hero_one

I was listening to KMOX last week and a guy called in, apparently not to discuss the topic at hand. Instead, he volunteered, with the hick accent people in St. Louis acquire somehow, the following:

"Jon, I kin tell ya why this city's so messed up. That's because this place is run top to bottom by homosexuals. This is the gayest city on Earth."

I had an episode for a couple days after that.

This is the city I protect? These are the people I'm looking out for? I'm the only thing that keeps this town from tumbling over the edge into the brink of madness sometimes, once literally when Ya'toogle the Old God came knockin' on the Arch. Once in a while, we subcontract with the Avengers since Tony Stark has an interest in Boeing, but usually, I'm it.

Then yesterday night, the openly gay fear-controlling supervillain named Homophobe came around and held highway 270 hostage for six hours.

I didn't step in. I made that call. I found a doctor's excuse and didn't do anything. I wonder how many people's greatest fear was a gay man in power over them. This morning, a phone call woke me up to tell me that if I didn't get my ass in gear they'd be calling Mighty Thor to take care of the situation.

I was greeted with cheering and confetti, because a bunch of people had arrived to watch me beat the shit out of a fag. Instead, I trundled up to his perch, confronting all my worst nightmares as I did so - we won't go into that now. And we sat down and talked for a while.

Unfortuinately, he drew a lightsaber on me so I had to punch him through a wall. The battle raged for 30 minutes and made evening news for a week. Asshole could have made a lot of progress otherwise. I'm proud of myself for not shouting anything untoward like I usually do.

I got the following letter recently from the necromancer who calls himself Manubis:


Dear Hero One,

It has come to my attnetion after repeated veiewings of the widely-publicized videotape of our last encounter that on no fewer than four occasions, you refer to me as an "undead abomination." Although I thought at first I could be the bigger superbeing and allow this affront to continue, I find that my patience with this wanes. Last week, the supervigilante "D-Fense" rushed at me due to a misunderstanding, and I heard him utter that same phrase - "undead abomination." I am writing this letter not to attack you, but I would appreciate a public apology and some restittion.

Being undead is difficult, Mr. One. There are numerous stereotypes associated with the condition, not the least of which is that previously deceased persons require brains for sustenance. I assure you this is untrue, and my recent acquisition of Heinrich Himmler's brain a the time of our last encounter was entirely coincidental.

I find, then, that your well-publicized taunts are pure effrontery. Everyone seems to have latched onto this "abomination" thing. I read in the paper recently where a vampire in Virginia recently was not only staked, but beheaded, his mouth stuffed with garlics, his body torn to pieces, and the pieces burned and the ashes buried at seperate junctions of a crossroads! This is extremism in its worst form; a simple stake would have done enough. Much like criminals, this "providing an example" is nonsense. Vampirism will always exist.

Mr. One, this has got to stop. I am asking you because you are in a position of esteem, and you have the power to do something about this...this grave injustice.

Sincerely,
Manubis

What's funny is that he put his home address on the letter.

Sorry, I've been in and out of court for the last couple weeks. That lawsuit I mentioned? Yeah.

Luckily, I was defended by an old friend, the only lawyer specializing in supercrime in St. Louis, ex-superhero The Law. I won't bore you with the details, but I'm actually surprised at how quickly the thing was resolved. I've been told in the so-called "real world" trials take months.

Posttrial, I asked The Law if he'd like to go get a drink, and he kind of shuffled around and looked embarrassed and said, "Frankly, H, I think not. I don't like being seen with you these days. I think it's kind of shameful how you hang on to this facade...it's something I thought we all let go of after college."

I pointed out that he was wearing a mask and carrying the "Adjudicator," his giant gavel, and he mumbled something about his reputation and needing a gimmick and quickly reached for his cell phone, which he said was vibrating (not true) and left the room.

I'm aking him off the birthday card list, for one, but not the Christmas cards, because I'll likely be in court again before long.

That reminds me, I've been called in as an expert witness for the prosecution of Stunbolt, a low-powered villain who claims to be the "master of static electricity." Apparently, when he starts with the shocking, it's like being drunk, so they need someone who can note his inviible eyebeams.

I fought Stunbolt once, when he was trying to take a college team on singlehandedly. He's not a sophist by any means, but he can make his opponent look bad like none other. He's a dick and he deserves this.

I was stopping a bank robbery tonight around 6 o' clock and a guy pulled a pistol on me. Not a big deal, I can handle those things pretty well unless they're laser-based or something like that, but this one didn't seem to be. I launched into my spiel about being a duly appointed representative of the law and I didn't ee his partner bringing up the rear with a shotgun.

Now, shotguns, little different. They pack a fair amount of force, and though I'm pretty tough, this guy was packing an eight gauge pump action, which I didn't even know existed. A gun like that would sink a battleship. I'm sure some mad scientist friend built it for him.

So I just had time to say "Aw, hell" before there was a sound like a report from a gun that could sink a battleship and I was flying off my feet, into a wall. A brick wall. I was actually propelled through the wall. I say this so you'll understand what sort of night I had, not so you'll feel sorry for me.

Anyway, I pulled myself from the rubble and tried again, saying "No, stop, seriously," and I heard someone say, "Shoot him again, Joey!" and I said "No, Joey, don't shoot him again," but that didn't work and this shot spn me all the way around and I cracked my head against a dumpster, which dented.

