“First thing, it’s Baron Hammerspace now. I’ve been given a barony by my mysterious benefactors,” Hammerspace – Baron Hammerspace says. “It’s in Nigeria somewhere. I heard it’s a hellhole. I don’t know.”

I stare at him curiously waiting for the next thing.

“Next, things are about to get real crazy and I need you to be my official journalist. The official journalist of Baron Hammerspace.”

I ask him for more information.

“There’s no time to explain! We have to get to the Hammerhead!”

I tell him I’m ready to go.

“Hang on. Let me finish my pebbles.”

He takes five minutes to finish his pebbles and then he pours himself another bowl. I sit down at the table after a few minutes. Hammerspace comments about my trip to LA. “So, the Scarlet Avenger, I heard you tapped that. Is it true the, uh, carpet doesn’t match the drapes?” I tell him I’m not sure. There was all wood flooring – if you know what I mean. He doesn’t get it. I’m not in the mood to explain. I can’t believe he heard about that already. “Everybody knows. She’s really pissed. She told Ms. Frigid she’s going to throw you across the international dateline. Would that be yesterday or tomorrow from this direction? I always forget.” Hell hath no fury…

Eventually he finishes the pebbles. Then he jumps up from his seat and yells “to the Hammerhead!” I follow him out the front door and around the block and we jump in his rental car and drive to the airport. At the airport we board the Hammerhead, Hammerspace’s Gulfstream 3 jet. He tells me about the jet as we head down to the tarmac. “Behold, my flying base of operations! The constantly moving home to the world’s greatest criminal mastermind! It used to belong to Miley Cyrus, but she sold it when the G5 came out. I found a stack of autographed photos in the overhead carry-on and a pair of Billy Ray’s old boots. It could use a custom paint job – something with a lot of skulls I think.”

Aboard the plane, Fumigator sits drinking a martini next to three new super characters I’ve never seen or heard of before. One is a pretty blonde girl wearing a black tee shirt with a big yellow smiley face on it. The other is decked out in full Ku Klux Klan regalia to the point where I can’t tell if it is male or female. The third is a guy in his early thirties with his hair gelled and a pair of seven hundred dollar sunglasses. Hammerspace introduces me. “Before you sit the members of my team – the Smiley Face Killer, legendary slayer of frat boys all across the American heartland. Beside her is the White Knight – master of the dreaded white power! Last but not least, Salesman, able to sell anything to anyone! Fumigator you already know. Together we form the dreaded Fiendish Five, bane of all that is just and bringers of doom to the legions of do-gooders that seek to stop us on our quest for world domination!” Then he cackles.

I can’t honestly say I’m surprised Hammerspace is running his own crew now. The guy certainly has ambition. The only thing I’ve seen him lacking is direction, and now it seems some mysterious outfit has provided him with one. The plane is in the air within minutes and I have no idea where we’re going. It doesn’t matter for now. I get plenty of face time with the new guys.

The Smiley Face Killer is one of those bizarre urban legends you hear about but nobody really believes in. Supposedly, the killer lures college age men from bars all over the united states somehow and then drowns them in nearby bodies of water – always sure to leave a tell tale smiley face sticker somewhere in the immediate area as a grim calling card. Here’s my Q&A with the killer.

Mike Leon: So, you’re a girl?

Smiley Face Killer: Last I checked.

ML: Everybody who believes in you at all thinks you’re a man.

SFK: I don’t understand that. How do they think I lure those boys out of the bars? It isn’t that hard to connect the dots.

ML: It really isn’t.

SFK: It’s a man’s world.

ML: So do you have a super power?

SFK: I do. I’m super strong.

ML: Really? I would have guessed something more outlandish.

SFK: Everybody does. It’s just male chauvinism. You all think the same way. Only men can have the good powers. Women have to turn invisible or be psychic or something lame and subtle.

ML: I don’t agree. I’m very afraid of the Scarlet Avenger right now and there’s nothing subtle about her.

SFK: She’s confident. Men can’t stand a woman in power. They have to turn her into a monster to bring her down.

ML: I see. So is that why all the gruesome murders?

SFK: Mostly.

The Salesman is considerably more talkative. “I figured it out while I was working in a Circuit City – this was way back when there still was a Circuit City. Anyway, I kept telling customers to buy stuff and they would. I was selling five times as much stuff as anyone else in the store and I just figured I was a really good salesman, but then I realized how ridiculous it really was when I started comparing notes with other sales guys from other stores. Once I figured it out it was a no-brainer to quit that job and move on to cars and then I branched out into just about everything from there.”

The White Knight interrupts with “Can I get a white power? Yee haw!” Everyone else on the plane stops for a second and then the Smiley Face Killer accuses him of being a racist. White Knight shrugs.

A few minutes later the Salesman spits into a napkin and sells it to the Smiley Face Killer for six dollars. He then uses the six dollars to tip one of the stewardesses (Yes, the Hammerhead has stewardesses). “I can only sell tangible objects – goods not services,” elaborates the Salesman. “And it’s really difficult to get around it. I found out when I tried to sell, quote, my nuts, end quote, to a girl at the Viper Room. She came at me with a meat cleaver. The Toxic Shocker had to zap her pretty hardcore.”

Apparently the Salesman also knows this Toxic Shocker guy. “Yeah, we did a bunch of jobs together down in Miami and then he ended up getting mixed up in this Eastern European thing and I haven’t seen him for a while.” He discredits rumors of a Graveyard connection. “Yeah. He told me stuff like that. It’s all bullshit. The Shocker’s an okay guy and all. It’s just he likes to tell tall tales and the weed doesn’t help. You know? He’s a little off. He told me this ridiculous story one time about how he was working with Graveyard and he saw one of them kill a werewolf with a toothbrush or something. No part of that story makes sense. Assuming a werewolf did exist, which it doesn’t, how would you kill it with a toothbrush? Isn’t the whole thing with werewolves silver bullets? The shocker isn’t exactly world class super agent material either. The idea that he’s a top guy for a secret super army that enforces a global shadow agenda is pretty tough to swallow.”

Hammerspace cuts into the conversation and announces that we will be arriving at the destination in an hour and he wants to start briefing the team on his plan. He pulls a projector from his jacket which he projects toward the back of the plane and then spends ten minutes fighting with Microsoft Powerpoint before he tosses the projector angrily aside and draws pictures on a napkin with a ball point pen. I know I’m curious about where it is we’re going exactly.

“If we’re going to wrest control of the Global Crime League then we must first destroy Doom Machine,” Hammerspace begins. “To kill him we need to find him. To find him we need the Schrodinger. Only the Schrodinger knows the location of Doom Machine’s lair.”

“Question,” interjects the Salesman. “Are the Stewardesses clean?”

“What? What does that even mean- oh. Oh. I don’t know. Ask them.”

“Do we really need whores on the plane?” says the Smiley Face Killer.

“What about the niggers and the Jews?” asks The White Knight.

“What the hell? Does anybody have any questions about what we’re actually doing?” yells Hammerspace. Heads shake. I’m the only one who has questions. He has to lay everything out for me and it takes about a half hour.

Apparently it goes like this: The GCL has been manipulated by Doom Machine into building the Chaos Engine, a device which will spell destruction for the entire human race so that beings from Doom Machine’s home dimension can take over. He has accomplished this by disguising the Chaos Engine as a giant robot for the GCL to use in one of their giant crossover events. Malo found out what was really going on and he had to be removed from the picture followed by the Schrodinger, Doom Machine’s chief rival for leadership of the GCL. Now Doom Machine has wrested control of the group and is pushing the completion of the Chaos Engine. Hammerspace has recruited a crack team of powerful supervillains to wrest control of the GCL and destroy Doom Machine. He has planned this with help from the CIA – he claims.

Just as I’m getting the idea what’s going on the pilot comes on the overhead and says we’re getting close. Hammerspace stands up from his seat and pulls a parachute pack from his jacket. He tosses it to Fumigator and says, “We need to get ready. We jump in ten.”

Next Week: Prison, beeyatch.

I wake up in the Scarlet Avenger’s bed. She’s nowhere to be found so I walk down the hallway to use her bathroom. I take a peek in her medicine cabinet while I’m in there. I find quite a few bottles of Lithium, some Respidol, Plan B, a straight razor, condoms, amyl nitrate, and a syringe.

I decide the best thing to do is pick my clothes up and leave. By the time I get dressed and open the front door she’s standing there in the hallway. “Were you trying to escape?” she says. Then she giggles nervously. I insist I was just going out to find a newspaper and she tells me she has it delivered and points to a paper on a table inside the apartment.

I end up having breakfast with her. She can’t do much in the kitchen, so I make omelets. I can never manage to flip an omelet over properly. I always end up dashing the whole thing to pieces in the process and then I have to just pile all the chunks on a plate and pretend I did it right. The Avenger thinks this is cute. In fact, she makes kind of a big deal about it, way more than any normal person should care about.

We finish breakfast and she’s ready for sex again. She backs me onto this little love seat in her front room and says “You’re the most incredible lover I’ve ever been with, Michael. I want to snort you like cocaine. Let’s make a baby.”

I tell her I have an appointment at whatever time it is right now. I can be a pretty convincing liar. She gives me a wink and tells me to hurry back. I get the hell out of her apartment.

