"This is Ray Christopher for KTLA, here at the premiere of local sensation Jimmy Rip's new movie, 'Crazy Guy.' A movie that the critics have already panned, yet is still drawing huge crowds to this small movie house in Koreatown. Undoubtedly part of the draw is due to the spectacular high speed chase a few months ago that this reporter witnessed, a chase which was revealed to have involved Jimmy Rip's stunt double and several unnamed members of the local underworld community. "But an even bigger draw has got to be the presence of Hong Kong movie superstar Jackie Chan at this premiere showing. The star who does his own stunts despite being only a normal man was in town promoting the U.S. release of Supercop, and agreed to be the guest of honor at this showing. Ah, there he is now! Mr. Chan, a moment of your time?" "Ah, hello!" "Mr. Chan, what convinced you to attend this showing?" "Steve Minors and I met on the set of Cannonball Run. We stunt guys stick together, yeah?" "So there's no truth in the rumors that your manager's reputed...." "Excuse me, I have to get inside." "Back to you in the studio. Okay, Chet, kill the camera, we're not going to see anything more here." Of course, I knew better. I watched the wet-behind-the-ears reporter pack his gear and get ready to go home to his suburban condo to face the everyday horrors of obsessive oneupmanship, high class substance abuse by bored housewives and the occasional undead fish rampaging through the supermarket, and knew that for better or more likely worse the kid was about to miss the story of the night, a story which would shake the foundations of the city as surely as a Loma Prieta quake on uppers and before the night was out would turn half the theatergoers into mental patients for the rest of their lives if they didn't get torn to bloody gobbets of stringy flesh first. Then again, the movie might not be that bad. But no one ever accused Hans Kartoffelkopf of being an optimist. Grimly, because that's about the only way I know how, I bought my ticket and went into the theater to keep an eye on Jack, who had gone from three-day-tail to long term project which threatened to actually keep the rent paid and some of my creditors appeased if it kept up much longer. Things were looking pretty good, which meant that that tease Murphy would be coming along any minute now to send me something nasty, something which would make gum under the seats, popcorn in the hair and spilled soda gumming up my shoes look like a day at the beach without the sharks, industrial pollution and mutant silicone and steroids cases. And since I knew the history of this particular theater, I knew that "something nasty" could be quite nasty indeed. Coherent Comics UnInc. Presents: ___ __ __ ___ _ _ ___ _ _ _ _ CRAZY GUY #10 / '/ | / | / \/ / ' / / \/ "Crazy Guy: The Movie" / /--' /--| / / / __ / / / copyright 1996 Dave Van Domelen `___ / | / |/__ _/ `__/ \__/ _/ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ "Jackie!" "Steve!" "How's it going, you suicidal bozo you?" Steve said as he grabbed Jackie's hand and shook it vigorously. Jack feigned pain and held up his hand as if it were broken. "Fine until you broke my fingers!" "Ah, what's a few more fingers. Jackie, I'd like you to meet Jack, one of our top stuntmen on the film." For a moment, Jackie and Jack stood there looking at each other in silence. Jackie was the first to speak. "You know, you look a lot like I did twenty years ago...a little taller, maybe." "I get that a lot," Jack said sheepishly. Jackie did a double take. "Say, that's a bad case of dubbing you have there, Jack. Remind me to give you the number of a good voice coach I know here in L.A., she can clear that right up for you." Kevin rushed over and clapped Steven and Jack on the shoulders. "Come one, guys, let's get to our seats before it gets too crowded. Thanks for being here, Mr. Chan," he added. "Oh, no trouble, but call me Jackie...we're both directors, right?" he grinned winningly. As they moved to the seats, Steve pulled Jack aside. "Jack, you know that guy in the trenchcoat over there? No, don't look, I think he's watching us." "I don't think so, why?" "I've been seeing him around a lot lately. I didn't give it much thought at first, since he's obviously not a Triad goon. But it's starting to get creepy. I think someone may have hired him to keep an eye on you." "Maybe he's keeping an eye on you?" Steve just LOOKED at Jack, who shrugged and grinned. "Okay, he's probably following me. What do you suppose he wants?" "Well, he looks like a private eye, so he's probably just telling someone what you're doing. He didn't