The Brave and the Bold: Johnny Thunder and Strobe
Another Manic Monday
by Dan Swanson
Another Manic Monday Part 1.
Johnny Thunder was unhappy when his favorite soap opera, As the Heart Beats, was interrupted by a news flash. But as soon as he saw what was being reported, his anger was quenched…
“We interrupt this program with a special live news bulletin. In Centennial Park in Seacoast City, two unknown men are engaged in a life-and-death battle. One man appears to have super powers similar to Green Lantern, only in white and gray, while the other is armed with a supply of exotic gadgets and weapons. As you can see, the unknown flying man has just been knocked from the sky with some unknown weapon, and the other man is now attacking with a sword. Wait! The gadget man has just sprayed the flying man with some kind of paste! KSEA News was fortunate to have a live news crew broadcasting from the scene of the building collapse, next to the park, so we can bring you this exclusive coverage.”
Johnny had heard enough. “The flying guy, that’s that new guy, Jim Chisholm, who was working out at JSA HQ last week! Say, you’d think there would be something we could do to help!” On the TV screen, the cocoon surrounding Chisholm suddenly exploded! He flew at the other figure at incredible speed, and slammed into him, driving him back into and entirely through the walls of a nearby gazebo. Chisholm stopped, and a giant hand sprung from his Glove, reaching for the villain. This hand seemed to be somewhat out of control, totally demolishing the wooden gazebo. Chisholm looked astonished. He quickly dissolved the white construct, and ran over to the villain. As he approached, the camera panned to the villain, who could be seen writhing in pain. In the background, Johnny could see police and ambulances approaching. Then Jim collapsed to the ground!
“T-Bolt, what happened? I expected you to whisk us off to Centennial Park!” Johnny yelled. “Why did Jim almost kill that guy? What trashed his power, and how did he get it back? I’ll bet you had something to do with this!”
It was hard to believe, but the T-Bolt almost looked sheepish. “Well, Master John, you wished that we could help Chisholm, but you didn’t specifically say how. As you know, when you are not specific, I have considerable latitude in interpreting your commands.”
“Stop with the excuses already! What did you do?”
“Well, Master John, I didn’t do much… I simply created a little lead shielding, and Jim did the rest on his own!”
“So why did his powers go out of control? And what made him collapse like that?”
“Sorry, oh most glorious one, I don’t really know. If you would only ask me to find out…”
“It doesn’t matter. Get us over there QUICK!” Johnny and the T-Bolt vanished.
Another Manic Monday Part 2
Jim Chisholm had been having a bad day. It started as soon as he woke up. He had finished his first super-hero battle yesterday and he STILL didn’t have a super-hero name! And the harder he thought about it, the worse it got…
“Hmm… Gauntlet? Black Lightning? Nope, I want to stay away from names with colors in them. Starhawk sounds pretty good… Glow Master? Silly! Nimbus? That’s not too terrible, I might come back to it. Star Saber? Lighthawk? Laser? Lightbolt? Maybe just Bolt? Darn, this is harder than fighting super-villains! At least I got the costume straightened out”. Jim hadn’t decided yet if he was going to adopt a ‘secret identity’ as a super-hero, or let the general public know who he was, but he had decided, at least temporarily, to wear a cowl. His cowl matched the gray of his costume, and resembled the cowl Batman had used to wear – although without the ears, and with a black fin on top similar to that on Starman’s hood. Jim had discovered that he could will the Glove to be invisible, so he started wearing it all the time. Whenever Jim activated the Glove, the Glow automatically switched whatever he was wearing for his costume, which now included the finned cowl.
Finally he tried to thrust the whole heroic name issue from his mind, and went into the office to get started on his week’s work. Almost before he sat down, the phone rang. It was his biggest client, for whom he was designing a new factory/office building, with bad news. They had just been acquired in a hostile takeover, and the new owner was canceling or postponing all current projects. Jim would get a penalty fee for early cancellation of the project, but the penalty fee wasn’t close to the full fee. He tried to think of this as an opportunity rather than a setback “I get a lump sum now larger than the retainer, and I can find a new client…” but he was annoyed anyway.
