Post by redsycorax on Nov 16, 2021 23:19:56 GMT
Ted (Catman) Blake had some interesting solo adventures apart from his colleagues in the Justice Guild of America. One of them involved a villainous alternate version of someone who might be familiar to DC Comics aficionados...
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NOVEMBER 1955:
"Stand and Deliver!" barked the masked, blue-clad Cerulean Shaft. As the window across the Seaboard City Bank entrance smashed, a familiar cowled figure broke through and sighed to himself as his expert acrobatic work evaded the arrows sent in his direction:
"Roy, Roy, Roy... don't you ever get tired of this? With your archery skills, you should be on our side, not doing this!"
Roy Harper snarled: "Not after what happened to my father, you costumed copper!"
"Good thing Denise isn't here. She'd haul you over the coals for tacky dialogue like that."
"Don't trivialise it! My father was shot by the Seaboard City Police Department!"
"Roy, he was carrying a firearm and he was using a gun on the police officer in question at the time he was shot. He'd already wounded one of his colleagues."
"That cop killed him! Or are criminals really a lesser form of life to you mystery men and women?"
"You know that isn't true. Look- I'm sorry about what happened to your adoptive dad. I really thought Oliver would make a go of it away from his criminal colleagues and after rehabilitation."
"And don't give me that shtick about 'personal responsibility' either, Catman! It isn't his fault he couldn't find a job after he got out of prison last time and the economy was in recession."
"I think you'll agree, he wasn't a saint." All this time, Catman was avoiding the Cerulean Shaft's rapid fire archery as the villain loosed his arrows at his agile assailant.
"Right. Like you costumed do-gooders have a monopoly on morality. We all know about your pal Guardsman, buddy."
"Sorry, I don't deal in rumours." Catman was concerned that someone was different about Harper today. He seemed ...overexcited, and why were there bandaids all over his arm? Wait a minute. Paranoia? Slurred speech? Constricted pupils? The fact that the security guard had punched him in the stomach beforehand but he seemed not to acknowledge it? And his hair was matted, he smelt, he hadn't shaved for days. And this risk-taking behaviour...
"I mean, you've always had it in for me. I haven't had anyone close since Dad died..."
"Roy. I'm sorry about what happened to your adoptive dad, I really am. But that's no reason to shoot up heroin."
Harper sneered: "And that has nothing to do with you either."
"When your habit forces you into doing something like this to feed it, man? Wrong."
"Do you think Oliver would be proud of you doing something like this?"
"Just shut up. Shut up and die, you costumed freak!" But as he grew more agitated, Roy Harper's aim began to atrophy and soon he was shooting arrows wildly. Sweat broke out on his brow as he realised that he was losing his battle of nerves with Catman, as the crime fighter drew steadily closer to him and aggression began to overwhelm focus and discipline. Cerulean Shaft was one of the most effective antagonists that Catman had faced, but this time, all his expertise in archery didn't work in his favour.
Finally, Catman got close enough to land punches. Roy Harper threw aside his bow and unshouldered his arrow holder pack and rushed toward the Feline Fury. Again, this was a sign of his addiction. Normally, Harper was far more wary than this. Who'd hooked him on this? Then a blow connected at his side. He had to be more careful. With his opiate-reduced pain threshold, Cerulean Shaft could be more than a match for him. His aggression and paranoia was fueled by the heroin and he wouldn't stop until he'd beaten Catman to a pulp. With one of his feet, he kickboxed a loose sliver of metal from the other man's hand. Finally, though, Roy Harper began to tire and let through more and more punches. After fifteen minutes of hand to hand combat, he staggered and fell to the floor.
EPILOGUE:
The fifties were not a particularly enlightened time when it came to the treatment of opioid addiction. Roy Harper's medical record showed that in 1957, he was subjected to a lobotomy. Beforehand, he underwent repeated involuntary electroshock treatment. All that had made him an expert archer was erased from his mind due to the hamfisted neurosurgery he received in the Seaboard City Asylum. Sadly, Harper didn't survive all that long. One night, in August 1961, a negligent mental health nurse left the door to his ward wide ajar and Harper, unable to sleep, wandered through it. Because it was on the first floor of the building, it didn't register to the disoriented former villain that he was heading toward the balcony used for convalescents. At some point, he reached the edge and his momentum carried him over the balcony. He broke his neck after falling fifteen feet to his death.
But then, that was the way that Ray Thompson had planned it, ever since he'd seen to it that Harper got hooked on cheap Chinese 'smack' in New York and monitored his increasing addiction to the substance, planting the idea in his mind to fight Catman in his condition, even though the older man had greater experience and discipline at hand to hand combat. As Harper stopped breathing, contorted on the ground below the first-floor addiction ward of Seaboard City Asylum, Thompson's eyes lost their bloody crimson glow as the boy assumed his innocent, guileless facade, inwardly marvelling at how easy it was to manipulate mere humans into self-damage and eventual, terminal compromise. He knew Catman wouldn't talk to him about what had happened, because the big fellow was a guileless, naive fool, who accepted Thompson's facade of youthful enthusiasm and innocence at face value.
As he entered Justice Guild headquarters the next day, Cassandra Astriides stared at him with an expression of disgust. Alone of all of them, she knew his secret. But as with the impending nuclear war, they wouldn't believe that angelic, blue-eyed little fan boy Ray Thompson would ever be capable of that degree of manipulation, cold calculation and inhumane determination. Ah well, at least she wouldn't be around for much longer. From Catman's trophy room, there came stifled sobs. Thompson decided to talk to Tom Turbine until his customary dupe had reassumed some degree of self-presentation.
