Blue Light Productions presents:
Birth Of A Villain #27
A chaotic add-on cascade-type Legion of Net.Heroes title
"Triptych"
Story 1: "A Typical Net.Villain Rant With A Side Order of Exposition"
Story 2: "Meanwhile, Back At The Mysterious Chairman's Office"
Story 3: "Ask The Answer Maniac: Who Is... wReamicus Maximus?"
Written by Saxon Brenton
Art by M*tt F**zle
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Cover is split into thirds. The top left shows wReamicus Maximus in
a Dramatic Villain pose ranting at a half-seen prisoner in a glass
tube. The top right half shows a Melissa clone standing triumphantly
over the Mysterious Chairman, who has been thrown to the floor and
is lying amidst some Perez-style rubble. The bottom third shows a
grinning man in a suit and tie sitting at a desk. The cover blurb
proclaims: 'Triptych".
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Story 1: "A Typical Net.Villain Rant With A Side Order Of Exposition"
wReamicus Maximus, Acolyte of Dvandom and master net.villain,
rushed in through the door and slammed it closed behind him. Now safe,
he straightened up, regained his breath, and smoothed back his hair.
For a second a look of disgruntlement crossed his face. He wouldn't
have had to have fled like that if he still had the powers of wRift.
Or even of Perverticator.
Then he looked around with satisfaction at the tesseracted base
that he had secretly set up as a bolt hole in case of emergency. Given
his current 'mere mortal' state, its creation had been a sensible
precaution. The alliance between wReamicus' own Church of Dvandom and
the Church of the Fourth Wall under the leadership of Father Brown was
just that: an alliance. wReamicus did not control the Church of the
Fourth Wall (at least, not yet) and had suspected in advance that he
would require a means of quick escape.
(After all, wReamicus had intended all along to betray Father
Brown by goading him into doing something foolish, so it was beyond
wReamicus' comprehension that Father Brown might not been intending
to betray him in return. Such is bad guy psychology.)
No longer in strategic retreat mode, wReamicus strode across the
floor and set about with plans to wrest back control of the situation.
He stopped at a control panel and activated some monitor screens,
which duly showed the battling forces of the Cabbage Wielding Angel of
Death duking it out with the reanimated corpse of President Taft, as
well as the no longer battling forces of the Church of the Fourth Wall
and the Nodakommados. There were also scenes of the latter two groups
searching for wReamicus throughout the Church of the Fourth Wall's
base, the Cathedral of Hate, but he had little concern that they
would ever catch him. Without the multiphase key to activate the
dimensional doorway into tesseract, there was little chance that they
could even find the entry into his pocket dimensional space, let alone
open it.
Still...
"I am vexed, Fourth Wall Lass," he announced, turning to face
his prisoner.
The Legionnaire was trapped in one of those vacuum tube-like
containment thingies that are so beloved of supervillains, and not
just the supervillains of the Looniverse. FWLass was sitting cross-
legged on the floor of the tube rather than carrying out the accepted
practise of standing up and pounding at the sides of the container. He
was mildly disappointed in her because of this lapse in etiquette.
She sighed and asked, "Why are you vexed, wReamicus Maximus?"
"Ha! Wouldn't you like to know, of perfidious creation of a False
Writer other than The One True Dvandom!"
Fourth Wall Lass massaged the bridge of her nose and then said
to him, "wReamicus, you're an F-wit."
"You DARE!?..."
"SHUT UP! I'm going to explain this to you only once, so pay
attention. You are a net.villain who has just suffered a setback and
have retreated to regain control of the situation. As a net.villain
who has suffered a setback and has retreated to regain control of the
situation, you need to not just implement a Cunning Plan to carry this
out, but you also need to exposit your plan to demonstrate how Cunning
and Evil you are, and generally show that you are a force to be
reckoned with. At the moment you don't have any of your usual minions
from the Church of Dvandom around to ask the sort of leading questions
that you can use as a starting point for a good old-fashioned super-
villainous Dramatic Monologue. You only have me, and some of those
left-over Space Dvandoms that you tricked Father Brown into using. The
Space Dvandoms are a pretty servile bunch, and to be honest the only
type of supervillainous rants that they are good for provoking are the
'Why am I surrounded by *fools*!?' routine. If you want to try and
regain some credibility with the readers as a Major Threat, you've got
to rant your expositionary dialogue at me. Now I admit that for me
it's only been about a day and a half since the start of the whole
'Where On Earth Is Carmen SanFrancisco' storyline over in _Writers
Block Woman (and Mouse)_, but I haven't had any sleep in that time and
I'm about to drop off. If you want to begin a good exposition, you're
going to have to do it now before I go sleepy-bo-bos."
wReamicus Maximus threw her a sour look, then gave in and
declaimed, "I am vexed, Fourth Wall Lass."