He had a 10:30 appointment in nearby Seacoast City, so he decided to go early, leave his car at a park outside of town, and walk downtown. He noticed that the drivers today seemed worse than normal, which maintained his irritation at a low level, but he was pleasantly surprised to find an open parking spot at the park. He got out of the car and headed towards the center of town. The park was along the bank of the Muddy River, and overhead was the Seacoast Bridge, which carried Interstate traffic into downtown. On the bridge, a bizarre accident occurred, just as Jim was about to leave the park.
A flatbed semi was cut off by another semi. The flatbed semi driver slammed on his brakes and his rig jackknifed. The trailer broke free and spun around on the highway, then the rear end jammed into the bridge retaining wall, the front of the flatbed trailer lying on the road, forming a kind of ramp. A pickup truck, trying to avoid the mess, went out of control and zoomed up the ramp, flying away from the bridge and out over the river. It hit hood-first, and immediately started to sink.
While the pickup was still in the air, Jim was flying towards it. Before the truck could sink, he picked it up in a giant hand and deposited it safely in the parking lot. He quickly flew to the bridge and scanned the scene. Realizing that no one else had been hurt, he quickly gathered up the tractor and trailer, and put them into the parking lot next to the pickup. He then landed at a local phone booth and called the police and an ambulance. He then changed out of his uniform and ran back to the lot to see if he could offer first aid. He wasn’t ready to let the world know about him yet. Not without a heroic name, at least!
The semi driver was fine. The driver in the pickup had been wearing seat belt and shoulder harness, but they hadn’t kept his head from slamming into the steering wheel when the truck had hit the water. He had a heavily bleeding gash on his forehead and his eyes were glazed and his speech slurred. He probably had a concussion. The ambulance arrived shortly, and Jim slipped away before the police arrived.
Jim was around the corner from his appointment, when he stopped at a newsstand to purchase his morning paper. There were puddles in the street from rain the night before, and some jerk deliberately drove through a puddle and thoroughly soaked him. Jim saw him laughing as he drove off.
He didn’t laugh too long, though – when he stopped at the next light, his engine died and he couldn’t get it restarted. Horns started blaring behind him as he got out of the car and looked under the hood. He was stunned to find that all of the wires had been pulled off of the spark plugs! As he started to reconnect the wires, other drivers angrily drove around him, blaring their horns and honoring him with the one-fingered salute. Unfortunately for this thoughtless driver, there was a puddle on that corner. Every car that sped through the puddle soaked him more thoroughly with cold dirty water!
Chuckling himself, Jim ducked into an alley and used his Glove to dry his clothes. He walked across the street and into the lobby of the building where his appointment was. In the lobby, he stopped to use the brand new Automatic Teller Machine. It swallowed his card, hummed for a couple of minutes, and returned the card. An ‘Out of Service’ message popped up on the screen. On a normal morning, Jim probably would have ignored this, but today he decided to investigate.
A little discrete Glow-powered investigation showed that there was no money in the ATM, and indeed never had been. All this machine did was record the user’s card information, including the secret code, and then periodically used a modem to send the recorded information to an anonymous phone number. Jim erased all of the information that had so far been recorded, disabled the machine, and reported the whole scheme anonymously to the FBI. Wonderful thing, that Glove
He wasn’t surprised when the elevator stopped working between floors. However, the elevator repairmen were surprised when they finally entered the elevator from the trapdoor on the ceiling and found it empty – people in the lobby swore that they had seen someone enter that elevator.
As he entered the office, Jim heard an explosion nearby. He ran back out into the hall, and headed for a window. While it was Jim Chisholm who leapt towards the window, it was…umm, who is it, anyway… who flew out the window.
As he approached the scene of the explosion, he wondered just what else could go wrong today? Certainly he was going to miss his appointment, and probably lose the job because of it.
Jim ordered his Glove to locate the source of the explosion and then fly him there as quickly as possible. Within seconds he was hovering over a scene of chaos. Some kind of explosion, perhaps from a gas main, had blown open the back wall of a bank, leaving a hole into the vault. People were still running out of the bank in panic.
