#or maybe they’re just weird vampire robots and she was hungry

[bunneclairdraws]

They have some stuff to work out!

[nightingaelic]

Reactions to a vampire courier? Companions plus Benny, Ulysses, Graham, House, Caesar, and Yes Man. (sorry if that's too many :x)

TW: Blood (maybe obviously)

Also I don't normally feel some type of way about AUs but the idea of Joshua Graham encountering a vampire courier is giving me shivers

The courier was a little... strange. Not in any way that stood out to the average wastelander just by looking at them, everyone in the Mojave had their quirks and the courier was no exception. Hell, you get shot in the head and come back, you're bound to have a screw or two loose. They were unquestionably a night owl, but so were half the people on the Strip, who only started to wake up after the sun had gone down and the slot machines were singing their loudest. They usually had bags under their bloodshot eyes, but every caravan driver from here to the Hub was short on sleep.

On the other hand, the courier had some habits that were a little beyond surface-level eccentricities. For one, no one had ever seen them eating, not once. Even when the King laid out a spread of pre-war snacks and liquor or when the buffet at the Tops was refreshed, they politely declined and took a swig from the canteen that they never offered to anyone else. They were also rather odd about bathrooms, insisting that anyone accompanying them remain outside on watch and let no one else through the door until they were finished. But the undeniable moment of oddity came one night in October, when their companion rounded a corner in Freeside after a trip to the Atomic Wrangler and discovered the courier behind a rusted dumpster, holding a man against a brick wall with their teeth buried in his neck.

The courier drew back at the interruption, blood smeared across their face. "I'm not- it's not what- he- oh, fuck."

Arcade Gannon: Arcade stared open-mouthed for a moment, before snapping violently back into the present. "Is he dead?"

"Umm..." The courier glanced at the man they were holding, whose head was lolling against the bricks. "Yes? Mostly."

With no patient to resuscitate, Arcade rounded on them. "Six, what in the ever-loving fuck are you doing?"

The courier tried to wipe away the blood that was dribbling from their chin, but they only succeeded in spreading it up their jawline. "Well, I, um, I was trying to..."

Whatever excuse they were searching for eluded them, so they dropped the pretense. "I was feeding, Arcade."

"Feeding? What, like some kind of-" Arcade's eyes widened and he cut his sentence off early in realization. "No. No way. That's not- vampires aren't real!"

That earned him a look of intense skepticism. "Arcade, we've fought off plant monsters and rattlesnake-coyote hybrids together. I have a gun in my pack that lets me teleport."

"Oh, okay, so you have some kind of iron deficiency and you're delusional." Arcade laughed, the sound high and harsh in the quiet alley. "Great. Fuck."

Craig Boone: Rather than engage in an abandoned alley, Boone immediately backtracked to a busier street. He was unsurprised when the courier didn't follow him: Even in Freeside, someone covered in blood was sure to be noticed and questioned.

Boone left town that night and made for Novac. He was pretty sure the courier would follow him, but he didn't know where else to go. At least he knew they were coming. A few people in Novac asked about where he'd been, what the courier was up to, but eventually they stopped asking.

A couple of weeks went by. Boone was on the night shift again when the door into the dinosaur swung open to reveal the courier. He'd heard someone coming, their feet on the stairs, and he already had his gun pointed in their face. "We will never work together again," he said, before they could open their mouth.

"Boone, can you just-"

"I don't want an explanation." Boone shook his head. "I don't need one. I already did you a favor, leaving New Vegas without putting you back in your grave. This is over."

The courier took a deep breath. "71."

"What?"

"71. I've killed 71 Legion soldiers and left their bodies empty under the Mojave sky." They looked down and shuffled their feet. "I've tasted their fear. They're more scared of me than the Burned Man, now."

Boone studied them. Ever so slowly, he lowered his gun.

Lily Bowen: "Put him down, dearie," Lily chastised them. "You're playing too roughly with that man. And watch your language around your grandma!"

The courier looked down at their victim, at their torn throat and limp limbs. "He tried to mug me, Lily. It wasn't pretty."

"He looks like he's had enough," Lily insisted. "Set him down. Gently."

With a sigh, the courier obliged and lowered the man to the ground. "I'm sorry, Lily. I should have told you earlier. I don't mean to be rude when I turn down your cooking, I just... I can't seem to..."

"Hush, now." Lily produced her enormous handkerchief and gathered the courier up in her arms, dabbing at the blood on their face with a corner of the cloth. "You've gotten it all over yourself, haven't you? We can clean that right up, but it looks like Grandma's going to have to do a load of laundry. You made the mess, so you get to help."

