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Sunday, Feb 19, 2012 - 21:21 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert
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Ahm Talks Cheem
Me: And explain to me why I had to pay for all the crumpets again?
Herr Ahm: Now, now, I've maxed out my expense account. You didn't really need to have your hair trimmed or your teeth polished either, right?
Me: Not only that, you went and stuffed all the crumpets into your cheek pouch as soon as they arrived. Every single one of them.
Herr Ahm: Hey, I left you some tea. Okay, to make up for it, I shall tell you a story, set in a completely fictional city we shall call Garden Metropolis:
And thus it begins
(Source: neoteo.com)
In a backwater sewer lair, a motley collection of supervillians commences an emergency meeting:
Hammerhead: (claps hands together) Are we all in attendance?
Lecturo Lady: Aye.
Hammerhead: Good. It is great to see us all together. Twenty years just to claim a secret base that can contain five of us at a go, can you imagine that? Supervillians elsewhere would have given up and emigrated long ago. Had we not managed to recruit Dr. Intellectual to our side from the Big Apple, we might yet be stuck going nowhere.
Dr. Intellectual: (levitating) My pleasure.
Hammerhead: Unfortunately, lady and gentlemen, we have a problem; I have gotten word that the anonymous mercenary anti-hero known as Altmedia has banished Protege-Boy to an inaccessible pocket dimension. While we have painstakingly built up the defences of our old fortress for decades, it is now vulnerable to attacks by the accursed White Lightning League of Great Justice do-gooders, without Protege-Boy being around to maintain the Elemental Support Generators.
Minority Man: This is a grave situation.
Hammerhead: So it is. Kal-El, son of the invincible Jor-El, has already stated his intentions to retake that territory. It is well for us that he has been tied down in Central City, so he will only be able to send second-tier underlings from his White Lightning League. However, we should still take this threat seriously.
The Pico Seconder: Great! I had tried to source for some kryptonite, but it turns out that Kal-El had sued all of the importers into oblivion, and is even now ordering his Sorcerer of Mystical Law Supreme, the K-Shaman, Lord of All Letters and Warlock of Writs, to magically repress all dissent. Like, what's up with that? In other continuities, even non-superhumans like Batman could at least stand a fighting chance with the right supplies.
Minority Man: It almost makes one hope that the writers are going to reboot this crappy crossover series soon. Kal-El, absorbing the powers of the Flash and Dr. Light into his Stark Industries powered suit, really? Did he really need to do that? Who does he think is out for his head, the bloody Living Tribunal?
Lecturo Lady: (glumly) Not even the Tribunal has any power here. Within this land, the jurisdiction of the K-Shaman is absolute. The Watchers don't even bother visiting anymore. Super-strength, super-speed, heat vision and freezing breath (to suspend opponents in indefinite stasis) isn't enough for Jor-El - if his son ever gets into trouble, Jor-El can now rise from the dead without even needing to secure a Lazarus Pit!
Dr. Intellectual: Indeed, this title has dragged on for so long that Kal-El, in his Clark Kent persona, has worked his way up from a newsroom cubicle to practically own all the newspapers, which, if I may say so, is slightly ridiculous.
Hammerhead: We simply have to make do with what we have got *grips warhammer tightly* but first, we need to predict when Kal-El will declare hostilities.
Dr. Intellectual: Strictly speaking, he could just have the K-Shaman wave his hand, and the entire story arc would be forgotten until the next quinquennial anthology - only, it would not be good for his boy-scout superhero image.
The Pico Seconder: Get real, Kal-El's invulnerability rating is off the charts; by experience, his Kryptonian skin is so thick that it can resist a nuclear explosion at Ground Zero.
Dr. Intellectual: (cunningly) But not this time. The League's popularity is dwindling, if ever so slightly, so he can't hold off forever. He will have to strike.
Hammerhead: The question is, when exactly?
(Silence)
Lecturo Lady: Well, according to my sources, Kal-El has promised that we will not be able to guess the date of the showdown before it happens.
Dr. Intellectual: Ah-ha! From this, we can conclude that I was mistaken, and he is indeed holding it off indefinitely.
The Pico Seconder: And why is that?
Dr. Intellectual: Well, the publishers have a hard deadline for releasing the next anthology, one that supersedes even the boundless arcane abilities of the K-Shaman.
Minority Man: And so...?
Dr. Intellectual: Let us assume the deadline is exactly 1500 days into the future. Then, Kal-El will not be able to attack on the very last day, because we would then be able to predict it, right after midnight on the second last day.
Lecturo Lady: I think I get it. Then, by the same logic, Kal-El can't attack on the 1499th day either, since we would know that, having eliminated the 1500th day. Since this applies to the 1498th, 1497th and indeed all preceding days, Kal-El must be bluffing!
Minority Man: That's no surprise, the League has tended to duck challenges whenever it suits them, like back in Issues #2010, #2008, #1999, etc - they've been paranoid since the Jay Bee floated and stung to a short-lived surprise victory in Issue #1981 and quickly got written out of continuity by Jor-El's reality-bending powers.
The Pico Seconder: Not to mention the terrain insta-terraformers and astroturfing for maximal home-ground advantage.
Hammerhead: Wait, isn't this simply the Unexpected Hanging Paradox? Actually, there's a pretty convincing explanation dating back from Issue #1969 that argues that the induction doesn't hold.
Minority Man: Not only that, if you can get as many people as there are days, and then get each of them to sincerely believe that the attack will occur on a unique day, then wouldn't it be impossible for a day to be chosen such that nobody had correctly predicted it beforehand?
Dr. Intellectual: Frankly, we have yet to see any limits being set on Kal-El's logic-bending powers in official canon.
(Longer silence)
Lecturo Lady: But we're going to win this, right?
Hammerhead: Probably, but you never know...
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Me: ...I want that five minutes of my life back.
Herr Ahm: Why? Was my tale not entertaining?
Me: Maybe, but I hired you as a political analyst, not as a comic fanfic writer! Don't you have anything more to add on the Hougang by-election situation?
Herr Ahm: Not really.
Me: ...what a waste of time.
Herr Ahm: As long as it's billable, it's fine by me. Oh, and I finished your tea for you, just saying. We should really do this again sometime!
Next: Heat's On
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