LNH: Another LNH Title? Really? #7: Marvel Zombie Lad Lives Again!

Adrian McClure mrfantastic7 at gmail.com
Thu Apr 13 22:11:41 PDT 2017


ANOTHER LNH TITLE? REALLY? #7
"Marvel Zombie Lad Lives Again!"
A Legion of Net.Heroes story by Adrian McClure


It began one day when Token Girl, Halls Jordan and Cliche Dude went to
the comic shop.

"Hey," said Halls Jordan, the Cosmic Custodian, "I haven't read any
comics since I went off on that mission to outer space in like 1993.
What's the best comic Marvel's publishing right now?"

"The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl," said Token Girl.

"No seriously, what is it?"

"I mean it. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. It's great, you should read
it. There's gonna be a TV series soon." She pulled a copy off the rack
and handed it to him.

"Huh." He held it close to his face and hesitantly turned the pages as
if it might explode. "Are you sure this is the real world we're in and
not some weird alternate future?"

"I mean, probably," said Token Girl.

"Wait! Who's that guy?" said Cliche Dude. He pointed to a man in ratty
clothes staring off blankly into the distance. There was a cloud of
literal flies buzzing around his head and the LNHers were pretty sure
they could see the stink lines wafting off of him.

"Ah yeah," said the man behind the desk. "That one customer. He goes
in every Wednesday, he stares at the new comic rack for like thirty
minutes, and then he leaves. I wanna get help for him but I don't know
where to start. I'm not gonna call the cops on him..."

"You could always call the Legion," said Token Girl. "We get involved
in fixing random people's problems all the time." She was proud of her
dedication to maintaining the team's social conscience even when a lot
of the time she hated actually dealing with people.

"And 90% of the time the problem's going to be supervillains anyway,"
said Halls Jordan. "That's how things work here." He tentatively moved
closer to the man. "Phew! He smells like he's a walking corpse."

"Uh," said Token Girl "Look at him. I think he might BE a walking corpse."

"Wait, hold on." Halls Jorden looked at him more closely. "He's--"

"Gasp!" said Cliche Man. "It can't be! Not--not him!"

"It's Marvel Zombie Lad," whispered Token Girl. She'd joined the LNH
about the time he'd stopped being a regular member, but she'd
certainly heard of him. He'd been one of the founders, one of the
coolest and most popular ones, the ones kids argued over who would get
to play on the playground. And then at some point he just dropped out.
She couldn't help but feel a bit of awe in the presence of this
creepy, drooling corpse-guy.

"So what happened to him?" said Halls Jordan.

"I don't know," said Token Girl. "Maybe he stopped reading Marvel
comics. Caring about Marvel Comics was his entire thing. Maybe he
stopped doing that and he..."

"Stopped living and became a mixed up zombie?"

"Something like that."

Marvel Zombie Lad's eyes blinked, as if he recognized Halls Jordan
from somewhere deep within the mental fog. Or maybe because a fly was
buzzing around them. "Quick!" said Halls. "Someone get a Marvel Comic!
Uh, what's good right now... I haven't been keeping up lately." He
pulled an issue of Captain America: Steve Rogers off the shelf. "Ah
yeah, Captain America. That used to be my favorite book back in the
day. No idea what's going on there now. Last issue I read was the one
where he was a werewolf. But you can't go too wrong..." He pulled an
issue off the rack and pressed it into Marvel Zombie Lad's hand.
Trembling, he began to turn the pages.

"Oh no." Token Girl felt a sudden surge of creeping dread. "Don't--"

But it was too late.

Marvel Zombie Lad's dirt-encrusted hands slowly turned the pages. He
quivered in rage. "Bah!" he said. Flame began to crackle around his
head.

"That's not a good sign," whispered Token Girl.

"Bah! This comic is an abomination in the face of Kirby! For too long
have I watched the usurpers who reign over Marvel desecrate the
hallowed halls of the House of Ideas! But no more! Face front,
unbelievers! For on this day... Marvel Zombie Lad declares war on all
mankind!!!"

"Yikes!" said Cliche Dude.

"Oh shit," said Halls. "He's talking in third person. That's *bad*."

The Flames of Fanboyism flared up and engulfed his body, burning away
the clothes he wore and revealing a spiffy red palette-swap of his old
costume.

"He's turned into a net.villain! That comic was so bad it inverted his
moral axis!" said Halls Jordan.
"I thought that was like three terrible crossovers ago," said Token Girl.

Halls Jordan approached him cautiously. "Look," he said to his old
teammate, "you don't have to--"

Marvel Zombie Lad's flaming fist punch him through the window.

"Enough!" said Cliche Dude. He and Token Girl tackled Marvel Zombie
Lad, and the mass of clashing net.heroes crashed through the window. A
few bystanders stopped to gawk at the spiffy George Perez-esque
patterns made by the broken glass before running away.

"I lose more posters that way," said the comic shop guy.

With the cosmic powers entrusted in him by the Custodians of the
Universe, Halls Jordan created a bubble around Marvel Zombie Lad. But
Halls Jordan's constructs were always a bit weak against magic, and
Marvel Zombie Lad was in the full flame of his fannish fury. His
mystica fire stirred up and the bubble burst, knocking Halls to the
ground.

"Marvel Zombie Lad!" said Cliche Dude, hammering him with his mighty
fists, while Token Girl hit him with exploding bus tokens from her
slingshot to keep him off balance. "I know the real you is still there
somewhere! You have to fight it--" said Cliche Dude.

"Fool! You know nothing of the real me! This IS the real me--wrath and
fire and rage undying!"  A burst of flame singed Cliche Dude's arm.
Marvel Zombie Lad waved his arm and his motorcycle--redesigned to be
both more retro and kind of unnecessarily detailed--materialized from
the flames beside him. He raced off, hollow laughter echoing in his
wake.

"Let's get him!" said Cliche Dude. He picked up Token Girl and zoomed
off into the sky, but in midair he suddenly stopped.

"Wait, what are we doing?" said Token Girl.

"Beats me," said Cliche Dude.

Marvel Zombie Lad stared at them. He didn't understand how they could
just turn back and leave. Then he looked behind him and saw the axe of
Plotchopper glinting in the sunlight.

"Hello," said the armored man beside him. "I think we can help each
other. My name is Mr. Homage. Welcome to the Brotherhood..."

****

Note: I came up with this idea a while back, when Axis and the
inversion stuff was a thing. (Remember Superior Iron Man? Sorry.) I
never got around to that and let that idea drop. And then the whole
Hydra-Cap thing happened. It's always something with Marvel, isn't it.

-- 
Adrian "The Dark Spaceknight" McClure, now with sig


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