Raul Alfonso Tejada: Raul swallowed nervously, something he'd noticed he was increasingly doing around the courier. "You know, we get murciélagos down in Arizona that do the same thing. They won't leave the brahmin alone."

The courier took in his anxious stance and sighed. "Raul, I'm not going to hurt you. Prometo. It's okay."

"Sure boss, but I don't think the hair on the back of my neck is going down anytime soon." Raul smiled, but it was more of a grimace. "Or it wouldn't, if I still had any. Como..?"

"No clue." The courier shrugged and held their hands up, letting the corpse they'd been holding slide to the ground. "I think it had something to do with me surviving Benny's best attempts to do me in, but a bullet is a bullet and I don't remember if I was like this before, or..."

"Or only after." Raul chuckled. "Jesucristo, and here I am thinking I'll outlive you like most everyone else I've known."

"Yep."

"Should I start calling you el chupacabra?"

The courier grinned, a bloody smile with sharp teeth.

Rose of Sharon Cassidy: "Fuck," Cass echoed, scrambling to pull her shotgun from its holster. "Knew I had too much, can't even- who are you and what've you done with the courier? Some kind of cannibal, wearing their skin? Alien? Shapeshifter? I'll blow a hole in your liver to match mine!"

"Whoa, Cass, it's me, it's me!" The courier dropped the man they were holding and held their blood-stained hands up. "Same old Six, just... maybe I wasn't straight with you about why I don't order anything at bars."

"Goddamn right you weren't straight with me!" Cass gestured at the body on the ground with the barrel of her gun. "Who's the fucker on the floor and why are you two pints in on him?"

"Just trying to get my drink on," the courier muttered.

Cass repaid this facetiousness with a jab of her shotgun, and they raised their hands higher. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry! You tell me, how do you tactfully tell someone that you're a creature of the night and you need to drink blood to survive?"

"Creature of the night? You're fucking loopy." Cass' eyes narrowed. "There's plenty of critters in the Mojave that only come out when it's dark, but most of them don't tear into..."

She trailed off into curses when she realized she was wrong. The courier smiled hesitantly and lowered their hands an inch. "Hey. Let me chuck this failed mugger in the dumpster and we can talk about it like a pair of civilized folks?"

Veronica Santangelo: Veronica squeaked and fell back a few steps, banging her elbow against the edge of the dumpster. A jolt of confused pain shot up her arm, and the Scribe couldn't help giggling harshly at the sudden assault on her funny bone.

"Not- laughing... at murder," she managed to get out between hisses of pain. "Oh, for the love of... right, you're not getting out of explaining what you are, exactly, just because I'm indis-indisposed!"

The courier couldn't help laughing at the squirming Scribe, but they did their best to stifle it. "Sorry, I'm sorry, I um... I guess I don't really know... what I am?"

"There's books!" Veronica burst out, pointing at the courier and their victim wildly. "I've seen them, in old libraries. Creatures that feed on blood, only come out at night, don't show up in... in mirrors, of course, no wonder you're weird about bathrooms, I should test... Dracula! That's it, you're a Dracula!"

"A Dracula?" The courier held their hands up, as if seeing them anew. "Never heard of them. Are they... bad?"

"Well, traditionally, yes." Veronica made a face and rubbed her elbow. "Black cloaks, sleeping in coffins, seducing and manipulating everyone around them... and people don't like it when you take their blood, in my experience."

"Whose blood have you taken?"

"This isn't about me, Six!"

ED-E: The eyebot bobbed wildly and made noises of concern, blips and blats and a flat burst of trumpets from some old jazz tune.

"I was hungry," the courier protested. "And this asshole pulled a knife on me and wanted all of my caps. Probably more than that, if we're being honest. He wasn't doing the world any good, but he did me some, for sure."

ED-E flipped between old clips of a Silver Shroud radio show. "Well, isn't this a deep, dark <static> secret? <static> In a situation such as this, the best anyone can do is <static> try to control it!" The robot added some more concerned beeps for good measure.

"I'm trying," the courier said with a sigh, looking down at the dead man they were holding. "You know I wouldn't hurt some random person, ED-E. Not if I could help it. The Mojave's full of bad people, enough to keep me going if I'm careful."

Rex: The hair on Rex's spine stood up, and he let out a long, low growl. The courier froze for a moment, before realizing that he was growling not at them but at the man they were holding.

