yet. But something was bugging him. He couldn't figure out what, but something was definitely bugging him. And it wasn't just the swelling in his face, either. He tried to ignore it and pointed off to the side.
"GI's locker room is over there. He's probably looking for you."
Jack glanced where Avenger was pointing and saw a sign on a door, in big bold letters, that read: "GI - BELTY REUNION AFTERPARTY." He clasped one of Avenger's hands in both of his and began to furiously shake it.
"Thanks pal, thanks a lot!" he said, beaming. "You really are a superhero!"
Jack ran off in the direction of the door, ran into it, then shook his head and opened it outward. Avenger shook his head, only to frown as he felt a knee-induced headache coming on. He placed the ice pack back on his growing lump and grumbled.
"Yeah, right. Some superhero I..."
Suddenly, he stopped in mid-sentence. He had suddenly realized what was happening. Or rather, he started to. And The Avenger felt very afraid. He glanced down the hallway and saw a larger version of himself slowly approaching, looking from door to door. Avenger then jumped up, threw the ice bag down and sprinted off in the opposite direction. He turned the corner, skidded in place on the slick floor, then ran some more. He finally came to a halt outside of a door. It said, "OWF PRESIDENT'S OFFICE" in big bold letters.
"Who is the President, anyway? Chase...something. I can't remember, it's been years."
The words that came out of his mouth also terrified him, and he couldn't yet figure out why.
"No it hasn't, I just saw CJ today! Both of them!"
Rather than argue with himself and his growing paranoia (neither of which were very funny), Avenger popped open the door and let himself inside. He shut it gently, trying not to pay attention to the flickering. It wasn't the lights that were flickering, but it felt as though reality itself was going in and out. He felt nauseous and scared. He felt...very unlike a superhero.
"Sorry, Mr. President. I know you don't like..."
The chair in the office spun around and sitting inside was...
"ZOINKS! A G-G-G-GHOST!" Avenger screamed, hopping up in the air onto a nearby filing cabinet.
CJ Wylde gave him a peculiar look and chuckled. "Yes, 'The Ghost' is my nickname. Have we met?"
He got up, walked around the desk and stuck out a hand. Avenger recoiled.
"You're dead!" he shouted back. Superhero or not - the supernatural was out of his league. Perhaps someone else's. Maybe they could wear face paint or speak in an idiosyncratic fashion. But this was definitely not a horror comic.
He didn't know why he knew that CJ Wylde was dead, but he knew it. He knew it wasn't 2016 and CJ Wylde wasn't alive.
And the fact that the man was staring at him as if Avenger was the crazy one caused his brain to hurt.
"I know you're the wacky superhero," he said. "But this isn't funny. If my wife heard you talking like that, she'd get pretty mad. Come on, hop down."
Avenger slowly began to climb down off the filing cabinet. Part of him felt as though he should be embarrassed while the rest simply told him to jump through the ceiling and get out of here. He got to the floor and stared at CJ for a moment. CJ extended his hand again, and Avenger took a step back.
"You're weirder than advertised," The Ghost mused.
"And you're..." Avenger began to speak, but decided he shouldn't be disrespectful. Even if this man shouldn't be standing there, he was being perfectly polite. "You're CJ Wylde, right?"
"Yes. The Avenger?"
Avenger nodded, noticing how dry his throat felt.
"So let me guess, you want a match with Sebastian? I don't blame you. Trent needs to keep a better eye on his family."
"Sebastian?" Avenger asked. The name sounded familiar, but he was having trouble thinking.
"Yeah, the guy who kneed you in the face tonight." CJ said. The room flickered again, but Wylde continued to talk as if he didn't notice it.
"Sebastian Hawke's my buddy! He'd never attack me like that!"
CJ stared again. "Steel." he said. "Sebastian Steel."
Avenger's head pounded and everything felt hazy. Of course Sebastian Steel. Trent's nephew. He just got hit in the head by him earlier tonight. By Sebastian Steel.
Hawke
"You're right. A match. That's what I wanted. Definitely."
CJ leaned against the desk that belonged to another CJ...a living one, Avenger's brain thought in bewilderment...and crossed his arms.
"Join the club, hero. I'm hoping to get booked too. But you know how Addiction works. Three, four matches, tops."