show up until after the whole Tong thing, so maybe Vector hired him." "Maybe. Anyway, it's not like I'm doing anything too exciting right now, so let him watch." "Your call, I guess. C'mon, let's sit down." Suddenly (and without warning), a gunshot rang out in the theater. "Ladies and gentlemen, please remain in your seats...you may live longer that way," came an oddly high-pitched voice over the sound system as hooded men stepped in front of the exits brandishing AK-47s and Ingrams. "We have need of your presence in this theater for a little...religious ceremony, and would hate to waste any of your deaths in gunning down those who would try to escape." To emphasize this point, a hail of bullets cut down a panicked man who was bolting for one of the doors. Screams filled the air as his blood spattered a row of moviegoers. Jack started to stand, but was restrained by Steve's hand on his shoulder. "Kid," he whispered, "I know you can take the bullets, but what about anyone who happens to be standing behind you?" Jack slumped into his chair and frowned. "Steve," hissed Jackie from the other side of Kevin, "you really owe me for this." * * * * "Ladies and gentlemen, the sound you heard a moment ago was the police being convinced not to attempt a rescue operation at this time. Now that they have been silenced, we may proceed with this evening's main attraction," came the smooth, if high-pitched, voice over the speakers. "Within moments, you will witness a sight few have beheld in this century, the emergence of the Temple of Eng Fan Boi!" With that, the walls of the theater started to shimmer and lose their substance, eliciting more cries of terror from those who still had it in them. Overhead electric lights were replaced by redly glowing braziers full of coals and guttering oil lamps. Acoustic tiles by stained and blackened marble. Theater seats by stone benches, causing some patrons to tumble over backwards. And the screen was gone, replaced by a huge obsidian statue of a demon. One of the gunmen, apparently not fully aware of the nature of the job he'd signed up for, panicked and opened fire on the statue. His bullets just vanished into the nightlike darkness of its body...and its eyes opened. Bottomless pits of lightning-tinged blackness, those eyes focused on the trembling gunman, spitting out lances of bluish light. The gunman screamed as he was pulled towards the statue...but stopped screaming once he had been pulled into the statue's enormous maw and devoured. With a slight belch, the statue stood and stretched its arms, now appearing less like a statue and far more like what it really was...the demon Eng Fan Boi. Its eyes scanned the audience and stopped on the row where Jack and the others sat. "Wow! Jackie Chan! Can I have your autograph?" it said. Several people fainted from the sheer mood-shift of it all. "Ah, okay...who should I make it out to?" Jackie asked, pulling a pen and pad from his jacket on the correct assumption that Eng Fan Boi had left his autograph book in the infernal depths. "Oh, just 'To Fan' would be the greatest...I love your movies, Mr. Chan!" the huge demon burbled. "We get a lot of producers down in the underworld, and we can pull the movies out of their memories with these big mystic forks we have...oh, the other demons will be so jealous when they find out I got to eat Jackie Chan!" Jackie was slightly taken aback by this (okay, he was already about as "aback" as you can get from this whole thing, but, well, you know). "Er, don't you mean 'meet Jackie Chan?'" "Oh, that too, but, well, eating mortals is what I do. I'm a demon, you know?" The squeaky voice boomed over the speakers (neat trick when you think about it), "Indeed, demon! And as the one who freed you, I, Yu Dingbang, demand that you begin your task to show the world my power!" At that, the demon's eyes flared purple and the remaining gunmen doubled over in pain. When they stood again it was as gnarled...things... out of a nightmare. "They dropped their guns!" Steve shouted. "You really think they need guns anymore?" Kevin countered. "No, I mean WE could use them," Steve hissed. Jack pulled out his staff from his wallet and shook it out to normal size. "I'm on big ugly, you guys try to keep the little uglies from the rest of the people!" he shouted, leaping into the air towards Eng Fan Boi. Under his breath, he whispered, "I *really* hope my immortality works against demons...." The others started to scurry along behind the chairs towards where some abandoned guns lay, when Jackie stopped and popped up. "My God, they're killing those people! Hey, you! Ugly guys! Stop that!" he cried