Looking down, the young Sleuth hoped his utility belt hadn’t been removed.
Knowing the boy’s intention, The Grandmaster tsked. “You think I’d be so foolish as to leave you with your lifeline? Surely I’ve earned more respect from you than that.”
“What good does any of this do you, Grandmaster? You know The Inspector will be here any second to sock you on the jaw and free me.”
“You would be mistaken on that score, my young friend. If I were you, I wouldn’t expect him here until well after we’ve finished our little dance. I know it’s cliché for me to say so, but I truly mean it this time. This game requires sacrifices, and we’ll be making one this evening.”
“Don’t be so sure, fiend.”
“Fiend? You play the part well, young man.” The Grandmaster backed up, beyond the lights, fading into the ambient blackness. His voice developed some sort of reverberation, and the boy couldn’t tell where his nemesis was. “You are but a piece in the game and not a player. Your naiveté prevents you from seeing it and your devotion to your mentor prevents you from feeling it. He’s insulated you from the reality that you are nothing more than a pawn.”
Kid Sleuth would have bristled at the idea if he hadn’t been so carefully tied to the post. It restricted any sort of movement beyond the ability to turn his head. He was well and truly trapped.
“The worst part is, you don’t even realize whose pawn you are.”
“You’re the pawn, Grandmaster.”
The interrogation light shut off, leaving Kid Sleuth in the frightening black darkness, filling the boy to the brim with uncertainty for the first time in his heroing career.
The void filled with The Grandmasters amused laughter, consuming Kid Sleuth.
Floodlights from the ceiling clicked on, buzzing as they lit the surrounding area, revealing all.
They were in a massive room, soundproofing on every wall, a sheet of translucent plastic beneath the boy. He was surprised to see no diabolical devices of death. No vats of acid, tanks full of man-eating sharks, no firing squad of themed henchmen, or any other standard means of villainous murder.
It had all the look of your average, every day crime scene, set up by a run of the mill sociopath.
Walking in a wide circle, keeping his distance from the teenage sidekick, The Grandmaster came back into the full view of the boy. “I’m not a Pawn any more than you’re a King. Sure, you began the game a White Pawn, a target for The Inspector to probe my defenses with and sacrifice at will. You’ve been a loyal Pawn for him, and you’ve reached the back row. In time, The Inspector would have hoped to trade you in for a Knight or a Bishop, but you’ve come back on the board as something altogether different. You’re a black now, and I command your moves.”
“If you think I’m joining you, you’re crazier than I thought.” Kid Sleuth knew he had to keep him talking. Villains loved to monologue, and the longer he talked, the more likely it was that he’d be rescued just in the nick of time by his counterpart.
“Again, you misunderstand me, my boy. And your contrarian stalling tactic simply won’t work. The Inspector is chasing down a clue that will take him far, far away from here. And I designed his puzzle to ensure he’d follow his lead. I’ve allotted plenty of time for us to have a long and pleasant conversation because I respect you, and I want you to know exactly why this is happening.”
A frigidity in The Grandmaster’s calculated voice, an uncharacteristic calmness, sent a shiver down the boy’s back. The shiver left and he could feel the pin-needle tingling of lost circulation in his fingers and toes begin to radiate outward.
“You see, Johnny, you’re not what you seem.”
The boy’s eyes widened at the mention of his real name.
“Ha. You weren’t aware that I knew your true identity?”
“You wouldn’t know my real identity if it came up and bit you in the face.”
“You are Johnny Brighton, a sophomore at Theodore Roosevelt High School, home of the Rough Riders. You live with your parents, James and Mary Brighton on the east side of town in a charming little bungalow. You met The Inspector one fateful evening and spent all your time divining his true identity and received a lucky break when you accidentally bumped into him at a social event your parents brought you to. You noticed him slipping away from the party to change into his costume so he could foil the jewel heist The Phantom had been perpetrating at the gala event.”
Johnny said nothing.
