Chapter 12: Mr. Mind and Chumps
Across a yard of flying saucers, Justice Society members wend their righteous way through whopping warriors, twice their sizes. Around an individual central ship, a ring of five saucers sits, and dual heroes wreak havoc along the "circled wagons". Flash runs so fast that he is, believe it or not, "walking" on air betwixt floating frigates. He bullrushes Martian fighters en masse, rolls them into big bellowing balls, and bails them balefully off a vessel's edge to Venus far below. Bounding about, Wonder Woman repeatedly ruinously wrestles and wallops Spider-Men such that they too rain over brigands' barges' borders. In bunches, Spider-Men beset Diana, but the Amazon beauty brawls better than all of them combined.
In truth, these aspiring aggressive settlers are not the elite strike force that sacked Justice Society headquarters. They are not, and it shows. Sloppiness and rotten luck beleaguer them like Looney Tunes. They fire from the superstructure, but their rapid-fire weaponry cannot rid them of Flash, andale, andale. Rather, plasma rounds pepper spider-soldiers by the peck as though each man-spider were more Marvin the Martian than Ming the Merciless. They riddle the hulls of hard-by hovering hulks like "super-geniuses" shooting at a speeding runner. The Kriglo can't even clip Flash. He just hops about like an unbugged bunny.
In the bridges, saucer staff hastily strategize how to harm superheroes. Via video screen, captains and commanders witness champions wiping the decks with their comrades. They keenly conclude that Kriglo need to do something other than blindly brawl with both heroes. Promptly, radio chatter occurs between crews. From their control panels, pilots will initiate an awful area of magnetism and aim tractor beams—all to trap Wonder Woman, and the metal on her extremities. Irresistible forces will apply. Then, the Kriglo can hopefully draw and quarter Diana between ships.
The evil aliens execute their plan, but nasty nincompoops sometimes have no luck. Errant auratic magnetism, areally applied, mutually collides Kriglo cruisers into a crumpled clump after awry tractor beams farcically target their own ships. The Kriglos' clever kit-bashing but creates a colossal crash from center to kitty-corner and cartoonishly occasions a real cluster of mid-air collisions. Wonder Woman is unaffected. The Bracelets of Victory are magically unaffected.
Nimble, lithe Wonder Woman leaps free of the wrecking fracas. Flash pauses and peers at the pandemonium nonplussed. These Martians have oft been "maroons", or morons, as they say.
Wonder Woman wags her head, "What I wouldn't do for an invisible jet right now."
"Oh?" Jay's index indicates the mothership, "I would think that you are only one good jump away from the Kriglo command craft."
"I know," Diana concurs, "But, an airplane could bypass this army of arachnid idiots."
"I know what you mean," avows an amenable voice from above all of a sudden, "Yet, I thank the Almighty that these recent invaders are such amateurs. Upon arrival, their numbers had me worried a moment."
Like angels, JSA allies alight beside Diana and Jay. A Gravity Rod gently guides Phantom Lady, Dr. Mid-Nite, and Starman to them. Behind the three, incensed Spider-Men fire stray shots and shake fists. The trio take a breather after evidently trouncing Ares' interlopers. Behind Mid-Nite and chums, destabilized decks slant severely as Kriglo speedily spin safety lines from their asses. The scene is saucers completely keeled onto their sides or spinning hurry-scurry like cyclones. Some terribly slam together. Several support piles of pulverized (or pooped out) opponents atop them. Most show smoking machinery where superheroes smote the ship stabilizers.
To the thwarted, Starman signals time out, and the other team sullenly assents. Streaking lasers and launched projectile fire cease. Martian marshals message their men to regroup and to desperately repair.
Wonder Woman runs her warm hand down Sandy's spine, "It is good to see you in one piece, sister. Pray tell, where are Spectre and Sgt. Twilight?"
"Well," states Dr. Mid-Nite, "Spectre was swallowed by the Venusian earth after a nearly all-powerful annelid and his assembled kin abducted the Angel of Vengeance. He has been kidnapped."
"No s***!" startles Flash.
"And," informs physician McNider, "Icky Mudd suffers in a medically-induced stupor. He got hurt. So, he shall miss our raiding party. Surely, the stalwart straw-hat sends his 'aw shucks'."
