Introduction to Volume V: Real Time
Now is perhaps a good as time as any to consider where we are in this little epic saga I’ve been relating to you over several wordy volumes.
As that iconic year of 1984 was drawing to a close, I was completing my first semester of grad school at Warren Woodward University, where I was studying Urban Policy and Social Planning. I employ the word “studying” laughingly, since all the material I was poring over with my poor little eyes seemed to go right in one ear and out the other, to mixed sensory metaphors. The fact was, I was exhausted, not from the seminars and courses I was taking so much as serving as teaching assistant to Dr. Dolores Finch, who was also my master’s thesis advisor. Dr. Finch was hardly the worst professor to TA for, but taking notes on her rambling lectures on city planning and its social abuses, mainly to enforce racial segregation in urban metropolitan areas, and especially grading papers for some eighty students I met with on recitations on Fridays, was daunting. Worse still, as the end of the semester approached, I still hadn’t memorized more than two-thirds of my students’ names.
Essentially, I had abandoned my Megahero career since the middle of the previous summer, and a good thing, too—from a time management standpoint—since once the fall semester began I had no time to play Ms. Megaton Man. After I graduated from Arbor State University in Ann Arbor I gave the Megaheroic thing a shot, traveling to New York City at the invitation of the fabled Megatropolis Quartet, which would have become a quintet under the circumstances, on a trial basis, with the intention of joining the group as a permanent member if things worked out.
However, when Professor Rex Rigid, a.k.a. Liquid Man, restored the destroyed Quantum Tower—the team’s skyscraper headquarters—simply by pulling a copy of it from another reality into this dimension, the office workers from the floors below unexpectedly came along with it. Suddenly, we had several thousand displaced Civilians from an alternate reality on our hands to relocate and find housing for, not to mention to find mental health services. Liquid Man and Yarn Man, his erstwhile partner, were of the old school, and could have cared less about the consequences of their mad science; but the new, younger members of the group—especially the Phantom Jungle Girl, who had a background in social work, and Rubber Brother, who helped run a food bank back in Detroit—felt an obligation to do the right thing. Instead of having glitzy, high-tech adventures, or even getting to spend much time with my long-lost biological father, Clyde Phloog, the Silver Age Megaton Man (a member of the Doomsday Revengers in Bayonne, New Jersey right across the bay), I spent half my summer dealing with myriad social service agencies in the Megatropolis region.
The experience taught me a lot—for one thing, that mad science has consequences, but more importantly that being a Megahero isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. There’s a romantic, glamorous side, to be sure, epitomized by the dazzlingly beautiful See-Thru Girl, perhaps; she had been the eye-candy member of the Quartet before we came along. But she had hooked up with Megaton Man—the regular, Bronze Age one who was my second cousin, Trent Phloog, not my father Clyde—and got knocked up; that debacle ended her marriage with Liquid Man, and now she was raising a kid—Simon Phloog, who’s actually a darling—in Ann Arbor. So maybe the glamor is mostly illusory. In any case, by mid-summer I realized my place was back in Detroit, and following through with my education.
This meant my Ms. Megaton Man uniform hung unused in the back of my closet for many months, until my counterpart from another dimension crossed over. Clarissa Too was a Civilian when I first met her on an astral journey with Doctor Messiah during in sweltering July, but she came into contact with the Cosmic Cue-Ball, which gave her the powers of Ms. Megaton Man—an origin different from mine, since I’d inherited my Megapowers from my father, the Silver Age Megaton Man. Ms. Megaton Man Too lived in a reality in which there were no other Megaheroes or Megahero teams like the Megatropolis Quartet or the Doomsday Revengers—or even the Troy+Thems, our local midwestern team—to back her up; this also meant Clarissa Too had no colleagues or friends who could really understand her problems. Turns out she was eager to come to my dimension and take my place as Ms. Megaton Man, even going so far as to join the Troy+Thems and fill the role of America’s New Nuclear-Powered Hero after the Silver Age Megaton got shitcanned from his gig as the Official Presidential Megahero.
At first, I welcomed this impromptu replacement, although before long it made me feel even more like a fifth wheel than I had already felt. Ms. Megaton Man Too was soon outdoing me in every conceivable metric: she seemed able to fly faster and farther, and beat up more adversaries like Big, Blue Bulky Guy, more handily than I ever could. She also found the time to team up with more teams and generally have more thrilling adventures in a few short weeks than I could shake a stick at. She made me look lame by comparison—a veritable slouch.
I was learning to live with it, however. As my sister Avie told me, I had the best of both worlds—I was getting my grad school education, and on some level I earned credit for all of Ms. Megaton Man’s fabulous exploits. One of my students who had figured out my secret identity, a charming school newspaper reporter named Virginia Vega, was even more impressed with me after Ms. Megaton Man Too came along; if I had tried telling Virginia that the Ms. Megaton Man in the news and I we were actually two different people, she never would have believed me.