It had been less than 2 minutes since the explosion. Jim used the Glow to locate injured people in the building. He discovered two dead bodies in the bank, along with 7 people seriously injured. He created a radio receiver and finding that an ambulance was already on the way, he created a giant hand that picked up the ambulance near the hospital and landed it outside of the bank.
Fortunately, the wall that had been blown open fronted on an empty alley, so no one outside the bank had been injured. As he approached the bank, Jim noticed that the walls were starting to crumble, and he feared that within minutes, the entire building would collapse, killing hundreds.
As quickly as thought, glowing white supports surrounded the bank and propped up the building. Jim had to land, as supporting the building took all his concentration! He saw an emergency response squad composed of firemen and police arriving, and yelled to the commander “Evacuate the building as quickly as possible. It’s going to collapse and I can’t hold it more than about 15 minutes!” The squad rushed into the building, up the stairs, and began a room-to-room search, sending anyone they found out of the building. As more emergency workers arrived, Jim directed them to help the current searchers. Incredibly, within 10 minutes, the rescue team reported that everyone was out of the building!
The strain on Jim was incredible. He had never before supported such massive objects, and he had never been forced to split his attention in so many directions. He couldn’t just shore up the hole, because the entire support structure of the building had started to disintegrate. He needed to replace, by will power, all of the beams holding the building up. Making it more difficult was that every time he braced something, some other piece of rubble would start to shift, and then he had to brace something else. When he moved to brace that, something else would shudder. Despite Jim’s best efforts, bits of brick and concrete and other building materials were raining down from the building, making it dangerous to be nearby. Jim hoped that all the spectators in the gathering crowd would be smart enough to stay back. But he had so much occupying his attention that he had none to spare for spectators!
When the rescue squad reported that everyone was out of the building, he could relax just a little. As the building started to settle a little, he used the Glow to verify that everyone was out. There were no people left, but he was startled to find a kitten cowering between some internal walls. He willed the Glove to whisk the kitten to safety. Meanwhile, the rescue squad moved people further away from the building.
Finally, everyone was far enough away to be safe. Jim relaxed his supports, and immediately surrounded the building with a force field. As the crowd watched in awe, the 10-story building collapsed! The white force field kept the rubble and dust contained, but the ground shuddered as if there was an earthquake. Buildings on several nearby buildings shattered and some people in the crowd were injured by flying glass. Fortunately, there were medical teams already on the scene.
Jim looked around and spotted a TV news crew, from KSEA. He wasn’t going to be able to stay out of the public eye any longer…
Another Manic Monday Part 3
While everyone was rushing around in a panic, either trying to escape or trying to rescue other people from the doomed building, one man ignored the chaos and calmly looted the bank vault. He was quite satisfied with the way this operation was going. He had not expected that the whole building would threaten to collapse, but that was all to the good. The looter didn’t know who the super-powered guy was, but as long as he was occupied, it made looting that much simpler. He hadn’t expected to meet any super-heroes in Seacoast City.
It wasn’t too surprising that no one saw this lone figure looting the vault. He was wearing a high-tech camouflage cloak that changed to match whatever background he was standing in front of. As long as he stayed near a wall and moved carefully, he was very difficult to see. With the chaos of the collapsing building to distract them, no one else around paid him any attention. Naturally, the cloak was stolen. In fact, the man was equipped with many items of equipment, all of them stolen.
In his mind, he called himself ‘the Pack Rat’. He didn’t know if anyone else was using the name, and he didn’t care. He never expected to be famous anyway. The fewer people that knew about him, the better for him. Pack Rat sort of described him, but he didn’t just collect stuff – he stole anything he could get his hands on that might be of use to him.
He opened his briefcase and started stuffing it with money and negotiable securities. And continued stuffing it, long after it should have been full. The briefcase was actually much larger inside than out, with about the same volume as a one-car garage. It had an additional useful property – it never weighed more than an ordinary, empty briefcase, regardless of what was stored in it. The only limitation was that any item he wanted to carry had to fit through the opening, which was the size of a regular briefcase. He had stolen the briefcase from a young wizard. He didn’t know how or why it worked, but as long as it worked, he didn’t care.
