AvengerVerse, Volume 3, Issue 1: The Avenger Meets His Maker

 LAST TIME IN THE AVENGERVERSE:

That's right! We're back! Onward to new and bigger adventures! A new company to wrestle in! New opponents! New new new! 

"Alright, we get it," The Avenger mumbled, still in his feelings after the loss of his best friend. He looked in the narrator's general direction and glared. "You know, you don't have to keep reminding me of that.

Sorry, Vengy. So, are you at all curious what shenanigans you'll be getting into today?

"Since when can you see the future?" Avenger asked. "Don't you just narrate things as they happen?"

I was speaking in a general sense. 

"Oh." He frowned again. "I guess. It'll be better than those mini-issues."

The Avenger, ever your optimistic and confident hero, concluded his enthusiastic agreement with a noncommittal shrug. He then rolled his eyes, as even he could hear the sarcasm in the narrator's voice.

"What do you mean, 'even he'?" he asked. "I'm not stupid, you know."

Sure you're not! I just meant...you know what, nevermind what I meant. Here's the title card! 

The Avenger looked below and saw the title of the adventure and suddenly felt confused and a little scared.

"I don't like the sound of that..."

AVENGERVERSE, VOLUME 3: ISSUE 1
THE AVENGER MEETS HIS MAKER

It had been weeks since The Baltimore Curse hit the Avenger and he lost Sam Action. He had mostly been alone, wrestling matches for various places, including his new company UGWC. He was a solid 1-1 there, but losses happened. As long as it didn't become the dreaded losing streak, he would be okay. Losing streaks were the worst and The Avenger, for all of his good traits, took his defeats pretty hard when they stacked up like they had in the past.

But his loss to Hide Yamazaki, he was mostly numb to. For that matter, he was numb to his win over Travis Pierce.

He lost his home company and his best friend not long after each other and that took its toll on even the most optimistic of superheroes.

Which is why when we find our hero, he is currently crying. Crying on movie night, as he and 536 were currently crashing with a bizarre, musclebound man who only shouted. It was the man known to the Coalition as Captain 80s, but he currently wasn't home. Avenger thought he heard the word groceries, but by that point, 536 had shown him the wonders of Disney+ and he had found a nice little movie to watch.

That movie was Luca.

And Avenger was sobbing.

"Come on, Vengy! This is a wholesome movie!" 536 pleaded, but Avenger couldn't be consoled. 

"He gave up their Vespa so Luca could go to schooooooool!" Avenger wailed, not really paying attention to the fact he just spoiled the ending of the movie for anyone reading this issue that hadn't seen it yet. He grabbed the end of his cape and brought it up to his nose, blowing it and dabbing at his eyes. Yes, in that order. 

536 was disgusted by the blubbering mess his companion was in, even if he understood.

It seemed as though he got it out of his system now that the credits were halfway over. 536 was never good with consoling others, not in the way Sam was, and so he just gently patted Vengy on the back as he snorted into the cape again. Avenger opened the area of his cape and looked at what he did, then quickly took it off and tossed it in the laundry pile. That pile currently consisted of tassels and band t-shirts, mostly from their host. Mostly. 

"So I'll be capeless in this issue," he muttered.

"I'm sorry, Vengy. I didn't think this movie would make you cry." 536 said. In his defense, they didn't have Pixar where he came from so he had no idea the power those movies had to bring people to tears. Not knowing what else to do, 536 went back to tinkering with his computer, which is what he was doing before Avenger had yet another emotional breakdown.

Suddenly, the door burst open and their large host, Captain 80s, burst into the apartment, strangely followed by studio audience applause. This happened frequently, but they could never find the source. 536 assumed it was a speaker. Avenger, who regularly heard the narrator, just figured that's what Captain 80s (himself a hero of sorts) had for his own adventures.

"THE CAPTAIN HAS BEEN WAITING FOR A WINGMAN IN THE SKIES OVER CHICAGO, YEAAAAAAH!!" The Captain bellowed, slamming down a six pack of Ecto-Cooler on his coffee table with such force that one of the cans exploded. The Captain didn't seem to notice.

