Post by redsycorax on Jul 5, 2023 0:22:56 GMT
Come with us now to the distant past- the 1960s. Badman and Robber the Boy Plunder terrorised Metroville, while the Freedom Brigade had to deal with the fact that their old friends had turned into old fiends. Why were the Swiveling Sixties such a decade of dreadfulness for our heroes and what influence does it have on their world's most muddlesome metahumans even today?
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MR MIGHT STATUS REPORT:
A terrible thing has happened. As we had been told, our former allies Capeman and Cloakboy have turned bad due to Brian Payne falling behind on his mortgage payments after Stately Payne Manor went bust. They now style themselves Badman and Robber the Boy Plunder. They've left the Freedom Brigade to perform criminal acts in Metroville, complete with corny routines that wouldn't get them past the front foyer in Las Vegas. What could have corrupted our two erstwhile companions? Are the Freedom Brigade in for a dorkier, grinchier, more morally androgynous decade? Lauren tells me that Lori Lake and Louise Louche aren't taking my marriage to her too well and may be tempted into larceny as well. Why were they so obsessed with matrimony to me, even to the point of filing claims to strike down polygamy laws in the US Supreme Court?
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ARNOLDSTOWN FD:
"No! Absolutely not! Now get lost, and stop wasting our time!" Thus, ignominiously ended Lake and Louche Versus Mermaid and Might, which has the distinction of being the shortest US Supreme Court verdict on record, a masterpiece of precision, concise statement and terseness. One of the female ushers unceremoniously booted Mister Might's two former female acquaintances out the door and onto the busy Arnoldstown street:
"Choke wheeze gasp! Oh, Louise! Will we be permanently unable to get married to Mr Might now?"
"Oh, Lori! Will we have to keep our high-paying professional journalism jobs and refrain from ever sacrificing them to be Mrs Might because of that web-footed fishwife?"
"Perhaps we could use Strawberry Neonite and turn him into three Mr Mights? That worked before."
"No, Lori. Remember, the last time, it was adulterated with Boysenberry and Raspberry Neonite and turned him into a trio of green striped talking tabby cats?"
"Gosh, Louise, I'd completely forgotten. Oh, look. A totally unexpected and convenient chunk of lime neonite meteorite which can turn anyone evil?"
"Nyahahaha! Cackle! Lori, who cares about marrying Mr Might anymore? We've got bigger things to worry about, like planning our next heist!!!"
"Nyahahaha! Ha! Louise, we can become a fiendish criminal duet and terrorise Metroville, running Mr Might and his Freedom Brigade colleagues ragged!!!"
"Nyahahaha! Snort!"
METROVILLE:
No-one knew quite how motorists had become quite so stigmatised and reviled. The Pedestrian Church of America had abruptly decided to persecute and harass speeding drivers at one of their synods in 1965. For some reason, probably because it was an election year and politicians needed to manufacture another vilified and hated group to detest and condemn, the Pedestrian Church's call for action was heeded, due to their highly effective lobby group, the John Birching Society. Susceptible state legislatures passed ridiculous legislation that allowed for the spanking of speeding drivers. It worked, but then a problem arose. Given the vague correlation between the use of spanking and reduced motor vehicle difficulties, and because it was the sixties and anxieties were high about long hair, garish costume jewelry and excessive intake of chocolate, as well as mini-kilts on men and capri pants, and other things like the Switzerland War, the speed limit was forced steadily downward and more and more speeding drivers were spanked as the speed limits decreased. Still, the spanking of so many speeding motorists provided employment for needy sex maniacs, thus killing two fish with one hook. Yes, with his wholesome wife and two angelic children in the car, any strapping muscular male motorist could be hauled over (...), forced to bend over his car bonnet and gasp as the spanky spoons of the Caterwauling Heinie Patrol impacted hard on his cloth-clad derriere for the simple transgression of doing speed.
The sixties were a turgid time. As well as the controversy over corporal punishment of speeding motorists, it was the time of the militant Virginity Liberation Front, when rampaging hordes of women who wanted to not have nooky traversed the land arranging for convenient 'accidents' for young men involving overly tight trousers, quicksand, or soy product saturation, which turned large screeds of urban adolescent manhood spontaneously and totally gay.
Deranged osteopaths stalked the land and no skeleton was safe! There was predictably and inevitably much anxiety about wilful "Baldy Botches" or "Hip-Pockets" flashing their nude naked noggins and inciting the susceptible to hack off their hair with clam shells. Their baldness was labelled "unaesthetic" by many civil authorities, given that head glare from full frontal baldity was causing midair collisions due to blinded aircraft pilots high above. They were seen to be a threat to normal hairy citizens. Many wondered why baldists had 'come out' of the wig shop and no longer modestly and ashamedly hid their nude naked noggins under decent, law abiding fake hair. Was baldness caused by a spreading fungus? Was it a dirty, degrading habit that forever thwarted any prospect of normal relationships? Bald men were liable to be surprised in bed by police and tabloid journalists brandishing Before and After photographs and were often baldmailed for being hairless horrors.