"Why are you vexed, o wReamicus Maximus?" she asked, in the sing-
song type of voice that a vaudeville straight man would use. He glared
at her over the tone, then continued.
"My fiendish plan to spread chaos and entropy and the writings of
Dvandom has been compromised. It is true, my alliance with the Church
of the Fourth Wall has borne fruit in that the accursed Legion of
Net.Heroes is in disarray; either comatose, or lost in time, or simply
running around on desperate errands to gain McGuffin-esque plot
devices. Only the efforts of one group are currently even close to
foiling the immediate threat of Melissa's Legionnaire's Disease, and
typically the driving force of that faction is not even a member of
the Legion."
wReamicus Maximus paused for a second as a thought occurred to
him. Perhaps he could trick the Legion into giving Tsar Chasm
membership. That would almost certainly compromise Tsar Chasm's
effectiveness. Even honorary membership would do. He put idea aside
for further consideration.
"However," he said, returning to his original theme, "that is all
but a mere distraction so that my allies and myself could consolidate
power by invoking the power of a Writer to reshape the Looniverse to
our whims. Unfortunately the Church of the Fourth Wall's obsessive
desires to achieve order by sealing off the Looniverse is, at least in
principle, at odds with my desire for chaos in all forms."
Fourth Wall Lass nodded. "I remember how you proceeded with
Retcon Hour. Creating all those alt.timelines and such. You got rid of
them in the end, but only after they'd served your needs."
wReamicus bowed. "Just so. Of course, Father Brown was prepared
to compromise his principles a little in order to pursue a mutually
desired end result, but even so I still had to distract him a little
from the fundamental conflict between his methods and mine. I
choreographed a number of events and even took advantage of a few
unanticipated occurrences; the attack by the Nodakommandos and your
own arrival in the storyline, for example." Then he grinned. "After
all, it wouldn't do to give him time to reflect on how far I had led
him astray. Why, he might even be able to back away from the corrupt
road I'd been leading him down. Bwahahahahahaha!"
"You're a frothing madman."
"Perhaps," admitted wReamicus. "As you say, this plan may be just
the rantings of a madman..." Then he stopped. He'd lost his train of
thought again. This sort of thing happened to him a lot, but
fortunately it usually occurred when it looked like he was pausing
dramatically. What had he been saying? Something about his plan being
nothing but the rantings of a madman. That was no good; he said that
sort of thing all the time...
Oh yes.
"...but you will remember that I *am* the heir of wReamed Acton
Lord, and so corruption is both a method and a goal for me.
"In any event, these distractions were either insufficient, or
turned against me. The Church of the Fourth Wall does not care which
Writer is summoned and enslaved, only so long as the fourth wall is
strengthened and all other Writers are kept out. They have since
changed their alliance to join with the Nodakommandos to summon David
R. Henry into the Looniverse. On the other hand, your presence was
enough to bring Father Brown to the verge of abandoning any attempts
to summon a Writer at all until after you had been captured."
"Is that why you spirited me away and stuffed me in this vacuum
tube?" Then she yawned. "Oh. Excuse me."
"Of course. It wasn't because the group that you were with was
running any risk of *getting anything done*! In any case, I burned out
a quite substantial piece of Plot Devicium in order to bring you here
and wipe out the memory of your presence in everybody who you have
most recently been interacting with. And even that was a waste of
effort, since Father Brown *still* abandoned his alliance with me to
take up the offer of help from the Nodakommandos.
"Now I must begin a new tack. Attempting to corrupt Father Brown
and his Church while 'supplying aid' to them - such as the Space
Dvandoms - did not work. Now that I am on the outside looking in I
will need to disrupt and usurp their plans to summon DHenry for my
own purposes."