536 put on his headphones and decided he would avoid conversation for now. Avenger wiped his eyes and put his mask on, before getting up to help bring in whatever items the Captain had with him. The how and the why they ended up in this situation weren't really important. You should never explain the joke, right?

Avenger rolled his eyes. "So hey, big guy. What'd you get?"

"CAP AND 'VENGER WILL GET THE KIDS BACK IN SCHOOL, DRINKING THEIR VITAMINS AND SAYING THEIR MILKS! QUATRE-VINGTS CAN'T WAIT TO WO..."

As the Captain let his latest rant trail off, Avenger gave a meek laugh and rubbed the back of his head. "That...that doesn't really answer my question. Anyway, Big Me and I are really glad you decided to let us crash here on the weeks we're in Chicago. Turns out, they don't want us on the roof of the UGWC Arena." 

He reached over and grabbed one of he sacks of food away from the Captain, which was inexplicably full of Hostess Pudding Pies, boxes of Batman cereal and Mr. Bones candy. Avenger looked at it and felt nauseous. How did he get it? Ebay? Time travel? Landfills? Either way, it wasn't part of a balanced diet. 

"Don't forget, we're going to Wyoming soon." 536 added, being the only one in this story that remembered where Battleground was located.

"Oh," Avenger said, finally remembering he had a match in a few days. "Travis Pierce. Right. You got any tips for facing him, Cap? You guys both work for that PMN place. I don't watch that kind of thing. Rots the brain."

"No, you just cry during sappy kids movies," 536 said, smirking. Avenger stomped his foot down and glared at him.

"That friendship was BEAUTIFUL and was EXACTLY like what Sam and I had!" He felt the urge to cry again but instead breathed deeply and relaxed. He turned back to the Captain, who was now shoveling Big League Chew into his mouth. While chewing, and spraying spit everywhere, he continued as if he was never interrupted.

"THE CAPTAIN MUST IMPLORE YOU NOT TO USE YOUR SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH TO HURT TRAVIS PIERCE. HE HAS BEEN VERY GOOD TO MISTER 8 ZERO!! YEAHHH!!"

The studio audience cheered from wherever that noise came from. Avenger nodded. Either he understood or he was only pretending to.

"Pretending to." Vengy answered the narrator, figuring if the Captain was going to be weird, he didn't have a problem talking to a disembodied voice only he could hear. 

"Yeah, wow. I won't hurt Travis, Captain. Just gonna give him some #JUSTICE, like always." He set the bag down gingerly and took a step back, as if it were a sugar-filled bomb ready to explode and give him diabetes. "Oh wow, this all looks good." He lied.

"MAY THE CAPTAIN REFER TO YOU AS VENGIE?? CAP FULLY BELIEVES IN THE POWER OF NICKNAMES, YEAHHH!! HIS REAL NAME IS JAKE PIPER, BUT HE DOES NOT REQUIRE YOU TO REVEAL YOUR IDENTITY. THE CAPTAIN IS TOTALLY COOL!!"

"Sure! Call me whatever, just uh, don't call me late for dinner! Get it? Because we're looking at food?" Our hero laughed nervously and tugged at his collar.

The Captain simply stared, breathing heavily. Avenger nodded and edged his way over to his larger companion, nudging him. "Hey, Fat Me?"

"I have a name," 536 said, more flat than annoyed. "All you have to do is ask."

Vengy ignored him. "Remember that adventure we were going to go on? You know, to get the thing?"

536 glanced up from his computer at Avenger, confused, until Avenger tilted his head in the direction of Captain 80s, who was in the background posing and muttering something to himself. Avenger looked back at 536 and pleaded with his eyes.

Being the smart one of the pair, 536 easily put together what Avenger was trying to do.

"Oh yeah! The thing! Oh man, I totally forgot. That part for the MR. It's like, twenty universes from here."

Avenger gave a hearty fake laugh and patted his friend on the back. "You're SO forgetful. Sorry Cap, we gotta go! Universes to explore, hero things to do. You get it!"

The attempt to blow off the Captain was glaringly obvious. It was possible he knew, but it was also more likely he was caught up in whatever it was the Captain gets caught up in and didn't pay attention.