"Get well soon, Icky," wishes Wonder Woman considerately to the wind.
Flash reckons, "At least you fellas crossed the circumscribing circumstances smoothly." He sweeps a hand at the smashed and stymied hostile forces.
"Yes sir, we did so efficaciously sans need for extensive further description," deems Starman.
"Let's move this story along then," says Flash.
The five fix their shared sight on the central ship. Wonder Woman solicits Starman to fling her over to the enemy. Like a cane pole, the Gravity Rod casts and catapults her to awaiting action. Simultaneously, Flash speeds along interconnected scrapped saucers in a crescent. At their terminus, vehement velocity should take him to the main vessel too. So, two champions charge in while two others await an impetus into the fray. Starman should provide a ride momentarily.
Then, across the way, Wonder Woman and Flash find unexpected and awful effective resistance. Instantly—upon Lady Justice landing—the home-hulk's hull electrifies horrendously. A lesser Amazon would be obliterated. Incandescent in the iridescent agonizing and unmerciful ionization, Diana unintentionally offers a distinct x-ray. Her titanic thew trembles utterly. And, her hair projects upright and pops her tiara high. However, heart pounding profusely and physique pulsing, the Princess of Paradise Island still does not peal in pain. She strains to be more perfect than that.
Peripherally, powerful peds propel winged footwear apace the space separating speedster and sister Societarian. Seemingly, Flash sprints on air. Once on deck, Flash literally runs quicker than lightning; thus, the supercharged current cannot catch him to crisp him. The Crimson Comet reaches curl-lipped, quaking Wonder Woman just before Starman almost uses his Gravity Rod to lift her straight up.
Sans warning, a concussive blast blows from beneath Flash and bats both bothersome boarders careening skyward. Hastily, Starman soars to help harshly hefted colleagues. His Gravity Rod hooks and hauls in acrobatically anabatic allies amidst upward deadly debris, deleterious shrapnel. Starman saves the day.
But suddenly, more explosions arise all at once. Along the mothership's edge, detonations commence sequentially and circuitously like land mines mimicking looped lady fingers. And, airborne alien steel acts like dicey ack-ack. And, the ship's strakes swiftly split—sending half the hulking hull heavenward!
Stunned and shocked, Jay and Diana stir sluggishly suspended in midair over seventeen thousand tons of sailing steel. Startled, Starman stammers "Ho-o-o-ly" and scuds to stage extraction. To the side, normally staid Dr. Mid-Nite stares anxiously at the extensive structure about to strike and (likely) strew his friends. Superfriend Phantom Lady likewise studies the catastrophic scene concernedly. A storm of debris shreds, slices, slashes costumes and compatriots slightly. A streaking stratum menaces momentary mashing—and then a magic carpet ride to Mercury (and Diana).
However, heroes Mid-Nite and Lady lack the lull necessary to gawk long. Immediately, elongated weblines shoot the breadth between the bisected central ship and those ships skirting it. Broad, gluey gossamer binds about vests and breasts in a blink. Then, some behemoth—barely visible over yon—yanks Doctor and Phantom directly across the good distance. The dual strands deliver held Charles and Sandra into the mothership's open hold. And, its huge company. The cords curtly convey the captured to Kriglo Spider-Men's companions—the colossal Spider-Women. Colonizers require queens, consorts, coquettes, and companions for copulation and population. From Mars, the male marauders' massive mates join them. Like earthly arachnids, they measure many times their partner's proportions.
Yawping, a forty-yard eight-legged freak furls yucky yarn like a yo-yo and smacks disquieted superheroes into its anthropomorphic palms, a wrenched "wretch" wound to each "wrist". With ravenous yearning in their eight eyes, a coterie of five sixty-foot she-spiders accompanies their queen and complementarily yowls to her yawning yawps. All colossal creatures are cranky after encampment in such cramped concurrently steerage and stateroom quarters of a sort.
Ponderous pedipalps curl caught prey toward formidable fangs capable of full impalement. Phantom Lady fetches her black light fixture defiantly.
Above, an Amazon, an Impulse, and an Astral Avenger impact a barreling bulk like bugs. Although, none of the bashed bruise too badly. Wonder Woman is almost invincible. Flash flails up a fine air cushion. Starman brandishes a force bubble.