Finally the vault was empty, and the Pack Rat slowly moved out of the vault and through the hole in the back of the bank. He then walked slowly down the alley, away from the front of the bank. Just before he left the alley for the next street, he took off his cloak and stuffed it into the briefcase. Under the cloak he had on an expensive 3-piece business suit (stolen, of course!) He stepped out onto the sidewalk and merged with the crowd of pedestrians, most of whom were gawking at the bank building, which was surrounded by various glowing white hands, girders, jacks and other constructs keeping the building from collapsing.
When Jim and the emergency squad herded the crowd away from the building, the Pack Rat went with them, unnoticed. After watching for about 15 minutes, the building collapsed. “I hope there was somebody important inside!” he mused to himself. “It would be a shame to waste all that destruction…”
The Pack Rat decided on a walk across nearby Centennial Park. As he neared the lake, he was suddenly surrounded by a cage made of glowing white bars!
Another Manic Monday Part 4
As soon as he was sure that everyone was safely out of the building, Jim let it collapse. Hardly had it finished falling when he started using the Glow to determine the cause of the explosion. “Hmm, there are traces of magic lingering in the alley behind the bank…” Jim turned that way, and suddenly his eyes were covered by glowing white goggles. “These lenses will help me follow these traces.”
The traces led into the crowd, and then became very hard to follow. Apparently whoever was leaving this little trace of magic had mingled with the crowd of spectators for a few minutes, and the milling around of the large crowd had somehow dispersed the lingering magical traces.
As he looked around, Jim realized that there were only a few streets leaving the scene of this disaster, so he quickly used the Glow to check them all. He was very gratified when his Glove detected a trace of magic leading to Centennial Park, and even more pleased when he realized that the trace was getting stronger.
Suddenly the Glove formed a glowing white arrow in the air, pointing at a young man in an expensive dark gray 3-piece suit, carrying a briefcase.
“Hold it, buddy! My Glove says you are carrying something magical, and I need to see what it is!” Jim’s commanding voice rang out. He commanded the Glove to form a cage around the man.
Pack Rat had expected to sneak away unnoticed, and he really wasn’t prepared to fight a super-hero. He was a thief, not a fighter. He tried to think of something in his case that he could use, but he was having problems remembering just what was in there, so he dumped the case on the ground inside the cage and frantically started searching through the pile of stuff.
Suddenly the cage dissolved and Jim fell to the ground, landing hard on the muddy turf near Rat. He staggered to his feet to see Rat coming at him with a sword. Even though he was a little disoriented that his Glove had failed so suddenly, and a little dazed by the fall, Jim wasn’t all that worried. He had often worked out against trained swordsmen, and it was immediately clear to him that Pack Rat had no training with a sword whatsoever. Of course, anyone with a sword could be dangerous, especially against an opponent with no weapon and no armor! As Rat swung the sword, Jim got a better view of it and realized that it was actually a scimitar – a long curved blade, widest near the point, with a very sharp edge on the convex side. The handle was covered with jewels, and it looked like something out of a movie.
Rat swung the scimitar wildly, holding it like a baseball bat. Jim moved backwards, and the swing missed, but Jim’s feet caught in the mud and he fell onto his back. Rat swung the sword over his head and down at Jim like he was chopping wood. Jim rolled aside, and the blade plunged deep into the mud. Jim quickly got to his feet as Rat struggled to pull the sword free of the muck. In each hand, he had picked up a softball-sized rock.
Rat approached him more cautiously now, clearly worried about the possibility that Jim would throw a rock at him. Instead of swinging wildly, he started stabbing and thrusting. This confirmed to Jim his inexperience with swords – a scimitar is designed for slashing and cutting, not thrusting. Jim was able to anticipate the thrusts, using the rock in one hand or the other to deflect the blade. Then Rat surprised him. Just before Jim deflected his thrust, Rat twisted his wrist, so the rock in Jim’s hand met the sharp edge of the sword. The blade sheared easily through the rock, and cut deeply into the palm of Jim’s hand. He quickly jerked his hand back, and only his quick reflexes saved him from losing part of his hand! The blade was so sharp, Jim didn’t even feel it cut him. But instantly afterwards, he did feel the pain!
