DC Adventures Log 6: All Hail Riverdale!
In our last DC Adventure, DC Adventures Log 5: Super Friends, Team Lex hurtled back in time to the year 1975 and, um, ‘befriended’ the Super Friends. Well, actually, they attacked the Super Friends on sight, but when a giant moon monster threatened to eat the Earth, Team Lex, Sherlock Holmes and The Super Friends banded together to fight the interstellar menace. While they celebrated their victory, however, U.N. soldiers stormed the Hall of Justice and eradicated the Super Friends in a volley of kryptonite bullets. After the dust settled, a geriatric General in a gunsuit smashed through a wall of the Hall of Justice, declared he had killed Team Lex once today, and would do it again. Luckily, Skeets, Booster Gold’s time travelling computer buddy, appeared, told the players to quick, name a year, and one of the players chose 1953- Bzooweeoovzip!
Bzooweeoovzip! Team Lex and Sherlock Holmes were crammed in a bathroom stall, which, based on the bathroom tiles used, the tinny sound of Muddy Waters coming from what was obviously a jukebox outside sped up to 47rpm to hurry through songs for more quarters, and the hamburger grease smeared throughout the stall, Sherlock Holmes declared the group was in the bathroom of a soda shop in the year 1953, somewhere in the northern Massachusetts, southern New Hampshire region of the U.S..
Our super-powered misfits filed out the bathroom, past a confounded teen culture and greeted by Pop Tate, who apologized. He didn’t notice these circus performers when they first entered Pop Tate’s Chock’lit Shoppe, but would be more than happy to take their order.
While the others chatted, Hourman, picked up a copy of ‘The Daily Dirt‘, which mimicked much of ‘The Daily Planet’. Various articles written by Clark Bent and Lois Pain included the headlines:
- Soviet Union forces lead by General Immortus topples China. Absorbs most of South East Asia.
- New Fall Fashions: The Ushanka is in!
- How prepared are we for attack? Camp Swampy fails inspection.
- Explorers Abbott and Costello return from Venus. Harrowing details of imprisonment by all female population. “We were forced to pick up after ourselves.” Reports Abbott. “It was a nightmare!”
- Joker forces Batman into “Gayest Boner he’s ever seen!”
“If you think the Joker’s boner is gay,” says Batman, “Just you wait! I’m going to give Joker the biggest boner of the century! It will be the boner to end all boners!”
As Team Lex struggle with a history they did not remember, A red headed, freckled teen named Archie Andrews clues them in. General Immortus, a man of dubious military rank, appeared from, seemingly, nowhere with access to a stockpile of futuristic power armors and laser guns. In a matter of weeks, he overthrew what he declared was “The most powerful nation on this planet, during this age, The Union of Soviet Socialist Republic.” “We’ve got to mobilize now!” Archie tells Team Lex, “After General Immortus has mopped up Asia, he’s declared his next target is North America. We can fight him, but only if we set aside our petty differences. A large group of us are meeting at the Riverdale Highschool auditorium at ten o’clock tonight, and I’d be thrilled to have you guys join us!”
Meanwhile, Harley Quinn, excited by the prospect of joining the circus, slips off to the fairgrounds. However, when Harley confronts Major Masters, the ringleader, about riding the elephant in the circus, Masters shuts her down, and screams “The Major Masters Circus will never have an elephant trainer again!” Before Harley can respond, Masters spins on his heel, storms back to his trailer, and slams the door.
The rest of Team Lex catch up with a confused Harley, and begin an investigation and/or join the circus. Abra Kadabra teleports the current circus magician to the bottom of a lake, and claims his role for his own. Heatwave teaches a clown how to blow fire, which goes horribly wrong when the clown catches himself on fire. Two other clowns attempt to extinguish the blaze, but instead throw pails full of confetti and gasoline on him.
Hourman, bored of these circus shenanigans, uses precognition to see the most interesting thing that will happen in the immediate future. His power shows him that a two foot tall talking duck, in a top hat and vest, will cross downtown Main St., and be so infuriated with a letter he is reading that an army jeep will barrel right into him. Hourman flies to the scene, and rescues one Scrooge McDuck from a terrible fate. The blonde dopey zero of an army private jumps out of his jeep and apologizes, but explains that he has to get back to Camp Swampy as fast as he can, before the gas meter reaches ’empty’. Scrooge McDuck, for his part, has his feathers in a ruffle because Richie Rich has seized his Yukon gold mines, and he must now devise a plan to get his property back. “It’s the richest kid in the world, versus the world’s richest duck!”
