#146: Megatron Man #1

“Chase Bradford’s comic book has been published? By a real publisher? That’s wonderful,” I said. I had seen much of the original artwork while he was working on it, but being busy with grad school myself, hadn’t been in touch with the aspiring cartoonist in quite a while. “How do you know, Nancy? Have you seen it?”

#145: Fusion Jazz

Clarissa’s first-person narrative resumes …
        “You expect me to believe the Quantum Quest Quartet became the Megatropolis Quartet simply because all four people temporarily forgot their team name on the Fourth of July, 1976?” I said. “I assume they later recovered their memories. Why didn’t they go back to the original team name? Had they already filed paperwork that prevented them from changing it back or something?”

#125: Re-Election Day

When I got up the following morning, my first priority was to set my Ms. Megaton Man visor and buttons on the windowsill so they could recharge for several hours in the sunlight; after that, to find my polling place, the spooky St. Oriel Byzantine Church. It was a short walk from our West Forest apartment down Third Avenue almost to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. I made it a point to get my ass out of bed early and cast my ballot for the challenger to President Harry Foster Lime, whoever that might be. I couldn’t start my day unless I knew I’d done at least that much to defeat him, as had been accomplished in my own reality.

#56: Ms. Megaton Is Skank

“Then what did you do?” asked Avie. She sat at my tiny kitchen table, wolfing down cheese curls like they were goin out of style.
     “I took off his clothes, and then I knelt down…” I said.
     “Were you naked?” My half-sister wanted ever detail.
     “I had on my panties,” I said. “I was having my period, I told you.”
     “Was he lying on the bed?” asked Avie.
     “No; that’s a good point, Avie,” I said. “Gene was standing; I asked him to stand. He was uncomfortable about it, maybe because of the way the ceiling angles; he was nearly hitting his head. You know what he said?”
     “What?”

#55: Sex Drive in the Motor City

I need to backtrack here and explain a few things.
     You see, I had always thought the Ann Street house where I lived during my early college years was a commune. But it was no more a real commune than its basement rec room—which Daddy had built and where Yarn Man and I had holed up for a few lost weeks—was a real hippie crash pad. There was nothing at all about the lifestyle Trent, Stella, Pammy and I were living at the time that was truly communal, least of all in any utopian, sixties sense. We were all simply housemates who shared a living space. We each rented our own bedrooms and shared certain other spaces in the house. We didn’t buy food together or even eat together all that often; we didn’t have a set list of chores or obligations. We just cooperated and respected one another, and otherwise took care of our own messes. Otherwise, we all remained very suburban and middle-class in our outlook.

#36: Sex and the Single Megahero

It was strange for me to realize, but considering the variety and sheer number of sexual experiences I’d had in the two years since I'd lost my virginity to Yarn Man, my relationship with Nancy—that is to say, Agatha—was the closest thing to a normal, dating relationship I’d ever had. This was due, in part, to her being a civilian—as opposed to being a megahero or former megahero. But it was more because most of the sex I’d had up to that point in my life had been impromptu hook-ups: I shagged Yarn Man the moment I’d laid eyes on him, and later we shacked up in the basement rec room my Daddy built and seldom went out thereafter. That summer, when I became Ms. Megaton Man, I spent a couple of weeks binge-partying with every college athlete on the Arbor State University campus—male or female—just before the fall semester of my repeat junior year began. At the very end of the school year, I finally did it with Trent, whom I had gotten to know from living in the same house as him over the previous two and a half years; we certainly had never gone out on a date.

#35: Giving Nuke a Tumble

So, I have to tell you about the magenta-haired art student, Nancy—although that’s not her real name, turns out.
     My summer class hadn’t started yet, but I was settled into my garret apartment, such as it was; I just had my bed and a side table, and a few milk crates, as I mentioned. I had a big empty space in the corner of the small studio next to my bed, directly when you walked in the door. It was too small for a sofa, and I was going to need a desk or something to set my portable typewriter on and do homework—the fifties kitchen table wasn’t going to cut it. I’d left my desk in Ann Arbor—but there was time to find something else. First, I needed to find a job.