"UNITED GLOBAL WRESTLING COALITION NEEDS MORE HEROES, YES!! WHEN THE CAPTAIN WAS STEERING THE FALCOR THROUGH THE SKIES IF ETERNIA, ON HIS WAY TO CYBERTRON, HE SAW THE AVENGER SIGNAL BEAMING THROUGH TIME AND SPACE, SIGNALLING CAP TO RETURN ACROSS THE COSMIC OCEAN!"

"You bet!" Avenger said, giving a heroic thumbs up. He nudged 536 and whispered, "Press the button at ANY time."

"I don't know what universe we're going to!" 536 said through clenched teeth. The Captain continued to stare, not letting the heroes out of his sight. Maybe he wanted to see what multiversal travel looked like. Maybe he was just weird like that.

"Silenzio, Bruno!" Avenger said, making a reference that only people who watched the same movie he did would get. And even then, he didn't use it right. "Hit a bunch of random buttons!" 

Avenger reached forward and smashed his hand onto the Multiversal Remote, before 536 smacked it. The two bickered and slapped at each other for a solid minute before 536 finally hit the big red button and a portal opened in the middle of the Captain's apartment. 

To his credit, the Captain seemed rather nonplussed by the whole situation. Avenger nodded at him again and jumped through the portal, with 536 backing out slowly. It closed with a pop, leaving the latest UGWC cameo in the AvengerVerse all alone. 

------(A)------

Somewhere, in a small town in Southern Indiana in another universe, reality began to warp as a portal began to materialize in the middle of a small apartment complex, in some was not unlike the one Avenger just left. Portals weren't common in Universe #616 and they were even less common here. Not just less common, they never happened. In this universe, alternate realities were only a theory and something that likely wasn't scientifically possible. This was a once in a lifetime phenomenon that would surely have the United States government looking into it if it were to be caught on camera. 

As it was, it was the middle of the night so all it really did was scare some stray cats and set off a few car alarms. Perhaps a few of the residents in the complex were awakened by the noise, but it happened so quickly that most slept through it. 

One of the residents, a heavyset man with a large beard, was up anyway. He was furiously typing at his computer, kicking himself that he waited until the Friday before deadline to finish the story he was writing. He was just thankful that he had plenty of ideas and stories for this character were easy to finish. That is, if he had no other distractions. 

When the portal brightly lid his entire apartment, that counted as a distraction. The man got up, grumbling and aching from sitting too long, and looked through his blinds to see what had just happened. 

The Avenger and 536 popped out of the portal, which closed behind them. Avenger, landed face first. 536 almost did, but managed to steady himself at the last moment. The grass had been freshly cut so our hero had a bunch of it in his mouth. He spat it out and got up, brushing the rest off his superhero outfit.

"Where are we this time?" Vengy asked. 536 looked down at the MR, which was strangely not lit up like it usually was.

"That's...weird." 

Avenger glanced at him, suddenly worried. "What's weird?"

"The MR isn't on. It's like it...lost its charge. Like it's...not supposed to work here."

"Where's 'here'?" The Avenger repeated. It was a good question to repeat. The Avenger listened skyward and then suddenly turned to his larger companion, fearful.

"Um...I don't know how to put this..." Avenger said. 

"Put what?" 

"I.." he started and then sighed. "I can't hear the narrator!" At least two of the things they were used to weren't happening in the universe they forced their way into and now they were deeply worried.

"I knew I shouldn't have let you just hit buttons!" 536 yelled him, pressing a variety of buttons and switches on the device, hoping to bring it to life again. None of them did a thing.

"What are we gonna do!?" Avenger asked, bringing his hands up to his head and pulling at his hair. He was officially freaked out. "Are we stuck here?"

A window was raised up in the distance. A voice cried out, "I've got work in the morning, would you SHUT THE FUCK UP?" 

That in itself was horrifying to Avenger, as the foul language wasn't bleeped out. Something was very wrong.

Suddenly, one of the doors to one of the apartments opened. The man we me just several paragraphs ago stepped out, cautiously. He was as confused by what was going on as our heroes were, but he also realized he was the only one that could help them. More than that, he was the only one that would recognize them.