Wombat is in the elevator. He laughs at me like he knows exactly what just happened. “You know she’s bipolar as hell, right?” he says. Then he adds, “At least you wrapped it up.” That he knows all of this frightens me at first. Then I surmise he’s able to tell me these things because of his superhuman sense of smell. He’s quiet and doesn’t say much else all the way down to the lobby.

The elevator doors ding open and Commander Commando is standing in the lobby answering questions for a gathering of reporters. “We’re doing everything in our power to find General Welfare and bring the evildoers to justice. Power Team spent the entire day yesterday combing the world over in search of the villains responsible.” It’s funny because I remember him playing an expensive Neo Geo video game for most of the day.

I sneak past the Commander, but on my way out the doors Bullet Time catches up to me and asks if I’d take a look at the spec script he just wrote for a biopic about him starring him as himself. “It’s a really deep story and I think I have a lot to say that, well, you know I’m really ahead of so many people intellectually and I want to get some things out there,” he says as we walk and talk. “I’m just hoping to get another screenwriter’s take on it.” I’m reluctant to answer as these types of requests usually lead to a damned if you do scenario. Screenplays are almost universally awful, especially ones written by amateurs. If I read it and tell him it sucks he’ll hate me. If I refuse to read it, he’ll hate me. If I lie and say it’s good, then he’ll pester me to help him get exposure and then my reputation is on the line. I’m trying to navigate these dark waters when I hear a scream from a nearby alley. I ask Bullet Time if we should investigate and he says he has a meeting in two minutes with Jim Cameron. He keeps walking. I head down the alley and find some kids joking around. It’s nothing, but if it were something then Bullet Time would have really dropped the ball.

I make a call to Larry from a payphone in a grocery store. This is after walking up and down Wilshire for twenty minutes asking people if they know where to find a payphone. Larry screams at me as soon as he picks up the phone. He’s infuriated. He can’t believe I’m in LA. He can’t believe I’ve been following supervillains for this long. He’s mad at me for not getting an exclusive with the Scarlet Avenger. I tell him I was already as exclusive as I’d ever want to be with her. I promise him recordings of Doom Machine’s actual voice. He thinks maybe we could sell those to a tabloid. I leave out that I lost my tape recorder when mysterious boogeymen dragged Hammerspace away. I guess I’ll cross my fingers on getting that back.

I end up walking into a McDonalds for lunch on a pretty down note. I’ve followed supervillains for weeks now and I’ve only been let down more and more. There haven’t been any battles with giant killer robots or intergalactic invaders. No one has activated a doomsday machine only to have the world’s superheroes join forces to stop them. There have been no damsels in distress. I haven’t seen anything particularly adventurous at all. What little action I have seen has been carried out (mostly by Hammerspace) with a ferocity reminiscent of a gangland drive-by shooting. None of these people are anything like the archtypes they represent and they certainly aren’t exemplary human beings. The superheroes are the worst part of the whole scene. They’re vain, narcissistic, and slovenly. Commander Commando is a complete douche bag. The Scarlet Avenger is insane. None of them seem to spend any time actually helping people. Of course, they’ll show up to smack Hammerspace around for some publicity, but that’s in their own interest. I have a little more respect for the villains who, despite being admittedly evil, actually work to accomplish something. Hammerspace is constantly jotting down notes and planning and attempting world domination. Maybe his plans don’t make a lot of sense and his ultimate goal is not desirable by most of the world but he works hard at it every single day – and loves what he does. That’s more than I can say for Commander Dickhead, whom I have seen doing little else but smoking weed and playing video games.

All of this is compounded when the runt at the counter tells me they don’t sell chicken nuggets anymore. Apparently something in the social equality bill that just passed enacts enormous taxes on any restaurants serving fried food. McDonalds can no longer afford to sell McNuggets. I tell the clerk I’ll have a number one instead. He reads a surgeon general’s warning against eating grilled beef products and then asks me if I’m sure. I tell him yes – but with more expletives.

In the afternoon I board a jet back home to Cincinnati and basically give up on the whole project. It takes three hours to get through airport security. I’m on the plane for another four. By the time I get a rental and get back to my place, I’m wishing I had a joint strike super shuttle like Power Team. I walk in the door pretty angry, but mainly just wanting to fall down in bed, turn the TV to something mindless and fall asleep.

I’m totally surprised when Hammerspace is waiting in my kitchen. He’s sitting in a chair eating Fruity Pebbles in chocolate soy milk. He tells me I’m out of regular milk. I ask him what he’s doing in my house. His face lights up in this massive grin I’ll never forget and he says “The shit just got real.”

Next Week: Meet the Fiendish Four… or Five… or something.

The following is a transcript of the tape I recovered from Hammerspace after the incident at the Ghettomansion. He was able to keep the recorder in his jacket where it continued to record until the battery ran out. Names have been attached to voices where possible. Certain portions have been blacked out at the request of my editor, who was not threatened in any way by any organizations existent or non-existent, past or present. I also must state that the identities of the individuals on the tape and their affiliations are unknown, again at the request of my editor.

The sound of a helicopter engine made the first few minutes of the tape very difficult or impossible to understand. Most of it has been left out of this printing to save paper.

Unknown Male: (unintelligible)….like I’m back in…..(unintelligible) gimme shelter on a (unintelligible) hundred yards (laughing)

Unknown Male: (unintelligible) tape recorder

Lenny: Burn him ‘till he (unintelligible)

Walter: Set down here!

Hammerspace: I’ve got (a) thermal detonator in here!

Walter: Shut up!

Lenny: There’s no (unintelligible) thermal (unintelligible)

Ghoul: (growling)

The engine noise fades.

Hammerspace: I swear I’ll blow us all to kingdom come!

Walter: Nobody cares. Close your jacket. You look like you’re flashing a playground.

Hammerspace: I’m not giving you General Welfare!

Walter: Fine. Keep him. The guy’s a banana.

Hammerspace: Lies! No one fools Hammerspace! Not even Kill Team One!

Lenny: Two.

Hammerspace: What?

Lenny: We’re Kill Team Two.

Hammerspace: Oh… Why don’t I get Kill Team One? El Malo Grande got Kill Team One…

Walter: He got Kill Team Two too.

Hammerspace: Kill Team Twenty Two?

Walter: No. Kill Team Two. ████████████████████████████

Unknown Asian Male: ████████████████████

Hammerspace:████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

Walter: █████████████████████████████████████

Hammerspace: Then you killed El Malo Grande! Fools! Prepare yourselves to be crushed by the awesome power of Hammerspace!

Walter: Wrong again.

Unknown Male: Malo was working for us. We were trying to save him.

Hammerspace: What?

Lenny: I told you this was a bad idea, Walter. Let me burn him. None of this noisy shit. Just a slow burn. Makes a soft crackle. Relaxing sound. Makes you feel warm inside.

Unknown Male: Yes, Lenny. Fire makes things warm.

Hammerspace: He doesn’t seem particularly balanced.

Walter: We’re very good at what we do, Mr. Thompson. Being very good at what we do comes at an enormous social cost.

Ghoul: Fresh meat.

Walter: Yes, Ghoul. Meat.

Hammerspace: If you guys didn’t kill Malo, then who did?

Walter: Who else has the power to take out Malo?

Hammerspace: The superheroes?

Walter: Wrong. How did the superheroes know where to find you?

Hammerspace: They must have planted a tracking device on me before. Blast you, heroes!

Walter: No. I hate dealing with these costumed super idiots!

Hammerspace: Careful, simpleton! The fate of humanity, YOUR FATE, lies in our super hands!

Walter: Please. You guys are street performers at best.

Hammerspace: We fight on the front lines of the eternal battle between good and evil, the battle for domination of the world!

Walter: You put on a show in ridiculous spandex tights while the real deal is going on under the table. But that’s fine. We welcome the distraction. Now let’s try this again. I’ll dumb it down a lot for you this time. Who called Ghettoblaster to get him out of the house right before the superheroes showed up?

Hammerspace: Doom Machine?

Walter: And who do you think also told the superheroes where to find you?

Hammerspace: Doom Machine!

Walter: And who killed El Malo Grande?

Hammerspace: Doom Machine… Why would Doom Machine kill El Malo Grande?

Unknown Asian Male: Because he found out about the chaos engine.

Hammerspace: So what? I know about the chaos engine. We all know about the chaos engine.

Walter: Except you think it’s an EMP generator constructed to knock out all of the planet’s electronic devices.

Hammerspace: Yeah…

Walter: Technical Tom, do your thing.

Technical Tom: The chaos engine is a phase amplification synoptic conversion array designed to generate maximum effervescence of moored civil constructs.

Hammerspace: Oh. Now that you put it that way.

Unknown Male: It’s a riot machine. You flip a switch. Everybody on the planet starts killing everybody else around them.

Hammerspace: Why would Doom Machine…

Walter: Because he’s an alien! They sent him here to wipe us out! Look, it doesn’t matter. Here’s the low down. We can’t have Doom Machine running the show, so we’re putting you in charge. Supervillains will work for you and you’re gonna work for us.

Hammerspace: Fools! Hammerspace is a pawn of no one!

Walter: Ghoul, eat his fingers.

Ghoul: (growling)

Hammerspace: Whoa! Whoa. Whoa. We don’t need to eat any fingers.

Walter: I thought you would see things my way.

Ghoul: (growling)

Walter: Ghoul, back off.

Ghoul: Hunger!

Walter: Remember the Iranian family in lock up? Yeah. If you’re good, you can eat the baby when we get back to base.