As long as he lived, Catman never suspected his protege and offsider's role in the dark events of that fatal day in 1959.
THE END
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NOVEMBER 1955:
"Stand and Deliver!" barked the masked, blue-clad Cerulean Shaft. As the window across the Seaboard City Bank entrance smashed, a familiar cowled figure broke through and sighed to himself as his expert acrobatic work evaded the arrows sent in his direction:
"Roy, Roy, Roy... don't you ever get tired of this? With your archery skills, you should be on our side, not doing this!"
Roy Harper snarled: "Not after what happened to my father, you costumed copper!"
"Good thing Denise isn't here. She'd haul you over the coals for tacky dialogue like that."
"Don't trivialise it! My father was shot by the Seaboard City Police Department!"
"Roy, he was carrying a firearm and he was using a gun on the police officer in question at the time he was shot. He'd already wounded one of his colleagues."
"That cop killed him! Or are criminals really a lesser form of life to you mystery men and women?"
"You know that isn't true. Look- I'm sorry about what happened to your adoptive dad. I really thought Oliver would make a go of it away from his criminal colleagues and after rehabilitation."
"And don't give me that shtick about 'personal responsibility' either, Catman! It isn't his fault he couldn't find a job after he got out of prison last time and the economy was in recession."
"I think you'll agree, he wasn't a saint." All this time, Catman was avoiding the Cerulean Shaft's rapid fire archery as the villain loosed his arrows at his agile assailant.
"Right. Like you costumed do-gooders have a monopoly on morality. We all know about your pal Guardsman, buddy."
"Sorry, I don't deal in rumours." Catman was concerned that someone was different about Harper today. He seemed ...overexcited, and why were there bandaids all over his arm? Wait a minute. Paranoia? Slurred speech? Constricted pupils? The fact that the security guard had punched him in the stomach beforehand but he seemed not to acknowledge it? And his hair was matted, he smelt, he hadn't shaved for days. And this risk-taking behaviour...
"I mean, you've always had it in for me. I haven't had anyone close since Dad died..."
"Roy. I'm sorry about what happened to your adoptive dad, I really am. But that's no reason to shoot up heroin."
Harper sneered: "And that has nothing to do with you either."
"When your habit forces you into doing something like this to feed it, man? Wrong."
"Do you think Oliver would be proud of you doing something like this?"
"Just shut up. Shut up and die, you costumed freak!" But as he grew more agitated, Roy Harper's aim began to atrophy and soon he was shooting arrows wildly. Sweat broke out on his brow as he realised that he was losing his battle of nerves with Catman, as the crime fighter drew steadily closer to him and aggression began to overwhelm focus and discipline. Cerulean Shaft was one of the most effective antagonists that Catman had faced, but this time, all his expertise in archery didn't work in his favour.
Finally, Catman got close enough to land punches. Roy Harper threw aside his bow and unshouldered his arrow holder pack and rushed toward the Feline Fury. Again, this was a sign of his addiction. Normally, Harper was far more wary than this. Who'd hooked him on this? Then a blow connected at his side. He had to be more careful. With his opiate-reduced pain threshold, Cerulean Shaft could be more than a match for him. His aggression and paranoia was fueled by the heroin and he wouldn't stop until he'd beaten Catman to a pulp. With one of his feet, he kickboxed a loose sliver of metal from the other man's hand. Finally, though, Roy Harper began to tire and let through more and more punches. After fifteen minutes of hand to hand combat, he staggered and fell to the floor.
EPILOGUE:
The fifties were not a particularly enlightened time when it came to the treatment of opioid addiction. Roy Harper's medical record showed that in 1957, he was subjected to a lobotomy. Beforehand, he underwent repeated involuntary electroshock treatment. All that had made him an expert archer was erased from his mind due to the hamfisted neurosurgery he received in the Seaboard City Asylum. Sadly, Harper didn't survive all that long. One night, in August 1961, a negligent mental health nurse left the door to his ward wide ajar and Harper, unable to sleep, wandered through it. Because it was on the first floor of the building, it didn't register to the disoriented former villain that he was heading toward the balcony used for convalescents. At some point, he reached the edge and his momentum carried him over the balcony. He broke his neck after falling fifteen feet to his death.
But then, that was the way that Ray Thompson had planned it, ever since he'd seen to it that Harper got hooked on cheap Chinese 'smack' in New York and monitored his increasing addiction to the substance, planting the idea in his mind to fight Catman in his condition, even though the older man had greater experience and discipline at hand to hand combat. As Harper stopped breathing, contorted on the ground below the first-floor addiction ward of Seaboard City Asylum, Thompson's eyes lost their bloody crimson glow as the boy assumed his innocent, guileless facade, inwardly marvelling at how easy it was to manipulate mere humans into self-damage and eventual, terminal compromise. He knew Catman wouldn't talk to him about what had happened, because the big fellow was a guileless, naive fool, who accepted Thompson's facade of youthful enthusiasm and innocence at face value.
As he entered Justice Guild headquarters the next day, Cassandra Astriides stared at him with an expression of disgust. Alone of all of them, she knew his secret. But as with the impending nuclear war, they wouldn't believe that angelic, blue-eyed little fan boy Ray Thompson would ever be capable of that degree of manipulation, cold calculation and inhumane determination. Ah well, at least she wouldn't be around for much longer. From Catman's trophy room, there came stifled sobs. Thompson decided to talk to Tom Turbine until his customary dupe had reassumed some degree of self-presentation.
As long as he lived, Catman never suspected his protege and offsider's role in the dark events of that fatal day in 1959.
THE END