🚀 go-pugleaf

     There's just something about action heroes and really scenic (read:
insanely dangerous) stretches of road.  About the only time you're going to
see a real action hero on the interstate is just before he goes over the
median strip and starts driving against traffic...an action made even more
dangerous in 000SUPERGUY by the possibility that coming down the road the
other way will be a certain indestructible car driven by a certain member
of the Catholic Church.
     Of course, since she's over in the Road Race From Hell (TM) right now,
Jack didn't have to worry about that particular road hazard.
     Hence, as might be expected, he was driving his motorcycle along the
winding cliffside roads south of San Francisco on his way back to Los
Angeles.  Or maybe outside Monaco.  Most of our aerial footage is from old
movies, and some of "To Catch A Thief" might have gotten mixed in.  Oh
well.
     The reader may rest assured at this point that before the episode is
over, SOMEONE is going to be making an impromptu tryout for the high diving
team.  But this is still the pre-titles section, so it probably won't
happen here.
     Drat.
     Anyway, here comes Jack, on his slightly sooty motorcycle, driving at
unsafe speeds down the Pacific Coast Highway.  Coming from the other
direction is a sedan being pursued by a limo that has an upside-down Yugo
spinning on its roof, but it passes Jack without further incident, being
as it is part of an entirely different story.
     WHAP!  "Stop vamping and get on with it!" an old man shouted, hitting
the narrator.  Owie.
     Jack saw a familiar figure at a rest stop up ahead, apparently talking
to the empty air.  "No, he wouldn't be here..." Jack mumbled as he brought
the cycle to a stop at the scenic overlook.  "Father?"
     "About time you got here," Jack's father grumbled, shooting a warning
look at the narrator to ensure no unkind adjectives were applied to him.
Like crotchety.  WHAP!  Hey...!
     "What are you doing here, father?"
     "Waiting for you to get here, that's what."
     "THAT I had figured.  But why here, why not wait for me in L.A.?"
     The old man started holding up fingers.  "One, your apartment is a
dump.  Why should I wait around in a dump?  Two, it's too damned hot in
Southern California right now, it's much nicer up here.  Three, a plot
point's about to happen a few miles from here, and I needed to talk to you
before it happened."
     As if on cue, an electric blue Barracuda with white racing stripes
down the sides roared past the rest stop on its way south.
     "Okay, so what's the plot point?" Jack asked.
     "What, like I'm stupid like Jimmy Rip?" the old man rapped Jack on
the head with his simple wooden walking stick.  "Besides, this is more
important than some little fight scene.  It's about the 36 Crazy Plots."
     "Oh?"
     "Yeah.  I found out what one of them is.  Normally, if it were just
something like 'Get betrayed by your friends and team up with an old enemy
to fight them,' I wouldn't say anything.  Stuff like that builds character.
But look at this," the old man held out a scroll composed of slats of
bamboo woven together with string.  From the ragged edges of the string,
it was apparent that some of the scroll was missing.
     Jack's eyes went wide like pies.  "Um...?"
     "Exactly.  Kinda defeats the point, doesn't it?"
     "Uh...yeah.  So, what now?  If I can't pass through the 36 Crazy
Plots, how will I gain the power needed to defeat the Celestial Court?"
Jack asked.
     His father shrugged his shoulders.  "Hey, this is a superhero world.
Something's bound to come up.  You could always get a hero team together,
I hear superteams have a pretty good record against extradimensional
mythical or iconic entities."
     Suddenly, Jack lashed out with his left hand and grabbed the throat
of a figure which had been trying to sneak over to where the scroll was
sitting.  "Okay, are you my fight scene this issue?"
     "Looks a bit scrawny," his father noted.
     "Ack!  No, I'm a Reader...I just wanted to see what was on the
scroll!" the man gasped.
     Jack did a double-take.  "Wait, what are Readers doing running around
in this story?"
     [Oh, this is the pre-story segment.  I tend to digress, go totally
off-topic, or just be kinda weirder than normal before the credits roll.]
     "Wow, I'm talking to an Author!" Jack gasped.
     "Air...!" the Reader gasped.
     "Ah, don't be so impressed," his father sneered.  "Remember what I
said about the Monkey King?  He's a genius compared to the Authors."
     [Gee, thanks.  Wonder if maybe you're too close to the edge of the
cliff?]
     Watch it, sir...this one's dangerous.
     "Narrator-boy's right," Jack's father snorted.  "Besides, you need to
keep me around to drop vital plot points once in a while."
     [Yes, but not again for a while.  And since you're immortal, this
won't actually kill you.]
     Suddenly, and to the narrator's delight, the cliffside crumbled
slightly, sending Jack's father falling to the pounding surf below, the
scroll falling with him.  By the way, this doesn't count as the promised
deep-sixing, it's just a bonus.
     "Hey, what was on the scroll?" the Reader demanded, curiosity winning
out over need for oxygen.  Unfortunately, this used up the last of his air,
and he started turning blue.
     [Don't worry, I know what it was, and if it becomes relevant Jack can
tell you.]
     [Can I have my square brackets back now? - Ed.]
     [Sure.  Have a ball.  Time for the credits anyway.]
     "Whatever," Jack said, tossing the Reader over the cliff and getting
on his motorcycle.  There was a slight "UFF!" as the Reader landed on
Jack's father, who was climbing up the cliff.
     "Well, I suppose I'll need a new title if I'm not going after the
Crazy Plots anymore," Jack mused as he started the cycle and drove around
the corner, where the following logo was waiting for him....