Ghoul: Baby?

Hammerspace: Oh shit.

Walter: Yeah. Baby… Yeah. There you go. Put him down.

Hammerspace: Wait, why me?

Walter: You took out a class three superhero by yourself. We were sort of impressed.

Hammerspace: So I work for you guys – who do you guys work for?

Unknown Male: ███████████████

Hammerspace: Huh. At least it’s not the lizard people.

Walter: What do you know about lizard people?

Hammerspace: Nothing. Just what Skullf- wait, what?

Technical Tom: That’s a good sign. We were worried about the potential for fourth dimensional perforation occurring as a side effect of his abilities, but it looks like a ten dimensional construct is a more valid explanation now.

Hammerspace: So how did he do it anyway? I thought Grande was invincible.

Walter: Turns out he could still drown.

Hammerspace: Murdered in his own swimming pool.

Walter: A lava flow actually.

Hammerspace: Oh wow. Now THAT’S how you kill a guy!

Lenny: I’ll burn you, you stupid git!

Walter: Back off, Lenny!

Lenny: Zap and Vixen melted alive in that lava flow!

Walter: Casualties happen! You need to keep it together! Christ, I’ve never seen you like this. You were sleeping with her weren’t you?

Lenny: None of your God damn business!

Walter: We lost two of our team in there with Malo. Doom Machine is… very dangerous.

Hammerspace: I never would have guessed.

Walter: We need to-

End of tape.

Next Week: More adventures with superheroes.

As the smoke clears, I find myself standing in the middle of Ghettoblaster’s ruined den. Fumigator is nowhere to be seen (I would later learn he slipped out in the confusion and escaped down a storm drain). Superheroes lie scattered about the room in varied states of consciousness and there are now several more holes smashed in the drywall. Wombat is the first to approach me.

“Who the hell is this guy?” he says, gruffly, as if I’m not right there listening to him.

I tell him I’m an embedded journalist with the supervillains and he almost laughs. Commander Commando does laugh. The Black Bandit is much more serious. After he yells at me for a while and asks a bunch of questions I don’t have answers to, he is reprimanded by Commander Commando. They get into a heated round of aggressive posturing, in which Power Team backs up Commando and Black Bandit exclaims “This isn’t over, Commando,” before throwing down a smoke bomb and vanishing. I really need to find out how they do that.

Commander Commando says I should stop following these costards and see how a real super team operates. Wombat scoops up the Schrodinger’s cadaver and we end up on Power Team’s ZX joint strike super shuttle. Before long we’re setting down on their landing pad high atop the Power Tower in Los Angeles. Bullet Time tells me about their world famous base of operations as we set down.

“We built the Power Tower in ninety nine entirely out of pocket. The bottom thirty floors are office complexes, a three floor shopping mall, parking structure, a movie theater – there’s a concert venue somewhere in there too. Then floors thirty one through forty belong to R and D, our legal department, merchandising, all that stuff. The top ten floors are sealed off and those are just ours. We have multiple living quarters and all of the world’s most prominent superheroes live here. Aside from Power Team, Scarlet Avenger, The Nightstick, and Fire Dancer, even though she’s retired, are just some of the heroes living in the Power Tower.”

The inside of the Power Team’s compound makes Ghettoblaster’s mansion look like a studio apartment back home in Cincinnati. Just walking around I find a video arcade and pool room, an indoor pool, a movie theater, a sauna, a shooting range and another video arcade. There are several areas I cannot access and I can only assume these are dedicated to war rooms, super computers, armories and other super necessities.

“Being a superhero definitely has its bonuses. For all the work we do, we really do get a lot back from the community,” says Commander Commando as he plays an original coin-op Metal Slug arcade machine. What kind of work does a superhero do exactly?

“Patrolling? No. Not really so much. It actually doesn’t yield results like on TV. You can patrol all night, your chances of actually stumbling onto a robbery in progress or a violent rape is[sic] pretty low,” says Commando. “I think that happened to me once and that’s it.” At least twice, actually. I found the newspaper articles.

“We usually handle the big stuff around here -calls from the president or the Pentagon or MI6. This General Welfare thing has really got everybody going. I’m not that worried though. Hammerspace is a third rate class two villain. He tries way too hard and he doesn’t follow the rules. He’s a loose cannon. He’s going to get screwed in the end. Guys like that always do. You have to play ball.”

Play ball?

“Yeah. You can’t do the kind of shit he’s doing. Killing a guy’s sidekick during a kids show? With a gun? What kind of guy does that? There wasn’t even a fair fight. He just pulled out a gun and shot him. There should be laws against that kind of thing.”

Isn’t that felony murder one?

“Is it? Hot damn. You may be on to something,” says Commando as he whips up a wall-mounted phone and asks someone named Stan in legal to look into it for him.

Who do you think grabbed Hammerspace anyway?

“Alls[sic] I know is they were incredibly powerful if they overpowered my whole team and the Black Bandit. It could have been Doom Machine and El Malo Grande.”

El Malo Grande is dead.

“Really? When did that happen? Oh well. No one stays dead long in this business.”

I follow Commander Commando down to a lower floor where he strips off most of his clothes in front of a team of sculptors who take plaster casts of his limbs for a new action figure. The process takes hours and through most of it he rants to me about how he didn’t know anything about quality until he discovered PRS guitars. Also he insists he’s going to show me his new pipe once he finishes. I manage to slip out while he’s arguing with someone about whether the variant figures should have a blue or cyan costume.

I begin roaming the hallways of Power Tower in search of a Pepsi machine so that I might partake of a delicious Mountain Dew soda beverage. After fifteen minutes I manage to find a machine a few floors up. After another five minutes is spent force feeding a badly crinkled dollar bill into the machine, I have a can of pop which I sip as I meander back down the hallway dreading the thought of Commander Commando showing me his boring drug paraphernalia. I’ve only made it a few steps from the Pepsi machine when I hear the sound of a woman crying. Curiosity gets the better of me (pretty easily – considering the alternative) and I decide to investigate. I take a corner and a flying cell phone nearly kills me. I feel it graze my ear before I know what it is and I have to turn and look back at the phone, which is actually embedded in the drywall, to tell what type of missile I nearly had rammed through my brain.

Very quickly an upset young woman is doting over me and apologizing for nearly spearing my face with a Nokia. She is tall and remarkably attractive. She brushes her long and shiny red hair back as she wipes her eyes and introduces herself in a thick British accent. We’ll call her Susie. Susie is the Scarlet Avenger.

I’m not saying Susie told me in exactly so many words that she’s the Scarlet Avenger, but it was certainly implied and, at times, painfully obvious. This mask thing doesn’t work nearly as well as they think it does.

After her long string of apologies has ended I start working her over with some superpowers of my own. We head down to the building lounge where we get a table near a mediocre saxophone player. Cocktails are nearly ten dollars. I open a tab I know I’ll regret later and start asking questions.

I find out Susie threw a Nokia 5800 at my head because her boyfriend, whom we’ll call Rick, told her it wasn’t working out and they should probably just be friends. “I felt like I had finally met ‘the one’, you know?” she says as she knocks back her fourth margarita in twenty minutes. She remains completely sober. “It’s so hard meeting guys who aren’t full of rubbish and I have this job – it’s very high pressure and I don’t have time to meet people and the men I work with are… What I do is a very male dominated profession. I don’t know if you figured it out yet, but if you know then you know. And it’s especially weird because I’m the best there is in my field and men are afraid of me. They are. If they’re not afraid then they’re jealous or they resent me. So I can’t see guys in my line of work and I can’t meet guys outside and for Christ’s sake I’m thirty two! The clock is ticking. You know? But Rick didn’t know what I do and that was working. It was great because I could go out with him and just feel like a girl again. You know? But then out of the blue he just dumps me. Why? Is there something wrong with me? Is that what that means? I thought it was the job thing getting in my way but maybe not. Maybe I’m just not the kind of girl men want.”

I try to be consoling, but as anyone who knows me will tell you, consoling is not something I can do. I read in a magazine that women appreciate a good listener and that sounds like an easy strategy so I just shut up and occasionally nod and agree with whatever Susie is talking about. She is remarkably uninteresting. She talks constantly about her crazy cats. Their names are Mittens and Gandalf. Mittens is black with white paws and Gandalf is (surprise) grey. After half a dozen margaritas and a ton of this cat talk, she still hasn’t left the table to pee. I don’t know exactly what that means, but I can tell you it isn’t normal.

When I buy the seventh or eighth round I order a chocolate mudslide ($11.50) for myself which I insist is the best mudslide I have ever had and push across the table for Susie to try. Three times I attempt this and three times she turns me down. She seems agitated the third time and she glares at me. She says “Is this the game you want to play?” I grin and ask her whatever she could possibly mean by that. That’s when I feel her foot sliding up my leg under the table. She asks if I’d like to see her apartment.

Her apartment is positively radical. In a way it reminds me of Hammerspace’s crib back in Jersey because there are tons of bizarre items displayed on tables and mantles. I notice a jet pack, a magic lamp, half of a moon laser and what appears to be one of Doom Machine’s arms (he must be able to replace damaged parts). The difference is that Susie’s apartment is infinitely classier than Hammerspace’s and includes a balcony view of the entire city. It is also immaculately clean. Come to think of it, it isn’t at all like Hammerspace’s apartment.