Atop the aloft tier, an irked Wonder Woman arises resiliently. An earlier attack's shock effect seems abated, and she seems neither so frozen nor fried. Long hair looping and lashing, the piqued Princess wants her crown. Normally, when she whips it, it boomerangs back. But, this battle is such bollocks, to use the British term.
The boys, Ted and Jay, browse the launched ship lid. Lo and behold, the aberrant lift will likely kill them. Thus, their brilliant minds momentarily mull quick action, lest the mean Martian machination mortally moot them.
Starman speaks, "Well, there are no rockets propelling this expansive object. Ergo, I, educated astronomer, assess that this plane will stop at an apex."
"Once paused," Flash contributes, "the poopy deck will plummet per Newtonian platitude 'what goes up, must come down'."
"Precisely," Knight points his empowered prop professorially.
"So, what is the plan, per se?" probes Garrick.
From the periphery, Diana proposes, "Superpuissant people could punch through the impervious plate, ply metal wide, and 'parachute' down—sans parachute."
"Perhaps," replies Ted, "However, I predicate that my prop, the Gravity Rod, simply pick us from this prodigious platform before plumb passing Venus' puffy pall into perilous space. I was already almost blown to the vacuum today, and I aver veritably that we must avoid the void. Let us evacuate via Starman Express. By volant means, let us vacate."
"That plan appeals," agrees Jay.
The pair plus one push off the projectile—so as not to be plastered when popping sideways over its substantial surface. Lifted, they zoom levelly. Peering back, the immense "pot top" reaches its parabolic peak and prepares to pitch planetward. It will plant with a vengeance somewhere. Unexpectedly, it even flips over inverted.
Elsewhere than overhead, squirming supers Dr. Mid-Nite and Phantom Lady approach xiphoid spikes and a ma Spider's maw. Festooned in infrangible web fiber, the All-Star fellows can only fervently fight their fixed fetters while ferried toward a frightful fate. However, Infinity is ever in flux. And, Murphy's Law saves McNider and Knight.
From nowhere, a gremlin fouls the hovering hemi-ship's thrusters (keeping the remaining ship "afloat"), and the huge hull falls forcefully. Free fall flings ferocious female lamiae aloft. Flabbergasted, they fuss and futilely feel for firm air for their feet. In the queen's clutches, Dr. Mid-Nite and Phantom Lady fight the filaments affixed to their forms. Frenetic futzing frees them from neither the filmy ties nor the creature's fingers. And, the Venusian terrain fast approaches as whistling wind flows past.
Facing fatal physics, Phantom Lady flicks her Black Light Ray and aims for enormous arachnid eyes. Usually, big, bad, fat spiders could not care less about light levels, so Sandra's is a desperate move. However, Spiders of Mars deviate distinctly. Kriglos are different cats. Thus, this oversized, ornery one caterwauls when the caliginous beam blinds it.
Crazed with panic, the discombobulated crying queen critter chaotically kicks about and cacophonously kvetches incoherently. Nigh never, nothing conquers her keen eyesight. She sees sans exception like a lynx spider on Earth. Thus, Phantom Lady's dark light does the impossible for the queen Kriglo, and she can't handle the quandary. Hysterically, her clutches unclose, and she casts her captives away. Charles and Sandy hit the plummeting bowl's side—webbing still stringing them to huge spider. Mama monster rubs her blinded eyeballs vigorously.
Venusian soil fast approaches over the semi-saucer's sides, so Mid-Nite and Lady must mutually scowl. The heroes have maybe ten more seconds to escape their peril. The sticky, strong web-strands stretch some, but they do not snap. Fortunately, every 1940s crimefighter and swashbuckler knows certain physics from the cliffhangers and cinematic serials.
"Sandy," suggests Charles, "Let's scramble up the ship sides and leap free at the last second." Phantom Lady kills her black light and steps lively.
As any adventurer knows, one can step off a plummeting elevator—or other falling object—briefly before impact and survive an otherwise deadly drop. Some say this tactic would work in real life, outside comic books and b-movies, too.
