The Great Powers Outage
For my sister Carla, who was never allowed
to touch my comic booksâand still isn't.
CONTENTS
Great Ball o' Fire
The meteor was hurtling toward me and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I tried launching my body into the air, willing myself to fly, but with no luck. The fireball got closer and closer, and just as it was about to hit I raised my arm to ward it off, knowing it was futile.
And then I woke up, safe in bed, drenched in a cold sweat. It took me a moment to realize I had been dreaming. It was the cool air of the October night drifting across my skin, raising a field of goose bumps, that finally convinced me there wasn't a flaming meteor coming.
But there
had
been, less than two days earlier. In fact all Superopolis had been facing complete destruction at the hands of Professor Brain-Drain. The evil genius had succeeded in his plan to transport the entire city sixty-five million years into the past to the very moment when the site that would become Superopolis had been formed by the impact of an enormous meteor. His plan had been for the city to be destroyed by the same event that created it.
The neat symmetry of his plot hadn't distracted me from the realization that it was up to me to stop him. With the help of a villain named Cyclotron, and one of Professor Brain-Drain's own gadgets, I had used a little ingenuity of my own to return Superopolis to the present just in the nick of time. In the end, Cyclotron turned out not to be a villain after all, and Professor Brain-Drain was marooned one hundred and thirty million years in the past.
That's the short version. Along the way, in the guise of the legendary hero Meteor Boy, I also spent a couple of days twenty-five years in the past battling evil. Wait a minuteâlet me clarify that. I wasn't disguised as Meteor BoyâI
was
Meteor Boy, one of the most powerful young heroes in the history of Superopolis. The irony of all this is that I'm actually the
least
powerful hero in the history of Superopolis. They don't call me Ordinary Boy for nothing.
You see, Superopolis is a city of heroesâand villainsâand every one of them has a superpower. Except me. But, thanks to a trip through time courtesy of Professor Brain-Drain's Time Tipler and a mysterious jet pack that allowed me to fly at tremendous speeds, I had the thrill of spending two days battling crime as Meteor Boyâand I had loved it!
During my adventure in the past I made the acquaintance of the League of Goodness, Superopolis's first and greatest team of heroes. The team's leader, Lord Pincushion, provided me hospitality and an opportunity to fight alongside him and the rest of the league. I'm not so sure I did him much of a favor in return. I introduced him to the Amazing Indestructo.
The thing you need to know about AI (that's what everyone calls him for short) is that up until a couple of weeks ago, he was my absolute favorite hero. He's totally indestructible, which gives him a pretty good advantage over any villain, and he's turned the hero business into a hugely profitable enterprise. Between his TV show, toy lines, packaged food business, and dozens of other endeavors, AI has become incredibly wealthy. The problem is all those things come ahead of actually battling crime. He's really kind of a creep, to tell the truth. It took me a while to realize it, and most of the population still hasn't figured it out.
The only part of my trip to the past that still makes me a little queasy is the fact that I was the one who suggested AI join forces with the League of Goodness. It had been for the best of reasons. The league was bankrupt from the expense of fighting crime, and the Amazing Indestructo needed a well-known name to launch his own career. The league provided the name, and AI soon provided the money.
Sadly, it didn't take long for AI to drive the founding members out of the league and replace them with the most incompetent array of nitwits you could imagine. He changed their name to the League of
Ultimate
Goodness, and set himself up to be the team's most impressive member.
My own father had tried to join the LUG a bunch of times. He never realized what a compliment it was that they wouldn't have him. His name is Thermo. He has the ability to generate enormous levels of heat in his hands. For most of my life he had a job at Dr. Telomere's Potato Chip Factory heating their massive fryers. But prior to that he had been part of a superhero team called the New Crusaders.
That's where he met my mom, Snowflake. She can freeze anything solid just by looking at it. She has a great job at the Corpsicle Coolant Corporation, although I've never really known what she does there. Here's the entry for CCC in the
Li'l Hero's
Handbook
. The handbook has sections on all the people, places, and even some of the things in Superopolis. I carry it with me constantly!
LI'L HERO'S HANDBOOK
PLACES