"He's dead, Rex," they reassured the cyberdog, lowering the corpse to the floor for inspection.

Rex sniffed the body over, taking in the copper scent of his blood and the Freeside stink on his clothes. He sniffed the courier too, each of their hands they held out to him and the thick headiness of adrenaline. He whined and wagged his tail twice.

"Good boy," the courier said, straightening up. "It's about time I turned in, anyway. Let's dump this guy and split."

Benny Gecko: Benny crossed his arms. "You know, Six, if you're dead set on getting your kicks in Freeside every now and then, you might want to ease up on the passions with the next greaser you snag. This one's torn all to pieces."

"I wasn't- what kind of-" The courier dropped the man they were holding and sputtered. "Christ, only you could make a midnight murder awkward, Benny."

"Murder?" Benny raised his eyebrows and looked from side to side theatrically. "Who said anything about a murder? All I saw was some dreamboat and the best apple butterer of New Vegas playing back alley bingo, officer."

The courier's eyes narrowed. "Not gonna rat me out? Tell the King or somebody that I'm..."

"What, taking a page out of the White Glove Society's book?" Benny held his hands up. "None of my business. Well, if you ever come for me with that look in your eyes, though, that'll be a different story."

"Not much you'd be able to do," the courier pointed out. "You already tried and failed to kill me once."

Ulysses: Rather than react like any normal wastelander might've upon encountering someone attacking a man with their teeth, Ulysses just stood there, taking the scene in. "Heard tales of a tribe like you. East, farther east than even I've walked... a coven hiding in tunnels, emerging only when their hungers grow too strong to ignore, strong enough to pull blood from the veins of the world around them."

"Well, I don't hide in tunnels." The courier grimaced and heaved their victim up over their shoulder, depositing them unceremoniously in the dumpster. "Unless some disgruntled Frumentarius sends me out to hunt mutants under Hopeville."

"Perhaps you have more in common with those predators than I assumed," Ulysses admitted. "But then, your path has always run red. Blood of the Old World, blood of the new, blood of the Bull and the Bear..."

The courier rolled their eyes as they peeled off their red-stained coat and tossed it in the dumpster as well. "Don't talk to me about blood. I know you've seen just as much as me, but it doesn't mean the same thing when I look at it."

Ulysses cracked a hint of a smile. "You see life where I see death. Two sides, courier."

"Yeah, yeah. If you're not going to try to kill me, come on. You can wax poetic and lecture me about which road I'm walking while I take a shower."

Joshua Graham: "A creature far from God," Graham said in his most reproachful tone. "Forever damned for the souls of the innocent they've taken from the earth. Aren't we a pair, courier."

"You can fuck right off with that attitude." The courier dropped the man they were holding and wiped their hands on their coat. "He tried to kill me first. For some caps."

"The crimes of others do not absolve you of your own sins, courier," Graham continued, leisurely retrieving his gun from its holster. He held it up in the muted neon light that filtered through the alley, turning the weapon this way and that. "Though I confess I am also looking for absolution in this way."

"Are you going to kill me?" the courier asked, eyeing the gun as well.

"I've no doubt it would leave this world better than when you walked it," Graham replied. "But my own opinions are not enough to seal your fate. Perhaps we should find this man's family and hear their feelings on the matter."

The courier took a step forward, then another, until their chest was right up against the pistol's muzzle, pressed against the fabric of their shirt. "Go ahead. Try."

And though Joshua Graham was sorely tempted to pull the trigger, though the courier made no move to stop him, something in their eyes... some faraway pain, older than the desert itself, fresh as the blood on the ground, stayed his hand.

He lowered the gun, chastised, and the courier walked away.

Robert House: The Securitron that bore Robert House's face on its screen leveled a minigun at the courier. "Whoa!" the courier protested, dropping their victim and putting their hands out. "Can't we talk about this?"

"And what have we to discuss?" House sounded absolutely disgusted. "I believe you're familiar with my contract with the White Glove Society. If they wish to continue their current prosperity in New Vegas, cannibalism is strictly forbidden. You are subject to the same terms and conditions, as one of my employees."

"Terms and condi- hold on, hold on, you never asked me whether I was a cannibal," the courier replied. "Are you talking about that document you had me sign, way back when I agreed to help you fight the NCR and the Legion?"

"The very same."

"How is that fair? That thing was over 200 pages long, I didn't grow up in the 21st century, I don't have a degree in... okay, okay." The courier waved their hands. "Cannibalism is a no-go. This isn't cannibalism, this is vampirism."

