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Post by dans on Sept 1, 2020 0:31:49 GMT
I'm not sure if it's intentional or not, but those gangsters sure sound like throwbacks to the 1940s, too. They don't sound like they're from the '80s at all, but speak in a very stereotypical "goon" dialect from gangster movies of the golden age of movies. Will it be revealed that they were also frozen in time? Not my intention. But they have been hypnotized by the hypno-ray, which appears to be mentally activated, at least, by Hypno Harry, who is not living fully in the present. So I have an excuse, anyway.
What I ought to do is get someone from San Diego to phonetically write their dialog...
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Post by DocQuantum on Sept 1, 2020 19:18:56 GMT
Realistically, I think there needs to be a lot more f-bombs to be culturally appropriate.
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Post by dans on Sept 1, 2020 20:37:51 GMT
The last time I put realistic swearing in one of my stories, it was very poorly received...
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Post by lawrenceliberty on Sept 2, 2020 18:31:55 GMT
An old villain can be sinister. As you said, the Vulture was pretty ruthless. Spider-Man seemed to hold back at times because of his age but other stories indicated that the Vulture's powerpack made him pretty strong and he was murderous most of the time anyway.
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Post by dans on Sept 3, 2020 2:15:19 GMT
Carol (Sunbeam) Clews and Dan Dare / New Life, Old Foe
Just Like the Movies
"This is SO exciting, just like in the movies!" Carol gushed. "Capture the girl, tie her up, and then the villain starts gloating and spills all his plans? How neat is this? Oh, and by the way, Hypno Harry, in the movies, the good guys ALWAYS win!"
"You may mock me now, but you will regret it before long," the Spider snarled in reply, as he started spilling his plans.
Back in the office, Dan Dare struggled painfully back to consciousness. Something from far away was disturbing the darkness around him, calling him back to awareness; something in his subconscious mind was shouting at him of great danger and the need for him to act. The call didn't make him feel any better when he finally opened his eyes, but the memory of his office being invaded triggered a surge of adrenaline that allowed him to ignore the throbbing pain in his head, at least for the moment.
He almost instantly spotted the envelope next to him on the ground, hand lettered with bright red marker: "To: Dan Dare" He opened it, his eyes skipped instantly to the signature at the bottom of the note, almost unreadable in big childish looking letters: . The note was typed; as soon as he started reading he spotted numerous typos. But the message was clear. Dan remembered the villain and he could almost hear his voice as he read the note…
"The two of you sent me to prison, TWICE, and then disappeared, thwarting my plans for revenge and robbing all meaning from my life. Now that you're back, you must pay."
In the gym, Carol asked petulantly, "Um… Harry, aren't you repeating yourself?"
Back in the office, over the pounding in his head, Dan thought defiantly: 'Sounds just like a dozen other 'bad guys' who've threatened us over the years. But we're both still here!' Dan thought with a sneer. He kept reading…
"If Dare is too cowardly to rescue his partner from the Collier Gymnasium on the CCSD campus before midnight tonight, I'll kill her. If he comes to the rescue, I'll release her and kill him instead. Either way, one of you will carry with you the rest of your life the painful burden of knowledge that the other was sacrificed so you could live!"
Carol replied loudly, mockingly: "Or, we'll find some way to free your prisoner, capture you and send you back to prison for the rest of your worthless life!" Dan was thinking those exact words as he forced his way painfully to his feet in the office, using his new desk to steady himself.
Carol was sure she could use her powers to burst her bonds, but unless it was absolutely necessary, she didn't want to give away her secret. She had some ideas about that; if the Spider would leave her alone for even a minute, she'd put her plan in action. Otherwise, if she needed to reveal her secret, she would - it wasn't worth either of their lives!
Dan rushed from the office after yanking open the "S and "W" file cabinet drawers and equipping himself. He knew Carol had a surprise for the bad buys, and he planned on bringing a few surprises of his own to the party…
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Post by DocQuantum on Sept 3, 2020 3:58:46 GMT
I like this Spider guy. He's got some obvious mental problems, but is so charmingly villainous.