"You could refocus the problems that the LNH face so that they
become problems for the Church instead," suggested Fourth Wall Lass.
wReamicus gave her a withering look. "And free up the Legion so
that they can thwart *all* of our plans, mine included? A nice
attempt, child, but no thank you."
She shrugged. "It was worth a try."
"After using up so much Plot Devicium I am low on immediately
available resources and options. I will need time to summon help from
the Church of Dvandom. You, Fourth Wall Lass, proved to be a
distraction to Father Brown once before. I am sure that I can use you
so to do just the same thing again..."
Unfortunately wReamicus' sinister leer was lost on FWLass, since
she had finally fallen asleep.
wReamicus pouted, then turned away to make preparations.
=================================================
Story 2: "Meanwhile, Back At The Mysterious Chairman's Office..."
Meanwhile, back at the office of the Mysterious Chairman, said
Mysterious Chairman was reading through reports of the rampage of
Melissa, and the activities of the Legion of Net.Heroes to combat her.
His mood was subdued. As normal, the Legion wasn't doing very
well. They weren't actually failing, but all too typically squabbling
they were among themselves and allowing themselves to be distracted
and be dumped into other time periods.
At times it was an embarrassment to know that one lived in a
world that needed defending by heroes like that.
He stood up and gazed out the window of his office. From here he
could see most of Net.ropolis.
The door to his office opened. He turned, expecting to see his
secretary, Ms Cliched Evil But Buxom Vixen arriving with more reports.
Instead, he found a red headed girl of about thirteen years old
striding imperiously in. She paused, looked around with the haughty
manner of someone who simply *knows* that the sun shines out of them,
and announced, "I claim this building as my own. You will serve me,
or die."
"Get rid of her," the Mysterious Chairman told his guards with
irritated distraction.
The two guards of the Mysterious Chairman moved forward. The
girl had no difficulty sidestepping their advance, then driving her
fist into the chest of one of them and tearing out his still beating
heart.
The other guard pulled his gun. Or tried to. He managed to get
it out of his holster, whereupon it slipped from his fingers. He
grabbed at it with both hands, but still managed to drop it. It fell
to the floor and discharged, leaving a bullet hole in the plaster of
the ceiling. The girl threw the remaining guard to the floor with a
single swipe of her arm.
The Mysterious Chairman could not believe this, and drew his own
gun as well. He also fumbled it. He tried to pick the gun up from the
floor, but couldn't seem to get his fingers to obey him.
"Don't bother," the girl said, stepping on the gun. The
Mysterious Chairman gaped at her for a second, then recognised her
features. Despite her reduced age, she was clearly... "Melissa!" he
hissed.
"Melissa no longer! I am Merissa! Heir to the throne of Fribble,
Lord High Muck-a-muck of the Kid's Crew program, Bearer of the Sacred
Chalice of Ryxx, Eternal Nemesis of Flipseid, Time Lord President
elect, Sun of the Son, and holder of the best Kobayashi Maru score
*ever*! On your knees before me, worm!"
Normally the Mysterious Chairman would have been simultaneously
amused by her ludicrous claims to significance and annoyed by her
presumption - a combination that would have given her a life
expectancy measured in minutes. Now, however, he felt an overwhelming
need to grovel before her. But even as he did so he was analysing his
predicament and guessing that the little minx must be broadcasting
some sort of telepathic compulsion.
Following Merissa into the office were a bunch of children. All
were younger than the pint-sized dictator, and all were wearing
Starfleet costumes (not 'uniforms', these were *costumes* such as
Trek fans might create for themselves). The Mysterious Chairman's
eyebrows arched in bemusement as he noted that they all looked a bit
like Merissa herself to a greater or lesser extent - even the boys.
"My entourage," Merissa noted off-handedly. Of course, she would
call them that; it was a much more snazzy sounding description than,
'My gang of juvenile delinquent underlings'. She looked at the
remaining guard of the Mysterious Chairman and decided, "And it's
time that you joined them."
The guard wasn't sure what she was talking about, but his face
fell into a masque of fear as she moved towards him. He tried to back
away, but he became as stumble-footed as he had been earlier been
butter-fingered. He tripped over backwards.