Thus, two heroes hastily trek up the saucer's steel, wondrously rushing up a wall (you are some spiffy athlete if you can do so), right to the rim. On the edge, they inhale sharply for mettle. Then, in tandem, they jump just before a building-sized "boat" breaks onto the ground. Ka-boom! The queen's coterie bounces crazily about the bowl—their bowels emptying. The crash really knocks the crap out of them. Concurrently, her highness hits the spacecraft's keel quite hard. Eight royal legs abruptly bow violently into the vessel's floor. Her belly hits the saucer bottom—bruising her severely from brow to butt, nigh bursting her innards, nigh busting her back. The crunched Kriglo royal draws a ragged breath in the cracked, crumpled concavity, formerly her hoity fleet's flagship.
In the proximity, Dr. Mid-Nite pants and checks his supine physique for fractures. Beside him, his chum Phantom Lady wipes profuse perspiration and feels some glee for surviving "certain" death. The warm sand and muted sun (behind Venus' vaunted, vaulted billows) feel so fine for the superfriends—momentarily. Behind goggles and visor, eyes instantly go big. You see, both Charles and Sandy see a sizable shadow approaching in the sky. A substantial object speeds straight down toward them, and it shall smush stuff, and poor "slobs", when it strikes. Forsooth, what saucer top goes up must. . . . .
Stunned she-spiders scurry to their disheveled sovereign. They must secure and succor the madonna of the mutant Martians. Otherwise, their type's invasive expansion may cease. Thus, attendants rush to aid their most-high while, from on high, an expansive shadow darkens them and the scene. At crash site's center, the queen spider sighs and stretches her sore, shaken body. Empathetic arachnid sisters swarm her and lovingly caress her in a cluster of compassionate Kriglo.
Then. BAM! SPLAT! The central saucer's superstructure slams home like a giant soup bowl planted into another giant soup bowl. And, soup it makes. Somehow inverted during descent, the saucer squishes the sum of Spider-Women such that the fuselage flattens furry fiends into an entire field of fleshy fudge farting high in a flower pattern. Hemolymph patters the Venusian plain, and separated spider limbs thud about vellicating on the soil. Even experienced sawbones Dr. McNider pauses briefly to process the pulpy carnage. Then, he gets up glad that giant jabberwocks are neutralized. Like a gentleman, he aids a harried heroine in getting upright. In turn, she has just the right touch to nimbly roll the nettlesome webbing from their persons.
From above, allies auspiciously arrive on an anti-gravity glowing aura. Aureole about his head, a canopy of crippled Kriglo craft composing a penumbra, Starman descends with Wonder Woman and Flash for a quick conclave. Sprinkling obsidian cinders, from the catastrophe above, either complement or contrast the celestial champion's crimson cape cracking on breezy currents.
"For our foes, the conflict has been calamitous," comments Ted Knight, "However, they are likely too recalcitrant to quit and to concede to the Justice Society. So, they may counterattack at any time. We should conference some strategy quickly and then execute."
"Well, it could help if you cut all your bloviation and cute alliteration," Wonder Woman winks, "K.i.s.s. Keep it simple, Starman."
Flash and Doc Mid-Nite smirk. Phantom Lady smirks too. A smart sort, she knows that men speak more words per day than women (per feminist studies).
"Delightful dictional devices decorate dialogue, darling Diana," Ted retorts, "But, okay. Let us determine. What else must the Justice Society do to win the day."
"We must smash the remaining Martian militia," states Wonder Woman.
"We must resecure our Society's stolen stockpile," directs Dr. Mid-Nite.
"We must save poor Spectre," fusses Phantom Lady. Flash snickers at Sandy's "feminine" phrasing and effusion.
"You must get Mr. Mind and his minions," mutters a ghost nearby. He is audible from the ether.
Instantly, an eleven-foot arachnid guest appears at Mid-Nite's elbow, his nine o'clock. The Kriglo sports elderly features and holds, beneath his long white beard, the doohickey that apparently hid him. He nicely hands the device to Doc. It is an invisibility-inducing apparatus such as some Martians have (see Batman #78). Wonder Woman swiftly seizes an arm, and a Gravity Rod readily grips the other.
"I surrender," says the Spider-Man to Starman and her, "I am here to help—honestly."
"How do we know that?" grills Garrick incredulously.
