Chapter 14: Uncharted Territory
Suddenly, a scintillating circle, seven feet in radius, surrounds Spectre and Mr. Mind on the stone floor. An open space appears under green moccasins. Out of the dark abyss, a spry mad scientist springs with smooth head, thick spectacles, sinister smile, surgeon's coat, and a stack of discoid devices. Abruptly, stainless steel materializes under Avenging Apparition, the Spectre, and the Abominable Oligochaete, Mr. Mind. But, the alloy only actualizes for a second before an automatic timer reactivates Per Degaton's time platform. Promptly, the scientist steps off; instantly, the void re-opens under Revengeful Wrath and the Wickedest of Worms.
Dr. Sivana sneers like a personified snapping turtle and wishes fearsome Vengeance and fellow supervillain "tootle-lo, you two". Tempestuous temper crosses Spectre's visage, and meanie Mind's mien manufactures surprise. Hastily, Mr. Mind—perverse genius—processes the plans of another of his icky ilk. Then, pertinaciously, the pupal pest propels forward by the flight power of Shazam, sharply straightening Spectre's arm. A second (or third or fourth) wind visits the Venusian vandal, for he deduces Dr. Thaddeus' dubious double-cross. They may be Monster Society mates, but they each need to be the nefarious nabob in charge of the group. Ironically, such greed sure grates a gummy goon when duplicitously done unto him.
Damn that chrome-dome! Mr. Mind realizes that—after robbing the Kriglo raiders—he never should have sent those time discs to Dr. Sivana sitting at this very temple spot a decade ago [see Whiz Comics #15]. The Wickedest Worm's back-up plan has now blown-up in his face!
The nadir vanishes beneath Spectre and Mr. Mind, and unsurpassed suction pulls the pair into basically a "black hole", to use nascent vernacular. The winds of time vacuum them toward a singularity's vortex. Ever volitive, the Vicar of Vindication impossibly snatches the verge of oblivion, the edge of the aperture, and vies to avert elimination via the volatile, vast vent astir over the vague, violet void. Spectre's substance stretches like a fine vine, and Mind's similarly distends.
Ever valiant, dogged Diana ceases leaning on Sandra, stands large, beats back her battle lethargy, unlatches her Lasso, and lobs it for Sivana's victims. The laudable volley lands accurately, but it only acquires the same inevitable vector vanquishing others. The vain girl goes volant and involuntarily vaults into Chronos' chasm. Indeed, victory over the Ever itself is a velleity. Spectre's visceral effort is likewise in vain. He vails lower and lower until he cannot prevail. The timestream purls. Princess, angel, and monster all vamoose. Per Degaton's device shutters and self-vaporizes. Wohin, meine Damen und Herren? Wer weiss?
The vice-chair to the Monster Society of Evil kvells over the seemingly successful vermicide. Vulturine Savana crows, "Bon voyage, Mr. Mind, you vexatious vermin! I control Venus and the Monster Society now. . . . . Although, I see that some of them ain't looking too good, gruesomely beaten and battered about the venue. Jeezus!"
Valorous vigilante Flash charges Sivana, and Starman charges-up his scepter. Jay engages initially. Impossibly, Sivana veers out of the way. Then, he veers aside again and again and again. Off-put, the Crimson Comet stops a sec to quickly cogitate.
Concurrently, Ted takes his shot. Stellar energy streaks for Sivana to strike and singe him. However, the villain again veers variously here and there as though lither than light and effectively intangible. Ted's beam barely grazes the bobbing, bopping images that "baldy" keeps leaving behind.
Quick-witted Garrick gets it. "Temporal disruption," declares he, "Sometimes, I can do that trick too."
Smirking Sivana verifies, "Verily, you velocious vegetable, my genius reengineered Per Degaton's time discs. I can do anything with my doctored discs, improved over the last decade. For example. . . . . Oh, drat!"
One round instrument abruptly shorts-out like the blown fuse that it resembles. Smoke puffs sharply into mad scientist's puss. Thaddeus peevishly pouts, and he no longer appears displaced, as a vacillating vision. Doc drops the (now) defective from his deck of discs. As often occurs, especially against arch-foe Shazam, Sivana seems half-deadly and half-dopey.