Implacably, Merissa came up to him as he tried to crawl away and
grabbed ahold of his chest.
"AAAhhh!" came his cry. "Nnnng. nnnng..."
The Mysterious Chairman watched as the guard began to shrink. In
seconds the man had been regressed to something like the age of
eleven. His hair was now a reddish-brown rather than the striking red
of Merissa, and the light complexion of freckles that he had had as
an adult were now thick and distinctive as compared to all-powerful
Merissa's milky skinned perfection, but there could be no doubt that
the enslaved guard had been stamped indelibly with the nature of his
new lord and mistress.
"Okay Deryk, go and take your place with the others," Merissa
ordered. The Mysterious Chairman wondered how she had known that the
man's... the boy's name was Deryk, and as the unfortunate stood up to
obey her the Mysterious Chairman couldn't help but notice that new
recruit was now wearing a Starfleet costume too.
The Mysterious Chairman was taken aback by how quickly his
demesne had been overrun. Part of him seethed in impotent rage. But
another part, a more coldly analytical part, had grimly come to the
conclusion that in order to force this sort of incompetency onto
others, that Merissa's psi power had to be telepathetic rather than
telepathic in nature. He hoped this new power that the Melissa clone
had was a replacement for her prime self's abilities to multiply
herself across the internet rather than being in addition to them,
because it was an abomination enough with just *one* of her like this.
The fact that she seemed to need to transform others into pint-sized
underling semi-clones rather than replicate herself was a hopeful sign
in that direction.
"What is the meaning of this?" he asked with chill intolerance.
Merissa insolently plonked herself down into his chair and made
herself comfortable. "I intend to use your resources as the first
stepping stone in my conquest of the internet. I am aware that it
was your group who sent the reanimated body of former President Taft
to invade the headquarters of the Church of the Fourth Wall in
Washing.net [in _Birth Of A Villain_ #11 - Footnote Girl], just as I
am aware that behind the facade of your business pursuits you are in
fact the mastermind behind the crime scene here in Net.ropolis. Once
I have used those resources to consolidate my hold over both the
Church of the Fourth Wall *and* the Legion of Net.Heroes, then
nothing will be able to stand in my way." Her voice had been steadily
rising through this monologue, and now she was ranting outright.
"This world and all the worlds adjacent to it will tremble before me!
The cosmic entities of the Net will be my servants, and Constellation
and Tempest and Mike Nelson will be my concubines! All time and space
will be mine!"
"Not so, sphamful one," came a voice from the door of the office.
With wrathful disdain Merissa turned to see what pitiful fool
dared to dissent against her.
She found a small green humanoid dressed in a large top hat and
a kimono. The figure bowed deeply and announced, "My object all
sublime, I shall achieve in time- To let the punishment fit the crime."
"Take this cretin away," Merissa commanded to her underlings.
The Star Trek costume clad ankle-biters leapt to obey. In return the
figure took from its hat a huge double-headed axe and with one fell
movement cleaved the obnoxious pre-teens in half. The mess that this
made on the expensive carpet of the Mysterious Chairman's office was
considerable.
Anger darkened Merissa's features. "Stop that!" she snapped. "On
your knees! Bow before my divinity, mortal scum."
Presumably this was meant to stop Green Eggs - for that is who
it was - in his tracks. It did not work.
"My object all sublime, I shall achieve in time- To let the
punishment fit the crime," he chanted as he approached, happily
swinging his axe from side to side.
Merissa's eyes widened as she suddenly realised that here was
someone immune to her telepathetic powers. "Keep back!" she stammered
as the OSDer kept walking nearer at a steady and unhurried rate. "Get
away from me!" Her nerve broke, and she fled from the room screaming.
The Mysterious Chairman got painfully to his feet. He could feel
Merissa's baneful influence ebbing now that she was distracted by
fear for her life. He could hear her being chased around the other
offices, followed by the continuing chant, "My object all sublime, I
shall achieve in time- To let the punishment fit the crime."
The Mysterious Chairman picked up his gun. With swift and
deliberate movements he unloaded, reloaded, and then holstered the
item that not five minutes ago he couldn't even handle without risk
of dropping it. Yes, Merissa's power was definitely in abeyance.