This was a bit confusing to read, though. I had to reread the middle section a few times before I realized that Dan and Carol weren't in the same room. I think there should be some indication that the location is being switched whenever you move to a new place. You could put three asterisks between any paragraphs that have a location switch. And the last paragraph could begin like this:
"Back in his office, Dan quickly yanked open the "W" file cabinet drawer and armed himself before rushing out the door."
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Post by dans on Sept 3, 2020 17:36:53 GMT
Thanks, Doc, this kind of critique I need.
Some years ago, I wrote a scene where, years ago in story time, a combat instructor at the Academy was explaining to his students how to defeat an alien enemy, and in the present of the story, one of those students was battling one of the same aliens. It worked really well. I was hoping I could repeat that here, with Dan and Carol both getting the same information at the same time, but it looks like maybe the sequence is too short and also too forced to do the same thing. I tried to do some clever formatting to make the three sources distinct but BBCode doesn't make it easy to do anything fancy. I'll just rewrite
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Post by dans on Sept 4, 2020 12:02:16 GMT
Another Retconn - In the Driving Miss Carol chapter, when the bad guys carry Carol out to the van, the Cap'n stays behind in a car parked outside the new office:
"Dap headed for the van, while the Cap'n got into a very small car and slumped behind the wheel."
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Post by dans on Sept 4, 2020 15:47:03 GMT
Carol (Sunbeam) Clews and Dan Dare / New Life, Old Foe
The Dick's on His way!
Ralphie stuck his head into the small office where the Spider Sinister was taunting Carol. "Just heard from our lookout, Spider. The dick's on his way!" He backed out again quickly.
The Spider laughed. A pale yellow beam shone from his left eye, and Carol was outlined in a yellow corona. "Clews, you will remain here and await my next instructions!"
She replied in a flat, lifeless voice that was totally unlike her usual bantering tone, "Yes, master Spider, I will wait here for your next instructions."
Satisfied, the Spider followed Ralphie out into the gym. The pale yellow aura around Carol persisted for another second, then vanished.
As soon as the door had closed, Carol shook her head violently for almost 2 seconds. Then she looked down at the rope binding her arms to her waist, and a pair of snippers appeared. For a few seconds, she concentrated on guiding her light energy creation to clip the nylon rope without injuring herself. Less than 10 seconds after the Spider turned away from her, Carol stretched luxuriously, raising her hands high over her head and standing on tiptoes - but silently, carefully suppressing the huge sigh of pleasure that wanted to escape due to this welcome easing of discomfort.
Then, she moved to the door and cautiously eased it open. She could see most of the gym, and she watched as two of her kidnappers climbed the walls and took waiting positions above the main door, while the Spider and one other man shot lines that must have stuck to the ceiling and then lifted them up into the darkness just under the roof. Ralphie pulled a folding chair to the middle of the gym floor where he could watch the door, and sat down with his machine gun in his lap.
"Hope he hurries up. This ain't comfortable!" A voice complained from the wall above the door. It was the Rat, though Carol didn't know his name.
"Every one of you, SHADDUP!" the amplified voice of the Spider Sinister filled the gym. The Rat stopped complaining aloud, though Undertow, hanging next to him, could hear him cussing out the Spider under his breath. Hopefully, they wouldn't have long to wait.
On the Road to Collier Gym
A few minutes ago...
By now, the Cap'n was fully recovered. He was too big for the front seat of the Dap's antique Renault 4 Chevaux, but it was the only car the gang owned that had a car phone other than the van, so Ralphie had insisted it be used tonight. When he saw Dan exit the office, the Cap'n quickly dialed the van's phone number.
"Hey, Ralphie! That detective guy just beat it outta here. He'll be there in 10 minutes!"
