(NB: This is another story set in the Malibu Comics Universe. Now, Malibu's Ultraverse was not really the most inspired universe ever—it was really all about style over substance, and several characters were blatant takeoffs on Marvel or DC characters (Hardcase was like a Hollywood Superman; Night Man was kind of like Batman—actually, even more like Valiant Comics's second iteration of Shadowman, as both Shadow and Night were jazz performers I believe); Mantra was a magical version of the myth-based Wonder Woman (although Mantra was a male spirit inside a female's body); Prototype was basically Iron Man; Firearm was a sort of detective Punisher of sorts; Solitaire looked like a blue/violet- costumed Deadpool, but had Daredevil's crimefighting sort of mood/setting and Wolverine's healing factor; and Sludge was like an urban version of Man-Thing or Swamp Thing. (I could go on with other Malibu/Otherwhere comparisons, but I'd like to get to the story here:))
Malibu was ultimately bought out by Marvel (aka the Machine, in my stories) around 1996 or 1997 or so, and its characters were basically placed into a legal limbo, the kind of which there is such an unnavigable morass that basically none of these personas will never appear in print again.
Anyway, Sludge is a tragic character like the aforementioned "Thing"s who is isolated from people through his monstrosity. I wanted to give him a happy ending of sorts, so here you go.)
SEWAGE ASSUAGED: THE DISTILLATION OF SLUDGE
(OR, SEWAGE A-SWAGED)
By Quillon42
SOMETIME AROUND THE TURN OF THE MILLENNIUM IN A MACHINE-COMANDEERED MALIBUVERSE
After all these years in the muck, the midnight-blue man-object who still lay supine in the sewer…he couldn't think straight.
Still couldn't summon the proper mindset to reach either extreme of release from his repulsive subterranean repose—either through realizing his human form as Frank Hoag once again, or through retiring from his mortal coil via any means. An overdose of that cruel cucumberesque drug Zuke, a brutal concussive blast from the wily yet insipid-looking Lord Pumpkin, or otherwise.
He still couldn't, after all this time, after the dozen or so issues while his Ultraverse was alive—then also the dozen-plus years since said universe fell into Marvel-Machine-acquisition-limbo—still couldn't talk or even think along a trajectory of expression that made the slightest scintilla of sense.
Living all this time down here with the curves…
…curbs…
…CURSE…
It ended up becoming more of an effort to enunciate sentences than it would ever be for him to exterminate enemies.
Just as it confounded the creature that he couldn't get a complete thought to flow well, it pained him excruciatingly that he was unable to mesh with the rest of society. The horror who was once Mr. Hoag was always on the fringe of his urban environs anyway, as a corrupt detective who moonlit as a colluder with the underworld. It was when he refused to rub out a fellow lawman, a negligible queefling named Niall Quinn, that said underworld turned on Hoag and had the man himself executed in turn via a barrage of semiautomatic bullets.
But everything about Frank Hoag's seeming final moments, during that incident, was more complex than the standard firing squad shootdown. Indeed, circumstances then were so much more…fluid than that.
Indeed, just as the researcher Ted Sallis in the aforementioned Machine's reality had, while dying, fallen into the quite natural milieu of the swamp and transmogrified from there into the Man-Thing…(and just as a number of other such characters, such as Swamp Thing and at least one iteration of the decades-honored Heap shared similar origins), here, in ever so slight contrast, the peace officer Frank Hoag had slipped into the synthetic SLUDGE of so many human-combined chemicals, and from thence became an creature comprised from such substance.
When the once-human entity emerged from his subterranean swaddling, he found almost immediately that he could utilize his chemical flesh to absorb at least moderate attacks from assailants, then turn the tables by lashing out with his own tendrils of sewer waste upon his targets. The result was most times a rapid generation of additional flesh upon the victim, especially upon said target's face, to the juncture of suffocation by the Sludge. It was as if this azure entity were another blue bomber, like Mega Man…only his arm cannons fired out cancer as ammunition.
Amidst all this terror of flesh upon flesh, deep down Hoag only envisioned, beyond either a cure through rehumanization or a release through death, of the skin upon skin intimate contact…with Edna.
Yes, in the gunkiest nook of the back of the street-beast's mind, she lingered. Edna, that lady of his life who slipped away several sleeping hours with Frank so many years back, years ago when he was an honest cop. An alluring brunette who never once blanched at who Hoag was. At least not back then.
Usually during whatever slumber he could wrest from the roiling rodent's haven which he called home, those memories of intimacy most carnal catcalled. Nothing but flesh, the smoothest of skin between these love-famished lovers, the two flanked by satiny blankets, soft sensations all around.
None of this…Sludge in which the morsel of mortality that was Frank Hoag was now housed, and of which he was repeatedly, ruefully reminded of whenever he awakened.