As she closes the door behind us I make my usual go-to move, which is shoving her against the door and sticking my tongue in her mouth (yeah, I’m that kind of guy). The problem is that pushing her is like pushing a skyscraper. She doesn’t budge. She stands for a second eyeing me with confusion and then she awkwardly feigns being pushed back into the door. This is emasculating to an unimaginable degree and my confidence is completely wrecked. I should have realized earlier that I am entirely too neurotic to ever get it up for the world’s hottest superheroine. I tell her I don’t think I can do this. She drops her top on the floor and bites her bottom lip. Suddenly I’m not at all concerned about performance issues.

Things heat up pretty fast. I strip most of her clothes off right there on the floor and we roll around for a while making out. I can tell she’s more nervous than she lets on because she kisses poorly. She has a tendency to peck around without really committing to anything, which is especially obnoxious because I can’t hold her in place. She’s too strong. She keeps saying she doesn’t usually do this kind of thing and she doesn’t want me to think she’s that type of girl. Eventually she stops and says “I need something to loosen up a little bit.” She walks over to the kitchen wearing nothing but her scarlet cotton panties and a pair of socks and retrieves a bottle of prescription medication and a full handle of vodka from on top of the refrigerator. She eats a bunch of pills like she’s emptying a packet of Pez and tips that handle like a water bottle. I watch her perfect breasts bounce ever so slightly with each massive gulp as she consumes the entire handle. Then she slides her panties to the floor and beckons for me to follow her to the bedroom.

The Scarlet Avenger is a pill-popping, alcoholic, neurosis-stricken, self-loathing, mass of insecurities. She is also amazing in the sack.

Next Week: The mystery of Hammerspace’s disappearance comes to its thrilling conclusion!

Ghettoblaster’s hidden mansion fortress is enormous. Any number of times over the last few days I’ve found myself lost in the labyrinthine corridors. The walls are lavishly decorated in stolen art and solid gold busts of Ghettoblaster sit mounted on many surfaces. Curiously, the mansion’s walls are amiss with dozens of gaping, man-sized holes smashed haphazardly through the dry wall. It is occasionally more convenient to walk through these to reach adjoining rooms, but in other places they appear right next to a door. I tried asking one of Ghettoblaster’s henchmen about that, but he just said something nonsensical and bore his gold grill. I had a sit down with Ghettoblaster in front of an original painted version of The Scream.

“I got the solid gold bust idea from MC Hammer. I met him back in eighty nine when I was just a kid. He was huge back then. It was a different time,” he says. “That was before gangsta became this giant thing that it is. Back then kids wanted to be something instead of being – well, what it is. It is what it is.”

Is there anything that isn’t what it is?

He stares at me for a moment stretching his mind and then he shakes his head and he says “What the hell is that suppose to mean? You playing games? Cause I don’t play games.”

I manage to shift the topic to the chaos engine.

“The chaos engine is this thing we’re working on right now. Doom Machine has his people building it and we’re gonna set it off to and it’ll knock out all the electrical devices on the planet. So like computers, cell phones, radios – nothing’s gonna work when we blow this shit up. Pretty much everything is gonna be screwed up. So then when people are running around not knowing how to do shit to take care of their situation, we can step in and take over everything.”

But what about the superheroes?

“There’s gonna be a huge crossover. I mean there’s gonna be like fifteen superheroes fighting the chaos engine at least.”

The chaos engine can fight?

“Yeah, we’re putting it inside a giant robot so it can fly. The robot has rocket boots.”

Couldn’t you put it in a jet?

“See we thought of that, but then it couldn’t fight the superheroes.”

If the chaos engine makes machines stop working, and it’s inside a robot, won’t it make the robot stop working?

“I don’t know. Doom Machine is building it. He’s in charge of that stuff.”

Later I find Hammerspace sitting on a huge leather sofa with his feet propped up on a marble coffee table in front of him. A White Russian sits on the table and a gigantic plasma screen TV mounted on the opposite wall plays a satellite feed of CNN. They’ve been covering the passage of the president’s social equality bill in congress. A ton of supporters hold picket signs on capitol hill. Fumigator snores loudly from a reclining chair. Hammerspace writes in his tiny spiral notepad.

“I’ve just been chilling here coming up with ideas. There isn’t much to do in this place really. Ghettoblaster plays XBOX all day, but I’ve never been all that hot for video games,” Hammerspace tells me. I sit down on the sofa. He jots something else down in his notepad. “It’s sort of inspiring though.”

“I’ve got this thing where I break into the Sony factory and alter all the alarm clocks to buzz with a sound that kills. I don’t have a killing sound yet, so that’s something that needs to be looked into. I’m also throwing around the idea of starting a company that manufactures adult diapers with mind control devices built in.”

Why would you do that?

He shifts into his supervillain voice and growls “with the world’s incontinent at my command I will be nigh unstoppable!” He shakes his fist and bares his teeth as he says the last of it. I spent five years getting my English degree and I have no idea what nigh means. I’m fairly certain Hammerspace doesn’t either, but I suppose it works.

“The hardest part of the job really is coming up with original ideas. Everything has been done before and that’s a problem. Yeah, you can stick to the classics a lot of the time – throwing girls off buildings, allying with the mole men, but you need to come up with new things to keep the heroes on their toes. This thing the League is doing with the giant robot has totally been done a thousand times by the way. Honestly, after what I’ve seen I’m kind of wondering why anyone looks up to these guys. The Schrodinger’s a decent guy I guess. How about Doom Machine? He doesn’t stop. He’s like one of those stand-up comics that gets taken over by their stage persona and forgets how to be normal. He’s the Rodney Dangerfield of evil.”

He’s very defensive about the notion that he may have been inspired by the GCL villains in beginning his career. “Yeah, they were around, but it’s not like I decided to go into the business so I could be like them. I told you before I want power. I want to run the show. I want to do what I want when I want and have everyone else do what I say. Who doesn’t want that?”

He brings up an interesting point. Who hasn’t looked around at the way the world works and thought that they could do it better? Even if for some simple thing like the way traffic lights work or the laws for child custody in Nevada, everyone believes they could make everything run a little more smoothly if they had their say. Normal people have to rally together in huge groups to accomplish the tiniest changes, but for someone like Hammerspace or Doom Machine it only takes a whim. That kind of power must be intoxicating in a way I can’t imagine. He can take what he wants and make his own rules and there is no one who can tell him otherwise – except for the superheroes. It must be truly infuriating to know that only a dozen people stand between yourself and unlimited personal gratification. Strangely, I feel I can relate to that sort of frustration. Stranger still, I question the motives of superheroes. What they do every day is like winning the lottery and giving all the money away to charity. Everything I know about human nature tells me it doesn’t add up.

It is four o’clock in the afternoon when Ghettoblaster is called away to meet Doom Machine on business and he leaves us in the mansion alone with most of the henchmen. Fumigator wakes up hungry and complains that he can’t find any food and so some of the henchmen offer to take the HoMobile on a munchie run to the nearest gas station. Hammerspace and Fumigator provide them with a list of snacks to pick up which includes (among other things) Triscuits, frozen pizza, bean dip, and “those little sausage biscuit sandwiches that come frozen in plastic wrappers so that when you heat them up the cheese melts and you can’t get them out of the packaging.” The henchmen quickly conclude that many of these items will be unavailable at the small food mart and they will have to travel to a much larger grocery farther away.

After they leave, the Schrodinger shows up looking for Ghettoblaster. We tell him Ghettoblaster was called away and he says he’ll sit with us and wait for him to come back. Hammerspace laments forgetting to tell the henchmen to get pre-sliced pepperonis for his Triscuits. He notes the convenience of having the henchmen around. “You know, before I was skeptical about the whole henchmen thing, but I have to say, staying here has really changed my mind on that one. These guys are great. Remind me to ask Ghettoblaster about pay scale.”

I’m way ahead of him on this one. “We pay most of our henchmen a yearly salary,” says Edna Davis, Ghettoblaster’s human resources manager. “Hanging around the fortress all day can add up overtime expenses really fast and we need to avoid that, but there are some cases where we pay an hourly rate – if we hire an assassin or an engineer we pay hourly for special projects like that.” And what about health care in a line of work where one could (very likely) be crushed by a five storey dinobot or lasered in half by a meltaray? “The company offers full health benefits with dental, although they don’t cover cosmetic dentistry.”

It is four forty five when Black Bandit comes crashing through the skylight in Ghettoblaster’s den. He destroys a glass coffee table underfoot as he lands in a shower of falling glass shards. The dark cloaked superhero opens his cape wide to reveal a ripped frame covered in black body armor. His pecks are like Arnold’s and his six pack is more like a twenty six pack. He whips his arm and launches a whole volley of razor sharp bandit blades at the Schrodinger, who stands by the bar pouring himself another drink. The Schrodinger takes a huge blade in the face and slumps dead over the bar.

“That’s for what you did to Scarlet Avenger,” says the Black Bandit in a low rasp before turning his attention to Hammerspace. “Now, tell me what you’ve done to General Welfare!”

A henchman bursts into the room and shrieks “Not the skylight! Blaster’s gonna be pissed!” Then the Black Bandit smacks him in the head with an end table.

Hammerspace laughs. “And if I don’t talk then what? You’re outnumbered and outgunned, Black Buttwipe!”

“Not for long, Hammerslob!” says Black Bandit.