This was no ordinary sword! No sword Jim had ever faced could have cleaved that rock so easily! Suddenly, Jim had a lot more respect – this opponent, unskilled as he was, could easily kill him if Jim made any more mistakes.
Jim backed away quickly, and changed tactics. He hurled the rock in his right hand. It struck Rat on the hand holding the sword. Rat dropped the deadly sword as his fingers were crushed. As Rat stumbled backwards, Jim turned his attention quickly to his bleeding hand. He quickly realized that it was only a flesh wound. He jammed his hand under his right armpit and squeezed to stop the bleeding.
This short break gave Rat time to pick up a strange gun. The gun looked like a large squirt gun with a bell-shaped nozzle, connected to a small tank of some kind by a hose. The Pack Rat had stolen it from some small-time costumed criminal named Pastry Pete, who had used it to spray his foes with quick-hardening cake icing. Rat was sure that Pastry Pete had never put his Pastry Gun to such good use as it was now – Jim was totally encased in quick-hardening icing.
Suddenly, Jim couldn’t move, and he couldn’t breath and he couldn’t see! Jim strained to use the Glow to break out of the suffocating coating, but nothing happened! Whatever had fouled up the Glove was still operating. Jim had known that being a super-hero was dangerous, but he had never expected to die like this – and in only his second heroic battle. No matter how much he strained, he couldn’t move – and the Glove wasn’t working – and his head was spinning and his ears were buzzing, louder and louder, and then …
Suddenly the coating vaporized with explosive force, staggering the Pack Rat even though he was 50 feet away. Jim erupted, flying through the cloud of debris and straight into Pack Rat, with stunning force, lifting him off the ground and driving him completely through the walls of an empty gazebo. Jim formed a hand-shaped glow construct and attempted to pick up the stunned and possibly seriously injured Pack Rat, but the hand appeared to be uncoordinated and totally smashed the wooden gazebo. Jim appeared dazed, but he immediately dispelled the hand and instead approached the Pack Rat on foot. He could hear the sirens of police and ambulances approaching.
When he reached the Pack Rat, Jim found that he was conscious and squirming in pain, although there were no obvious broken bones or external damage. “Thank God I didn’t kill him!” he thought, and then collapsed on the ground unconscious! At that instant, Johnny Thunder and the T-Bolt appeared.
“Say, T-Bolt, are these guys OK?” Johnny asked, concern obvious in his voice.
“Clearly they are NOT OK, oh insightful Master! But both will be OK if they are quickly attended by appropriate physicians”
“Well, then, see too it!” snapped Johnny.
Immediately, the approaching ambulance disappeared from the highway and instantly reappeared, next to the injured Pack Rat and the attendants were popped out of the vehicle to appear, with their equipment, next to their patient, the Pack Rat. Johnny, the T-Bolt, and Jim Chisholm disappeared.
Another Manic Monday Part 5
Several hours later, in Dr. McNider’s office, Johnny, T-bolt and Dr. McNider talked to Jim Chisholm, who lay on a bed. McNider is wearing only a medical robe.
“I’m sorry, Jim.” said Johnny with a hangdog expression on his face. “T-Bolt and I were only trying to help! You weren’t supposed to end up in a sick bed!”
“I’m not all that upset, Johnny. I’m much more interested in finding out from our resident doctor just how I am, and just what happened.”
Dr. McNider spoke up. “As you can surmise from my attire, Johnny’s Thunderbolt transported me here from home at an inopportune time. Fortunately I called Myra immediately after I arrived. She was on the verge of hysterics – she’s still not used to her husband disappearing without warning. But there was work to be done.
“Jim, in your life, you have never before really faced the possibility that you might die. Probably the most dangerous situation you were ever in was in your battle yesterday, and from what I hear, that result of that battle was never really in doubt. Today, first when that blade sliced into your hand, and later you were wrapped in that cocoon, you finally realized you could really die. You were straining to use every bit of your will power, and every erg of energy your Glove had, to break out. But with your Glove not working, that shell was like the immovable object.
“When T-Bolt suppressed whatever it was that was interfering with your power, suddenly the immovable object changed into something with less resistance than tissue paper. This change from absolute resistance to no resistance cause a mental sprain – much like swinging very hard at a baseball and totally missing sometimes can lead to sprained muscles.