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Given that they'd turned evil and were far too well known otherwise for being Mr Might's former female acquaintances/stalkers/harassers, Louise Louche and Lori Lake decided to submerge their civilian identities in cunningly designed masks and garish action outfits. Thus, Lori Lake became Vamp Ironica and Louise Louche became Ann Archy. The two ingenue supervillains laid a trail of criminality, vice and terror across Metroville until the inevitable happened and they crossed paths with Badman and Robber:
"Say, boychiks, what would you say to girlfriendage and collaboration?"
Badman and Robber stared at each other: "Uh no, we're gay and frankly, neither of you has the particular attributes we're after. Namely upper body development, good pectoral and abdominal definition and good dress sense."
"Oh, not you as well. Choke wheeze gasp! First Mr Might gets married to that-that- mouldy kipper queen and now you turn us down because you're into guys." Vamp Ironica complained.
"Wait a minute, Badman. They're Mighty's old forest fires, Lori Lake and Louise Louche, somehow turned into supervillainesses! Golly gee whillickers!!!"
"Robber, could you refrain from the phatic communion? Well, this is a turn up! Can we compare notes to see if we've got all of Mr Might's one weaknesses down on our list?"
"No, Badman! There's only room in Metroville for one group of fiendish evildoers in peculiar outfits and that's us!"
"Hey, we were here first."
"Uh, Badman? That looks like the Free Breeze directly above us?"
"Now look what you've done! Due to your amateurism, you've precipitated a situation where we'll all be apprehended only a matter of paragraphs into this episode and be overpowered in a cheap fight scene!"
Several whams, pows, socks and kerblams later, that was indeed what had happened. Vamp Ironica and Ann Archy tried to make a surreptitious getaway, but got into a fight scene with Princess Power, Lady Liberty and the Green Canary, resulting in their being tied up very tightly with the Enormous Amazon's tragic lasso and unmasked. Fortunately for them, Captain Swift had blueberry weirdzo neonite on hand from Mister Might's Fortress of Steadiness, which de-evilised Lori and Louise. Badman and Robber were apprehended and sent to Owlcatraz, due to a mistake in official records, given that it had long been shut down and remaindered. And so they promptly escaped and throughout the Swiveling Sixties, they were a corn on the foot of decent law-abiding citizens everywhere.
THE END [12.25 PM, JULY 5, 2023]
++
MR MIGHT STATUS REPORT:
A terrible thing has happened. As we had been told, our former allies Capeman and Cloakboy have turned bad due to Brian Payne falling behind on his mortgage payments after Stately Payne Manor went bust. They now style themselves Badman and Robber the Boy Plunder. They've left the Freedom Brigade to perform criminal acts in Metroville, complete with corny routines that wouldn't get them past the front foyer in Las Vegas. What could have corrupted our two erstwhile companions? Are the Freedom Brigade in for a dorkier, grinchier, more morally androgynous decade? Lauren tells me that Lori Lake and Louise Louche aren't taking my marriage to her too well and may be tempted into larceny as well. Why were they so obsessed with matrimony to me, even to the point of filing claims to strike down polygamy laws in the US Supreme Court?
++
ARNOLDSTOWN FD:
"No! Absolutely not! Now get lost, and stop wasting our time!" Thus, ignominiously ended Lake and Louche Versus Mermaid and Might, which has the distinction of being the shortest US Supreme Court verdict on record, a masterpiece of precision, concise statement and terseness. One of the female ushers unceremoniously booted Mister Might's two former female acquaintances out the door and onto the busy Arnoldstown street:
"Choke wheeze gasp! Oh, Louise! Will we be permanently unable to get married to Mr Might now?"
"Oh, Lori! Will we have to keep our high-paying professional journalism jobs and refrain from ever sacrificing them to be Mrs Might because of that web-footed fishwife?"
"Perhaps we could use Strawberry Neonite and turn him into three Mr Mights? That worked before."
"No, Lori. Remember, the last time, it was adulterated with Boysenberry and Raspberry Neonite and turned him into a trio of green striped talking tabby cats?"
"Gosh, Louise, I'd completely forgotten. Oh, look. A totally unexpected and convenient chunk of lime neonite meteorite which can turn anyone evil?"
"Nyahahaha! Cackle! Lori, who cares about marrying Mr Might anymore? We've got bigger things to worry about, like planning our next heist!!!"
"Nyahahaha! Ha! Louise, we can become a fiendish criminal duet and terrorise Metroville, running Mr Might and his Freedom Brigade colleagues ragged!!!"
"Nyahahaha! Snort!"