That instant, Commander Commando smashes through an exterior wall and steps into the den. He is tall and wears an orange and black get-up with a green visor covering his eyes. “This looks like a job for POWER TEAM!” he bellows. Following him are Lightning Guy and Bullet Time.

Fumigator leaps up and shakes his finger at Commander Commando. “You can’t touch me! You aren’t supposed to come within five hundred feet! You know what the judge said!”

“The judge ain’t here, bud. And this ol’ dog’s itchin’ to kick your ass,” says Wombat as he crashes in through a window alongside Miss Frigid.

Fumigator and Hammerspace both scream like girls. This isn’t flattering, and they will likely deny it, but I have it on tape. Hammerspace actually yells, “We’re dead! We’re dead! They’re gonna kill us! We’re dead!”

That’s when there is a deafening bang and the room flashes a blinding bright white. I can’t hear anything over the ringing in my ears. Someone shoves me to the ground. I force my eyes open and I make out a dark figure kicking Black Bandit across the room. Something huge picks up Commander Commando and swings him into Wombat like a Louisville Slugger. I feel around in the dissonant wreckage. I think Hammerspace is yelling at me. The ringing slowly decreases in volume to the level of noise in the room and then below. I find that I am pinned under an unconscious Fumigator. Hammerspace is being dragged away by a giant armored monster of some kind. It growls “Flesh for my hunger.”

I can’t move to follow them, but somehow, and I don’t usually think this quickly, I have the presence of mind to toss Hammerspace my tape recorder. He catches it in his outstretched hand and vanishes into the void.

Next Week: Mike Leon gets in big trouble.

Doom Machine, the alien android from the planet Reaper Six Six Six in the Deathbringer Nebula, stands a full seven feet tall in his gold and green armored cyber body. His limbs are smooth plating sculpted to resemble a muscular humanoid figure and his eyes glow bright yellow. He stands at the center of a massive meeting chamber surrounded by the other members of the Global Crime League – Dark Pope, Ghettoblaster, Principal Uncertainty, and Mr. Meltdown. Osama Bin Laden was unable to make it to the meeting, as he is still in hiding.

“We must make the activation of the Chaos Engine our number one priority,” Doom Machine barks in his echoing, metallic, robotic voice. The deadliest known supervillain in the world is truly frightening as he turns to acknowledge the Schrodinger. “What is this, Schrodinger? You’ve brought these insects to the secret meeting chamber?”

The Schrodinger stands smugly, and I’m surprised by his fearlessness, although I suppose it’s difficult to be afraid of anything when you cannot die. “I see you’re as impulsive as ever, Doom Machine. Remember who it was that brought you into the fold.”

The Dark Pope, who sits in a huge obsidian chair, his face obscured by his massive pope hat, says something in Italian which is filtered to us by his interpreter. “Dark Pope say Doom Machine make a point. His unholiness want to know who these people are.”

“The alligator man is Fumigator, master of poison gas, and to my left is Hammerspace,” replies the Schrodinger. Someone gasps. Dark Pope’s eyes widen. Doom Machine seems unsurprised, although it is difficult to gauge him as he seems to be in a persistent state of fury.

Dark Pope says something else in Italian. His translator speaks. “Dark Pope say wait, what about that other guy?”

“Yeah. Who dat be?” says Ghettoblaster, his cartoonish gold grill blinging as he speaks.

I step forward and start to explain that I’m an embedded journalist with Hammerspace, but Doom Machine cuts me off.

“This is unacceptable! We are mere days from the completion of the chaos engine and you bring a journalist into our secret lair! If I didn’t know better I would suspect you were attempting to sabotage our plans, Schrodinger.”

“You keep talkin’ like that about my boy and I fin’a lay some beats down all over your ass,” Ghettoblaster threatens back at Doom Machine.

“Your insolence is noted, human,” Doom Machine says to Ghettoblaster as he approaches our group. “But the Schrodinger knows this is not the time for power plays or recruitment unless, of course, he planned this all along. Maybe HE killed Malo.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” says Principal Uncertainty as he also says “That makes perfect sense.”

“Indeed, one possible outcome of Principal Uncertainty, perhaps the Schrodinger would be so kind as to provide his whereabouts last Tuesday.”

“Wait, I thought Graveyard killed El Malo Grande,” interrupts Hammerspace.

Mr. Meltdown, who has been sitting silently in a corner until now erupts into laughter. “The Graveyard? Yeah. And afterward they met Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster at Area 51 for tea,” he says.

“Silencio!” says Dark Pope. His interpreter repeats “Silence, say his unholiness.” He continues, through the interpreter. “The Pope say he know Mr. Schrodinger not kill El Malo Grande. Schrodinger was with him that day. But he do want to know why these strangers here.”

The Schrodinger offers an explanation. “Since Hammerspace put General Welfare out of commission the superheroes have arranged a major team up to find him and rescue the General somehow. Should they succeed then they will once again be at full strength and, without the distraction of their missing comrade, much more likely to focus their efforts on us. So you see, it is in our best interest to keep them occupied elsewhere.”

The Dark Pope nods quietly. He seems like a fair guy, as supervillains go. Doom Machine says nothing.

Ghettoblaster speaks up. “That’s the smartest thing I’ve heard all day.”

Mr. Meltdown disagrees. “Come on. You can’t seriously think we should sink resources into helping these costards.”

Dark Pope rambles through his interpreter some more. “Dark Pope say Mr. Schrodinger have good idea.”

“I must agree this time,” roars Doom Machine. “Hiding Hammerspace should provide a worthwhile distraction.”

“Well, now that that’s settled I need one of you to take him in,” says the Schrodinger.

“You’ve got to be kidding!” shouts Meltdown. “You find this idiot and bring him here without saying anything to any of us and then you try to shovel this shit onto one of us?”

“Scarlet Avenger saw me take them all with me,” explains Schrodinger. “The super chumps are probably checking out my compound right now. It isn’t safe. We need to hide Hammerspace with one of you.”

Hammerspace seems angered. He interjects. “Who says I need help from any of you?”

“Don’t be preposterous,” replies Schrodinger. “When I found you the Avenger was beating you like a dirty throw rug.”

“That was all part of my master plan.”

“Right,” chuckles Mr. Meltdown.

“You shut your pie hole, chucklehead,” shouts Hammerspace. “Last I checked, you were showing a big fat zero win record against the superheroes. I remember General Welfare laying a smackdown on you that made the cover of Newsweek. Who took him out? Hmmm. Hmmmm. Was it….me?”

Indeed, he is correct. The August 2010 issue of Newsweek featured General Welfare bashing Mr. Meltdown in the face with his mighty fist of justice against the backdrop of the Statue of Liberty. Meltdown was thrown in jail afterwards and spent six weeks in solitary confinement before Doom Machine lasered his way into Riker’s Island and flew him out. It took six weeks because Doom Machine was trapped at the bottom of the Mariana trench after Scarlet Avenger literally smacked him there (it was technically a backhand).

“Come to think of it, everyone in this room is oh and something except for me. Have any of you guys ever even killed a sidekick?”

The other villains in the room look around at each other awkwardly. It is Ghettoblaster who breaks the silent confusion. “Yeah. How come we haven’t killed any of the superheroes?” he says.

“If we kill the superheroes then who will we have super battles against?” asks Schrodinger.

“Screw super battles. Let’s get to the world domination part,” says Ghettoblaster.

“Finally, somebody in this crew has some sense!” Hammerspace elates.

“Alexander wept for three days when he had no more worlds to conquer. I know. I was there,” notes Schrodinger.

“Whatever. He was a three dollar bill. I say let’s run this bitch.”

“Dark Pope say he too old for world domination. Maybe a large province somewhere,” says the evil Pope’s interpreter.

“How would we kill superheroes anyway?” asks Meltdown.

Ghettoblaster has the answer. “We could follow them home after a fight to see where they live and then we could bomb their house while they’re sleeping or something.”

“What if they have kids? I don’t want to kill kids,” says Ghettoblaster.

“And yet you support a woman’s right to choose,” scolds Meltdown as he rolls his eyes.

“So what?”

“His unholiness wishes to convey that what a woman does with her body is her business.”

“Does anyone feel like getting sandwiches?” asks Principal Uncertainty.

“Subway or Quiznos?” someone says.

“You won’t know until you have the sandwiches,” replies Uncertainty.

“You know a fetus has a heartbeat at 18 days,” says Meltdown.

“Google maps says Subway is closer. We could take the Deathbird.”

“They charge extra for baco-“

“ENOUGH!” growls Doom Machine, rattling the walls of the conference room. “The chaos engine is mere days from completion and you squabble like children! Who will provide lodgings for Hammerspace?!”

“He can stay with me,” offers Ghettoblaster.

“Good,” says Doom Machine. “Then get these insects out of here!”

Next Week: To the Ghettomansion!

I’m chasing Hammerspace and Fumigator through an alleyway outside New York City Hall. We’ve just been attacked by the Scarlet Avenger, one of the most recognized superheroes in the world, despite her well documented aversion to all forms of media. I haven’t seen any sign of destruction outside the building and I’m beginning to wonder how she stopped that bomb Hammerspace threw out the window from demolishing everything on the street level, when I hear an unusual wooshing sound.

Hammerspace yells “Move!” and he and Fumigator both dive for the pavement as a huge dumpster crashes to the ground narrowly missing them both. I look up to see Scarlet Avenger slowly levitating down to the ground with us, her arms crossed smugly. The woman is the hottest kind of ice. She never ever loses her cool.