"Vengy?" The man called out. Avenger's head darted towards the voice and he squinted, trying to figure out if he knew who it was. He realized he didn't.

"How do you know my name?" He asked. "Well, nickname, I guess. But I've never met you before, Citizen?"

Little did the Avenger know, the man was, himself, freaking out. Having a full blown panic attack, as it turned out. But he was hiding it well. He tried to talk and coughed instead, realizing his throat was very dry. He couldn't believe this was happening.

"I know your name because I gave it to you," he said. "I created you."

------(A)------

Minutes earlier, Joe believed he had lost his mind. It had been a hard week, after all. He had a long day at therapy on Tuesday, was forced to talk about failed relationships in his past (which only brought painful memories) and had been dealing with some health issues on top of that. Physical therapy just that night was frustrating and he was very tired.

For all the things he had been diagnosed with, he never once had a hallucination. The fact that he was apparently having one now absolutely terrified him. His stomach felt cold and his extremities tingled. A full blown panic attack was starting. As he often did when he had a panic attack, he tried to contact one of his friends for help. 

This special situation called for one that would at least have an idea of what he was talking about. How exactly do you explain to someone that your e-fed character just appeared in your front lawn? He saw his buddy Jay was online, aka the guy who wrote Trent Steel and helped him run Level Up Wrestling. If anything, he wouldn't call him crazy. 

By that point, he heard one of his neighbors yell at the pair and really questioned his sanity. He went outside to greet them and hoped he wasn't having a stroke.

------(A)------

"What do you mean, you created us?"

The three now sat in Joe's apartment, Joe on the couch with his laptop open and the other two in chairs. Joe didn't exactly know what was happening, but he knew he didn't want figments of his imagination to be arrested by police. He figured he'd commit himself in the morning.

"Where you come from, do they have..." Joe started to ask a question then remembered that he would know more than they would. "Nevermind. You guys are characters I created for an e-fed."

The two seemed even more confused, which their creator should have expected. He sighed and ran his hands over his head. At least the anxiety had calmed down, even if he was still sure he had a psychotic break.

"Okay, an e-fed is...writers write stories, competitively, set in the world of wrestling. Whoever writes the best story wins a 'match'. And you two are characters I made up for my 'AvengerVerse' stories."

536 got up and began to pace, as if the realization that he was fictional broke him. He seemed to immediately accept it, even if it seriously messed with his head. Avenger wasn't convinced.

"Okay," Avenger said, considering the implications. "So we're fictional here. In another universe, I'm dead. We'll just go back where we came from and..."

536 turned back and yelled at him. "The MR doesn't work! And you know WHY it doesn't work? Because that sort of thing doesn't exist here!"

Avenger sighed. "If Sam were here, he'd know what to do," he added, his voice a little quieter than normal.

Joe, sitting on the couch, was now aware of the consequences his actions had with his characters. "Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I thought it'd make for a good story to end my...your run in Carnage."

Avenger looked at his maker and glared. "Are you telling me that you WROTE Sam to do that?"

Joe recoiled, instinctually moving backward. Avenger may not have superpowers here, as superpowers didn't exist, but he was still an athlete and the man who created him decidedly wasn't. As someone riddled with trust issues, he had no reason to believe Avenger wouldn't punch him for what he wrote.

"I'm sorry," he said, genuinely. "I've been going through some stuff and Sam is, well, he's not 100% my character. It's a whole thing and I don't think you're interested in the details. But at least I didn't kill him off?"

"You might as well have, you jerk!" Avenger yelled. "He's trapped forever!"

Avenger clenched his hands in anger. He had never been this angry in his entire life, and once he had someone tell him that Goku could beat Superman in a fight. The tension was rising, but Joe was, at least in this aspect, omniscient. So he knew exactly what to say. 

"How do you know he's trapped forever?" he asked. 

"What...Zealot in the evil me said so. You wrote it, don't you know?" Avenger asked, suddenly disarmed. His hands relaxed. 