Flash dashes in immediately to attempt varlet's apprehension. He approaches vehemently as Mercury.
However, even the Fastest Man Alive cannot override entropy such as the reverse entropy that vulpine Sivana uses to anticipate the attacks of the Crimson Comet and the Astral Avenger. You see, in his spare time, chrononaut Thaddeus visited year 2021 and a-tenet-ed a pictureshow. After viewing, the super-genius supervillain had viable ideas for his vile vice taking Venus today.
Dr. Sivana enjoys essentially precognition when Jay and Ted presently attack. Thus, two discs activate an instant before possible pitched perilous battle. The pair of discs are twins and project the same effect onto Garrick and Knight.
Great vapidity grabs Garrick; Flash freezes in place. A warmed varnish might as well now coat him, for viscid sluggishness sticks his shoes stationary. And, some "voodoo" stops the rest of him too. Magnificent mechanics, Per Degaton's disc, take Mercury from many miles per hour to miniscule millimeters per day and, thereby, moot him.
"Slow down, sonny," spouts Sivana, "and you too, sport."
Similar vicissitude visits Starman. Time virtually stops for Ted's spectacular stick. As if at absolute zero, the Gravity Rod's star energy arrests internally and issues not. At its tip, an action's initial glow only starts to occur, and Ted might actually attack Thaddeus in, oh, about a week. As with Flash, Starman also suffers veritable physical paralysis from booted volar to viscera to vertebrae to vox box.
Ted Knight's lively mind stays active though. Somehow, the deadening disc does not completely decelerate cognition, so the Stellar Scourge of Supervillains schemes astutely to escape his stasis and to strike Sivana well. Likewise, Jay Garrick is still cognizant in his strict stillness. He begins to vibrate at a very high rate so as to perhaps override irksome invention with Speed Force.
"Fudge! Fiddlesticks! Farn-flarn-filth!" fumes Sivana suddenly. His reverse entropy appliance just crapped-out too leaving the mad scientist sans phenomenal foresight.
"Language, lout," scolds Phantom Lady, "Learned men avoid such vulgar verbiage. In fact, it makes such men seem dim."
Deliberately, debutante and detective Knight beams Black Light from wiry glasses to goofball's retinas. Kook kvetches succeeding curses. She rushes the reprehensible rouge researcher and his roll of round reality-warping widgets.
In aid, Dr. Mid-Nite also moves to assist a double-team. Although, he hurts distinctly. The physician thinks, figures, feels that Mr. Mind fractured his ribs before. He refuses to retreat though. Heroes don't. He decks Dr. Sivana.
Charles' teeth chatter from the choice chill of pain through his chest. He stiffens and then steps back. Luckily, his chum Sandy confronts staggered Sivana. She tries swiping the dastard's deck of dangerous discs, for their securing would supply certain superheroes a simple solution to present peril. Remember, he can't see her coming. However, wily Thaddeus wisely tucks them tight to torso. Knight knocks at the stack's center, but the World's Wickedest Scientist has them slightly magnetized to stick toughly together. Sometimes, Sivana is one smart strategist. A mere mortal does not continually confront Captain Marvel without considerable wits (and much foolhardiness).
Phantom Lady frowns and flips her ray weapon upright in her fingers. Sivana's vision returns; he briefly sees scowling Sandra and Dr. Mid-Nite reconverging. Forthwith, the beauty bashes him with her "baton". His big brain rattles. Rapidly, Knight repeats her nightstick's rapping, promoting wacky raised bumps on bald pate. McNider's right delivers a haymaker to help heroine. Huffing and hissing, the vile villain hawks vinaceous spit like a vinegarroon upon Sandy's visor. Vindictively, she viciously retaliates with repeated whacks and thwacks upon Thaddeus. Mid-Nite thumps his temple too. The highbrow hood tumbles to his knees.