Then at Thanksgiving, Clarissa Too made the mistake of giving Trent Phloog a hug. Trent, as I mentioned, was my second cousin and used to be the regular Megaton Man—until he swallowed the Cosmic Cue-Ball and lost all his Megapowers. The Cosmic Cue-Ball, I should explain, is really a tiny Mutanium Particle from another part of the galaxy, surrounded by a thick layer of Extanium, the most powerful buffer in the universe. When Megaton Man swallowed it, the Extanium was absorbed into his metabolism, after which Trent was just an ordinary Civilian. Well, when Clarissa Too came into contact with Trent, she lost her Megapowers, too—apparently, the Extanium coating——that surrounded the Mutanium particle at the center of the Cosmic Cue-Ball—all of which had been absorbed into Trent’s Civilian metabolism—had absorbed Clarissa Too’s powers as well.
In any event, after that fateful hug, Clarissa Too found herself more Civilian than ever, and even hobbled by a pin in her leg where she had broken her thigh back in her own reality, before she’d gained Megapowers. All at once, it was Clarissa Too who’d become the fifth wheel; instead of being able to serve as America’s Nuclear-Powered Hero, she was sidelined, while I was suddenly pressed into double-duty. I was to fly to Washington, D.C. and perform various functions as Ms. Megaton Man during the transition of presidential administrations—with final exams coming up and my own term papers due!
Luckily, I flew me east by commercial jet, not under my own power, and Ms. Megaton Man wasn’t called upon to actually use any of her—my—Megapowers. To be honest with you, I wasn’t quite sure I still had them, it had been so long since I’d flown or lifted anything heavy or punched through a brick wall. Frankly, I was more than a bit leery about being put to the test.
I really didn’t do much in D.C. except meet with my Grandma Seedy—Dr. Mercedith Robeson James—who ran the quasi-governmental agency the supervised Megaheroes, the Ivy-Covered Halls of Higher Learning, or ICHHL for short. All she did was give me a tour of her palatial offices in a monumental building on the Potomac and issue me another, bigger-sized Ms. Megaton Man uniform—since I had put on a little weight—made of the same nearly-indestructible Quarantinium-Quelluminum fabric as my first one. But the photo-ops and other ceremonies I expected to perform all evaporated, and I was sent back home to Detroit on another commercial flight that same evening.
When I got home, I found that my Counterpart from the Civilian dimension, Clarissa Too, had been moved in with my half-sister Avie, ostensibly to cover my classes should I be needed as Ms. Megaton Man. Luckily, no national emergency ever materialized that the Doomsday Revengers, the Megatropolis Quartet, or even the Troy+Thems couldn’t cover, and Ms. Megaton Man was never required to spring into action.
It question I dreaded most was never asked: “Will the real Ms. Megaton Man please stand up?” Because if it had, it would have been me who would’ve had to answer the call.
It looked like I would be able to get through the semester without any further Megaheroic incident, and would be able to finish out my own classes and teach my remaining recitations. Unfortunately, this meant Clarissa Too really had nothing to do; not only had she lost her Megapowers, but her game leg gave her quite a limp. Although she tried her best to smile through it, she couldn’t walk very well, even with the help of a cane. And since she hadn’t studied Urban Policy and Social Planning in her reality, it would have been pointless for her try to cover Dr. Finch’s lectures, although I’m sure she would have taken better notes than I could. She did a really excellent job typing up my term papers, but other than doublechecking my grade ledger, there wasn’t much else to keep her busy.
On top of which, I think Clarissa Too genuinely seemed to miss being able to fly and beat up killer robots and so forth—the complete opposite of me; I was never was all that into it.
One day I noticed her sitting on the sofa petting Dr. Sax, our resident black cat, who never left her side. She looked so sad and dejected, I could have cried. I felt so sorry for her, and wished there was something I could do.
After I’d graded my last recitation papers and finished all my own coursework, Clarissa Too announced, “You really don’t need me anymore. You’ve got your first semester of grad school under your belt, and you’re handling all the duties of America’s first female African-American Nuclear-Powered Hero quite nicely; I’m just a liability to you.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “You’ve been a far bigger help than you realize. You kept me from losing my mind. And as far as my duties as the Presidential Megahero are concerned, thus far they’ve failed to materialize. I haven’t been called upon to use my Megapowers once yet, thank God. But if and when they do, I’m going to be up shit’s creek without a paddle; then, I’m really going to need you. In the meantime, I just wish there was something I could do to alleviate your suffering.”
“It’s not really suffering,” said Clarissa. “I’m used to the pain in my leg. It was just the shock of feeling it again, when I lost my Megapowers. It had gone away when I touched the Cosmic Cue-Ball and became Ms. Megaton Man back in my dimension; I told you, they even x-rayed me and found the metal rod had vanished. But when I hugged Trent here in your dimension, and the Cue-Ball absorbed my powers, the pain came back all of a sudden. I’m sure if they x-rayed my thigh now, they’d find the rod back, too.”