Joe paused a moment, knowing exactly what he wanted to say. Only later would he realize that when he inserted himself into his roleplay as a means to be creative, he made himself the Avenger's Deus ex Machina to resolve a seemingly unresolvable situation. "Avenger, Zealot is a villain. Villains lie. He's FROM the Negative Multiverse. If there were no way out...how did he get out?" 

"You mean," Avenger said, putting the pieces together. Avenger was right. He wasn't stupid. Naive,  perhaps not as well read as others, but he eventually got it. "You mean I can save Sam?"

536 stopped his pacing. "Of course you could, if he wrote it. Not that it matters, we're stuck here," the larger version of the Avenger added with a downtrodden tone. 

Joe sat and thought for a moment. His eyes lit up as he had an idea. They didn't happen often when it came to this sort of thing. In fact, he usually figured out how to end his stories around 10:00 PM ET on Saturday night.

He swiped his touchpad and the computer screen lit back up. He typed a few words into his Blogspot document, where he was writing the latest AvengerVerse. 

The words he typed were simple:

Suddenly, the lights on the MR began to flicker on, struggling against the very fabric of reality in this undesignated universe. The machine began to slowly whir, hum and click, like an overheated laptop fan. 536's eyes darted to the device, and then back to Joe, who looked up from his screen and gave a smile that felt unnatural to him, given how he had felt for the past year or so. 

"You...you really did create us."

Joe shrugged. "Like Vengy said, I did in this universe. Maybe that's not the case elsewhere. Maybe I've finally lost it and you're my latest late night delusion."

Avenger smiled when he realized they could leave, then turned back to his creator. Something had been bugging him for a couple of weeks now, and this was the only time and place to ask.

"Now that I know we can go, I have to ask you something. Where do you come from? Like, what is my purpose?" He asked, feeling a little silly at doing so.

Another shrug, as Joe was now taking this all in stride. That wasn't something he was familiar with, but his therapy was slowly making him realize that not every bad thing was the end of the world. Then again, he was sure his therapist would never find out this happened. 

He answered his creation as honestly as he could.

"Vengy, I made you so I could feel good about this game. I took it too seriously as JC."

"You...JC too?" 536 said in the background, shocked.

"Yes, JC too. Let me finish." Joe replied sternly. "I was too serious as JC. I was using JC as a way to vent about my mental illness and so much of myself got wrapped up in him that I saw his value as my value. If he lost, that meant I was a loser. And because of that, I acted horribly last year and lost my best friend. I turned a game into a burden or a chore instead of something fun to do. But with you, it's different. You're the version of me that I want to be."

"You want to be a superhero?" The Avenger asked, and Joe had to laugh.

"No." He suddenly stopped himself and thought before he continued. "Well I mean, that'd be cool. But you're brave. You're funny. You're optimistic even in the darkest of times. You're what I wish I could be if I wasn't so...whatever it is I am. You are the best parts of me, Avenger. You entertain people and you make this silly game fun for me."

The Avenger felt himself tearing up a little bit. No one had really spoken to him this way since Sam left, and evidently it was his maker speaking to him through Sam. He knew he'd be thinking about this incident for a long time. He rushed forward and awkwardly hugged Joe, who just kind of sat there and took it. He wasn't very good at receiving affection, and the fact he was being hugged by someone who was words on a screen an hour ago really bothered him.

"I love you Papa!" The Avenger said, and 536 rolled his eyes in the background.

The larger Avenger turned to his companion. "We really should go. I know Mr..."

"Joe," the writer said.

"Mr. Joe wrote the MR to work but...we really don't know if that'll last." 536 finished.

Avenger let go and stared at him. "Joe? Isn't that JC's real name? Gosh, you're really not that creative."

"I told you that he was a self-insert." Joe added apologetically.

Avenger got up and walked over to his friend. He nodded at his creator and 536 entered coordinates onto the device, which luckily reacted as it normally did. He was about to hit the button when suddenly Joe held out a hand.

"Wait! Before you go...can I get a promo from you?" he asked.

"A promo?" Avenger said, confused. "Why on Earth would you want me to do that? It's bad enough I have to do them before my matches!"

"Yeah, promos are kind of a requirement of these things. And your promos are really hard. Superheroes don't really talk trash in the same way psychotics do. At least this method of doing it isn't as contrived as having the anonymous camera man you had been working with."