The Grandmaster paced casually back and forth in the empty room with his hands behind his back, gesturing with them only occasionally. “You don’t have to confirm it, I’ve had my eye on you. I really do respect you. Which is why if you were my partner, I’d never use you as a target or a lure.”
“I’ll never join you.”
“Again, there has been no invitation for you to do so. But where was I? Oh, yes. A target. Have you noticed how much brighter your costume is than The Inspector’s? It’s a simple tactic. The perpetrator will notice more vivid colors, giving the more morosely costumed vigilante a chance to escape unnoticed. Were any of these villains to employ the use of something so base as a firearm, you’d be dead with the simple pull of the trigger, and your mentor would still be free to solve the crime and apprehend the bad guy. He would never admit it to your face, but you are entirely expendable to him.”
“He’d never let anything happen to me.”
“He already has. But that’s coming to the point too early.”
Kid Sleuth tried everything he could think of in hopes of freeing himself. He tugged at his restraints, looking for any weakness. The more he searched, the less he came up with, and the more he knew The Grandmaster had him dead to rights.
“I’m going to kill you, Jonathan. And it’s going to be an ugly, pre-meditated, bloody murder, hence all the plastic. I won’t enjoy it, but there will be a reason for it. You will not have died in vain.”
The Grandmaster stopped his pacing and took a step toward Kid Sleuth, who was doing his best to keep from crying, but he simply couldn’t help it. The feeling started as dread in his chest, then his mind played out for him all of his fears of mortality. Then the thought of those he might leave behind came to him. The feeling moved up his body, as a quiver in the chin, then as wetness behind his eyes. The only thing that kept a tear from rolling down his cheek was his unwavering faith in his hero, The Inspector.
“For every hero, there is a moment of definition that springs them into action, just as there is for every villain, though I hate the term. I’m not a villain so much as I’m an opportunist. There are things I wish to accomplish, and they wouldn’t hurt anyone, per se. But your mentor continues to simply stand in my way. The things I wish to do are no more immoral than buying the time of a senator or a congressman for favorable legislation. But The Inspector sees it differently. Well, I want to take his world view and alter it in a way that is irreparable.”
The Grandmaster got close enough to Kid Sleuth for the boy to smell his breath once more. The villain, with his gloved hand, lightly brushed his fingers across the boy’s face in a way that seemed to Johnny homicidal yet reassuring all at the same time.
“You won’t kill me,” Kid Sleuth said in a low, frightened voice that was almost a whisper.
“Won’t I, Jonathan? I have to. Surely you see it? I understand why you wouldn’t want it. No one wants to be confronted with the prospect of their death, least of all at your age and without the ability to say your goodbyes.”
“You’re a monster,” Johnny whispered.
“But that doesn’t mean I’m not sorry. I truly am. I wish there was a better way, but this is simply the only way. You’d never join my cause, and even if you did it wouldn’t have the required emotional impact on The Inspector. Betrayal isn’t a strong or painful enough reaction as the shame of failure and loss will be. We’re going to create a moment for The Inspector that will shake his very beliefs to their core. We’ll have made this change together, and I really
am genuinely sorry that you won’t bear witness to this new age with me.”
Kid Sleuth remained mute, hoping to hear something—anything—that would give him the hope he needed to get out of his situation. But there was nothing.
“By my calculation he’s still on the other side of town,” The Grandmaster said icily as he pulled a sizable knife from somewhere behind the boy’s field of vision. It was a solid eight-inch blade the color of midnight with a triangular point and sawed teeth, designed to do as much damage as possible on the way in and the way out.
And still, Kid Sleuth said nothing, hoping for that sign from his mentor that he’d be saved from this madman.
“I want to thank you for not begging for your life. You truly have played your part well, with the dignity that befits a hero of your caliber. I will always remember you fondly and without malice. Please go knowing that this was nothing personal. You simply had a bad choice of friends.”
The tears flowed freely down Johnny’s face. They were bitter and full of all the resignation and anguish that came with misplaced faith.