“Maybe there’s something we can do,” I ventured. “Hasn’t Dr. Joe been able to help?”
Dr. Joseph Levitch was the creator of the Silver Age Megaton Man, and had even developed capsules to enable my father to transition from Megaheroic to Civilian form temporarily. I knew she’d been in touch with him.
“I don’t think there’s any way to restore my powers chemically, if that’s what you mean,” said Clarissa Too. “You’re friend Preston Percy set Dr. Joe to work formulating several formulas of Mega-Soldier Syrup booster shots, but nothing seems to work on my metabolism. Most likely that’s because in my reality, Clyde Phloog wasn’t Megapowered when I was conceived.”
I had never visualized the Silver Age Megaton Man ejaculating into my Mama before; it was an unsettling image.
“More to the point, I’m not doing you any good here,” Clarissa Too added. “You know all this Urban Policy and Social Planning stuff inside out, whereas my area of study back in the Civilian Reality is a bit different—Philological Economy and Gnostic Epistemology.”
“I wish I did know this stuff inside and out,” I said. “It sure doesn’t feel like I’ll ever comprehend all the Hypothetic terminology involved.”
“You’ve learned more than you realize,” said Clarissa Too. “It’s like that in any field of study—when you’re in school, you’re so busy making grades and racking up credits that you just don’t have time to consider all the knowledge you’ve absorbed. In any case, I’m practically useless to you, even so far as helping grading papers.”
“You’re being modest,” I said. “You’ve done something I was never able to do all semester—you memorized all my students’ names in less than a week.”
I laughed, but it was only because this was the moment I’d been dreading; I felt a certain queasiness in the pit of my stomach because I knew Clarissa Too was right. Even though it had bothered me that my Counterpart had outshone me as Ms. Megaton Man, I was selfishly hoping beyond hope that Clarissa Too would somehow regain her Megapowers so that she could continue to serve as America’s Nuclear-Powered Hero in my stead—better her than me. But I was beginning to see that just wasn’t in the cards.
“You really want to go home, don’t you, Clarissa?” I asked. “Back to your own Civilian dimension?”
She nodded sadly. “I’m homesick for my own reality, Clarissa,” she said. “Not for the surroundings or school environment, certainly, which is more or less the same. Don’t get me wrong—your version of Avie and Mama and Daddy and Trent and Stella are very nice. Getting to spend time with you has been really … interesting. And I’m really going to miss Dr. Sax. It’s just that in my reality, I know who I am and where I fit in. Here, all the relationships are different.”
“I suppose they would be,” I said. “Different experiences, different histories. So, I guess what you’re telling me is you plan to astrally project yourself home; that’s how you got here, after all. Any idea when you plan to leave?”
“That’s just it,” said Clarissa Too. “I can’t seem to astrally project myself anywhere. I could do it when I had my Ms. Megaton Man Megapowers, all by myself. But now, I can’t seem to do it at all—I’ve tried. I guess that escape hatch closed when I lost my powers.”
“There’s always the Time Turntable or the Dimensional Doorway,” I pointed out. “Those are the two artificial means us Megaheroes normally us for crossing over the Dimensional Divide.”
“Yes, but you explained to me the ethical quandaries of using artificial means,” said Clarissa Too. “Whenever one steps out of one reality into another using a transgressive technology like those you mentioned, one inadvertently creates a new, alternate reality. Even if one returns to where one began, there will always be some alternate reality in which one will never return, and where one’s loved ones will never see them again. When I go home, I want it to be the way I came; I want to rejoin my Avie and Mama and Daddy and all of them. It would break my heart knowing that in some other reality there was an Avie and a Mama and a Daddy who were still waiting for me, and never saw me again.”
I couldn’t argue with that; Clarissa Too had aptly paraphrased the Tragic Realization of Temporal-Dimensional Travel, the theory expounded to me by Dr. Winifred Wertz herself when I visited the Forbidden Future, and which I had shared with her.
“That’s the one big benefit of astral travel,” I said. “By using natural means, so to speak, one doesn’t disrupt the Multimensions by adding more confusion.” It was clear that Clarissa Too had to return to her home reality by the same means as she had arrived, if at all possible. But if she couldn’t do it under her own power, there’s only one alternative: that was a meeting with Doctor Messiah. It was he who had guided me on my tour of Clarissa Too’s reality; presumably, he could help her get back across the threshold between universes astrally, without artificial means.
When I suggested this to Clarissa Too, she was elated. “The only problem,” I added, “is that Dr. Joshua Bar-Joseph is on sabbatical this semester, and I don’t know where he is or when he’ll be returning to Detroit.”
Clarissa Too was crestfallen.
“But I know who we can ask,” I said. “That’s his Teaching Fellow, Michele Selket.”
Next: Mistaken Identity
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