He paused, shook his head while he listened, then replied loudly. "Say, I thought YOU'RE the boss, not some gross giant spider! I don't get why we do what IT wants. Fact is, when I saw it getting into the van with us, I was so sick I almost hurled, and I was gonna splatter it with my burner, but then there was a flash of light and next thing I know, the spider's the boss. Well, I'm DONE working for a BUG. And I'm done with you guys until you drop it, too!"
He slammed the receiver back into the cradle, then pulled out of the parking spot onto the road, making a U-turn and heading in the opposite direction to that which Dan was going.
Dan parked several blocks away from the Collier Gymnasium building and approached cautiously on foot. The condemned building was dark this late at night, but he was able to note some very dim light escaping between the cracks of some of the plywood sheets tacked over all the windows. As he slipped into the shadows and started to case the building, he checked his watch. 'I won't take any chances with the deadline,' he promised himself. 'If I haven't found some way in in 15 minutes, I'll just march up and bang on the front door.' Cautiously making use of his flashlight, muffled with a handkerchief over the lens, only in the most impenetrable shadows, he worked his way around to a side door.
The lack of light didn't even slow him down as he started to pick the lock. 'It's all done by touch anyway,' he thought with satisfaction as the latch clicked. He cautiously eased the door open into a dark lobby and slipped inside. Cautious inspection showed that the inside door of the lobby led to a locker room, and from the locker room's further door, he could see into the dimly lit gymnasium! There were two human figures hanging on the wall above the main entrance, and another armed bad guy sitting on a folding chair in the middle of the gym floor. Dan couldn't see the Spider or the other two who had been in the group that had attacked their office and abducted Carol. 'They probably think three of 'em is enough to stop me, whatta they think, I'm a weakling?'' He smiled, a scary smile of grim satisfaction. "We'll just see about that!' It was time to take the action to the bad guys!
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Post by dans on Sept 4, 2020 23:32:50 GMT
Did it again, another minor change to a published section. When Dan rushes out of the office, I changed the file cabinet drawers he opens... that line now reads: "Dan rushed from the office after yanking open the "S and "W" file cabinet drawers and equipping himself."
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Post by DocQuantum on Sept 5, 2020 19:28:26 GMT
I'd forgotten that a crook named Kirk was nicknamed the Cap'n. I assumed for a moment that "Cap'n" could refer to Lance O'Casey. Just a weird hiccup in my mind, I guess.
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Post by DocQuantum on Sept 5, 2020 19:34:28 GMT
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Post by dans on Sept 5, 2020 23:42:21 GMT
Dan is recovered by the start of this story. I was actually thinking that he might be hampered a little in the upcoming fight. But I don't quite know the details yet, so maybe or maybe not.
Lib gave Dan an injury in Cruisin', the story that comes before the Squadron of Justice story you reference above. Probably, Carol is more fun to write when Dan is not around... This is Carol talking to Lance O'Casey, Mr. Hogan, and Jim and Susan Barr at the beginning of Cruisin':
“I am sooo sorry!” she said with a dreamy look on her exquisite face. “Dan insisted that I go alone. He broke his leg diving off a speeding truck on our last case, the poor lug! He refused to let me nurse him. He said I should have enough fun for us both!”
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Post by DocQuantum on Sept 5, 2020 23:49:11 GMT
Ah, that explains it.
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Post by dans on Sept 6, 2020 13:35:10 GMT
Carol (Sunbeam) Clews and Dan Dare / New Life, Old Foe
Surprise!