"Which falls under the definition of cannibalism," House replied, his annoyed tone still detectable over the sound of the minigun spinning up. "Section 3.65, subsection F. Next time, read the fine print."

Caesar: The Legion's great leader pivoted in an instant from surprise to quiet anger. "Clean yourself up, courier. I expect to see you in my quarters within the hour."

He turned and left the alley swiftly, letting his powerful stride and swinging cloak cover his shaken confidence. The people of Freeside cowered as he passed, shrinking into the shadows as he made his way back to the Strip, but the fear in their eyes was not enough to erase the image of the courier bent over in bloodlust, holding their victim in total subjugation.

The courier found him on the top floor of the Lucky 38, gazing out over the city he had conquered and named his Rome. "Leave us," Caesar bid his Praetorian Guard. They bowed and departed the room without question.

"You asked to see me," the courier said nervously, shifting their weight from foot to foot. They had changed clothes, and no trace of blood remained on them.

"I did." Caesar beckoned them to the window next to him. They stood in silence for a moment, watching the lights wink below.

"I'm a well-read man, courier," Caesar said finally. "I know the legends of the Old World, and I recognize the marks of one of their nightmares in you. I order you to tell me the truth: Do you fit the full definition of the creature they called 'vampire,' or do you simply mimic the things to add to your fearsome affect?"

The courier didn't answer right away. When they did, their voice was soft. "I pretend to be nothing. I am what I am."

"And everything that comes with it?" Caesar pressed. "Darkness, the blood of the innocent, eternity?"

"Yes."

Caesar turned to face them fully. "Then I, Almighty Caesar, command you to make me as you are."

Yes Man: "Now that's a twist I didn't see coming!" Yes Man said, his happy tone only slightly tempered with uncertainty. "Boy, am I glad I don't have a circulatory system right now!"

The courier shushed the Securitron and looked around the alley surreptitiously. "Yes Man, I swear to god, if you blow my cover I'm disassembling you."

"As I've told you before, I can't technically die!" Yes Man reassured them. "And I certainly wouldn't want to endanger you and your hobbies, but my volume mixer is tied to my enthusiasm simulator and I can't adjust it! You'll just have to hope any passersby aren't interested in following my friendly voice into an alley!"

"Then go back to the Lucky 38 and we'll talk later," the courier insisted, through gritted teeth.

"I technically never left! But if you mean this Securitron, sure thing!" Yes Man zoomed away on his single wheel, whistling the whole way back to the casino where the rest of his consciousness was housed. He kept whistling as he ran probability algorithms, only pausing when the courier returned after a few hours and crossed their arms in front of his main screen.

"Hi there!" he said joyfully. "I've just been cross-checking Mr. House's records on noteworthy disappearances in the Strip, and I've flagged eight of them as potentially being connected to you! I don't want to assume your intentions, but if you don't want to be found out, I've developed a plan for choosing your next victims that will help you remain undetected in New Vegas for 184 years! Give or take a few!"

The courier put their head in their hand and sighed.

[thetygre]

30 Day Monster Challenge 2 - Day #23: Favorite Bad Movie Monster

Alright, so most of these movies aren’t really all that bad; they’re just kind of ‘meh’. But they would have been a lot worse without these cool and/or goofy monsters.

1.       Jabberwocky (Alice in Wonderland 2010)

I am prepared to disclose that Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland was not horrible, but 60% of that opinion stems from the Jabberwocky. (The remaining 40%is 30% the other monster designs and 10% lesbian subtext.) The Jabberwocky has always been my favorite part of the Alice mythos (surprise surprise), and not to sound petty, but I have dropped Alice movies just for not including the brilling beast. Burton’s Jabberwocky might not be my favorite, but it has a lot going for it. The way they treat it is basically as Wonderland’s Tarrasque; a living WMD, a legendary kaiju, the ur-monster in a world teeming with dangerous and crazy creatures. The way it wakes up is even a direct nod to Chernabog from Fantasia; they are literally equating this thing to the Devil.

Second off; Christopher Lee.

Finally, when the Jabberwocky meets Alice to fight, he says this thing about meeting his ‘old foe’, ‘the vorpal one’, in battle again. It is made explicitly clear that he is talking about the vorpal blade, not Alice. And that just… I don’t want to say that that changes the entire movie, but yeah, it kind of does. The implications here are that the vorpal blade and the Jabberwocky have fought each other countless time before in the past. The history of Wonderland is just the history of a dragon and a magic sword fighting. Is the vorpal blade sentient? How many times have these two fought? This kind of transforms everything about the setting the movie has established for the last hour and a half. It’s just so filled with so much potential to me.