There was a final horrible screech from the next room, followed
by a series of blunt 'thunks' that sounded very much like a carcass
of meat being chopped at with a large axe. The Mysterious Chairman
smiled.
A figure appeared at the door. There were red stains all over its
kimono. The Mysterious Chairman was not without a sense of gratitude,
and perhaps more to the point he did not - yet - wish to tangle with a
being who had so easily taken out the munchkin-esque Merissa. There
would be time enough to remove this little green figure, and all the
other net.heroes, at a later date.
And so the Mysterious Chairman bowed deeply. "You have my
thanks, 'Lord High Executioner'."
Green Eggs bowed in return, and then silently turned and left.
The Mysterious Chairman activated his desk intercom, opening a
line to the building's security personnel. "A small green man just
left my office. He may or may not be seen by your staff. Allow him to
leave without interference. Do not make contact; just monitor his
movements for later study."
The Mysterious Chairman turned off the intercom and went to
stand at the window of his office.
This incident had angered him. He could live, barely, with the
likes of the Legion of Net.Heroes, because they weren't usually a
pro-active group and most of the time they sat around eating pizza and
watching television. If he was careful in his activities then most of
the time the Legion didn't even pay attention to his doings.
Which was good for the Mysterious Chairman, because with the
range of power available to the LNH they could, if they got their act
together, obliterate not just all crime on Net.ropolis but also on
the rest of the planet (not to mention obliterate the planet itself,
probably purely by accident),
But this attack by Melissa/Merissa had been personal. Had he not
already sent Taft to obliterate the base of operations of her and her
masters in the Church of the Fourth Wall, he would have vowed to
destroy them.
And there were still other Melissa's out there - some of them
still true to their original parameters, some of them as deranged as
Merissa had been. (Even as he stood looking out at the city he could
see a fifty foot tall Melissa clone rampaging through the campus of
Dave Thomas Deluxe University.)
He sighed. This was going to be a long storyline.
=================================================
Story 3: "Ask The Answer Maniac: Who Is... wReamicus Maximus?"
The scene opens showing a man in a suit and tie sitting at a
desk. He has his hands folded in front of him, and is smiling broadly
in a welcoming manner.
"Hello there. I'm the Answer Maniac, and I'm here to answer your
questions about Legion of Net.Heroes continuity. Today's question
comes from Mr. A Bug, who asks: 'Who is this wReamicus Maximus guy
anyway? I noticed that in the end of _Birth Of A Villain_ part 9 that
Rob Rogers was worried that he'd get yelled at for using somebody
else's character.'
"Well Mr Bug, wReamicus Maximus is an old and well establish LNH
foe. As his name implies, he was created by wReam - Ray Bingham, the
man behind the LNH leader Ultimate Ninja. wReamicus is a master
net.villain, a fermentor of chaos, and head of his own cult - the
Church of Dvandom.
"The origin of wReamicus Maximus lies with the Acton Lord
gif.clone known as wReamed Acton Lord. During the 'Electrocutioner's
Song' crossover wReamed Acton Lord formed a tryst with a woman whom
he thought was a rent-a-bimbo, but in truth was a net.hero called
Taskani who was a descendant of Multi-Tasking Man and who was from
the same alt.future as Contraption Man. Taskani stole information
vital to wReamed Acton Lord's plans and handed it over to the Legion
of Net.Heroes before returning home to the future. Later during
'Electrocutioner's Song' a plot dangler was revealed when Contraption
Man returned to the present and mentioned that Taskani was pregnant
but would not reveal who the father of her child was.
"In a subplot of the 'Jungle Cheesecake' crossover wReamicus
Maximus - even then head of the Church of Dvandom - attempted to track
down the by-now deceased wReamed Acton Lord (who had perished at the
end of 'Electrocutioner's Song') in an alt.future, only to find the
Perverticator instead. Perverticator claimed to be the son of wReamed
Acton Lord, and to have destroyed the Legion of Net.Heroes of that era
in his father's name. wReamicus Maximus tricked Perverticator into
merging with him, effectively stealing the latter's power for himself.
