[223DON'TTRYITAUTHORSONLY] The Author-Known-As-Dvandom-But-Looking-For-A-Better-Nickname sat in the real estate office, counting the tiles on the ceiling and trying to ignore the horrible rending sounds coming from the adjoining office (the screams had stopped several minutes ago). His muse, Kat, was "negotiating" the acquisition of some land on Mitchell II for the two to set up housekeeping on. While he pretended he didn't see the dark fluid leaking through the bottom of the office door, he noticed a note being slipped under the exterior door. Curious, he picked it up and read it. "Try 'Dvandroid' -- Author Pendragon." "Dvandroid?" he said aloud, rolling the word around on his tongue. "I like it. I think I'll keep it." Dvandroid then scribbled a quick thank you note on the back of the original note and stuck it into the FAX machine built into his left arm, faxing the copy off to wherever the fellow new Author was living. Kat chose tham moment to flutter delicately out of the office, a deed clutched in her claws. Dvandroid hoped the bloodstains wouldn't invalidate it. "I got claim to 42 acres of supposedly prime real estate a few degrees latitude south of here. AWAY from the ocean, since the ocean seems to have turned to Swedes, and we don't need any of THEM dropping by," Kat noted. "Now, we have a domain, are you gonna write something or do I have to hurt you?" "No need," Dvandroid winced. "I've got an idea for a new title, although my 000REALLIFE counterpart may be too busy to help get out more than the zero issue for a while. I'll call it...." ============================================================================= CRAZYPL LOTCRA AZYPLOT .|, COHERENT COMICS PRESENTS CRAZYP OTCR ZYPLOT ---X-------------------------------- CRAZYPLOTCRA OTCR LOTCRAZYPLOT '|` CRAZYPLOT LOTCR AZYPLOT CRAZYPLOT LOTCR LO ZYPLOT 36 CRAZY PLOTS CRAZYPLOTCRA OTCR LO ZYPLOT #0 - Prelude CRAZYP OTCR LO ZYPLOT by the Dvandroid CRAZYPL LOTCRA AZYPLOT CRAZYPLOTCRAZYPLOTCRAZYPLOTCRAZYPLOT (copyright 1996 by Dave Van Domelen) ============================================================================= ("36 plots? Being a little ambitious, aren't we? None of your series other than Dvandom Force have gotten past issue 16....") ("Shhh! The story's starting.") [000SUPERGUY] In a little white dojo...well, actually, it wasn't a dojo. This was China, and dojos are Japanese. It was a little white Kung Fu school. Okay, it wasn't white, either. Once it had been, but that was a few monsoon seasons ago. Now it was more like brown. But it *was* little. Squalid, even. All right. In a little pathetic hut overlooking a dirt courtyard and some chickens, it looked like the aftermath of a really good party. Dishes and cups and bowls and buckets were all over the dusty plank floor. At the door stood a middle-aged man carrying a red and gold stick. In the center of the room was a young man in loose-fitting clothes, balanced precariously on two rice bowls and a vase. "Now, Jack. Once more. Try to get out of the room without touching the floor," commanded the older man. "But, *father*," Jack whined, "you'll thump me with that stick again! And another thing, why is my name Jack when we're Chinese, and why don't my lips move to match my words? And why are we speaking in English anyway?" "I told you, it is because we are dubbed into English. Count yourself lucky that the Author doesn't know Cantonese, or he might try subtitling us instead!" Jack hopped from where he was to balance one-footed on a jug. "But none of the other kids in town are dubbed...why won't you tell me why we are?" "I will tell you if you can get out of the house. Now move!" he shouted, whacking the jug with his stick for emphasis. Jack eeped and flipped through the air, landing upside down with one index finger each on a pair of wine bottles. "Crane with broken wing... butterfly in monsoon...Air Jordan," Jack recited the names of the maneuvers he used as he vaulted, flipped and fluttered across the small room, evading only barely the strikes of his father's staff. Unfortunately, his father's sweeps served a double purpose, also clearing the floor near the door of any objects Jack could land on. "Heh heh," his father laughed, "the window's always an option." Jack knew better than to try. His father always beat him to the window, and it really hurt in the process. But