He glanced at Avenger, who still seemed shaken up. Nothing about this felt right, but at least it felt safe. For now.
"You okay?" CJ asked. "You don't seem like you want to do whatever it is you gotta do."
Avenger grabbed Chase Johnson's chair and sat down. He sighed. "You ever feel like something really bad was going to happen if you went down a certain path?"
He glanced over at CJ, whose skin looked very pale in this light.
"Oh yeah, look who I'm talking to. This is before the..."
He shut himself up. Avenger wasn't the smartest person, but he knew when to keep his mouth shut.
"Nevermind."
"I think they call that 'a sense of foreboding' in those awful pulp novels," CJ commented. "Anyway, only you can decide if it's worth going through with it. Me? Whatever's going to happen to me is going to happen. I'll just try to live and enjoy my life accordingly."
"Changes come, right?" Avenger asked. He didn't know where he heard that phrase before, but it seemed fitting.
Wylde smiled. "Something like that."
He glanced at his watch. "Well, I guess I'll just call Chase tomorrow. Lucy and I are going to miss our flight. Hope you have better luck, hero."
With that, he turned on his heel and the man who was still CJ Wylde, for another four years at least, was out of the room. The Avenger was alone. But he didn't feel alone. He felt as though someone were watching him. And not just you, dear reader, but someone else. Someone very evil.
"IT WAS ME!" echoed a voice from the flickering reality. Suddenly, a face painted character appeared with a popping noise, sitting on top of the desk and in Avenger's face.
"You're the one that zapped me!" Avenger said, suddenly completely aware of what was happening.
“Allow me to introduce ourself to thee...I am The Zealot.”
Zealot sighed as he stretched out his arms. He held up his left and right hand.
“Crossroads you are at. I am giving you a chance to avoid something really unpleasant. Well, that a lie...either way I enjoy it, but you get to pick the lesser of two evils here. On the one hand...this goes the way it’s supposed to. No change in timeline. Everything goes the exact same way. No retcon. No reboot. No Directors cut to explain stuff...or...you can avoid the Fatty McChonk over there...and you don’t get the special surprise.”
With that, Zealot stood up on the desk. “So for this one time only offer good for this moment only I’m doing something nice...something not evil...well not evil from your point of view at least. Give up being the interdimensional superzero...or something you care about is gonna go away and there is nothing your pathetic self can do to stop it. It’s a Kobayashi Macaroon if you will. You’re screwed if you don’t...and you’re f#$%ed if you do! I need your decision now...or I’ll make it for you.”
“That’s enough of you.” Zealot said looking up and grabbing a handful of air. The narrator felt a lot of pain like someone had grabbed him in the no no square. “As far as believing me? I couldn’t give a good damn if you do or not. You see you save the multiverse, save your friends, get the cool new motorcycle...doesn’t matter. Because if you don’t give it up you lose. If you stay on this course you lose. No matter what you do Avenger...you lose! And when it happens the only sound you will hear besides your sorrowful tears hitting the floor at your loss...is my laughter!”
"See you in the funny papers!" he yelled back, heading towards his destiny.
Zealot sat up and started to laugh as he walked towards the office closet. He opened it to reveal Chase Johnson, tied up with a ball gag in his mouth.
---(A)---
"What was I supposed to say here?" he asked himself, before it came to him. "Yeah, right. Some superhero I am!"
536 approached, wondering why he hadn't seen the caped superhero here the last time he passed. "You really are though. In fact, you're just the superhero I was looking for....."
LAST TIME IN THE AVENGERVERSE:
About time. Where was he?
"We don't know," the intern said. "He's weird."
Anyway, last time in the AvengerVerse, our hero decided to go get some McDonald's! Hey, it wasn't the most thrilling story we ever did, but sometimes you have to just phone it...
"No time!" Vengy exclaimed, running past the formless void where the narrator exists. "We're about to hit 4k!"
4K what? Ugh. Fine. Go to the title card.
SEE YOU IN THE FUNNY PAPERS
The Avenger woke up in the car, realizing he was still at McDonald's. He cautiously peered over the driver's seat of the Uber he was sitting in and saw a man sitting there. Just a normal man, nothing special or evil about him. He did seem annoyed, however, more so when the costumed hero began to stare at him.
"Hey!" Avenger shouted, "What day is it?"