"Because I just helped you," answers the old alien, "Who do you think exploded the hovering hemi-saucer's thrusters? 'Twas I. Who do you think joylessly betrayed his brethren by bringing low the Materfamilias? 'Twas I. Who do you think took tractor beam and overturned tumbling flagship top such that it crushed queen and coterie like pest mash in a pestle's mortar? 'Twas I. Who do you think recognized, with logical head but heavy heart, that Mr. Mind's machinations endangered the cosmos more than Kriglo colonization enhanced Venus? 'Twas I. Who do you think, with good heart but conflicted conscience, realized that the Kriglo could not be righteously proud of ferrying our fellows to massacre the fair and feirie fairy folk of the Morning Star? 'Twas I, Twasi the Technician, Top Engineer of the Martian armada. And, I offer further assistance to end existential threats now."
"Okay, go on," invites Starman, although he hopes for better brevity by Twasi.
"How specifically can you help?" delves Dr. Mid-Nite, detective.
"I can provide a bit more exposition," explains Engineer Twasi, "Incredible as it may seem, Mr. Mind and his minions have kidnapped Spectre to the capital's Temple of Aphrodite miles yon. There, the warped worms have technology stolen from the Spider-Men after we stole it from you JSAers. Namely, they possess Per Degaton's time discs."
"Those are powerful devices," Flash recognizes, "They can pull people—such as Per Degaton and his military personnel—from one point to another. Or, they can pervert time's passage and, thereby, affect Hourman's, Fate's, or my powers."
"Precisely. And so much more," states the Spider, "Although, I do not know precisely Mr. Mind's plan. I have only telescopically observed the World's Wickedest Worm take Spectre and the time discs from the saucer that Starman downed. I placed tracking devices on every item that our Kriglo commandos confiscated from the Justice Society, and those trackers tell that the discs are at the temple."
Starman chuckles, "That's funny. I placed devices on the commandos' saucer so that I could track them."
Twasi titters amiably, "I figured that was one way that you Terrans tracked we Martians to Venus so efficaciously. Of course, another way would be Wonder Woman's psychic link with Desira—who is, in fact, arriving at this moment." The astute Martian motions upward.
"Indeed, I arrive, monster," Queen Desira communicates to the assembled via eidolic ESP.
A bevy of beautiful fairies bring their butterfly monarch to her battle-mates. She sits amidst their linked arms as they descend, staring daggers at Twasi. An attendant damsel departs the formation and fleetly flutters to Diana. Her dear hands hold the Golden Tiara that faux fulguration blew-off Wonder Woman's bonny black tresses. The darling delivers it daintily to hardy hands. Desira must have telelocated it as she did Starman's strayed staff earlier.
Venus' Lady lands. "Take me to your leader," Desira demands of the enemy alien before her, "I would parley your people's surrender."
"I would if I could. But, I can't. So, I won't," replies the Mars representative, "She lies pancaked over there." Twasi points to the plain's wreckage along the conversation's perimeter.
The crushed queen's corpse is semi-discernable in the cracked clutter and has cast bodily members far and wide as mentioned. Venus' noble now notices them.
"Who did my world such a favor?" inquires the queen.
"Well, 'twas I," admits the traitor, engineer, and Benedict Arnold.
"We thank you," states the sovereign for her people.
"And, I thank you, Queen Desira," comments Princess Diana, "You return the crown that will be my standard into the further fight at fair Aphrodite's desecrated shrine. Justice onto the invaders!" She means the invaders of the temple (from Venus), not the invaders from Mars.
Wonder Woman musters her fellow JSAers to charge forth. Four of them—Flash, Wonder Woman, Phantom Lady, and Dr. Mid-Nite—do. They daringly and deliberately dash. Starman stays temporarily back, however.
"Say, Twasi," says Starman, "I have been curious. The distance between Venus and Mars is about seventy-four million miles, or one astronomical unit, this time of year. However, your horde covered it in a blink, faster than rocket propulsion could carry. You Martians must have used a so-called 'one-dimensional space tube', correct?"
"Yes, correct. We call it in a 'wormhole', as you may in ten years," confirms the Kriglo sage, "And, 'twas I who designed the hyperdrive that assiduously tethered and transported the entire train of settlers."
"Hmph," imparts the hero, "And, where is this 'hyperdrive' now?"