“You’re sick,” he whispered finally to the archenemy of his mentor.
“I know,” his murderer replied. And with that, Kid Sleuth could feel the long cold blade of a knife piercing into his chest. “We’re changing things together, and know that you and your legacy will never, ever, be forgotten.”
And those simple, cold, calculating words were the last ever to be heard by young Johnny Brighton, who both started and finished his career as a hero by the name of Kid Sleuth.
About the author
Bryan Young works across many different mediums. He’s the author of Lost at the Con (put on Huffington Post’s “Must-Read for Geeks” list) and Operation: Montauk. As a film producer, he's won two Telly Awards, and his past two films (“This Divided State” and “Killer at Large”) were released by The Disinformation Company and were called “filmmaking gold” by The New York Times. He’s also published comic books with Slave Labor Graphics and Image Comics. He’s a contributor for the Huffington Post and StarWars.Com, and the founder and editor in chief of the geek news and review site Big Shiny Robot! Bryan is also an Honorary Friend of the 501st Legion and host of popular new Star Wars podcast “Full of Sith.” In February, he was named by the Chicago Tribune as one of the “Hottest Geek Guys of 2013.” He lives in Salt Lake City with his family.
About the story
The impetus for this story came with the idea that villains who always lose are boring. If the villain doesn't get to taste a victory that costs the hero something dear, then the story simply isn't as interesting as it could be. Batman, my favorite comic book character, could never be as dynamic without the price in his life he's paid at the hands of villains. Why would any other hero be different? As a lifelong fan of Sherlock Holmes, adapting a character into a superhero is something I've thought about as a kid. About a year ago, I came up with the idea of Kid Sleuth and the Inspector and then when I married that idea with The Grandmaster, Changing the Game was born.
A Marvelous New World
Maggie Allen
It all changed when Marvelous Man died.
No one saw it coming. He had superpowers, he was an alien from another planet—he had three hearts, for crying out loud. Somehow Anarchy found all of them.
And then he destroyed Marvelous Man.
Marvelous Man was a miracle to a comic-book nerd like me. I’d spent my whole life reading about fictional superheroes and then one day, there he was, a real one. In some ways, Marvelous Man’s death had been harder for me to believe in than his original appearance had been.
Even after he was gone, I’d never given up being intrigued with Marvelous Man’s story. And I wasn’t alone.
In the months after his death, fandom had gone into overdrive. I should probably be embarrassed by all the fan fiction I read, mostly stuff that takes place in a world where Anarchy was defeated. There was one story though, where Marvelous Man actually had a sidekick. His name was Stupendous Boy and he was able to get to Marvelous Man in the nick of time with an EMP he had built in his basement. He disabled Anarchy’s suit and saved the day.
I liked it so much I even made a costume, similar to Marvelous Man’s, but with the colors reversed, red with yellow accents, including a big S on the front. I’m not that great with sewing, so my friend Mel helped me out.
“I don’t know, Robbie,” she said when I tried on our first effort. “I’m not sure you can pull off spandex. It’s not that it makes you look fat,” she amended, before I could interrupt to protest. “It’s more that it makes you look… small.”
I’m admittedly pretty short. And while not fat, I didn’t have what most would consider an athletic physique either. In the end, my costume ended up being more like a sweat suit than a body suit. But I think the yellow cape really made the look work.
In any case, I knew I’d fit right in at SoCalCon, a comic convention being held mere blocks from where I lived, which was where I’d been headed the evening I first encountered the alien.
A humanoid form, his head in the shape of an anvil, wearing a black body suit with green stripes, was repeatedly smashing himself into an old, derelict phone booth and cackling.
I should have crossed the street. That would have been smart. But I noticed the shape of his head and that it was distinctly non-human. I was transfixed.
The humanoid looked up and squinted at me. He pointed at the phone booth. “I am dessstroying your transssporter junction box, Earthling. And you can do nothing to stop me.”