Coherent Comics UnInc. Presents:   ___  __   __ ___ _  _   ___   _  _ _  _
         CRAZY GUY #7             /   '/  | / |  /   \/   /   ' /   /  \/
     "Vector Subtraction"        /    /--' /--| /    /   /  __ /   /   /
copyright 1996 Dave Van Domelen `___ /  | /   |/__ _/    `__/  \__/  _/
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

     Jack drove down the winding road, brushing off bits of logo that had
gotten tangled in his clothing after he drove through the fool thing, and
pondered what his father had said.  Of course, now that he was officially
on camera, he did not ponder all the stuff about Authors and Readers and
the like.  Now that's professionalism.
     The thirty-sixth and final Crazy Plot was impossible for him to
complete.  And even if he could manage it, it would pretty much defeat his
purpose, which was to beat the gods who were trying to kill him and his
father.  Maybe he could join a superguy team which had already beaten on
gods?  Then again, it'd be hard finding one, since such victories weren't
the kind of thing which got covered in the newspapers, happening as they
usually did off in some other dimension where press passes aren't honored.
Not to mention, joining an established team would mean CROSSOVERS, and his
father had told him that being part of a crossover could be a fate worse
than death.
     Jack pushed such thoughts from his mind.  He could mull them over
later, once his immediate problems had been dealt with.  Namely, someone
had hired super-powered help to get rid of him.  That wouldn't go away just
because he'd stopped looking for the next Crazy Plot.
     Rounding another corner, Jack hit the brakes and almost laid the bike
down in trying to avoid hitting the Barracuda he'd seen earlier.  It was
parked across the road, mostly but not entirely blocking it.  He could
get around it easily now that he'd slowed down.
     Still, why was it there?  It didn't seem to have had a flat tire or
other mechanical breakdown.
     Just as the phrase, "Maybe it's a trap," flitted across his mind, Jack
was thrown from his seat by a kick to his side.  Out of the corner of his
eye he caught a glimpse of the attacker, but as he landed on his feet and
turned to face this assailant, he saw nothing.
     He saw a rustle of movement in the brush by the roadside, some half
dozen meters away, and before he could react was struck in the chest by a
savage open-hand blow that nearly knocked him off his feet.
     Pulling out his staff, he extended it all the way to the brush, and
was rewarded by the sight of a brown-haired man man in red and grey
leaping out of the way and into view.  He looked like a superguy...or more
likely a supervillain.
     Jack shortened the staff to bring around for another strike, and was
stunned by what looked like a million copies of the man rushing at him all
at once, wavering and flickering like a candle flame.  The phantasmal men
all struck the same point at once, stunning his hand and making him drop
the magic staff.  Before Jack could recover it, another, fainter set of
images knocked the staff over the cliff's edge.
     "Who are you?" Jack asked as he leapt out of the way of a flickering
stream of fists.
     "I suppose you should know who kills you.  I go by the handle of
Vector, and I'm going to kill you without even laying a hand on you!"
     A knife then lanced through the air, looking as if it were being
handed off from one copy of the man to another.  Jack jumped over its arc,
but it swung around and hit him in the calf.
     "Yaaargh," he gasped, pulling the knife out.  Feigning being more
injured than he was, he waited for the next attack and grabbed for one of
the many Vectors.
     His hands passed through the image.
     "You can't hurt what you can't touch," Vector mocked from a safe
distance.  Jack briefly pondered the possibility that Vector was a
speedster who could become intangible...but that didn't match with his
need to jump out of the way of Jack's initial attack.
     Leaping into the air, Jack tried to close the gap between himself and
Vector's position, but he was plowed aside by a fountain of red and grey
figures that streamed up into the air to meet him.  As he spiraled away
from them, he noticed that they didn't seem to be as solid when he wasn't
looking through them at the stationary Vector.
     Recognition hit.  "The Thousand Fist Wind!" Jack gasped.
     "Well!  I thought I'd killed the only other men who knew the nature
of my Kung Fu technique," Vector said with surprise.  Then his voice took
on a more menacing tone.  "Of course, in a moment or two we'll be back to
that state of affairs, yes?"
     Jack cursed as he ducked under another of Vector's vaguely
hallucination-like attacks.  He kept running into fighters who had mastered
advanced chi-manipulation techniques.  First the woman, now this man.  He
definitely was going to have to learn to focus his own chi when this was
all over.
     Hands of phantasm grabbed Jack and slammed him into the rocks on the
inside of the road, away from the sheer drop on the other side.  The grip
didn't slacken, and Vector seemed to be bracing himself for another throw,
one which would end in the rocks dozens of meters below.
     "No time like the present," Jack muttered as he closed his eyes and
started to concentrate.
     "Don't want to see death coming?" Vector taunted.  Then he stopped
for a moment.  "Say, your leg's healed!  Damn, you must have some sort of
chi powers yourself.  Fine, I'm not taking any chances then."  Jack felt
himself being lifted in the air in preparation for a devastating slam into
the pavement.  He reached out with his hands but could not touch the
ethereal fingers holding him tight.
     Reaching into his center of calm, drawing on the hours of meditation
his father had forced him to endure, Jack screwed his eyes shut and
envisioned the hands holding him.  Every wrinkle, every fingernail.  He
only vaguely felt himself being turned upside down and propelled downwards.
Then, when the hands seemed as real has he could make them, he raised his
arms and grabbed the hands.
     They were solid.
     He broke the grip and flipped over, landing on his feet.  Eyes still
closed, he took the phantom hands in his own and leaned back, levering
Vector up and over his head before the assassin could recover from the
shock of having his Thousand Fist Wind countered.  Jack heard a cry and a
crunching sound of vegetation being uprooted.
     He opened his eyes.  Vector was not there anymore.  He walked over to
the edge of the cliff, and saw Vector hanging by one hand from Jack's
staff, which was wedged between a pair of scrawny cliff-hugging trees.
     Calmly and quickly, Jack reached down and grabbed the staff,
commanding it to shrink down to the size of a needle.
     Vector fell further, but was able to lash out with his powers and
pull himself to the side of the cliff with the aid of a thousand ghostly
hands.  "You bastard!" he shouted up at Jack.
     Jack just smiled, saluted Vector, and walked over to the Barracuda.
Sure enough, the keys were still in the ignition, and Vector's street
clothes in the passenger seat.  Jack popped the trunk and loaded his
motorcycle in, securing it with some chains in the trunk.
     "Oh, Vector," he said, walking over to the cliffside with the small
bundle of clothes.  "You'll need these," he smirked, dropping the shirt and
jeans down, where they landed on Vector's face before blowing off and into
the sea.  "Hope your wallet didn't have anything important in it, oops."
     Putting the Barracuda in gear, Jack drove off to the south, with
Vector's screams of rage rapidly falling behind him.