Vivid scarlet streaking facially, fiendish Sivana deftly assesses the scene. He sees that, by heroic virtue, Phantom Lady has paused her pummeling. And, Dr. Mid-Nite produces a vitreous vial from his vest. By chance, its clear label reads "anesthetic", so Sivana advantageously anticipates an ethereal attack. In the vicinity, Flash visibly and vigorously fights the time disc's effects, so a mastermind forecasts that the Fastest Man is soon back in the fray. In the sinner's vantage, Starman remains still stiff, so that's good (for Thaddeus Bodog Sivana).
Secretly, Starman summons superb will and sends all his psychic "grit" to his Gravity Rod. Engorged with astral umph, it beckons booty from beyond Aphrodite's abode. It summons something substantial from a span away, and that asset could flip this fray. Normally, Ted Knight could bring the Kriglo hyperdrive hither in the blink of an eye, when the blink of his eye is but brief. However, this haul happens quite slowly and with colossal effort.
Nearby, Dr. Sivana kneels with crimson trickling down his noggin to his Durante-esque nose and onto his white coat. Growling, he glares at the golden shorts guarding his pulpy prow. To starboard, he smells the soporific vapors from Dr. Mid-Nite's opened vial. The heroes mean to "kindly" capture him like some vulnerable vole bamboozled into a box and beaten by a booby-trap—in gold shorts.
No vestral villain, Dr. Sivana summons violent vitriol to his veins. With livid visage, the maniacal "mere" mortal readies to vent primal rage in an unfair fight. No big red Velveeta will ever invalidate vivacious, virile veritable virtuosity. With cornered vermin's vitality, sorehead Sivana strikes back—starting with Sandy.
Sivana swiftly tosses a time disc past Phantom Lady, and it sparks to life. Hastily, he hurls one upon Dr. Mid-Nite's middle just as that Justice Societarian moves in. With all speed, and much serendipitous luck (frankly), the insane scientist slings a circuited circle onto Flash just as assiduous vibrations free the Fastest Man Alive. Scarlet-slathered Sivana screams like a victorious, spectacled shade from the Inferno.
Ol' Thad's technology takes effect.
Initial (intended) victim Sandy snaps sharply backward and squawks in distress. One sees an ovoid expanse in space open aft of her. An active time tunnel tugs her verdant cape taut and carries her uncouthly, back curved, toward vacuity. Verifiably flinty, Phantom Lady fights the pull like Virgo (a.k.a. Persephone) versus Pluto and brandishes her Black Light Ray as belligerently as a brave and bold Viking Prince would his broadsword. But, valor cannot conquer the Charybdis reeling to the rear. The vigorous vortex whirls her raiment and wrecks her aim, now vastly variable.
Vertiginously, Dr. Mid-Nite vacates Sivana's vicinity in rapid reverse. But, the nearby rift does not have him. Rather, his adhered disk's time trick is taking the attached back through recent movements. Thus, the Master of Darkness steps his boot heels away from Sivana and into the temple's shadows into which Mind-Marvel whacked him.
Curiously, Charles' cracked ribs heal. And, coincidentally, Sivana's kit-bashed contraption shorts-out an instant after that. The Master of Darkness smiles in the cella shadows. He likes having an element of surprise for counterattack. Perhaps, he can sneak-up and clobber a vile crook.
Shockingly, the slight daft scientist simply KO's Flash with one slug. You see, Garrick's glued gadget de-ages an object, or individual, rapidly. Therefore, mature Flash is now about fifteen, and he doesn't have his powers "yet". So, big jerk Thaddeus jacks juvenile Jay in the jaw and lays him out like jelly. The vilipending villain even jeers injured Jay, but he takes not the time for thorough vituperation. Verily, Dr. Sivana wants to defeat and destroy Phantom Lady directly.
Over Sivana's shoulder, kid Flash quickly shrinks into his adult-sized suit. Then, he is but a baby bump beneath a red blouse. Then, he seemingly shifts down to several cells and then oblivion.
"Did you see that?" s***-eating Sivana approaches Sandy stuck in the portal's pull, "I changed Flash into a child and propelled him into the past. Now, I shall do the opposite, my dear."
"Do you plan to eternally stay an old toad?" acerbic Sandra rebuts.