“Maybe I can’t kill you, Hammerspace, but I can hurt you so bad you won’t want to live anymore,” she says as Hammerspace and Fumigator regain their feet. “Now let General Welfare go or I’ll start breaking parts of you.”

Suddenly, the strangest thing I’ve ever seen happens right in front of me. Something explodes all over the back of Scarlet Avenger’s head and puffs out into a cloud of brown dust that scatters little specs across her shoulders. She screams in agony and turns around.

Behind her stands a man in a fine grey suit with wonderfully combed hair and the longest eighteenth century style side burns I have ever seen. He holds a can of Hershey’s cocoa powder in his perfectly groomed fingers. He is the Schrodinger.

Scarlet Avenger reels. She clearly is having difficulty staying on her feet. The Schrodinger speaks up. “Like most women, the Scarlet Avenger has a weakness for chocolate. However, hers is quite a bit more acute. Isn’t that right, dear?”

“Eat shit, Schrodinger,” she says.

The Schrodinger licks his knuckles and puts his fist in the can of cocoa powder. “I find that dark is preferable to milk, but the cocoa powder is most potent, especially when it’s moistened for maximum stickiness.” We all watch as the Schrodinger punches her in the face so hard even Hammerspace winces. I can hear the cracking of her nose. Somehow, she keeps standing. Wet, brown powder sticks to her face. “You see, as long as the powder adheres to her, she’s completely powerless.” He hits her again, this time so hard she spins around on the balls of her feet and faces us for a second before she drops to the pavement.

The Schrodinger dumps the rest of the cocoa on her crumpled form. He turns to the rest of us. “Come along now. As much as I enjoy battering that red headed slut, Power Team will be here momentarily and, sadly, we haven’t the numbers to fight them.”

The Schrodinger takes us to a black limousine which is waiting nearby and we jump in. The driver peels out and we’re leaving the city in the dust.

Two hours later we’re on the Schrodinger’s private jet headed for some secret installation hidden somewhere out in the ocean I’m assuming, although I have no idea for certain. One thing is for sure, though. The Schrodinger travels in style. We’re talking leather interior, sound system, a full bar – he spares no expense. I make a point to sit down with him during the flight.

“What can I say? My business is being bad and business is good. No really. You tend to amass a lot of wealth over so many centuries. I still have money in the stock exchange from the twenties. It really is true what they say about making your money work for you. I haven’t worked since the depression.”

How did you come to be unkillable?

“I don’t know. I was just always that way. It can be a bit odd, considering most in this business developed abilities after an accident of some type or an encounter with magical beings or one of a dozen different common things, but I simply am what I am.”

He tells me he knew Hammerspace would be in trouble once he heard about General Welfare’s disappearance, and that the murderous trench coated bad guy has developed a following in the villain community over the last two days. “Since what happened to Malo we’ve seen a lot of stunts pulled by upstart firebrands – punks wanting attention mostly. But what Hammerspace did is very inspiring. Not many villains have defeated a superhero like that. I cannot think of the last time it happened. And the way he executed the sidekick was just refreshing. You don’t see that kind of ruthlessness usually these days. He’s certainly caught some important eyes, if you catch my meaning.”

He has significantly worse things to say about the Scarlet Avenger. “I first found out about the chocolate trick when she tried to break up my plot to put mind control serum in the Los Angeles water supply. The treatment plant was right next door to a Nestle packing facility. Doom Machine was working for me as sort of a bodyguard at the time. He threw her into the building and she went crashing through the wall and into a bunch of supply crates and chocolate bars were all over her. She couldn’t do anything. Once Doom Machine realized her powers didn’t work he picked her up and snapped her in half. I was simply ecstatic. I made a tape recording of her screaming actually. I often listen to it when I… never mind.” Yes. Please never mind.

Hammerspace kicks back in a seat at the rear of the plane. He seems surprised when I tell him what the Schrodinger had to say. “That’s fine, but I don’t want people thinking I just did it to impress the league. I did it because I’m evil. I’m like, way evil. Way more evil than you can possibly fathom. I’m ready to set a new precedent in the field, and I don’t want people to say he’s just doing it for attention, because I’m not.”

One parachute jump later we’re being picked up in a submarine that takes us deep beneath the sea to the Global Crime League’s secret undersea dome. If you’ve never seen an undersea dome (I’m betting you haven’t) it is really something to take a look at. The Schrodinger explains that under the ocean is truly the only place left to hide on planet Earth now that there are planes and satellites that can comb virtually all of the land space on the globe in a few short days.

Inside the dome we are greeted by a contingent of armed guards wearing shiny metal armor and carrying very expensive guns. These are the first actual henchmen I’ve met and I pick out one of the higher ranking members and ask some questions as they’re leading us down a large corridor from the airlock. He identifies himself as Steve. “Yeah. I’ve been a henchman for eight years now. I used to sell cell phones, but once the market got saturated I had to find something else. I was hanging out with this guy, Ray, at the time and he was connected so he showed my resume around and got me in with Ghettoblaster. You really have to know somebody to break into this field.”

And it isn’t a cushy field to be in either. Danger and death lurk around every corner for the professional henchman. Assignments are often difficult and failure is not an option. “Doom Machine zapped Ray a few years ago after a run in with Fire Dancer. It was his own fault though. He had a whole squad of guys and she’s not even class two.”

Steve refers, of course, to the Defense Department’s ranking system for superhuman threat assessment. For those of you who aren’t familiar, it works like this: A class one superhuman has one relatively simple superpower. Fumigator and Fire Dancer (who shoots fire from her fingers) are class one superhumans. Class two superhumans have either multiple superhuman abilities or one superhuman ability with multiple applications. Hammerspace and Principal Uncertainty are class two superhumans. Class three superhumans have many super abilities with multiple applications and could represent a serious threat to national security by themselves. The Scarlet Avenger is a popular example of a class three superhuman. She could throw the White House into space if she wanted and an armored cavalry division could do nothing to stop her.

Now that Malo is dead and General Welfare is out of commission, the only other creature on the planet with that kind of power is Doom Machine and I find myself staring right at him.

Next Week: In the den of the dreaded Global Crime League.

I’m sitting in the Mayor’s office in New York. Well, it used to be the mayor’s office. Now it belongs to Hammerspace. He lounges in a big leather chair with his feet on a desk that still harbors Mayor Bloomberg’s metal name tag.

“Mayor Hammerspace just doesn’t sound threatening enough. Mayor Hammerspace is a guy who invests in low risk mutual funds and walks to the other side of the street when he sees a black guy coming. It doesn’t say ruthless dictator who holds the city within his iron grasp. That’s what I am. This is my iron gauntlet of pain” he says as he holds up his right fist to demonstrate for me. He has been pondering this bizarre title situation since he took over the Mayor’s office two days ago, in a coup that was carried out so easily the former city hall administration should be ashamed.

It went down like this: In the middle of a press conference in which the Mayor was all too happy to discuss General Welfare’s disappearance rather than the specifics of the social equality legislation he was supporting, Hammerspace smashed in the doors to the press room with the Mallet of Malice and entered. The police were unable to stop him, largely because he had a nuclear explosive which he threatened to detonate if they tried anything, and he simply pushed the Mayor away from the podium and declared himself the new ruler of New York.

“I got the bomb from soviet defectors a few years ago. Where else do you get a nuclear bomb?” he answers when I ask him how he got his hands on the weapon.

Immediately after kicking the mayor off stage Hammerspace began making new laws and regulations right there at the podium. “For my first act as ruler of this city, I declare that every resident shall be taxed on forty percent of their income! If you do not pay your taxes you will be executed. In fact, all crimes committed in the city will now be punishable by death! Fear me, city of New York! Fear the asphyxiating grasp of despotism that is my rule!”

And so Hammerspace is still lying back in his chair when Fumigator walks into the office with surprising news. “They love you out there” he says. Hammerspace is taken aback, and frankly so am I.

“What?” he says, sitting up in his chair.

“Yeah. They’re partying in the streets.”

“Why? I burden them with the shackles of oppression and obscene taxes!”

“Well, no. Not really. You actually lowered the taxes. They were paying like sixty percent before.”

I knew this before. But I didn’t have the heart to tell him. He seemed so excited about his despotism.

“What about the mandatory death penalty for all crimes? That has to have them pissing themselves.”

“They’re okay with it. The city had kind of a crime problem before so, you know. They’re already talking about turning the prison into a conservatory or something.”

“I really need to kick it in gear with the evilness here. What about something with abortion? People hate abortion. What about forced abortion of minorities?”

“That’s pretty harsh, Mel.”

“That’s the point.”

“But that will really piss people off. What if they revolt or something?”

“We’ll confiscate all the guns first.”

“I think New York already has a gun ban.”

“Does anyone else see the irony here?”

Seconds later, a crimson colored glove shatters through the wall, only a few feet from the door, and into the room steps the famed and elusive Scarlet Avenger. Even the few existing photographs of her could not have possibly prepared me for this. In person, the Scarlet Avenger burns with an aura of intensity hotter than the sun. The movement of her hips as she walks is like the violent thrashing of an ocean vessel in a tropical storm. Her bouncing red hair shimmers like diamonds in an inferno. Her long slender legs lift the feet of a princess and each time they crash back down the earth quakes beneath them. Her perfect figure is the envious rage of every supermodel enveloped in crimson shrink-wrap. Briefly she turns her head and I dare to look in her eyes for a fraction of a fraction of a second before the most furious intimidation I have ever known threatens to tear my soul apart.

