Chapter 11 PROPER PLANNING PREVENTS POOR PERFORMANCE
Captain Hero was flying over the East River between the Bronx and Queens, and heard an explosion in the distance. He knew from his hobby of following super-crime news that Ryker's Island prison was on one of the islands in the river, and that prison breaks seemed to happen every month or two. Just what a new superhero looking to make a reputation for himself needed! Though he wished he had some sort of vision powers, or a smartphone with GPS or something so he knew which way to fly…
At top flying speed, he found the right island, in time to see guards in the towers firing at several figures running through a hole in the wall that looked like it had exploded inwards. They were making for a speedboat in the river, with men firing machineguns at the guard towers on the deck.
Bobby thought fast, and thought of the fastest way to foil the escape, thinking of when he saw Spiderman in action two days before. Flying directly over the boat, he switched to his steel-hard form, and flew feet down, stomping right through the boat, punching a hole straight through it to the bottom. He shifted to his ghost form and flew out of the wreckage…
"OK, wait… roll a 20 sided die to make sure that you aim right to hit the boat. Also where are you aiming for EXACTLY…" James was paging through a gaming manual looking for some dice tables. The three of them had agreed yesterday over lunch that they should meet, discuss superheroes, comic books, and Bobby's idea for a new superhero. James and Kurt were currently explaining how to use the "d20 game system" to see how combat would work before making a story up. They were camped out in Kurt's parent's living room with piles of trade paperbacks and gaming manuals.
"Ummm…" Bobby thought. He wanted to wreck the boat so no one could get away, so "In the back, I guess that's where the engine is. I want to sink the boat AND keep it from moving."
The older boys thought about Bobby's plan. "You might hit the gas tank and have the boat blow up?" Kurt asked. "I dunno where gas tanks are in boats, but that seems to happen in movies. Maybe roll another 20 sided die, if you get a 5 or less on that the boat blows up."
"That'd be AWESOME! Come on, one…. Dang I got a 20 and a 12."
"20 is a critical hit on the boat, so it DEFINITELY sinks, but it won't blow up. Great idea though, I expected you to fight all these guys one at a time."
Bobby grinned. He liked the idea of practicing coming up with clever ways to beat bad guys. Did The Avengers do it this way? Seems silly to do it the way the comics showed, having them fight robots. Robots must cost a fortune and they always get wrecked in a few panels. Makes more sense to think of problems and how to solve them, punching stuff is easy. Thinking fast is a lot harder.
They went through some other plot ideas, foiling break-ins, armored car robberies, and so on. Then they discussed different versions of how superheroes team up, and how in Marvel books that were licensed about real people, they always fought the first time they met, and a lot after.
"Ya know, maybe they do it for practice too?" Bobby suggested. "Seems like every single time Daredevil or Spider-man have a Punisher story, they fight with the Punisher more than they do the bad guys."
The Fifth graders considered the idea. "That's not bad. We should make it a part of OUR comic, JUSTICE AND VENGEANCE," Kurt said to James. He turned his head to face Bobby. "We liked what you told us about your ideas yesterday, want to join us at the convention this weekend? Maybe the three of us can talk DC or one of the smaller companies to give us all a shot."
"Why not go to Marvel, they're the top name in comics right?" Bobby said curiously.
James shook his head. "Waste of time, they focus on stuff that is based on real people. They probably make up some things, but they don't use original characters. So unless Captain Hero fights the Masters of Evil, or Justice & Vengeance team up with Cloak & Dagger, we need to go to DC or maybe Image. "
They had been discussing Bobby's super powered alter ego as if he was a story Bobby wrote. He had sketched the Captain Hero costume as best he could, and James being a better artist had suggested some changes to the costume that Bobby decided to add to his mental picture that he used to turn into his heroic self. They didn't like "Captain Hero" as a name at first, but after going through some guide books it turned out that no comic book or real person had ever used the name. Bobby was almost convinced to use the name CAPTAIN WONDER but it was too close to Wonder Man and Wonder Woman.
They liked the idea that his power was "controlling all the atoms in his body" and that "the character" was still learning what that meant. James and Kurt had even asked about some uses for his powers, based on some science fiction books, that Bobby planned on trying later. Invisibility, looking like anyone he wanted, stretching like Mister Fantastic… all sounded very cool. None of them could think of a way that added up to heat vision, though.
A bigger sticking point was when they asked who his arch nemesis would be, since "A hero is measured by his villains," according to the HOW TO WRITE COMICS FOR BEGINNERS handbook. The rule in the book was that the main hero and arch nemeses were opposites. The example given was the hero that had every power, didn't need weapons and an average brain would have a normal human with a superhuman brain that invented all sorts of weapons as an enemy. Bobby hoped that was wrong, since he never really felt all that smart. So a DUMB hero with a lot of powers would probably get someone too smart to win against?
After he teamed up with Luke Cage and Iron Fist, Bobby decided then and there he needed a VERY smart person as a friend, just in case.
The phone rang, Kurt answered it, swore, and ran to the living room. "Aw man, we're missing it!" He turned on the television as Bobby and James followed him.
"… Empire State University was the scene of one of the largest skirmishes in recent times, with amazingly no loss of life or serious injuries, thanks to the combined efforts of the NYPD special weapons and tactics division known as CODE BLUE, Heroes for Hire, and several local heroes." There was a news anchor standing in the street before an official looking building, sirens in the distance. "We are still gathering information but it seems that a science and technology lecture at ESU drew at least four separate groups of criminals looking to steal the exhibited items. Chaos broke out, with the Sinister Six and the Frightful Four actually attacking EACH OTHER over who had the rights to loot…"
Kurt and James were excitedly going news channel to news channel. CNN had footage of Power Man slugging it out with the Sandman, and Iron Fist dropping Kraven and the Trapster in a series of spinning kicks.
That newcomer, the Crimebuster had actually taken down the Wingless Wizard and the Vulture by himself using some sort of glue spray, and he was being interviewed by the local Fox news team along with… wait, isn't Bucky, Captain America's sidekick dead? Huh…
Then it hit Bobby. This was supposed to be his golden opportunity! He could have been there and made a HUGE impression today, joined Heroes for Hire and he BLEW IT!
"Crud, I gotta go guys!" He ran out the door grabbing his backpack, ducked into the alley, turned into Captain Hero, and hid his backpack on the roof of a church. He flew in the general direction of Manhattan from Yonkers, got lost twice and finally found the Empire State University campus at about 5:00 PM. The lecture had been at 2:00 PM and the last straggling news crew was long gone. He circled the campus from a thousand feet up just in case there was anything he could do to impress anyone. It was too late.
"AAAAAAUUUUUUUUGGGHHHHH!" Captain Hero screamed, flying straight up, frustrated as only a tween who feels he's missed out on the most important thing in the history of forever.
"STUPIDSTUPIDDUMBFLIPPINGSTUPID…" he yelled, smacking his forehead. He'd waited too long, wanting to be "ready," when he should have just gone ahead and DONE IT. The biggest super-battle in weeks and he missed it by trying to learn what to do, how to do it "right."
"The comics are right." He stopped, hovering somewhere over Long Island Sound. "Heroes just meet for the first time, fight to show who they are and they team up and be friends forever. It's that simple."
"Tomorrow I'm gonna skip school, go right into Manhattan and punch Luke Cage so hard he'll HAVE to want to be my partner. What could go wrong with that?"