the floor was clear for a whole body's length around the door, there was no way he could get close enough to leap out. Unless.... "Elephant Stomp!" he shouted as he brought his feet down hard on two empty kegs which served as makeshift tables, splintering the tops. Feet firmly stuck in them, he sprinted out the door. "Ha! My feet didn't touch the floor!" he shouted gleefully. "Now you have to tell me!" Father frowned. "I was keeping an egg in there for my lunch." Jack pulled out his left foot, then his right. His right foot was covered in gooey eggwhite. "Sorry," he shrugged apologetically. "Well, at least you didn't try that trick with the chamberpot, thank goodness. But congratulations, you have shown you know more than just how to fight and how to move...you know how to think. And that is as important as any Kung Fu! Now you are ready to know the truth before I send you out into the world and finally get a decent retirement." "You're kicking me out?" Jack whined. "Shut up! I'm expositing here, so listen. You've already noticed how only we of all the people in this village seem to be dubbed. This is because we are not of this world. We come from another Altiverse, one known to sages as 973HONGKONGFILMS, one of the lesser of the Altiverses in that grouping, known mainly for low-grade chop socky films." "So why did we leave?" "In the tradition of our world, I fled with you under my arm from enemies who could and would destroy us both, who sought to wipe out our clan. However, such was their power that I had to flee to an entirely different reality. Now don't interrupt, this is the good bit. When I was a young man, I was friends with the Monkey King, self-styled Great Sage Under Heaven. But don't let his publicity machine fool you...he's no Sage. He's a really smart monkey, but he's still a monkey. Anyway, I joined him on many of his adventures, carousing through the Heavens and Earth alike. During our last such escapade, we both got insanely drunk and went on a barhop to end all barhops, ending in one of the higher Heavens, where we stole the Immortality Pills of the gods. Let me tell you, nothing sobers you up like realizing you've just gotten the entire Celestial Bureaucracy angry at you! Still, I managed to get out before I was discovered, and the Monkey King took all the heat for it. "I tried settling down and raising a family, but eventually the Jade Emperor's spies found out I was immortal, and he sent his Magic Pagoda General after me. Your mother was killed, but you survived because you inherited my immortality, and with the help of the Monkey King I got us out of that reality." Jack considered this for a moment. "So, I cannot die? What if my head gets chopped off?" "Then you'd better find it and put it back on! We can't die, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. And if someone chops you into little bits, you'll be very inconvenienced for a very long time. Also, this world is full of Superguys, and some of them may be able to kill you, or make you wish you were dead, so be careful! Anyway, if we were back in 973HONGKONGFILMS, I'd forbid you from fighting so that our enemies couldn't detect our clan style, but you'd get in trouble anyway, I'd end up getting killed, you'd serious up fast and seek revenge, finally killing some guy in a bad white wig and long eyebrows. Fortunately for me, that's not the way 000SUPERGUY works. No, with your abilities, it is your fate to become a Superguy." "But, father, I don't have any powers besides this immortality thing, I'm just a good fighter!" "I taught you everything you know, so you should be a GREAT fighter. But that is beside the point. Have you not read the newspapers, or watched TONN? A great many Superguys out there would last about two seconds against you in a fair fight, and you cheat anyway!" "But I'm allergic to spandex...." Father rapped Jack on the head with the staff. "Shut up! That gag has been driven into the ground in the Swordmaster series over in the LNH! Besides, martial arts superguys don't wear spandex, they wear the kind of thing you're wearing now, plus a mask." "What good is a mask?" "There is a chi-based force in this universe that prevents anyone from identifying you if you wear a mask. It is very potent. And while I'm at it, I should mention something related to this Mask Principle, called the