Ever assertive, the superwoman forcibly snaps the cape collar strangling her. The cloak shoots into posterior suction. Straining, Sandy steps scrappily toward Sivana, but powerful pull proscribes her progress. With both hands, Phantom Lady lifts her Black Light Ray to blind the bad guy before her.
Beaming Dr. Sivana simply flicks a disc at her "flashlight" as though he could beat the beauty with his eyes closed. Amazingly, the inimitable instrument "goes dark" as though its battery goes dead after a vampire enervated all voltage. Suddenly, S. Knight's Excalibur rusts like wildfire and instantly disintegrates via voracious entropy. Slack-jawed, Sandy shakes the sand from her hands.
Smug Sivana shoves her hard, "Enjoy November, 1955. See you in seven years." Squalling, she somersaults like a vaudevillian and delivers her extreme V-neck to Hill Valley, California, or akin. The spatial schism succinctly seals behind her, and Phantom Lady has disappeared.
Mugging at Starman and the shrine's space, Sivana audaciously and vociferously avers, "Veni! Vidi! Vici Venus! I vouch that the Justice Society is not invincible! Nor are the planet's fascist grubs, fairy girls, or fallacious gods! They are all big red cheeses to meeeee! Thaddeus! Bodog! Sivana!" Excited slobber escapes his ejaculatory exclamation.
Out of the shadows, a sizable ceramic vase sails and strikes the vain supervillain's center. The ceramic vessel shatters, and the last time discs scatter across the floor—where they all short-out. Except one. That one rolls into Dr. Mid-Nite's obscure corner. He staidly stops it with his boot and wonders whether it may prove useful later, or not.
Sivana rubs his sternum, "Ouch. Come out, rat. I'll exterminate you. After that, your corpse can view me vivisecting stiff Starman and then ravenously devouring his victuals in front of him."
"Hmph. You are evil," Doc Mid-Nite allows, "But, I am versed with evil from petty larcenists to imperious dictators to literal demons. And, I have met many yutzes such as you. You surrender—or the only person eaten for dinner will be Dr. Sivana. And, I'll even cook him first."
An obscured shape snatches a lit torch from a sconce. Dr. Mid-Nite shows himself by its spooky light. He waves the unforgiving flame ominously as though he might fry a fussbudget felon fostering the JSA's fall.
"Hmph," huffs Sivana, "I am a man of short stature perpetually in Sing Sing and a super-genius. Sooo, I always have one of these and one of these!" The super-punk produces a steak-bone shiv and a zip gun.
"Well, I have one more of these," the vigilante shrugs and shows his last blackout bomb, "Strangely, you won't see yourself set ablaze and sauteed to stew. But, you'll sure feel it!"
The Master of Darkness throws both flambeau and grenade. Grandiose goon gawps and screams, "certain" death reflected in his spectacles. Incoming sphere explodes, splits, and spreads obsidian smoke over a fearful sinner. Somewhere, a second behind it, burning flame follows to toast Thaddeus' form and flesh like fated food.
However, forsooth, Charles McNider is a scrupulous surgeon, not the Spectre. He isn't going to charbroil a churl—unless a pulp protagonist must. Mid-Nite merely must muss with mad Sivana so that the hero can hustle forth with a haymaker. The burning torch barely misses—as planned. A snark's sleeve singes slightly. Our hero swoops in. A stiff right cross whirls mad scientist around and sends him to the ground.
On the ground, the devious rogue executes one more trick. His simple shiv has an intense sonic device secreted under its scotch tape hilt. Sivana need only press a button. The severe shriek could shake Shazam's skeleton or unmake Mary Marvel. The sound waves should wreck Mid-Nite's goggles, rattle his guts, and ravage his person to pudding. The only thing is that, alas, Sivana lacks earplugs or other protection. But, everything will be okay in his mind; he is utterly insane anyway.
A thumb descends. Then, Dr. Mid-Nite kicks the razor away in the nick of time. A screwball shrieks severely instead. A good guy stomps the zip gun flat to the floor—or rather the wrist connected to it. More agony echoes throughout Aphrodite's naos. The hero finally has the heathen to both God and goddess.