I was pretty pissed off by now. I heard "Joey, shit, he's still moving, shoot him in the face!" and I was back on my feet again, a little woozy and plenty angry and I picked up the pistol guy and slapped Joey hard in the face with him. Joey fired his eight gauge again, and it hit my kneecap, which is still weak from my fight with the pyromaniac actor Arson Wells, and I'm sure he chipped the bone. So I ripped the fingers off Joey's right hand and then I stomped on Pistol Guy's foot.

So I have been at the police station rationalizing my "use of excessive force." I was considering asking of one of the officers would kindly take three shotgun slugs to various parts of his person, but flippancy is the last thing I wanted to hand out that evening, especially to my employers. It looks like I may be fighting this in court, gang.

So I'm sorry I didn't update last night, I can't move heaven and earth for you guys. My bad.

I was trying to quit my gym membership, a process that the powers that be make a bit harder than I'd like. See, I'm pretty flabby, I'm not going to lie about that. But here's the deal.

I can lift upward of six tons before I really strain my muscles. I don't think that, given that, doing a lot of 80 pound curls is going to have much of an effect. I can leap three stories straight up from a standing start. You got that, gymfuckers? Your personal trainers who want me to eat more fruit should listen to this: My heart can probably move enough liquid in a day to power Wisconsin.

Since I strain myself more than the average citizen, I also work on a 10000 calorie diet and my metabolism is like, so fucking fast. If I eat less, I get hungry and tired and cranky, which is the story today. I could support Hardees on my own, jerks.

Now, I get winded jogging after five minutes like everyone else, but when I jog for five minutes, I cover about twenty miles of ground.

Do you dig that, physical trainer "you need to get off you ass and do something" man? I save motherfucking lives.

No, I will not be renewing my membership.

I<3Bombs78: hey!
Hero1STL: Hi.
I<3Bombs78: what's up?
Hero1STL: Who is this?
I<3Bombs78: guess
Hero1STL: Okay, I guess you're going on my block list.
I<3Bombs78: lol
I<3Bombs78: no really guess who it is
Hero1STL: I got nothing.
I<3Bombs78: i'll give you a hint, we've had a couple EXPLOSIVE encounters
Hero1STL: What?
I<3Bombs78: we usually have a BLAST
Hero1STL: ...I thik you've got the wrong person.
I<3Bombs78: when i show up it's usually a big KABOOM
Hero1STL: That didn't even make sense.
I<3Bombs78: lol
I<3Bombs78: seriously
I<3Bombs78: you dont know who this is?
Hero1STL: No.
I<3Bombs78: it's me!!!! explosieve!
Hero1STL: Who?
Hero1STL: Oh yeah, the guy full of holes that shoots bombs.
I<3Bombs78: remember, im full of holes and there's bombs?
I<3Bombs78: yeah that's me
I<3Bombs78: guess where i am
Hero1STL: I don't know, some secure hiding place?
I<3Bombs78: hahahahaha
I<3Bombs78: here i found this link and it made me think of you:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/285267
Hero1STL: I saw that. It's funny.
I<3Bombs78: It's like us.
Hero1STL: You know what, it's really not. We didn't duel, you fired bombs at me and then ran away before I could dig myself out of the parking garage.
I<3Bombs78: lol
Hero1STL: A couple people I hang out with were caught in the blast.
I<3Bombs78: rofl
Hero1STL: Quit laughing.
I<3Bombs78: lmao sry sry sry
I<3Bombs78: jk
Hero1STL: ...
I<3Bombs78: So what's up?
Hero1STL: Not a lot, just trying to cope with a terrible loss.
I<3Bombs78: lol
I<3Bombs78: okay, well, ill tell you why your internet is acting all funny
I<3Bombs78: iv'e been stealing bandwidth  from your wireless
I<3Bombs78: lol
I<3Bombs78: so im somewhere close by, hiding and waiting lol
closer than you think lmao
lol
lol
Hero1STL: Be right back.
Hero1STL is away at 8:55:26 PM.
I<3Bombs78: okay
Hero1STL: I am away from my computer right now.
I<3Bombs78: hold on someone's knocking on my SUV window
I<3Bombs78: brb
Hero1STL is idle at 9:05:31 PM.
I<3Bombs78 is idle at 9:07:53 PM.
I<3Bombs78 signed off at 9:24:02 PM.
Hero1STL returned at 9:29:17 PM.

I didn't feel like going out and protecting the city today. I spent the day in my underwear watching TV and eating peanut butter.

Sixty-three people died at the hands of my enemies.

I was trying to disarm an explosive left by Bombinatrix today over in the Bread Co. in South County, and it occurred to me when the timer counted down to two minutes that maybe I should have tried to evacuate the restaraunt or something, or notified the management. Any sort of action to make sure that the place was clear, right?

So I fired off a couple bursts of radiation vision, because I forgot that while I can see radiation well beyond the human range, other people can't. All I did was send some guy with a pacemaker into coronary arrest, and that actually brought more people in. I probably gave someone stomach cancer.

So I did the only thing I could, I ripped the bomb out of the wall and ran outside through the kitchen door, but then I ran into mall security, so I screamed "I have a bomb!" I really wasn't thinking clearly, obviously, so they tried to detain me, not knowing who I was. So I kind of flipped over their truck and jumped clear over the fence, towards the highway, thinking maybe I could get the bomb far away enough for it not to cause any harm.

That's about all I remember, but I woke up a couple hours later with a lot of EMTs and police around me, wanting to know what happened. It's been a rough few days.