"Suspicions that Taskani's child was the progeny of wReamed
Action Lord were confirmed in _System Corruptors_ #9 when the
net.villain Psykeye confronted wReamicus Maximus and induced a
hallucinatory psycho-drama in wReamicus. In this psycho-drama
wReamicus' worst fears were played out: wReamicus met his own father,
wReamed Acton Lord, and told him of how he had travelled to the
present and taken over the body of the founder of the Dvandom
religion, but wReamed Acton Lord rejected him because of who his
mother was. wReamicus swore revenge against Pyskeye, but the
experience also spurred wReamicus on to greater levels of net.villainy
in order to prove himself a true heir of wReamed Acton Lord.
"wReamicus Maximus' net.villainy came to a head during the
'Retcon Hour' crossover. Having already retconned Contraption Man
into being evil and an acolyte of wReamicus' own Church of Dvandom,
wReamicus ordered Contraption Man to pretend to serve the Time
Crapper. The Time Crapper (or more specifically, the Time Crapper 1,
since there are multiple versions running around the Looniverse's
timestream) was planning to use the instability caused by the passage
of vote for the creation of rec.arts.comics.creative and the sub-
sequent projection of the Looniverse into the new newsgroup to Take
Over The World.
"However, true to his origins as a wReam character, wReamicus
Maximus intended to advance his plans by creating chaos and confusion.
To this end he ordered his undercover minion Contraption Man to cause
all of the alt.timelines created by the Time Crapper's retcons to
exist simultaneously. Moreover, wReamicus also transported the evil
Implo into the Looniverse, whereupon that alien entity went around
cancelling every LNH title that it could lay its hands on. Both of
these events are recorded in _System Corruptors_ #16.
"As wReamicus Maximus had expected, the chronological confusion
of Retcon Hour prompted the LNH to retrieve the Ring of Retcon in
order to try to repair the damage, which wReamicus immediately stole
(_Generation Y_ Annual #1). Then, in _Retcon Hour Omega_ wReamicus
used the Ring of Retcon to transform himself into the ultra-power
wRift in order to enjoy thrashing the entire Legion. However, during
the battle Continuity Champ Jr. was able to oppose him on equal
footing and overcame the net.villain. When the fight was over wRift
had been transformed back into wReamicus Maximus, but his mind had
been destroyed.
"For a while the comatose wReamicus served as figurehead of the
Church of Dvandom - a homage on the 'Magneto as unconscious ruler of
Avalon while Exodus rules in his name' subplot that ran through the
X-books in the mid 1990s. He revived as a result of the events of
_Generation Y_ issues 15 and 16, which also gave a glimpse of an
alt.future whereby he had confirmed his mega-menace status by
exterminating the majority of the Legion before being executed by
Lagneto in reprisal for the death of the adult version of Pizza Girl.
However, it wasn't until the 'Birth Of A Villain' chaotic add-on
cascade that wReamicus finally made a return appearance in the
here-and-now to try and wreak new chaos upon the world.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
WILL wREAMICUS MAXIMUS DEVISE A CUNNING PLAN?
WILL FOURTH WALL LASS GET ENOUGH SLEEP?
IS THAT SLEEP REALLY FROM EXHAUSTION, OR IS IT THE
ONSET OF LEGIONNAIRE'S DISEASE?
WHAT OTHER INSANE PERMUTATIONS WILL THE FLAWED
MELISSA REPLICANTS TURN OUT?
WILL SOMEBODY - ANYBODY - WRITE AN EPISODE THAT
ACTUALLY *ADVANCES* THE PLOT?
For the answers to these and other mind-numbing questions, tune in
next time when they may or may not be addressed in the next episode
of... BIRTH OF A VILLAIN!
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Add Notes:
The Merissa iteration of Melissa is, of course, a take on
Marrissa - Stephen Ratliff's extremely/obscenely Mary-Sue character
from his Star Trek: The Next Generation fanfic stories - and strongly
influenced by the 'Dark Marrissa' satire stories thereof.
----------
Saxon Brenton Uni of Technology, city library, Sydney, Australia
saxon.brenton@uts.edu.au
"There will always be an LNH. Period. Even if all the current writers
disappear in a poof of light, some wandering group of weirdos will
come and look over the remnants of RACC, see what the LNH was, and
rebuild it all over again. In the comic book world, the LNH is a state
of mind that has been given a name: Comic book parody."
- Chad Imbrogno, rec.arts.comics.creative, 1997