WHO SENT VECTOR?

WAS VECTOR THE GUY WHO SET THE FIREBOMB TO EXPLODE, USING HIS TELEKINESIS-
     LIKE FU POWERS TO TRIGGER IT FROM A DISTANCE?  WELL, YEAH.

WILL JACK BE ARRESTED FOR LITTERING?

AND WHAT IS IT WITH ALL THESE OCCIDENTALS WITH MAJOR LEAGUE SUPERNATURAL
     KUNG FU POWERS COMING TO BEAT ON JACK?

DID YOU KNOW THAT IF YOU TYPE "FU" ENOUGH TIMES, IT STARTS TO LOOK EVEN
     SILLIER THAN IT NORMALLY DOES?

Some of this and more, in the next...SUPERGUY!

===========================================================================

Author's Notes:

     While working on #4-6 I realized that while the whole "Crazy Plots"
idea may have been a good one in general, it really did not work at all
with my writing style.  I'd managed to very efficiently paint myself into
a creative corner, and it showed in those issues.  It was also getting
harder and harder to figure out how to make my future plot ideas fit into
the artificial construct I had set for myself.
     So I ditched it.
     No matter how neat a piece of structure may seem at the time you come
up with it, if it doesn't help you make a better story it's time to send it
to the bottom with a well-aimed torpedo.  Even if you saw Author X do a
great job with it doesn't mean it'll work for you (and now I'm talking in
a general sense, I don't think I've read anything that tried to use the
36 Crazy Plots structure before).  The worst thing you can do to your story
is doggedly stick with an idea after it's obviously become a bad idea.  I
probably could have kept the 36 plots thing going for a long time, but it
would have led to a lot of mediocre stories.  There's no guarantee that
losing it will prevent mediocre stories, of course, but now there's more of
a chance for good stuff now that I'm not playing Gumby Flower Arranging
with my stories.
     "Get in!  Get in!"