2.       Torgo (Manos: The Hands of Fate)

Y’know, when you’re in a dark place, you have to find your own light. A source of motivation, something you can cling to to pull you through to the other side. Maybe that’s a dream, a goal at the end of the tunnel, or maybe it’s a hero, someone you can look up to. I’m not saying that Torgo is a hero, but he inspires me. There are weeks at work where I just don’t want to get out of bed in the morning. I come home at night to an empty room and fall asleep alone. It gets hard, is what I’m saying. But you know who never stopped trying, even though he hated his job and was lonely too?

Torgo. That’s who.

Everyday Torgo gets up, throws on his blazer and hat, and he goes out there and busses a haunted motel for a boss he hates. But he does it, every day. And if Torgo can do it, you can too. So you’ve got to get out there and be the best damn lackey you can. You’ve got put in the work to make it to tomorrow. And when the good times roll in and come shining down on you, you take a minute to remember the man who helped you get here. Take a minute to remember Torgo, looking down on you from Cloud No. 9, shedding a tear.

3.       Radu (Seventh Son)

The Last Apprentice series is actually a pretty cool (and grim) series of dark fantasy/horror young adult novels, kind of like junior’s first Solomon Kane. The Seventh Son movie based on the series has piss-all to do with it, and its only redeeming features are some cool monster designs and Jeff Bridges. Of those cool monster designs, the stand-out for me is Radua aka Muslim Dragon Kratos. He’s one of our villain witches chief thugs, and is unnecessarily cool for a side-character. He’s got this whole Nosferatu Zodd code of honor thing, and wields these two chain blades and probably could have been the villain in his own movie.

Now that alone would have been a neat detail, but then he can turn into what I honestly consider one of the more interesting dragons in recent cinema. I talked before about how one archetype of dragons was of being these unholy, scavenger type wilderness monsters, and that’s kind of the vibe I get from Radu’s dragon form. It’s all lanky and feral looking. It has too many limbs, and it walks around like it doesn’t know how. It’s another unnecessarily cool design for such a generic movie, and it’s definitely worth checking out.

4.       Krakensaurus (Jack the Giant Slayer)

I don’t want to be mean and discount Jack the Giant Slayer as ‘discount Ray Harryhausen’, but thems is the breaks, as the saying goes. The movie is kind of charming in how earnestly it plays to being a 1960s fantasy movie, with princesses in pink dresses and warlocks with goatees and a rhyming leprechaun. The movies stop-motion monsters don’t really live up to industry standards, though. But I can’t sit here and lie and say that I don’t have a special fondness for the sea monster at the end. The movie’s penultimate scene sees our heroes trying to escape the warlock’s castle, so the villain summons a two-headed giant (or ettin, if you know your monsters) which looks suspiciously like one of Ray Harryhausen’s cyclopes. Trapped in a sea cave, the rhyming leprechaun trapped in a bottle (roll with it) summons a sea monster to deal with the problem.

Sometimes it’s the little things in life, like watching two weird looking monsters fight to the death. Our sea monster is a blue-green mixture of kraken and allosaurus, and I’m pretty sure its toy had more detailing than the actual moving model. When this guy showed up on the screen, six year old me was hype enough to punch through a wall. I spent the next week drawing pictures of him so I wouldn’t forget him. This movie has 100% more sea monsters and singing leprechauns than The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, and that almost makes up for its deficit skeleton warriors.

5.       Queen of the Lair (She Creature 2001)

Stan Winston was on the helm for this little lady’s monster design, and it shows. A mermaid queen, it’s hard to tell if her monster form is her real shape or just something she can morph into. Even her basic mermaid form is pretty interesting; the split tails remind me of sirens or tritons. Her monster shape, though, is pure Stan Winston gold. There’s more than a little bit of the xenomorph queen in there, between the crest and the fangs. Someone threw it into a blender with a sea serpent and a viper fish and what comes out is the most badass mermaid to ever slink across cinema. She rips people’s heads off, her tail is covered with bone spikes, and she can sing a siren song to summon up her mermaid swarm. Oh, and psychic impregnation powers. That part’s kind of important.

