October 22, 1973 – Ultimate Super Team-Ups Issue 17 (2nd vol. first printing)

Part of a man’s lungs went in my mouth today.  I think it was a piece of lung anyway.  It was a pinkish greyish slime lump.  Even if I was a forensic pathologist (which I am not) I think it would be hard to identify the chunks that come flying out when a human being has been stuffed into a Cuisinart.  Whatever it was, it went into my mouth.  I had no problem identifying which part of my body it was.  It tasted terrible.   Indescribably so.  And I’ve tasted some terrible stuff lately.

I’m officially done with this . . . this . . . whatever.  I want to get drunk.  But I can’t because no matter how much I imbue I barely feel anything.  I want to sleep for a couple days but I can’t because I don’t have a home.  I want to change out of these god damn clothes which were gross and dirty before a man exploded on them but I can’t because I don’t have any other clothes.  I don’t have anything.  

Wait, that’s not true.  I have two things.  I have a headache all the time.  Always.  All the time.  When I wake up I feel like there’s an iron band around my skull that slowly gets tightened throughout the day.  And the next day it gets tighter.   Always.  All the time.  It’s maddening.  Sometimes if I smoke enough or drink enough caffeine, it lessens to a dull pain for a few minutes.  I have a hard time paying attention because of the throbbing in my skull.  When people talk, it’s like I’m watching TV with the sound turned way down.  If I had to club a basketful of puppies to death to get the headaches to stop for one damn minute, I’d do it.  

But the second thing that I have is a nice distraction from the first thing – constant gnawing hunger in my belly.  It’s like I swallowed a baby shark and it’s swimming around in there eating me from the inside.  I think about food constantly.  I dream about it.  When I see someone who has food I want to take it from them.   The other day I ate thirty Bánh xèo and it was like swallowing a piece of gum – no effect on my appetite at all.  Sometimes when I get scraps that someone is going to throw out and I’m choking down some gross food I don’t even like, I feel like crying out of the relief I feel just to get it.  I feel like I’m dying.

I hate it here.  It’s ninety-six degrees with one hundred percent humidity all the time.  I sweat so much I’m constantly dehydrated.  I feel filthy and grimy all the time.  My hair is a mess.  I can’t speak the language. Everyone looks at me like I’m a freak.  I never know what’s going on.  I never thought I’d be pining for my crappy apartment – the heat doesn’t work, the wallpaper is peeling, the people next door argue loudly every night, the rent is a crime, but I just want to go home.  

How did a guy explode in my mouth (rephrase before posting)?  The Kato looking guy (not racist I swear) was trying to translate between the hooker plus frat boys robbery team and the vigilante in the red space suit but it wasn’t going well because the Kato looking guy (not racist I swear) and the underwear lady are enemies.  She’s not actually a hooker, she just dresses like one.  Seriously, she was wearing garters and a bustier, and she just walks around like that.  

I understand that if you’re a supervillain you want to have a cool costume to let people know about it, but seriously, you have to think about the bigger picture.  If female supervillains all walk around with their tits hanging out, how are we ever going to make progress as a society towards gender equality?  If you’re wearing a black lace babydoll, no one is going to be talking about how you used your pheromone powers to mind-control a bunch of collegiate jerks into robbing a casino, they’re going to say things like “Whoa, check out the rack on that broad”.  

And trust me, I get it, when you’re a stone-cold fox there’s a desire to flaunt yourself, but it’s like that snake eating its own tail – you’re participating in a system characterized by its own abuse.  And yes, even if you do dress in a more conservative manner people are still going to talk about what you’re wearing instead of your awesome crimes, but at least that way there’s a path to breaking the cycle and rising above it.  If you’re the titty woman that’s all you’re ever going to be, but if you’re the supervillain in the bullet proof vest and protective shin guards, eventually people will get tired of talking about how you need to tart up your outfit and start talking about how you kidnapped the president’s daughter and held her for ransom.  They’re not going to get tired of tits and ass.  Not ever.

Anyway, I was trying to explain to the Red Robot that he needed to calm down and wait for Kato (not racist I swear) to translate, but he pointed his laser-arm and one of the frat boys (he actually looked a lot like that guy from Scooby-Doo, only, you know, not a cartoon) and there was a noise like when your toast pops and the kid exploded.  I mean that literally.  Remember that creepy kid in your neighborhood that put firecrackers up frogs’ butts and blew them up and now as an adult works spaying dogs?  It was like that.  Only with a guy instead of a frog.  I didn’t see a beam or a laser or anything, Red pointed his arm at a human and then that human was transformed into loose organs and gristle flying through the air.

That’s when I decided I was done.  I grabbed the arm of the guy holding me and flipped him to the ground.  That’s what I meant to do anyway.  Instead I tore his arm off.  But it was an accident.  I’m sure the Red Robot exploded the other guy on purpose.  The mind-slaves of the inappropriately dressed villainess that weren’t exploded or had their arms ripped off (by accident) all started shooting.  The Man in Black (I’m going to stop calling him Kato because I guess that is racist even though he does look like Kato) ninja-flipped onto the roof of a nearby building while bullets bounced off the Red Robot – ricocheting and hitting people passing by.

There were people passing by, you see.  They gave the scene playing out a wide berth, but they just went about their day like this kind of stand-off happens all the time in Madripoor.  Like a car wreck at a busy intersection back home, you take a look as you walk by, but unless someone you know is involved, you keep walking.  I ran for cover – which in this case was Blue who was coming out of the casino into the fracas.  He’s not exactly bulletproof but he’s more bulletproof than me.

While I hid behind Blue, Red pointed at another robber and he flew into the air like he had been shot out of a cannon.  At that point I didn’t know the robbers were under the control of Stars and Garters or I would have shouted something like “Stop you idiot, they’re being mind controlled!”  Which is not something you expect to have to shout ever.  

Martialla appeared out of nowhere, commando style, and got lingerie lassy in some manner of commando-choke maneuver.  While she was scooping up the money, some other asshole came flying in to get in the mix – a guy in a red, white & blue outfit with a US flag on the chest.  Where did he come from?  And why is he in Madripoor?  The Star-Spangled Kid went after the robot and while they were fighting, The Man in Black super-flipped back down like Olga Korbutand.  It looked like he was going to attack Martialla, so Blue grabbed him and slammed him into the ground.   And I mean hard. 

The whole thing was a god damn mess.  Why is it that cops never show up at the same crime and start shooting at each other, but super people do shit like this?  I guess because the cops aren’t lone wolf jerk-offs who play by their own rules.  Blue shouted that we should get out of there, which we should have, but I was pissed because the Red Robot blew a guy up for nothing.  He had flattened Stars and Stripes Forever and I ran at him, Blue backing me up. Which was nice of him.   Glad to know he has my back.

We got him by the robo-arms and he fired his boot-rockets.  I jumped away because I didn’t want my lower body to be incinerated, but Blue had him held fast – the smell of burning lizard meat made my mouth water.  Blue was too heavy for the robot to lift off with him in tow.  I jumped back into the fray and went to rip off the robo-head, but that’s when I found out it wasn’t a robot.   I yanked on the head-thing and I heard some metal-tearing sounds and then a different robo-voice announced “CRITICAL DAMAGE SUSTAINED” and the suit opened up like a sardine can and barfed out a skinny sweaty hairy dude in his undies.    

“Oi what have you done?!”

In that moment I found his Australian accent utterly ridiculous.