METROVILLE:
No-one knew quite how motorists had become quite so stigmatised and reviled. The Pedestrian Church of America had abruptly decided to persecute and harass speeding drivers at one of their synods in 1965. For some reason, probably because it was an election year and politicians needed to manufacture another vilified and hated group to detest and condemn, the Pedestrian Church's call for action was heeded, due to their highly effective lobby group, the John Birching Society. Susceptible state legislatures passed ridiculous legislation that allowed for the spanking of speeding drivers. It worked, but then a problem arose. Given the vague correlation between the use of spanking and reduced motor vehicle difficulties, and because it was the sixties and anxieties were high about long hair, garish costume jewelry and excessive intake of chocolate, as well as mini-kilts on men and capri pants, and other things like the Switzerland War, the speed limit was forced steadily downward and more and more speeding drivers were spanked as the speed limits decreased. Still, the spanking of so many speeding motorists provided employment for needy sex maniacs, thus killing two fish with one hook. Yes, with his wholesome wife and two angelic children in the car, any strapping muscular male motorist could be hauled over (...), forced to bend over his car bonnet and gasp as the spanky spoons of the Caterwauling Heinie Patrol impacted hard on his cloth-clad derriere for the simple transgression of doing speed.
The sixties were a turgid time. As well as the controversy over corporal punishment of speeding motorists, it was the time of the militant Virginity Liberation Front, when rampaging hordes of women who wanted to not have nooky traversed the land arranging for convenient 'accidents' for young men involving overly tight trousers, quicksand, or soy product saturation, which turned large screeds of urban adolescent manhood spontaneously and totally gay.
Deranged osteopaths stalked the land and no skeleton was safe! There was predictably and inevitably much anxiety about wilful "Baldy Botches" or "Hip-Pockets" flashing their nude naked noggins and inciting the susceptible to hack off their hair with clam shells. Their baldness was labelled "unaesthetic" by many civil authorities, given that head glare from full frontal baldity was causing midair collisions due to blinded aircraft pilots high above. They were seen to be a threat to normal hairy citizens. Many wondered why baldists had 'come out' of the wig shop and no longer modestly and ashamedly hid their nude naked noggins under decent, law abiding fake hair. Was baldness caused by a spreading fungus? Was it a dirty, degrading habit that forever thwarted any prospect of normal relationships? Bald men were liable to be surprised in bed by police and tabloid journalists brandishing Before and After photographs and were often baldmailed for being hairless horrors.
++
Given that they'd turned evil and were far too well known otherwise for being Mr Might's former female acquaintances/stalkers/harassers, Louise Louche and Lori Lake decided to submerge their civilian identities in cunningly designed masks and garish action outfits. Thus, Lori Lake became Vamp Ironica and Louise Louche became Ann Archy. The two ingenue supervillains laid a trail of criminality, vice and terror across Metroville until the inevitable happened and they crossed paths with Badman and Robber:
"Say, boychiks, what would you say to girlfriendage and collaboration?"
Badman and Robber stared at each other: "Uh no, we're gay and frankly, neither of you has the particular attributes we're after. Namely upper body development, good pectoral and abdominal definition and good dress sense."
"Oh, not you as well. Choke wheeze gasp! First Mr Might gets married to that-that- mouldy kipper queen and now you turn us down because you're into guys." Vamp Ironica complained.
"Wait a minute, Badman. They're Mighty's old forest fires, Lori Lake and Louise Louche, somehow turned into supervillainesses! Golly gee whillickers!!!"
"Robber, could you refrain from the phatic communion? Well, this is a turn up! Can we compare notes to see if we've got all of Mr Might's one weaknesses down on our list?"
"No, Badman! There's only room in Metroville for one group of fiendish evildoers in peculiar outfits and that's us!"
"Hey, we were here first."
"Uh, Badman? That looks like the Free Breeze directly above us?"
"Now look what you've done! Due to your amateurism, you've precipitated a situation where we'll all be apprehended only a matter of paragraphs into this episode and be overpowered in a cheap fight scene!"
Several whams, pows, socks and kerblams later, that was indeed what had happened. Vamp Ironica and Ann Archy tried to make a surreptitious getaway, but got into a fight scene with Princess Power, Lady Liberty and the Green Canary, resulting in their being tied up very tightly with the Enormous Amazon's tragic lasso and unmasked. Fortunately for them, Captain Swift had blueberry weirdzo neonite on hand from Mister Might's Fortress of Steadiness, which de-evilised Lori and Louise. Badman and Robber were apprehended and sent to Owlcatraz, due to a mistake in official records, given that it had long been shut down and remaindered. And so they promptly escaped and throughout the Swiveling Sixties, they were a corn on the foot of decent law-abiding citizens everywhere.
THE END [12.25 PM, JULY 5, 2023]