The man rolled his eyes. "Saturday, I think."
"It's Christmas! I haven't missed it! The spirits did it all in one night!" Avenger then paused, and shook his head. "Sorry, wrong story. Head's still fuzzy from the time travel."
"Are your friends going to be long? I really want to get out of here."
Avenger shrugged, then leaned back into his seat. He grabbed Sam's smartphone, which had conveniently left when he ran off to puke, and turned on the camcorder function.
"Greetings, citizens! I'm filming a new contractually mandated promo for my match with Sebastian Hawke! Yes, I know this is the same location as the one I did before, but that's what happens when you time travel and find yourself back at the time you were in before that match happened and this one was announced."
Avenger frowned, suddenly realizing that all he knew about the next couple of weeks was that he was facing Hawke.
"I wonder if I actually beat Citizen Cortes."
He shrugged again.
"Oh well, it's not like anything that happened at Chaos 109 has any bearing on what happens at Chaos 110! I bet it's like all those events never actually happened!"
Vengy refocused his attention on his opponent for the next show, deciding that he was probably confusing his audience.
"Is it presumptuous to say that myself and Citizen Hawke are friends? I'd like to think so! He did help me that one time when I had confidence issues, and then there was that other time we saved Christmas! Not that he can remember that. Santa magic is powerful."
He nods in a profoundly wise manner, even though he said nothing profound or wise.
Avenger glanced at the sky, more than a little irritated. "Anyway," he continued. "I'm excited for us to have our first match against each other! I know you're perhaps a little starstruck. I am, after all, A TRUE SUPERHERO, THE HEART OF CARNAGE WRESTLING and THE CHAMPION OF BALTIMORE. But I'm also your friend!"
He smiled again. An easy, friendly smile.
"And friends are important! Sure, friends may fight, like we're going to, and friends may not always agree, but TRUE friends stand by each other through thick and thin. They don't let their squabbles over who is better, who said what, who superkicked which child-robot, whatever, get in between them. So I know, that regardless of whatever happens at Chaos 110, we will still be friends!"
Our hero paused for a moment, considered what he was going to say next, and continued.
"So Citizen Hawke," he said, still beaming. "I'm very excited to face you! We've got monsters running around, bullies, jerks, villains, you name it. But then we have Sebastian, one of the lone bright spots, trying to be a good person and better wrestler. And sure, you falter. You make mistakes. But who doesn't? The point is to be better today than we were yesterday. I think I read that on the Twitter."
It's just Twitter, Vengy. No 'the'.
"Oh what would you know? You're just a voice in the void!" Avenger argued, before realizing he was taping himself arguing with nothing. He grinned sheepishly as his face turned red.
"Sorry, Sebastian. You know how it is. Superhero narrators always have to have something to say."
Maybe that's because certain superheroes always seem to ramble on about nothing.
Avenger glared at the narrator again.
"What I was saying is, we're flawed. You're flawed. I'm flawed. Your friends are flawed. Carnage is flawed. And that's okay! Not everything is black and white, you know? You've got to take the good. Take the bad. Take them both and there you have..."
Our hero shook his head, coming across as more off his rocker than usual.
"No...no Avenger. That's a TV theme song. You're not doing this again. Sorry, I just got finished time traveling, it's a little hard to think right now."
He glanced back at the phone he was recording with and kept going.
"My point is that since this is the last Chaos, it's a good time to reflect. Forgive. Be better. I feel like a failure because I couldn't save this place. I'm sure you feel bad that you are never gonna be a World champion here. There are things that we can't change and all we can do is be better. Do good deeds. Choose good friends. Think for yourself. I'll be a better superhero, you'll be a better wrestler. We'll keep being friends and the world will keep spinning. At least, that's my hope!"
Avenger then decided now would be the perfect time to wrap things, especially as he saw his friends coming back.
"If there's one good thing about these last weeks of Carnage, it's that I get to face people who aren't villains, but people I like and respect! Dom, Cat, you. I mean I'm not completely selfless. I'm not going to just let you win because we're buddies. That wouldn't be in the spirit of competition! But let's go out there and give it our all! Good luck, Citizen Hawke!"
With that, Avenger rushed through his final words and quickly shut off the phone, hoping Sam wouldn't realize that his battery was lower now.