Monday, December 05, 2005

Iridescent Tourney Part Deux: le retour

Welcome to day two of the Iridescent Tourney --- a series of COC fights suggested by that swell fellow H at the always entertaining Comic Treadmill. Of course, if this experiment turns out to be lame, I take full responsibility.

When last we saw the Tourney, two tinted titans had tussled on the field of glory, but only one emerged triumphant: Kyle Rayner, the (well, a) Green Lantern.

As current Champ, he takes on all comers.

And what determined, colorfully-garbed man now strides out to the arena of battle? Why, none other than Dr. Hank Pym, in his Yellowjacket persona! Now, this is a guy who has had his share of mental problems. He has always suffered from delusions of severe inadequacy, may have some kind of identity disorder, and at the nadir of his career, was ousted from the Avengers as a wife-beater. To me, an insectoid name might be the first sign that you're dealing with a guy with esteem issues. From the name alone, you can tell who has more confidence, Iron Man or Yellowjacket. He didn't even go with the far more fearsome-sounding Hornet: he had to put the color of cowardice in the name. "Ant-man" wasn't bad enough.

As long as we're on the subject, has this abjectest Avenger ever addressed in the comics the overpowering guilt he must feel at having created Ultron, a villain who has come close to defeating the Avengers many times, and has killed at least a few regular civilian people? To me, this would be a fairly justified guilt; shouldn't it be eating away at his psyche? All this, and slapping the Wasp around: what a swell "hero." Yet it's the Scarlet Witch who's crazy. Right.

So anyway, here comes Pym, his little mechanical wings humming furiously as he swoops at Kyle. His tricked-out gloves fill the air with streaks of sparks and crackle with energy as he shoots "sting" after "sting" at Kyle. Green Lantern, with far greater speed, jinks away at first, evading the bolts, but once he ascertains that the stings can't possibly penetrate his bodyshield, he stops and lets Pym wear himself out.

YJ: "I'm not going to fail again. I won't! I can't! This is for Jan, for Cap, for everyone who's every believed in me! Rest in peace, Clint! Your old pal Pym's really got it together now! I'm a hero at last! A hero! So help me, I'm going to beat this guy if it's the last thing I ever---"

Kyle conjures a large floating green can of Raid and envelops Pym in a nice big fluffly cloud of green sleeping gas. Pym's pathetic raving sputters into a low mumble, then a snore, as he slips quickly off into a deep and dreamless sleep. His mechanical wings keep fluttering, but as Pym is now quite unconscious, he spirals and sputters toward the ground. Before he can crash, Kyle breaks his fall with a handy green mattress. He places a nice thick green quilt over Pym's body as an afterthought.

GL: "Are all these people going to be mental cases?"


The Champ. Posted by Hello

Next: it continues on like this

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