Cheesy Costume Principle. It's something native to the HONGKONGFILMS altiverses, but you should be able to use it here. Simply put, any disguise you throw together, even if you only take a few seconds, will be TOTALLY convincing for at least a few minutes, although they tend to fall apart at the worst possible times." "Ah, like Shaggy's costumes in Scooby Doo?" "It's good to see you haven't totally neglected your cultural education, Jack. Yes, it works something like that. Now, take this," he said, tossing the red and gold staff to Jack. "It's something I won off the Monkey King. Like I said, he's not as smart as he thinks, and he stinks at Mah Jongg. It's a magic Sea-Fixing Pin, it can become as large or as small as you wish, up to several hundred tons or small enough to hide under a fingernail. It will even things out when you fight someone you don't dare touch, or who are too heavily armored to hurt with bare hands. You will go to America to seek out and master the 36 Crazy Plots...once you have mastered them, you can return to 973HONGKONGFILMS and get the Celestial Bureaucracy off our backs." "What are these 36 Crazy Plots?" "If I knew, I would have mastered them myself instead of breaking my back raising you! You will have to find them yourself." "But...why would I want to master them and then go get horribly killed and maimed by all the gods?" "Shut up! It is the premise for the series. You may never find all 36 of them, it will be a never-ending quest, much like Gilligan's Island, the eternal struggle to find that which will end the story." "Is this a Crazy Plot now, do you suppose?" "No, this episode has no plot. It simply has a premise and enough exposition to build a second Great Wall. In any case, you will seek them out in America, since they don't seem to be rising up out of the valley mists here to bite one on the bottom. You can seek work as a stuntman in their movie industry. But beware if it seems like the director is trying to kill you." "Why? Is it not the job of the director to try to kill the stunt men?" "In this country, yes. But in America they have laws against that sort of filmmaking, and if the director is trying to kill you it is probably a 'Snuff Film.' And they don't pay too good, since they don't expect to have to pay you at all. So, go. You should be there by the time the next episode starts. I will send in the order for a supporting cast, and they should arrive in time as well, especially since the Author probably won't write the next episode for a while. Oh, and you will need a Superguy name." "Hmm," Jack mused. "I will be seeking the Crazy Plots, so they shall call me...Crazy Guy!" "It's a start," Father sighed. WILL JACK FIND A CRAZY PLOT RIGHT AWAY? WILL WE EVER FIND OUT HIS LAST NAME OR HIS FATHER'S NAME? WILL THE DIRECTOR TRY TO KILL JACK? WILL ROBOTECH_MASTER EVER GET ENOUGH TEAM M.E.C.H.A. WRITTEN THAT DVANDOM CAN POST ANOTHER ISSUE OF DVANDOM FORCE? SHOULD DVANDOM EVEN BE SPENDING TIME WRITING THIS WHEN HE'S *SUPPOSED* TO BE WORKING ON HIS DEGREE PROGRAM STUFF? ALL THIS, AND FIFTEEN METRIC TONS OF KIM CHEE, ON THE NEXT...SUPERGUY! ========================================================================== Author's Notes: Here's a little background on the cliches I'll be using. In 1973, Jackie Chan had his first major role in a Hong Kong film. He wasn't the star, but he was a named character and did the fight choreography. The name of the movie translates roughly as "36 Crazy Forms," from which the title of this series comes. The movie has been dubbed (Shaolin monks with Aussie accents...whee!) and released in the US under at least one new title, "Bloodpact." If you haven't seen any Jackie Chan films, you should. Even the cheesy old Chop Socky stuff like Fearless Hyena and New Fists of Fury has great fight scenes. The physical humor of Buster Keaton merged with ancient fighting arts. One thing that daunts me in this undertaking is the difficulty of describing in words the furiously funny pace of a typical Jackie Chan fight sequence, but I'll be giving it a go. Later on, as I see more of his post- chop-socky films, I may work in elements of those for the Jack character. And if you don't know what Kim Chee is, it's a Korean dish that's like sauerkraut on steroids. Fifteen metric tons of it in one place would wipe out all life in a several mile radius.