In his human years, when the man became more of a mook, and took to the "take" that the mob was doling out—that was when Edna washed her hands of him, and their relationship consequently went the way of his brutally-bulleted body…
…down the drain.
When the chemical creature wasn't literally oozing avengement upon those in the city who were truly scum, he would lie there, darkly in the dishwashed-down depths, thinking about what he had become in more ways than one, detesting himself and lamenting his predicament. This lapis-lazuli lurker languished into a pool of self-pity, a slurry of self-sorry.
He never did find out what became of Edna after she walked out all those woeful years ago. Did she ever reach her dream, the one in which she ran that nonprofit that stretched down to touch those most destitute and degraded? For certain she could have changed the course of Chas's life, for example…Chas, that blind down-and-outer street urchin whose lot was only to sell scraps of news day in and day out to an overprivileged public.
For certain, she was effecting change somewhere—and for the better to boot. Frank never blamed her for an instant; he deserved her desertion.
Edna worked so hard to make chafe…
Chains…
…CHANGE…
Even just thinking about her, the creature could feel it even now, as he reached with wretched arms out into the dank underground ambience all around, feel somehow her soothing breath against his chemical-churning cheeks. But it couldn't be; she must have been as many miles away now as she was years away for him, as far along her path as she was into his past.
Speaking of change…it must have been all the intensified thoughts of Edna, indeed, that caused all these latent changes in this bizarre blotch of bluishness that was once Frank Hoag. Said blotch, once so much more bloated, was now a bit more diminished, no longer nine feet tall but now only seven, his semi-humanoid frame no longer four feet wide but now only three. Something inside him was eating away, and it wasn't just the angst of lovesickness and isolation.
The Hoag-husk didn't know it, but what it was in actuality was a phenomenon not unlike those undergone by any heroin addict enduring withdrawal. Just as several smackheads taking a cold turkey dissipated physically through traumatic bouts of emesis and diarrhea, the entity itself was wasting away, the monster molting all his muck due to so many weeks now without that addictive substance Zuke. While he was on it, the Sludge became much sleeker, smarter…stronger (although he still had his sapphire ass handed to him by toughs such as the uninspired Bash Brothers). Once it was out of his system, it was only so much time before he would be dogged by this drippy dissociation.
And another factor would figure in to help catalyze the collapse of cerulean crap from the creature's constitution…(at least to an extent).
In particular, it was not long after the day had dusked out that a very important woman in the Frank-freak's existence emerged once more.
"Hoag!"
As the entity struggled to keep its rheumy eyelids open, he noted a voluptuous angel alighting upon his sewery sanctuary. It must have been Edna, coming to deliver him at last…
…although for the life of him, he didn't recall his lady with locks of hair quite so funky in their configuration…
An instant later said lady looked down upon the unconscious mess that was formerly in part a man. "Damn…he checked out just as I happened along…"
Flipping up to focus her camcorder on the Sludge, seasoned reporter Shelley Rogers rapped her spiel extemporaneously, the muckraking muckcomrade fixing to film her friend, the ex-Detective Hoag, in the most appealing light imaginable.
"Here he lies, ladies and gentlemen. What you see here might appear to be a mixture of corporate discards…a cacophony of chemicals…"
She then zoomed in on the closed eyes of the entity.
"…but, in fact, it is…or at least was…once a man.
"…and it is still, to me…a friend."
Shelley knew that she was risking her reputation, and perhaps even her sanity, by running this live story. To align herself with this person-puddle before the entire viewing public…she might end up winning over sanitarium whitecoats in earnest with her performance.
Perhaps they would be ready for me with the stretcher and straitjacket, just as I come up through the manhole…
Rogers repressed the thought. What she was doing down here, it was important.
And not in the least because there was here, down with her, another individual who would change Frank's life for the better, through multiple means.
After about five or six minutes explaining to viewers the background of Detective Frank Hoag, as well as the abilities and feats of the being that he became, Shelley:
"In sum, ladies and gentlemen, what you see here is not a horror, but a hero.
"Not an ogre…
"…but an Ultra."
She then turned the cam's attention to the figure with whom she descended to this juncture, an alluring armored, familiar brunette who swayed carefully up to the Sludge, with a swordlike object…
…then drove the blade deep into the entity's chest.
A couple of hours later, a man with a square jaw and light brown hair stirred from his episode of oblivion. When he fully came to, he sat up.
Blinked a few times.
Placed hands with fair human skin before his unbelieving eyes.
And then…
"Frank."
…Looked over at the lover whom he'd beheld only in dreams these past several years.
The man shook his head silly, ran those normal palms over his eyes again and again.
Gazed again with amazement upon the woman beside him.
"Edna…
"…Edna?!…
"…EDNA!"
It was her. In the beautiful, becoming, unblemished flesh.