I looked around, hoping I wasn’t alone with this guy, but the street was empty of all other witnesses. It was up to me to reply to his weirdly worded threat. “That’s just a ...” I stopped myself before I said ‘pay phone.’ Clearly this guy thought he was sabotaging us and I didn’t want him to know otherwise. I tried again. “Why are you, um, destroying our transporter junction box?”
“Becaussse I am The Sssmash and it is my job to dessstroy key piecesss of planetary technology. It will help pave the way for Lord Qqqqsssh.” The Smash hissed something that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to reproduce with my own mouth. “You will be powerlesss againssst him, essspecially now that Marvelousss Man is dead. You have no one to protect you! Lord Qqqqsssh’s reign of terror beginsss today!” With that, he picked up a piece of metal and threw it in my direction forcing me to duck.
I had to do something, and running for my life occurred to me. But then I looked down at the homemade Stupendous Boy costume I was wearing and I knew that wasn’t an option. Instead I blurted out the first thing that crossed my mind. “But Marvelous Man isn’t dead.” That stopped him cold.
“Yesss, he isss.”
“No, he isn’t.” I needed to start thinking fast. I’d put my foot in it now and there was no backing down.
“But I heard Anarchy ssstabbed him. Through all three heartsss.” He looked as puzzled as an alien with an anvil-shaped head could look.
“He got better.”
The Smash squinted at me again.
“What? He did,” I bluffed. “And I would know, since I’m his sidekick ...” I tried to give my voice a heroic pitch. “... Stupendous Boy.”
I was such an idiot. What was I doing? Clearly no one should ever let me improvise.
“Prove it.”
“Fine. I’ll go get Marvelous Man and bring him back.”
“It will take me a while longer to finish decommisssioning your transssporter junction box. I have to make sure it cannot talk to the other unitsss. That way you will have no esssssscape!” The Smash hissed at me. “You will have to bring Marvelousss Man here before I complete my tasssk. If you are not here in time, I will know you are lying and you will anssswer to Lord Qqqqsssh.”
“Okay, fine, I’ll be right back,” I said with more bravado than I really had.
I turned and ran at full speed back toward my apartment. With my cape flowing nicely behind me, I almost did feel like Stupendous Boy. But I wasn’t
really. I was just a twenty-something nerd who liked to read about superheroes. What was I going to do? I needed a plan. Frankly it probably didn’t need to be that good of a plan. If the dedicated way The Smash had been focusing his attention on a piece of outdated hardware no one used anymore was any indication, he probably wasn’t too bright.
I didn’t know much about alien physiology, but I was also guessing based on the way he squinted that he couldn’t see very well. Maybe it had something to do with Earth’s atmosphere or the color of the light from our Sun.
There was no way to know if Lord What’s-his-name was any brighter than The Smash because if he was, we could have a problem—but first things first. If I could produce Marvelous Man, maybe The Smash would go back where he came from and tell his boss to stay away.
I hit the stairs of my apartment at full speed, and was gasping for air by the time I opened my front door. But I had the seed of an idea. It would require my roommate Leo.
He wasn’t in the living room, so I hurdled over computer equipment and a stack of different versions of Settlers of Catan and raced toward his bedroom. “Leo,” I shouted, “We’ve got an emergency!” By the time I’d unceremoniously crashed through his door, he was bolt upright in his desk chair and looking alarmed.
“Remember how Marvelous Man was an alien?” I said, trying to catch my breath. Leo put down the miniature figure he’d been painting and nodded solemnly. “Well, there are more alien races out there. And one of them found us. The Earth was just threatened by a weird-looking alien henchman. Fortunately, he seems about as smart as henchmen usually are. I think we can trick him, but I need your help.”
Leo sprang out of his chair looking as if he were ready to take on the alien baddie right here and now. “What can I do?” he asked. I’ve got to give Leo credit for believing me right away. Maybe in the past he would have just thought I’d lost it. But after Marvelous Man, we knew anything was possible.
A Hero By Any Other Name Page 9