“Combined with that, you were physically exerting yourself to the maximum, trying to break out of the cocoon. Your adrenaline was pumping, your heart was beating fast, and all your muscles were straining as hard as you have ever strained. And, you were short on air. Add to that the shock from the cut to your hand. When you finally broke free, all of the strains on you were relieved, and you started falling into that weakness that always follows an adrenaline rush.
“Because you were straining so hard, you overdrove the Glove and it seemed to be out of control. This was followed by the fear that you had killed a man. These factors all added together caused your collapse.
“You don’t have to worry, all you need is a little rest! I sewed your hand closed and it will be sore for awhile, but otherwise, you are fine. And you’ll be happy to know that that crook will be fine as well.”
“I feel awful, Doc. I’m glad you think I’m ok, but I sure hope I don’t have another day like that again soon! I really need some rest, but I wonder – do you guys know what screwed up my Glove? Up until today, I didn’t know if there was anything that could do that. And what was up with that sword?”
“Say, you know, T-bolt can tell you that!” said Johnny. And of course, the Thunderbolt did.
“The sword was a magic scimitar allegedly once owned by Sinbad. It was apparently on display at the Seacoast City Museum for many years, but it was stolen yesterday. The enchantment on it makes it much sharper than a normal sword, as you discovered.
“I was really surprised to discover what interfered with your control of the Glove. It seems that the villain was prepared with defenses against a number of different heroes. When his case spilled, one of the items that spilled from it was a chunk of Kryptonite! Kryptonite radiation directly interferes with your control over the Glow.”
Dr. McNider jumped in. “It’s our theory that no wearer of the Glove has ever before encountered Kryptonite, which didn’t exist until after Krypton exploded. The people who built the Glove didn’t know about Kryptonite radiation, so they didn’t build in any protection against it. While Kryptonite radiation won’t harm you directly, your Glove won’t work if there is unshielded Kryptonite nearby. All the Thunderbolt did was shield the Kryptonite with lead.
“The Glove is probably designed to protect you from any danger from anything that existed when it was created, over 100,000 years ago. So you had best be aware that you might have vulnerabilities to other modern tools, weapons and natural phenomena that were unknown to the Galactic Patrol.”
Jim smiled wearily. “Well, thanks a lot to all of you, especially you, T-bolt, for helping me out today! Now, if only one of you could help me come up with a good heroic name… T-bolt, do you think you could zap me home? I really need…”
Johnny interrupted “You haven’t selected a heroic name yet?” Jim shook his head no. “Say, you’d think we could help you with that!” Johnny said.
Doctor McNider looked started, and then he started to talk. ” Sir Glove, WildFlyer, Tomorrowiac, Shadow Rider, Doctor Danger, Turbodazzler, UltraLight, Gamma Warrior, Violet Wing, Jet Nova, Obsidian, Senor Weirdo…”
Jim couldn’t stop himself from joining in, “Nuclear Paladin, Captain Freedom, Bullet Beam, Star Cavalier, Sun Wave, Jet Prodigy, Light Wave, Ricochet Ray, Gray Prowler, Lightning, Shiningwave…”
Even Johnny got into the act, with “Space Stinger, Gamma Eagle, Major Rocket, Meteor Guy, Power Prince, Starhawk, UltraBeam, Z-Beam, Star Champion, Quick Lightning, Hawk Nimbus… Hey, T-Bolt, CUT IT OUT!”
“Yes, Master John, whatever you say, Master John. As always, Master John, your every wish is my absolute command!”
All 3 looked relieved when the magic stopped, and they could stop babbling. T-Bolt looked at Jim and asked “Well, did you like any of them?”
Johnny had to interrupt again. “I think you should call yourself Strobe, because when you’re around, it’s lights out for the bad guys!”
Jim finally got a tired word in edgewise. “Sorry, guys, but I think I’ve had enough for one day. Johnny, can you please ask T-Bolt to send me home?”
T-bolt looked at Johnny, who nodded, and Jim was home. He thought about heading to the kitchen for something to eat, but decided he was too tired. It had been a long day, and it was only Monday!
The End