Fumigator sums this all up with “Dude.” Then Scarlet Avenger choke slams him through the floor. Yes. All the way through the floor. I could never have come up with that. She’s creative too.

Hammerspace already has the suitcase nuke in his hand and he’s brandishing it for her to see. “Stand back, Scarlet whore. Even you can’t survive a nuclear-” Then she kicks him in the nuts and takes the suitcase away.

She turns to me with a glare of focused rage and for the first time I hear her voice. She says “who the hell are you?” with a thick English accent that allows her to sound pissed off and yet still more refined than the classiest debutante. The Scarlet Avenger is English? There are British superheroes? Instead of answering her I’m thrown by this notion for a moment. Then I realize how ignorant it is. She has to repeat herself. This makes her a little less refined.

I tell her I’m an embedded journalist reporting on supervillains for Trigger magazine. She drops her guard, confused and says “Well, that’s just ace then. I’m glad rock and roll magazines are still busy promoting positive role models.” I think she’s being sarcastic. A moment ago I couldn’t look at her, but now it’s hard not to.

She punches into the suitcase nuke and rips out a big chunk of colored wires as she approaches my chair. She drops the clump of wires to the ground and with her free hand reaches into her cleavage to fish around for something. “You know, I’m promoting my new album,” she says as she pulls a red business card from her costume, which upon closer inspection, is some sort of ultra glossy rubber. “I don’t usually do interviews, but maybe that can change.”

Across the room, unbeknownst to her, Hammerspace peels himself up from the floor and draws an anti-tank weapon from his jacket. He takes only a second to aim as I curiously examine the Scarlet Avenger’s business card. I note that the card lists contact information for an agency that represents her, but not her own info.

Hammerspace pulls the trigger and his bazooka emits a deafening ka-pow which echoes throughout the building and hurts my ears. All of the windows in the room shatter as the Scarlet Avenger catches the shell in her hand with all the difficulty of a major league infielder in a softball game. She puts a hand on her hip and smiles back to him. “That was quite a googly,” she says as she tosses the impacted artillery round over her shoulder. “Now tell me what you’ve done with General Welfare and I might let you live.”

Hammerspace cackles loudly. “Everyone knows you have a strict no-kill policy, Scarlet Harlot. I’ll see your bet and raise you dead bystanders.” With that he smiles and tosses a plastic explosive out a nearby window.

In a blur, Scarlet Avenger flies out the window in a race to catch the bomb before it lands in the street. Hammerspace turns to me and shouts as he runs from the room. “We have to get out of here! That bought us like ten seconds if we’re lucky!”

I chase him down the hallway toward the stairwell. As we’re running by the elevator he pushes the button to call it, but he keeps running. He shouts back “Elevators are a terrible escape route, but if you push the button sometimes you can trick a superhero into thinking you’re in there.” Sure enough, we hear Scarlet Avenger peeling the steel elevator doors open as we’re running down the stairs into the basement.

We find Fumigator in the basement and Hammerspace drags him to his feet. Hammerspace yells at him. “We have to go! She’s right behind us!”

Next Week: On the run from super heroes…

It’s Friday afternoon and I’m at the Stanley Lloyd Kaufman Middle school in Sunman, Indiana, a godforsaken place where there is no cell phone reception for miles, winningest is considered a proper word, and the value of a man is the number of inches his lift kit adds to his pick-up.

I’m here officially to cover a Hugs not Drugs lecture by Jose Canyousee, General Welfare’s teenage sidekick. I’m here unofficially because supervillains hinted that something might be going down. I’m sitting in a folding chair in the back row and I’m wearing a business casual ensemble so I don’t stand out. I have a hefty camera so I look like a press photographer and I used an old press pass to get in (you wouldn’t believe the security in public schools these days). I’ve also got a flak jacket under my clothes that I picked up at the police uniform supply store. The damn thing cost a fortune and I honestly don’t think it will provide much protection if death rays and laser beams start zapping around the room, but I might as well do what I can.

It’s two o’clock by the time the auditorium is full and kids between the ages of eleven and fifteen (I figure there must be a few flunkies) sit talking to their friends and appearing generally unexcited about the coming performance. A few teachers have to snap their fingers and shoosh the rowdier students when the lights go down. The show opens with an over-the-hill volunteer band and some rejected Disney World backup dancers doing a lame song about the dangers of drug use. I spot more than one Bob Marley shirt in the crowd of kids during this time.

At the end of the musical number Jose comes out amidst a howling high note introduction from the dance crew and starts telling the kids about the dangers of drug use. He’s wearing his trademark spandex American flag costume with cowboy chaps. I think his intentions are good, but this doesn’t seem to be a good way to reach these kids. Looking around the room I notice quite a few of them are more interested in their cell phones than what is happening on stage. That all changes in seconds.

An explosion rocks the building as the rear auditorium doors are blasted off their hinges. Hammerspace steps into the building pointing the Mallet of Malice at Jose across the crowded room. He issues a threat in his thunderous villain voice. “Jose, can you see your demise at my hands!”

Remarkably, the entire crowd is unshaken. Everyone is paying attention now, but no one seems upset. It takes a moment for me to realize they all think this is part of the show. I, knowing this not to be the case, am ironically more unsettled than everyone else.

“The Trenchcoat!” shouts Jose from the stage.

“It’s Hammerspace, dick!” reprimands the villain.”

“I’ve already sent a distress call to General Welfare, Trenchcoat. Your days as a criminal mastermind are numbered!”

“Even at his fastest, General Welfare can’t get here in time to stop me from killing you!”

“Whoa! The k word? In front of the kids? That’s totally not cool.”

“What?”

“You’re supposed to say destroy or vanquish or annihilate or something. Nobody says the k word. It’s just unprofessional.”

I’m caught off guard and I can see that Hammerspace is too. Jose has obviously been out of the game for a while. That or he’s been in it for way too long.

“And even if you capture me and put me in your fastest acting death trap, the General will have time to get here and save me, so do your best, Trenchcoat!” he continues.

Hammerspace pulls a shotgun out of his jacket and shoots Jose in the guts. In truly diabolical fashion, he does this over the heads of several rows of students, who I’m fairly certain are able to feel the buckshot whizzing by their hair. He approaches the stage calmly as Jose attempts to crawl away.

“A gun! Guns are for cowards and losers-“ he utters before Hammerspace finishes him off with another barrel full of buckshot.

“Oh, but I’ve won here,” Hammerspace says, turning to face the audience. “Go children! Run! Flee! Tell everyone what you have seen here today! Tell them so they may never forget the name of Hammerspace!” With that, he launches into a classic evil cackle that reverberates through the room. The boom mic picks it up and it echoes even more loudly. It reaches a deafening level as the children and the school faculty run panic stricken from the auditorium. I take cover behind some bleachers and continue to watch Hammerspace.

Once the room is empty, except for the two of us (and Jose’s cadaver), I ask Hammerspace exactly what he’s attempting here. “Killing the sidekick is a big move for any supervillain. If you want to establish yourself as the number one archnemesis, you have to kill someone really close to the hero,” he answers. “That’s why I tried to kill Welfare’s woman a few weeks ago, but it turned out she was just some girl he went on one date with so I gave up on that.” He has a point. After all, where would Green Goblin or Joker be had they not murdered Gwen Stacy and Jason Todd? As much as Hammerspace claims to dislike comic book characters, he draws a lot of his ideas from them.

Moments later, Hammerspace is gone, having discarded his costume and walked out of the building appearing like any normal schmoe. The usefulness of an alter ego hadn’t quite demonstrated itself to me until now. As a normal guy, I tend to focus on the super side of everything. Super beings are very much the opposite. For them, the every day alter ego seems to be the more exciting. And it makes sense. After all, being super is their job, and which would you rather be? Yourself or yourself at work?

The secret identity, in fact, is arguably stronger than the super identity. It is easily more dangerous, because you don’t see it coming. You never see it coming.

And so I’m still in the auditorium hours later interviewing police when General Welfare crashes through the concrete wall nearby and storms up to the stage. A few cops look like they might want to restrain him, and they almost begin to, but then their better judgment impedes them and they just stop what they’re doing and stare helplessly. He leaps up on to the stage and cradles Jose’s crumpled body in his arms. He shrieks “Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”

“YES!” Shouts Hammerspace as he drops from a catwalk above the stage. No one saw this coming. He’s been here the whole time.

“You! I’ll kill you!” screams General Welfare.

“Oh, please, Welfare. We all know you have a strict no killing policy.”

The General picks up a nearby cop and takes his gun, throwing the cop aside. He points the gun at Hammerspace and fires wildly. Hammerspace pulls his trench coat open wide like a perverted old man in a Chuck E Cheese. The bullets are sucked into another dimension.

Hammerspace cackles madly. “A feeble attempt from a feeble hero!” he taunts. “Soon you will join your pathetic boy child in oblivion!”

Welfare doesn’t say anything. He rushes Hammerspace like a stampede on the Serengeti. I dive behind a theater seat, afraid there might be a shockwave from the impact when Welfare hits him. Instead, there is nothing.

I stand up from behind the chair and see the bottoms of General Welfare’s boots disappearing into Hammerspace’s trench coat. Hammerspace turns to face the small army of police surrounding him. Some of them pull guns but he shouts them down.