As Frank Hoag launched himself into the ready, embracing arms of his life's great love, he marveled at three things: one, that he actually wasn't dreaming this time per se; two, that Edna was here, with him, and her lying with him here in this bed meant that she never moved on fully from the bond that they forged…
…and three, that his verbal progression just now was indeed just three "Edna"s…not "Echo/Ender/Edna," not "Aetna…Etyma…Edna"…it was, through and through:
"Edna…Edna…Edna…"
The man who was once such a lugubrious marsh, he now found himself deluged with a most sudden and onrushing flash flood of fortune. He now had the love again that he had missed so tenderly; he had the limbs of a man again that he missed so wistfully; he had the life again that he missed so preciously…so many emotions, from euphoria to infuriation coursed through him now, washed and whirlpooled all through Frank Hoag. As he looked to, then linked his arms around, then lathered his love Edna with so many smothering kisses, the man knew that it would all be so different now. It would all be better from here on in.
As it would turn out, in truth…
It would be better…
…but perhaps "slightly less awful" was the best way to put it for now.
Some more instants of explanation, more elaborations by Edna, and then…
"What do you MEAN I'm not totally back to normal?!"
The clock struck half past midnight by this time.
"Frank, my little fraggle of fondness…I cannot begin to tell you how much of a release it was to assume my own Ultra identity, with the help of Doctor Gross here. What he did…he reversed the polarity of the experiments he worked on people like Kevin Green, better known as Prime, as well as all those tests he did which yielded chemicals eventually jettisoned into the sewer…where…
And then Edna looked away, as she realized that revealing all the details to Frank about the detritus that drowned the Detective into the grotesquerie he became, it all might be too much for him to bear.
Especially in light of the news to come upon him…
…that his murky, mucky nightmare was not yet quite over.
"See, Frank, in my identity now as Swage, I can take that sworinge—yes, an implement which is somewhat sword/blade, and somewhat syringe/needle—and inject 'cure,' reinstate humanity upon anything infected with Gross's gack. That's exactly what I did to you, underground, while Rogers was filming her exclusive on it. You might be surprised to know, now, that you've become international news!"
Hoag felt shocked, pleased, and frightened by all this, all at once. It was nice, he had to admit, that his rehumanization could be broadcast to the planet, after he had been a monster to so many on the streets…
…but how safe would be and Edna be now, with everyone around knowing who he was? Were there others, like Bloodstorm and that Pumpkin fucker, still around? Who would now know him also as Frank Hoag, a detective who was far more defenseless compared to the creature he had been?
As if Edna could read him mentally: "Frank, you and I've got nothing to worry about, in terms of danger. Yes, you've had a dangerous profession—professions, really, from supercop to ultrahero. But you're going to retire very soon, believe me…once we've got you completely cured."
Hoag looked to his lady quizzically.
Completely cured?
"You're not all the way there, just yet. For now…the way it works is, your life is going to be a reverse version of the Machine's original iteration of the Incredible Hulk. Of course, I can explain it in such terms without worrying about copyright, ever since those Bullpen bastards bought us out a few years back.
"As opposed to the original Banner's changes, in which Bruce was human by day, then the Green Goliath by night (well, technically he was Gray in the first issue, but anyways)…when the sun rises, you will be slathered in the Sludge once again. …I'm sorry, hon."
A tear came to Edna's own eye as she watched Frank himself start to sob frustratedly at the prospect.
"But…but Frank, listen to me. When night falls…you'll be a man once again. The same man I see before me now—and the same man I want by my side every night.
"This is going to be temporary, I swear it. For the next few months, till we can get the cure for you perfected, you can do what you want as your…other self. Rest in the sewers, if you feel comfortable there. Maybe tie up some loose ends with some toughs who might be out there, threatening the city. Maybe the metropolis could use you out there a bit more, cleaning up the neighborhoods in your own little, dirty way."
Edna winked wryly as she finished this last, and Frank chuffed sardonically in turn.
"But listen to me, Fraggle…it's going to get better. Soon…very soon, you're going to be Frank Hoag by night, and by day as well…
"…And, in turn, I will not only continue on as Swage, to adventure as an Ultra in your place…I myself will become Edna Hoag, by night, and by day. I swear it."
She looked to him, and he gazed back, into eyes that reflected nothing but truthfulness from them. Grinning grandly, Frank took his lady into his arms once again, gathered her up intimately with hug that was heavier than any adverse embrace he enforced as his other, Ultra self.
This twist of fate was all a bit sudden, and perhaps to the reader it would all come off as saccharine sappiness of a thickness greater than the most intense indigo Sludge imaginable…
…but for the ordeals that Detective Frank Hoag had endured all this time, and the eventual redemption he had garnered through it…he merited such cheery changes, and he readily accepted them, jumped head first and reclined relaxedly in this limpid lagoon of luck.