Avenger rolled his eyes. "He's not anonymous, I know exactly who he is!" He then thought for a moment. "But if I do it here with no camera, how will it get to UGWC?"

"I'll just write up a tweet telling UGWC you sent them the footage. Watch."

He looked down at his computer and typed some more words, then a tweet from Avenger's Twitter appeared on the screen.

The hero then stepped away from his friend and glanced down at it, shocked. "You control my Twitter too? Oh...well I guess you would."

Joe closed his laptop before Avenger could judge him for the absurdly large amount of tabs about wrestling he had open and the hero looked back and smiled.

"Okay, Citizen God! I'll do one promo for you!"

"Please don't call me that," Joe said. Given tonight's events, the existence of an angry God smiting him for apparently creating life didn't strike him as something all that implausible. He decided to just let The Avenger add a little formula back into his story.

Avenger did a spin, minus the cape he was no longer wearing, and did a heroic pose.

"Citizen Pierce! We aren't that far away from UGWC Battleground and to be honest, I don't know what to say to you! I mean, I have lots of things I could say. Drink your milk. Chew your vitamins. Wash the grease out of your hair. Pick a better James Bond theme song for your entrance. Because seriously, Audioslave was SO fifteen years ago!"

Before allowing himself to go on a tangent, he shook his head and continued. 

"But when it comes to our match, I'm already riding an All Time High! Nobody Does it Better than your friendly neighborhood Avenger, arriving in UGWC to fight all the villains! And I don't know if you know this, but Eden Morgan is the villianiest villain that ever villained! And since you're not that nice of a guy yourself, based on how you talk to me, I don't think you'll just find Another Way to Die in a match with her!"

Joe realized what the theme was the Avenger was going on, and was quite impressed by his music knowledge.

"The Writing's on The Wall for our match at Battleground! I'm going to give you another heaping helping of #JUSTICE, and you'll watch the Skyfall on your Conquest title aspirations! But don't worry, Citizen Pierce, Tomorrow Never Dies and you'll probably get another chance to be champion one day! But The Avenger has No Time to Die and this Superhero Kick is For Your Eyes Only!"

He then turned to his creator, who was physically cringing. "Too much?" he asked. Joe only nodded.

"Anyway, I'm not very good at these kinds of things. They always want you to say mean things to your opponent and I'm not a mean guy! I mean, I'm sure you have no problem with it. I'm sure the dastardly Eden Morgan will come up with all the mean things that she learned from watching years and years of daytime soaps! Which is also how she probably came up with the whole "fake your death" thing she did!"

Avenger thought for a moment, decided he liked what he just said, and continued.

"But The Avenger is not that wrestler. I am a hero. I am the FOREVER CHAMPION OF BALTIMORE! And apparently, depending on who you ask, I'm a pretty good person! So I don't need to tell you that PMN is what I put on when I'm having trouble sleeping! And I don't need to tell you that Captain 80s has more charisma than you do and should have your show! Because I'm not mean and I don't need to upset you to win! So I'll see you out there, Citizen! I'm going to kick you in the face a lot and go on to face off with one of this company's many wicked criminals! But we'll have a lot of fun before I do!"

Avenger stopped, out of breath, and looked over at his creator. Joe simply clapped.

"Couldn't have written it any better myself," he said, although he might have left out the Bond theme music puns. 

Avenger grinned. "This trip has been very educational, Citizen! And now, we go back to our creepy roommate's apartment to eat food that expired forty years ago!"

Joe shook his head. "I wouldn't."

536 pressed the button and a portal opened up. "We don't want to either. Please have a pizza show up by the time we get back." 

With that, the two acknowledged their creator and jumped through the portal, back to Earth #616. After the left, Joe rubbed at his eyes from the brightness of the light and looked around. Not only were they gone, but there was no evidence they had even appeared at all. Perhaps he could play it off as a weird joke when he talked to Jay tomorrow.

In the meantime, he opened his laptop back up. He wrote a mysterious pizza delivery to the apartment of Captain 80s.

He resisted the urge to have the Noid show up.