They hadn’t seen Dan yet, as all their attention was focused on the main door. It was almost mid-night. If Dare was coming he would be here soon! Across the gym, Dan set down the valise he was carrying and pulled out a flat box. There was a neatly typed label on the cover:
Souvenier: New York World's Fair Wax Museum Kidnapping Case (1939) Inside the box were two flat wooden cases labeled: “Hypno-drug” and “Suspended Animation Drug”, both labels included black skull ‘danger’ icons. He put aside the Suspended Animation case, then very carefully opened the other, revealing several flat vials. ‘The hypo-drug forces the recipient to obey orders from the closest person,’ he recalled the case. ‘If Carol is in the Spider’s hypnotic control, and I can get close to her, I can splash this stuff in her face and order her to obey me, instead of him. But I’d sure hate to spill it on my hands!’ He had no plans for the Suspended Animation Drug, but there was another flat box in his valise, that he'd accidentally scooped up in his haste back in the office, and a big smile crossed his face as he read the unexpected label:
Souvenir: Rogers Ark. Shasta Spring Gun Manufacturing Company Office Murder Case (1942)
‘Why not?' he asked himself, as he opened the second box and pulled out an odd looking pistol and another flat case, this one filled with several darts. The original darts had been dipped in curare poison, but he knew these replicas were clean. 'Change of plan, Dan the Man... since I got it, why not use it?' He looked at his watch - he had a couple of minutes before his self-imposed deadline for revealing himself at 11:53 PM. He opened one of the Suspended Animation vials, carefully dipped in the pointed tips of several of the feathered darts. He loaded the spring gun, took careful aim and fired at Ralphie. The gun was unsurprisingly not in 'like new' condition, after being pulled from storage after 40 years, and the dart fell short and skidded silently to a stop, unnoticed by everyone else, not far from Ralphie's feet.
'Guess 40 years have slowed it down some. Not like me! One more time, then,' Dan thought as he reloaded the spring gun. This time he aimed much higher. The dart arced upward and then flew true, striking Ralphie in the side of the neck, just above his collar.
"What the FRAP!" Ralphie screamed loudly as he leaped from his chair and slapped roughly at his neck. The dart had already fallen loose. "Somthin' big BIT ME!"
Through the barely opened door of the office, Carol saw Ralphie jump to his feet and start yelling. 'Good old dependable Dan, right on time!' she thought with smug satisfaction. ‘Only this time, I don’t need him to rescue me!’ She pushed the door open a bit more and slipped through into into the gym.
"Dammit Ralphie, shut the frack up!" the Rat snarled a complaint from his perch on the wall. "We're tryin' to surprise the dick!"
From the ceiling, the Spider's weird, amplified voice gave orders. "Dapper, go check on the girl! The rest of you shaddup and keep watchin!" The grotesque figure of a man-sized spider descended jerkily from the ceiling, suspended from a single lengthening pearl-colored thread. Dapper dropped from the wall to the floor.
Just as Dapper landed, a brilliant flash of yellow light seared through the room. When it cleared, all could see that a new player had appeared on the scene - a bulky humanoid figure, outlined in flickering yellow light that obscured any identifying features. Another weirdly distorted voice filled the room. "I've already released the woman, and sent her for the police. You might as well all surrender now - and save yourselves some pain!"
Ralphie screamed again, yanked his machine gun around, and hosed the yellow figure with a stream of hot lead, but the glowing aura deflected all the bullets into the walls and floor.
Dan had an instant of panic when Raphie started shooting, replaced by deadly anger when he saw the bullets deflected, rage that this villain would so casually use a machine gun on someone he’d never even seen before, intensified because that person was HIS PARTNER!. 'Knockout drug musta got old too,' Dan thought grmily. 'Well, if a case was easy, anyone could be a P I.' He brought his own pistol up to waist level and fired; Ralphie screamed again as the chattergun was knocked from his hands. Dan chuckled in satisfaction. ‘One Shot Dare - still got it!'
“Sunbeam!” Dan yelled. “Nice to see you again. If you’re not in a hurry, how about a hand cleaning up this mess?”
Meanwhile, the Spider had touched the floor; the four middle legs twitched, launching him rocketing through the air directly at Dan Dare. A yellow beam flashed from the Spider’s left eye.
“Hah! That beam won’t work on...” Dan started defiantly, then his tone changed totally after a half second exposure: ”...I await your commands, Master Spider!”
The Spider landed nearby. “Kill the glowing one!” he commanded. Dan turned, loosed a couple of pistol shots at Sunbeam, then raced towards the glowing figure as his bullets deflected from the aura.
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