“Fire at me and you risk hitting your precious hero!” he says. No one shoots, even though this is entirely illogical. General Welfare is completely invincible. He takes missiles in the face like gnats hitting a windshield. I doubt bullets would offend him.

The police are powerless to stop him, and so Hammerspace simply walks out of the building and vanishes.

Next Week: Hammerspace takes over the city. Hilarity ensues.

“What I really need,” says Hammerspace as he jogs along in a track suit and headband (over his mask) “is to really lay the smack down on General Welfare.”

Keeping pace with us is Fumigator, a seven foot tall monster of a man wearing a tank of poison gas and an elaborate alligator mask complete with a muzzle and teeth. It covers his face completely and his voice comes through as a muffled echo. He replies, “Yeah. That guy is an asshole.”

I asked Fumigator earlier about the gator theme and the poison. He filled me in. “I went with the gator theme because I went to the University of Florida. That’s actually where I had the accident that left me completely immune to all types of poison gas, hence the fumes – fumigator. The mask is actually made from a real alligator head. A friend of mine is a taxidermist. I can give you his card if you want. It has a lot of scare factor, and that’s something you want, but it’s a pain if I get an itch or a runny nose or something.”

One of the most important parts of the villain’s lifestyle is regular exercise. In order to do battle with the likes of superpowered do gooders, supervillains need to stay in shape. Cardio is a must and weight training is also pretty typical. That’s why Hammerspace and Fumigator go on a daily 5k run. They stick together just to be safe in the event that they might run into a superhero. Although the possibility is slim, this is still a good idea. One of the worst super fights in history occurred in August 1991 when Knight Watch ran into Brute Suit in New York’s central park whilst walking their dogs. The two began a scuffle over Brute Suit’s alleged neglect to pick up his dog’s leavings, which escalated into an all out battle to the death. Ultimately, a large area of the park was left a desolate, crater-covered wasteland. Both Knight Watch and Brute Suit were killed by a National Guard armored division. Ever since, costumed super characters have been more careful about these things, and a buddy system is never a bad plan.

Fumigator met Hammerspace during a routine bank heist in 2006. “I walked into the bank with my poison gun ready to go and I yell everybody down, but then I realize they’re already on the floor,” Fumigator recalls. “That’s when I walk back to the vault and see this dickhead cramming safety deposit boxes, I mean the whole boxes, into his coat. He wasn’t even opening them.”

“I open them with a cutting torch back at my apartment,” Hammerspace interjects.

“I didn’t know that then. So I was just confused, you know? There’s this guy doing my job and we end up in sort of a stand off for a minute. But then in walks… What was his name?” He laughs as Hammerspace jogs his memory. “That’s right! The Peacekeeper! What a costard. His power was that nobody could commit acts of violence in his presence – including him. So Hammerspace just kept taking stuff. What was he going to do? We both laughed so hard. I think we literally laughed him out of the business. I remember the security guard standing there yelling at him to do something.”

Hammerspace continues to bounce ideas off of Fumigator. “Do you think he gets his powers from the sun? I could find a way to block it out.”

Fumigator seems unreceptive to this idea. “He kicked the crap out of Doom Machine at night once. I saw it.”

“Maybe he stores energy during the day,” Hammerspace counters.

Fumigator shakes his head. “Nah.”

“See, invulnerable heroes usually have some kind of Achilles heel, you know, like… uh… That guy (Achilles)” Fumigator tells me. “If we can figure out General Welfare’s secret weakness we can take advantage. So far we’ve tried poison gas, well, obviously (he points to his gas tank), death rays, ultra mega death rays, radioactive minerals. Hammerspace dropped an anvil on him from a building. Other guys have tried acid, magic spells, bombs, undersea pressure, aphorbic bombs – you name it. It’s been done. He takes a licking.”

“Didn’t Terrortron nuke him once?” Hammerspace adds.

“Yeah, during the Uzbekistan thing. That was ugly.”

I can’t help but picture General Welfare taking an ICBM the size of a building square in his puffed out chest, smiling the whole time. The blast incinerates his costume in milliseconds but he remains, walking from the charred crater of scorched earth stark naked, his smug expression never changing. What does a person think as the air catches fire around them and everything that was ceases to be? Is it absolute terror, or is it as mundane as a drive to work? As his hair was burning off in ten million degree temperatures was he wondering what he would do for lunch? Or is his hair invincible too?

“What about the stasis field bomb idea? What happened with that?” Fumigator asks.

Hammerspace rolls his eyes. “I can’t show a two year work history and unless you get me into Fort Knox to load my coat with gold bricks, we don’t have the funds.”

It is at this point in their conversation that I interrupt to ask a question I suspect I will regret later (and I do, although not to the extent that some would have you believe). I ask Hammerspace why he can’t simply break into the place where they keep the stasis generators and toss one into his jacket.

He laughs. “They’re too big to fit in my jacket. I would need somebody to forklift it off the ground and then I still couldn’t conceal it anywhere.”

Fumigator interjects. “Isn’t the whole point of your super power that you don’t have to conceal anything?”

“Well, sort of. I have to be able to hide things initially but then they just sort of… poof. They’re gone.”

“Don’t you wonder about that? Where does all that stuff go?”

“To the Hammerspace. That’s why I’m Hammerspace. I mean, I thought that was established.”

“Yeah, but what is it exactly? Is it like another dimension? What’s it like in there?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been in there. I don’t think that’s even possible. That’s like a snake eating its own tail or something.”

“Have you ever thrown anything alive in there?”

An hour later we’re in a pet shop off the turnpike somewhere. Hammerspace is buying a big bunny rabbit, which Fumigator picked out because he thinks the idea of making a rabbit disappear is more hilarious than any other animal we could have chosen. He buys a small dog leash to go with it.

We don’t even leave the pet store to conduct the first experiment. Hammerspace puts the leash on the animal. I make a joke about the first bunny rabbit shot into Hammerspace. Neither of them thinks it’s funny. I’ve never been funny.

Fumigator picks up the rabbit, which is a fat rabbit. It doesn’t move around a lot. He pulls the rabbit around on the leash for a while to make sure it can’t get loose. We’re getting a ton of stares from people in the pet shop now. A lady with a Siamese cat asks me if we’re doing some kind of TV show and for the first time I wonder if people around us see figures of legendary greatness or if they ogle simply because a grown man in an alligator costume is walking a rabbit on a dog leash. Hammerspace points this out to Fumigator and they get on with the experiment before we gather any more unwanted attention.

Hammerspace holds his trench coat open and Fumigator tosses the rabbit at him. He closes the jacket and the bunny is gone. Its leash dangles from the folds of Hammerspace’s jacket. Fumigator stares strangely at this, and even Hammerspace seems somewhat perplexed. “I’ve never had anything alive go in there, and I’ve never had any sort of lifeline dangling out either. So this is a first for a couple things. It’s kind of weird because you can actually make out where this place ends and the nowhere begins. I’m gonna be pissed if that thing gets lost in there. Who knows what it could get into. The last thing I need is a rabbit running around eating up my store of Nutrigrain bars. What if it dies? Everything I pull out of there is going to smell terrible.”

Fumigator hangs on to the leash for a few minutes to see if the rabbit tugs at all. We get nothing. He shrugs. Hammerspace reaches into the coat and pulls out the rabbit. Fumigator is somewhat impressed, but he says that in order to be certain we need to send the rabbit in without the leash to see if Hammerspace can still retrieve it. We do. Hammerspace pulls it back out a moment later with no difficulty.We all immediately know the next step, although it is Fumigator who brings it up first.

“I’ve got to go in.” He says.

Hammerspace is more reluctant. “I don’t know. I think that’s kind of gay.”

“What?”

“Jumping into another guy’s hammerspace. It’s just kind of gay, that’s all.”

“Whatever, Richard Gere. You put a rabbit in there already. By that logic you just committed bestiality.”

A fifteen minute argument then ensues, which I won’t reproduce here because it is completely pointless and somewhat homophobic. I’m not saying I stand by the gay agenda, only that I need this book to appeal to as many readers as possible.

Finally, Hammerspace and Fumigator turn to me and demand I settle the argument. I tell them I’d personally like to know what’s in there, and frankly, I can’t believe no one has thought of this before.

Hammerspace caves after Fumigator bothers him a little bit longer and they decide to give it a test run, but Hammerspace still insists that we find a female person for this experiment. Being a supervillain, Fumigator concedes that it does make more sense to toss a civilian into the Hammerspace before he risks his own life. The two of them settle on a cashier named Debbie whom Fumigator gasses with some sort of poison. As she wobbles and topples he scoops her off her feet and tosses her unconscious body into Hammerspace’s jacket.

Bystanders begin screaming and running when they see this. We run down the street and wait for ten minutes or so in an alley, during which time Hammerspace notes aloud that he’s never had anyone throw anything into the hammerspace before. He tells me this has given him a really wicked idea, but he won’t elaborate any more on the subject.

Once the coast is clear and the guys have determined that no superheroes are coming to the rescue, Hammerspace pulls a hysterical pet store clerk from the confines of his infinite storage space. I try to ask her what it was like in there, but she runs away.

It is Fumigator who points out the most important thing we have learned from this experiment. “Once something goes in there, it can’t leave until Hammerspace pulls it out.”

Next Week: Hammerspace commits a felony.