But suddenly, Chaos visits the Venusian naos. Concurrently, components of Chaos coincidentally converge like in a comic book or other classic composition. A couple unanticipated occurrences—plus one—come calling.
From the side, suffering Mr. Atom staggers through the caliginous cloud. Rabid radiation poisoning has not yet eradicated him. He cries, "Help me! Help me!" as his uranium contents cook him from within. Withering radiance accompanies him.
Also, through the damn ceiling, Starman crashes the huge hyperdrive that he hauled from a hundred hectares hither. Utterly concentrating, the Astral Avenger has been in his own world. He is wholly unaware that Dr. Mid-Nite has Dr. Sivana snagged such that extraordinary measures are not necessary now. Roof rubble rains. Falling rock thuds Thaddeus Sivana thoroughly and pins him under a ponderous pile as crimefighter Charles McNider fleetly flees the boulder barrage.
But, the Master of Darkness doesn't get far. From three o'clock, mass radiation hits Mid-Nite. It causes abrupt agony, and agony generally undermines all movement. Doc stops to endure.
Glowing through the blackout miasma, Mr. Atom moans "Help me! Help me!" A mammoth melting mitt misses Dr. Mid-Nite by millimeters as the sickened superhero stumbles sloppily aside.
The Monster Societarian shambles toward the villainous group's vice-guru. Molten dross drops over Sivana's exposed shoulder. His maw screams beside the carnal "steam". With (still) attached extremity, the mad scientist signals Mid-Nite to come near. Cautiously, compassionate Dr. Charles does. He wants to drop to his knees or sit down anyway.
Sputtering Sivana speaks, "Save us. Save yourself. Save me! Come back to this sp-sp-specific sp-sp-split second." Spit strikes superhero several times in his face.
With supreme effort, Dr. Sivana strikes the switch of the time disc concealed in Mid-Nite's pocket. With excellent observation, the exceptional empiricist must have discerned it.
Over Sivana's (remaining) shoulder, Starman speedily scans the spaceship engine. At the moment, the hefty hyperdrive hovers in mid-air, an inert heavy hulk. However, Starman's instrument assiduously analyzes its elements, for the Astral Avenger would make it active again. At that point, the hubristic hero would need to only figure-out its features—which surely a super-genius can curtly do—and control it like friend and fellow Oppenheimer controlled Atomic Age miracles Fat Man and Little Boy. Ted the Frankenstein Physicist finds the hyperdrive's ignition agent, its primer. U. Eureka. Executing expeditiously, the Gravity Rod grabs and rips the uranium—detected by Starman's device—from Mr. Atom's anatomy. The animated evil construct entirely collapses.
Starman slings the radioactive core into the hyperdrive. And, the advanced alien engine comes to life. Knight's eyes light-up.
Then, abruptly and unexpectedly, an uncontrolled rift opens in space. It simply sucks arrogant idiots Starman, Dr. Sivana, slagged Mr. Atom, and sundry Evil Monsters away. It swallows them to undetermined somewhere and somewhen in endless forever. Fortunately, statuesque Starman manages to throw-up a force field before ingestion. Unfortunately, his attached time disc, paralyzing him, is one of only two still working. Poor stiff.
The other active oval shoots Dr. Mid-Nite "safely" from the shrine's disastrous scene. Per Degaton's device opens a dimensional door directly underfoot. Doc drops. The winds of time shuttle Charles past indescribable scenery for ten ticks in a tunnel—until tossing him out like a toy to other terrain.
Surprised and perplexed, Dr. Mid-Nite plummets past the skyscrapers parallel to Gardner Avenue. The pavement approaches eight stories down. Soaring doves seemingly deliver ill omen. Doc hastily deliberates his new dilemma.
Abruptly, a conjured catcher's mitt, green in color, cups careening hero and keeps him from catastrophe. Against Gotham's skyline, Green Lantern ganders from overhead. Wildcat waves from a JSA HQ window while adjacent Atom salutes on-the-spot Alan Scott.
"My gratitude, Green Lantern," greets Dr. Mid-Nite.
A noble champion's chin nods, "Charles, my chum, how goes the Venus mission? And, what news of the others?"