out. "Jackie, no! Get down!" Steve gasped. Jackie just waved down at Steve as if to say, "No, you go on, I'll keep these guys busy." Or something like that. He was handwaving in Cantonese, and it doesn't always translate well. Meanwhile, Jack had reached the main demon and was finding that while his staff did let him touch the otherwise spectral horror, it wasn't doing too much more than annoying the thing. "Say, you're in this movie, aren't you?" Eng Fan Boi commented as he swiped at Jack with one massively clawed hand. "I'll have to grab the film on my way out, you're pretty good. I mean," he added as Jack narrowly sidestepped a lightning bolt from his eyes, "you're no Jackie Chan, but then again, who is? Other than Jackie Chan, of course." Hoping to just shut the demon up, Jack shoved the end of his staff into its mouth and willed the mystic sea-fixing pin to expand to the size of a telephone pole. "Mmmphrghle!" protested the demon. For his own part, Jackie was playing keepaway with the minor demons that had been henchmen, using a small child who the demons were trying to eat. The kid had decided this was no longer scary and was having the time of his life. "Jackie, down!" Kevin directed. Jackie dropped to the floor, which was sticky with both blood and spilled drinks, rolling so that the child wasn't hurt. A split second later, automatic weaponsfire whizzed over him and splatted into the bodies of the demons. A split second after that, Jack went flying overhead as Eng Fan Boi shook his head to try and dislodge the staff, sending the stuntman on a one way trip to the back of the theater cum temple. As he tried to pull himself together, Jack noticed that the other demons were recovering from their wounds and watched in impressed silence as Jackie proceeded to lead them on a deadly dance that, while it wasn't killing them, was keeping them from harming anyone else. "Kid, snap out of it!" came a rough voice from next to Jack. He snapped his head around and saw the mysterious trenchcoated man that had been following him. "You! What's your part in this?" Jack demanded, grabbing the man by the lapels of his coat. "Ease off, kid. I'm the one who's gonna pull your fat outta the fire on this mess. Pay attention or you'll end up suffering a fate far too disgusting and involved for me to describe now, although I'll be glad to tell you about it later...if there is a later." "What makes you think I'll believe you know what you're talking about?" The man, who happened to be Hans Kartoffelkopf in case anyone at all was wondering at this point, pulled out his wallet and fished out a small card. It read, "Accredited Shaman Shamus: Hans Kartoffelkopf" along with various signatures and sigils. "It's part of the job to know the local magic," he added gruffly. "If you're a magician, why don't you just zap this thing back to where it came from?" Jack asked, watching worriedly as Eng Fan Boi slowly worked the staff out of its mouth. "Do I look like I have several 70mm holes in me? No. And in case you ain't followed the news lately, it wasn't too long ago that magic powers and 70mm holes were a matched set, kid. I'm just a detective who got stuck with a bad job." "Okay, then, what DO we do?" "Short form history lesson, kid. Back after the Opium Wars, some Chinese sorcerors decided to come here and get revenge on the U.S.A. for helping in their downfall. They summoned up a big whoppin' demon on this very spot, but they'd been careless in their planning and some of the good guys twigged to the plot and stopped them. The whole temple got shunted into some kinda mumbojumbspace, and it looks like Yu Dingbang up in the control booth pulled it back here. Get him, this all goes away. I hope." "And if you're wrong?" "Then at worst Fanboy there kills us all and goes home to brag about it to his buddies. At least with Yu out of the way, he won't be running all over town." "Got it." Just then, Eng Fan Boi managed to spit out the staff. Jack leapt into the air, touched it in passing and willed it to shrink back to two meter size, then bounced off the wall, knocked a brazier of coals onto a minor demon who had wandered away from Jackie and vaulted into the projection booth much to the surprise of a previously cackling sorceror. "Meddling fool!" the sorceror shrieked as he unleashed a bolt of ice from his crossed thumbs. "Even if you kill me, Eng Fan Boi will wreak my vengeance on the world!" Jack ducked the blast, noticed that the projection booth had not been altered by the same effect which had turned the theater into a temple, and got an idea. "I think that depends on how I do it, eh?" he quipped as