"Lying in the mothership's wreck," a pedipalp points, "Although, it probably rests there most unstably. It could explode like a hydrogen bomb—or two. Or, it could unpredictably transport something or someone elsewhere in an instant—through time and space. Or, it could do something utterly uncanny. In hindsight, I should have perhaps considered complications of crashing the main Kriglo craft."
"Thanks," Ted flies off to join jaunty JSAers.
"That was helpful information to him. Huzzah to you," comments Queen Desira on the Kriglo's cusp, "However, you are still the engineer of this iniquitous invasion of awesome Aphrodite's Avalon. Thus, with only love in my heart for hypocrites, and goddess on my side, I adjure. . . . ."
Abruptly, an aide decapitates Twasi the Kriglo with the cutest keen cutlass. As on quaint cue, his decollated head drops directly with his body's collapse.
From overhead, some spider-cur fires some stray shot that misses. Other askew shots follow in sloppy strafing. Sweet Cytherean citizens scowl and stare with suppressed sanguinary sentiment. Then, one fairy woman screams savagely. Instantly, the remaining Royal Kingdom of Venus assembles and ascends like avenging angels upon the surviving quasi-crippled contingent from Kigor. Like killer moths, they claim quarry and chew-up chumps. And, the Spider-Men of Mars may not avoid extinction after all.
Elsewhere in the region, a Justice Society reaches other irksome antagonists. Flash could confront awaiting foes first. However, he figures any adversaries who can abduct Spectre may be fairly formidable. So, Jay slows his stride to "jog" alongside Diana dashing to their destination. Sandy and chum Charles chug along earnestly three hectares back in the Venusian heat. But, all's well, for the big guns sometimes precede the grunts into action. Heroes and heroines see the temple target just ahead.
Then, dual Kriglo clothesline hasty WW and Flash flat. One stands on one side of the capital street, and the other on the other. Seemingly, they managed to stretch spidery strands across the path so speedily that superheroes didn't see them. From their fannies, Garrick and Prince pop back up posthaste.
Garrick gazes and growls. He notes, "Hey, you two, didn't Diana and I knock you around enough already?" Wonder Woman likewise recognizes the rascals that she and he had left roped.
Strangely, the two Spider-Men only stand silently and stony still staring stolidly into space. The speedster scientist studies the stationary sots severely. He steadies himself for when they startle to life and spring into attack. Beside Flash, Wonder Woman supposes the static stooges slaves of psychic control such as Dr. Psycho wields.
Suddenly, one arachnid alien's jaw drops wide open, and harsh radio static unexpectedly issues forth such as when Mr. Mind speaks via his "talk box". But, only Shazam Family sorts would know that. Justice Societarians stand but fairly befuddled.
"What are we looking at?" Sandy queries after catching up to Diana and Jay. Charles arrives also.
"To my eye," Diana deems, "These two troublemakers, who Flash and I defeated before, are enthralled by eldritch influences. This Mr. Mind, who Twasi mentioned, mayhap manipulates them like marionettes."
"Hmmm," Dr. McNider examines the gawking, gaping, gashed, glanced ghouls, "Say, do these Martians look green around the gills to anyone?"
The physician thoughtfully touches one freakily frozen. Perhaps, he can benevolently help a beastly foe, for such is what heroes do. However, this potential patient—as some do—powerfully pukes on him! From yawning yap, yards of yucky, yolky worms yack forth. Like writhing yarn, the copious clew coats, compresses, and almost crushes compassionate Charles. The bumper yield expands unbelievably higher and wider upon the road. And, it gets horrid help! From ajar jaws adjoining this sordid scene, the other enchanted arachnid issues incredibly excessive annelids upon Wonder Woman and Phantom Lady. Like a yurt, wormy yahoos wrap around Prince and Knight. Of course, Wonder Woman is ever yarely, and she could have leapt from the yeasty "yotta-lot" with a mighty yawp. But, never yellow, the Princess of Power yokes softer sister Sandra protectively beneath herself as prodigious yutzes yoke atop the two.
Yet, the colossal clew does not drown the JSAers and doom them double-time to yore. They do not for two reasons.
One, Flash and Starman firmly forbid such a fate. Ever yarely, Jay was alert and agile enough—when all got grubby gnarly—to avoid capture. The Crimson Comet cruised backward in a blink when big bugs bilaterally vomited voluminous Venusian varmints. Then, Ted arrived after conversing with a (clandestinely-condemned) Kriglo colonial conductor.