Meanwhile, Sherlock Holmes grills Major Masters on his anti-elephant policy, while Harley finds Lois Pain snooping around an empty elephant stable. After everyone compares notes, they piece together that Major Masters killed Jenny, the previous elephant trainer. Masters blamed Jenny’s elephant Jumbo for going on a mad musth rampage and trampling its trainer. Masters then had Jumbo put down and buried with Jenny, all so he could sleep around with the star acrobat, Felicia Smarts. Holmes and Harley investigated Jenny and Jumbo’s grave site, but found two empty holes, with the earth piled up as if Jenny and Jumbo had thrust themselves out of the Earth. Two sets of footsteps, a human’s and and elephant’s, lead from the graveyard to the local wetlands, but disappear before they reach the reeds, as if carried away by the mist.
An hour later, and back at Major Masters Circus, the pre-show has begun. Abra Kadabra and Heatwave entertain the crowd, but as Harley Quinn enters the ring, straddling an elephant, a loud thudding echoes through the tent. While the ominous sound of heavy footsteps plods closer, a figure shrouded in heavy black robes approaches an invisible Gentleman Ghost. After exchanging comments, the robed figure declares that “An elephant never forgets… to kill!” He pulls back his hood, reveals the head of a skeleton, and screaches “Welcome to another Tales from the Crypt!”
Zombie Jenny, riding Zombie Jumbo, charge into the circus and bear down on Harley. While, Team Lex struggle to stop the rampaging zombie elephant and his keeper, Gentleman Ghost welcomes the Crypt Keeper in an otherworldly struggle. Many clowns were lost in the ensuing battle (and many clown ambulances and clown dogs dispatched to help the injured. Mostly, they just run around the inside of the tent in circles). When Jenny was laid low, Jumbo stormed out of the tent and threatened to trample through Riverdale, but a spell from Abra Kadabra transformed the beaten elephant into a golden statue of a singing duck. The Crypt Keeper, meanwhile, melted under the burning fury of Gentleman Ghost. The ground opened up and swallowed The Keeper, but not before Gentleman Ghost grabbed his bony hand and removed The Keeper’s glinting skull ring. The earth closed on The Crypt Keepers hand, which severed off, flopped over, and skittered away.
With the circus debacle over, Team Lex reencounted a gangly teen that Kadabra met at Pop’s Tate’s Chock’lit Shoppe, and which Kadabra bestowed a wax mustache on, convincing her that the boys would be more likely to notice her now, with her rugged good features. Kadabra, upset with another interruption by Big Ethel, teleported her into the atmosphere. Hourman flew to catch her, and when he did, a crying Ethel sobbed into his chest that Hourman had to help her get Jughead away from Archie Andrews. “He’s just being a good friend,” said Ethel, “and he isn’t one to pass up free food. But the things that Archie’s been talking about… I’m scared for Jughead, Mister. He doesn’t understand what he’s getting dragged into!”
Confused by this outburst, Hourman used his precognition to see what will happen at this meeting in the Riverdale High audiotrium. He saw most of the town in attendance, listening to a raving and frothing Archie Andrews as he rallied a crowd against the menace of General Immortus. On Archie’s signal, two large red, blue, black and grey, American Nazi flags descend, as Betty and Veronica model the latest in AmeriNazi fashion.
With forewarning that Riverdale is on the verge of a panic-fueled decent into fascism, Team Lex joins the meeting in the school auditorium. While Archie Andrews fumes over how Riverdale would need to rebut the oncoming invasion with maximum resilience, and maximum resilience means every person knowing their place, Sherlock Holmes refuted that a city divided among itself could not hope to stop General Immortus. What really hurt Archie, though, were allegations that Archie and General Immortus were in league with one another. Betty and Veronica defended their beleaguered leader, but only made things worse, and ran out the back of a booing auditorium with Archie in their arms.
As the auditorium filed out, Skeets reappeared. He updated Team Lex on what Rip Hunter and Booster Gold were doing, and was embarrassed to admit that they had not made much progress. Oddly, whatever General Immortus was doing, it didn’t involve time travel. Neither was the futuristic weaponry moving through time, either. Somehow, Immortus was simultaneously conquering all time with futuristic weapons, but whenever Hunter and Booster tried to focus on the exact moment that Immortus gained these weapons, the details got fuzzy. It was like General Immortus always had access to this weaponry, and was now starting to use it, simultaneously, and at all times. Meanwhile, reality was breaking down as the planet ground under thousands of years of simultaneous rule by General Immortus.
The group decided that something far in the past must have spawned this event. When Skeets asked the team what year they would like to travel to, Gentleman Ghost yelled “One thousand, B.C.!” Bzooweeoovzip!
Continue onto DC Adventures Log 7: Forever Immortus