he ducked under the sorceror's second blast and scooped him up in one arm like a bale of hay. "I demand you release me!" squealed the eunuch sorceror, clawing at Jack's arm with nails which suddenly became metal talons. Wincing, Jack tried to ignore the pain. "Whatever you say..." Jack replied as he vaulted out of the booth with the sorceror under his arm. As he'd expected, wherever the eunuch passed, things reverted to normal for a moment...he must have had some sort of protection spell up. Bouncing off a theater chair which reappeared as he hit it, Jack flipped in the air and threw Yu Dingbang with all his might towards the gaping mouth of Eng Fan Boi. "Noooooo...!" screamed the sorceror. Eng Fan Boi was about to say something, but the moment Yu Dingbang hit him, there was a flash of light and the theater was back to normal. The transformed gunmen reverted to normal and immediately died of all the gunshot wounds they'd been ignoring. People who had started to stampede for the exits now stopped and looked around in shock. Jack landed and wiped the blood from his now-healing arm. And Jackie just sighed and slumped down in one of the seats as the child he'd been protecting begged him to do it again. * * * * "So, it was still reversible until Eng Fan Boi could leave the temple. An illusion that was a preview for what was yet to come," Hans explained. "Still a rotten way to premiere a movie," Kevin sighed. "At least we got publicity out of it, and no one besides those behind this were too badly hurt," he noted as the ambulances carried off the people who had been most harmed by the stampede for the exits. "You forgot the guy they shot before the temple appeared," Steve added glumly. "Damn, yeah. Sigh." "Any idea what happened to Dingbang?" Jack asked Hans. "Oh, he may still be alive...it looks like he'd put up shields to keep him safe from any stray blasts, but forcing him into contact with the still-not-all-there demon dispelled the whole mess...and sent him with it. Once his spells run out, he'll probably be in a world of hurt, though. Serves him right." "Now..." Steve started with an undertone of threat, "exactly what have you been doing following Jack around, Mr. Shaman Shamus?" "Well, ah, my sources told me Jack here would be at the center of a big mystic event soon, so I decided it'd be best to keep tabs on him," Hans lied. "So, now that it's all over, I'd better get back to the paying customers, y'know?" With that, Hans melted into the crowd before anyone could follow him. Jackie walked back over from the ambulances, where he'd been tending to some of his minor cuts and bruises. "Steve..." he started. "Yeah, I know, I owe you one big time," Steve sighed. "Come on, let's all go get hammered and hope we get bad enough hangovers to make us look back fondly on tonight." * * * * "Yeah, he's spotted me now, couldn't help it. What, you want I should let some demon out to rampage all over and maybe start a crossover? No way no how, babe. Anyway, you can cashier me out on this one and find another PI if you need more info. But get this...he was cut up really good by some claws tonight, and by the time he'd caught his breath the cuts were closed and starting to heal. And I'm almost positive it wasn't just a side effect of ending the spell. Yeah? Well, good, happy to hear. Have fun." Karl put down the pay phone's receiver and walked into the night. Something told him that he should keep an eye on Jack in case his now- former employer had something too nasty in mind for the kid. DOES BEN SIDHE (come on, you all know it's her, how many other muscular Irish women have I introduced in the title?) HAVE SOMETHING TOO NASTY IN MIND FOR JACK? WILL YU DINGBANG BE BACK? SHAMAN SHAMUS? IS THE AUTHOR HIGH? WILL SISKEL GIVE THE MOVIE A THUMBS UP AND EBERT GIVE IT A THUMBS DOWN? WILL THE AUTHOR STOP TRYING TO BE MYSTERIOUS ABOUT THE IDENTITIES OF CHARACTERS WHEN HE'S ALREADY PRETTY MUCH GIVEN THEM AWAY? Some of these and more insanity next time on....SUPERGUY! =========================================================================== Author's Notes: Don't worry, Jackie Chan will not become part of the regular cast, this was just a one-shot thing. The reporter's unanswered final question is a reference to some of the more scurrilous rumors about Jackie Chan, which revolve around alleged ties between Golden Harvest (which produces his films) and various organized crime groups like the Triads. The plot for this episode is based loosely on one of the adventures in the Feng Shui RPG supplement "Marked For Death," except I changed most of the details and lowered the body count. I'm such a softie.