Two, the amassed yobbos haven't the yen to slay Sociatarians. Rather, they yank the smothered, yearning for air, upward in contorted "yoga" positions to the pile's apex and yaw the trio this way and that to keep them disoriented. Of course, superheroes consistently have excellent kinesthetic sense, so three captives consciously yell and curse atop Mr. Mind's mind-controlled compatriots. Floating Starman gets set to free the three from their slimy, sleazy, unsettling suspension.
But, Mr. Mind butts-in. By bug boca, he broadcasts, "Halt, you hirsute heretics who would approach my acquisition the Temple of Aphrodite! You cannot hope to hinder my heinous and holy plot! I could make you husks such as these Spider-Men hollowed by my hallowed army!"
On cue, a couple of cored Kriglo collapse like internally consumed carcasses. In turn, the fickle phalanx folds in on itself as though to rebury Mid-Nite and friends. Fleetingly, they flow low, like yumberries smothered in viscid yogurt. The clew conspires to delay them until the mass' master Mind affects his magic. So, the shifting, slithering slugs susurrate a sec. Then, silky strands commence softly restraining and cocooning the captives!
But, get real, grubs, ya chumps! A wall—or entire tsunami wave—of worms won't overwhelm the Justice Society. It just won't. Right away, Wonder Woman windmills her arms and launches loony larval legions lunary (if Venus had moons). Starman's stick simply swipes Sandra and Charles safely from sticky Cytherean slobs. Then, it mashes Mind's myrmidons flat as a mat. Those who escape Knight's sphere of influence encounter instant incarceration in a neat net that Flash fetches fast from fairy nooks.
The entire annelid army lasts maybe fourteen seconds.
"Pshaw," says Phantom Lady contemptuously scanning the carnage.
"We should save Spectre," Wonder Woman suggests.
"Let's go," goads Dr. Mid-Nite. He hustles forward like a gallant guide and the great guy who he is.
Grinning at McNider's gumption, Garrick goes along after—as does the Gravity Rod and two game gals. Over the way's gravel and worm gunk, the good guys gallivant toward the temple's gate ahead. Along both street sides, verdant greenery, rare to Venus, grows giant, seemingly greeting guests to Aphrodite's shrine. In accompaniment, artesian arteries gurgle through idyllic glades aromatic with ginger, nosegays, grapes, and other good odors as though pure agape undergirds the area's grounds. In each tree groin, doves and sparrows sound and sing while swaying in spiritual rapture. In the germinative grass, goslings, gophers, and geckos gambol. And, golden sunshine gleams upon granite flagstone along the gentle gradient, beneath girthy groupers swimming the sky and before cirri gyring through gardens, all leading to the edifice of the goddess Aphrodite. The grounds' girdle is gorgeous.
At the Aphrodisias entrance, Gaia's gawking guardians (i.e. the JSA), gulled by scenery, galumph to a halt. Their gaze glues upon an ugsome glow interrupting the area's general agreeable ambience. The eerie aura emanates from inside as though the iniquitous interlopes there. A ghostly chill visits the champion chums.
"Well," remarks Sandy Knight, "I see that the venue's numen has changed, but I don't see why a Phantom Lady wouldn't feel at home. Let's hoof on in. Get it? Phantom Lady, and a 'numen' is a spirit."
"Yeah, I wonder, woman," Diana nudges Knight ahead.
With grit, the other champions cheerfully, but charily, follow. The five proceed up palatial stairs, over a portico with passionate and salacious statuary, and between gray Grecian columns leading to a lushly carpeted corridor lined with elaborate Ptolemaic tapestries and scarlet satin banners shimmering in the eerie illumination. Beyond the corridor, a gallery contains prone and paralyzed Spectre gauchely afloat in mid-air. He groans grossly straining to escape some occult entrapment.
Wonder Woman rushes headlong to harm the heathen vitiating Venus' shrine. Swine Mr. Mind will know a few knocks for his ignoble impudence, if an Amazon has her say. And, he is only a wee worm, so the righteous whomping's wreckage could be quite woeful.
But. Whack! Something shockingly sends Diana back through the air and hard onto her derriere. From nowhere, a shadowy figure steps—stocky, snarling, seven-foot-seven, and strong—into the archway's center. The obscured beast (a.k.a. Oom the Mighty) flexes his hulking physique and ferociously roars.
Without hesitation, Starman shoots straight force, and the jabbed giant skids across Aphrodite's inner sanctum. "Do you have any other chumps you want to throw at us?" Ted taunts all trespassers ahead.
"Let us find out," Jay jigs Diana to her feet and jabs Dr. Mid-Nite gingerly, "If you would, Charles, please barrage the adjoining chamber with blackout bombs. Sandy, please kindly aid with your ray."
No fool, our hero Mid-Nite figures keenly that fiend Mind must have heard plans either by ESP or by ambient echo. However, Charles amenably offloads eight blackout bombs upon the target area. In simpatico, Sandy does her device with widest beam and pitches the biggest pitch blackness that she can.
Mighty Starman, Wonder Woman, and Flash charge the chamber under cover of a nebula. They are champions chasing and acing chumps—in theory. They cheer a loud battle cry to boggle the blinded.
But, not all bad guys are blockheads beckoning a bashing. Some have a Mind and a brain—and a Monster Society of Evil at their behest. One affiliated evil-doer is Oom the Mighty, who the audience has already met. Another is Oggar the wizard who wields wondrous abilities. For example, Oggar the Accursed can even conjure—from far dimensions—contemptible colleagues. Granted, such a grand trick takes a toll and tuckers the thaumaturge a bit. But, siphoning some Aphrodisian anima, Oggar brings black hats into the blanket black cleverly cast by the JSA.
So, a surprise attack meets the superheroes' surprise attack. And, cartoon stars might as well issue from the cloud into which Starman goes. Some great goon commences assailing him and knocking Knight about. Flash and Wonder Woman too audibly enter some ambush in which wrathful wights whale on them—with some counterattack distinctly sounding as well (Mercury and Diana ain't exactly damsels in distress within Venus' venue). Before the doorway, Dr. Mid-Nite and Phantom Lady pause upon hearing the untoward tumult. They need to shrewdly reformulate their fight plan.
However, Charles and Sandy get no chance to reassess strategy, for fellow witch Nyola the Priestess accompanies Oggar in there. She controls the classic elements. In an instant, her hex hurls the black smoke from the inner sanctum to the outside. And, hurricane-force winds rap McNider and Knight flat and fling them fifty-five feet over the foyer floor. Favorably, Mid-Nite has his cape and leather to prevent rug burn. Unfortunately, Phantom Lady is bareback. Then, a wicked reverse wind vacuums the two "suckers" back. A sideways cyclone slings them into a sinister circle of supervillains.
From the ground, a good guy's goggles gander the scene. He sees the cella floor stretched before him in sixteen hundred square feet. He sees eldritch etchings scratched across the stone from the chamber's front to back. By the disturbed dust, the delineations are recent defacing of Venus' vault. Directly beneath Spectre, he sees a strange break in the pattern as though that specific inscription serves a different purpose. Over a sigil, Spectre seethes and shudders suspended between two sorcerers and a tremendous psychic—who do sweat profusely (the worm too). Seemingly, it takes all their collective chutzpah to keep Vengeance in check.
Dr. Mid-Nite sees Justice Societarians struggle with Evil Monster Societarians. Wonder Woman ardently challenges ogrish Ibac and he her. Suddenly, the Dummy sprints up, like a chimp, and chomps her on the shoulder. Starman's extension smashes chippy Mr. Who, who is basically a Mr. Hyde homage, with oaken chairs, decorative chains, and ceramic chalices. Then, Mr. Atom charges Ted like a choo-choo. Enormous Oom the Mighty chokes Flash, Jay's feet kicking above the ground. In turn, Flash's fists rapidly rotate and furiously chop fat forearms until free. Right away, Oom retaliates, and Flash takes it on the chin.
Arisen Dr. Mid-Nite and Phantom Lady consider the combat and choose their next moves. They almost engage Justice's enemies—until rude telekinesis abruptly interrupts. It tugs their cheeks and turns their heads like chastisable children. Charles and Sandy face the triangled occultists occupying Aztar. An annelid's unnatural eyes blaze magnificently.
"Well, welcome, chumps," chimes Mind. The bug gives one chitter of a titter.