6.       She Creature (She Creature 1956)

Aforementioned sea monster queen was part of a series of horror films based on old b-movies, so this is the original She Creature. Even today, this is one of my favorite designs from the 1950s. Paul Blaisdell might just be the king of B-movie monster suits, and belongs up there with Ray Harryhausen in the great monster hall of fame. The she creature looks like the sum product of an orc, a lobster, and a scorpionfish. It’s a shame you only see her in monochrome, because her color scheme is a startling mix of green and pink. What I find most fascinating is the concept that this is supposed to represent some parallel evolutionary stage of humanity. This is supposed to be a different version of Homo sapiens that never left the sea. Stan Winston’s mermaid queen is great, but I would still love to see an updated and more articulate version of this design.

7.       Vampire Spawn (Van Helsing)

This raises so many questions. So the crux of Van Helsing is that Dracula needs Frankenstein’s monster to power a force-field that will allow his swarms of vampire spawn to survive past infancy. I bet you thought vampires reproduced by biting people, right? Well, apparently they also have egg-sacs. Just, massive, Aliens style egg-sacs full of bat/human fetus monsters hungry for blood. It’s so stupid that I love it. These things are horrible and adorable; they remind me of chupacabras. I want one as a familiar, or at least statted up for a tabletop roleplaying game. Just really try to avoid thinking about the whole egg-sacs thing and all the implications that brings to vampire mythology.

8.       Emperor Tyrannus (Attack of the Super Monsters)

I don’t… I don’t think I have the strength to really get into Attack of the Super Monsters. When I watched it, liquor was involved. Describing it reads like a parody of Japanese media that involves anime, men in monster suits, and giant robots meant to sell collectible toys. But it’s real, and the realest shit ever is Emperor Tyrannus. Emperor Tyrannus is literally a giant tyrannosaurus rex who is the evil mastermind of an underground civilization of dinosaurs. The dinosaurs talk, because shut up, and Emperor Tyrannus in particular talks with a villain voice that I just can’t really convey through text. I think the closest I can get is saying that he sounds like someone doing an imitation of Brian Blessed while having a stroke. Emperor Tyrannus shoots laser beams from his eyes that mind control the other dinosaurs into being evil, and watches them fight a hermaphroditic cyborg superhero in a drill/airplane. Look, you need to see this for yourself. I’m not doing this justice. Get your friends, find the DVD, and strap in for a wild ride.

9.       Witch Tree (The Last Witch Hunter)

The Last Witch Hunter is another guilty pleasure move where Vin Diesel brings what I’m pretty sure is one of his D&D characters to a movie and somehow ropes Michael Cain and Elijah Wood into it with him. Our villains are, in a surprising twist, witches that cook up some fairly grotesque magic. One of the creatures meant to act as the witches’ guardians is a magical sentinel, and it just goes so hard and so dark for what amounts to a stick golem. It’s the fine details that make this construct stand out. The extra limbs let it move faster and have extra attacks, the jawbones around the front form a crude mouth, and the branch rib-cage makes it look like something that used to be alive instead of something that was just magically summoned. There’s so much work poured into this one monster, and it’s definitely a treat to see it at the end of the movie. Rethink your golems, kids; treat yourself better.

10.   Giant Leeches (Attack of the Giant Leeches)

I used to be pretty intensely leech-phobic when I was younger (and by younger, I mean a couple of years ago), but even then I knew the giant leeches were lame. Incredibly lame. Like, honestly kind of pathetic. I kind of like them out of a bizarre sense of pity. Giant leeches should scare me, but these guys are just goofy. A leech isn’t a hard design; it’s a tube with a sucker on each end. But I am almost convinced that the person who designed these monsters had never actually seen a leech, or possibly even a worm. But the movie still treats them with all the dignity and awe of the Creature of the Black Lagoon. There are prolonged sequences of these guys swimming underwater, floating around like hungry garbage bags. These things are not, nor were they ever, leeches; they are some kind of aquatic octopus or confused anemone. That’s why they need our love, our protection; because they’re too stupid to survive by themselves.

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #191: Back to the Stone Age!

January, 1980

OH HEY WE’VE HIT ‘80s!

It took one-hundred and ninety issues plus annuals and crossovers but we’ve arrived. And now ten more years of comics (including West Coast Avengers, oy) and I’ll hit the terrifying 90s.

And what better way to ring in the 80s than have the Avengers fight a dude made of stone. No, not the Thing. No, not the Statue Black Knight. No, not Korg. No, not Geodude. No, not Tanuki suit Mario.

Grey Gargoyle.

C’mon. He’s right on the cover. There’s text that says his name right above him.

Last time: The Avengers had a senatorial hearing to decide whether the government would withdraw their special priority status again. Because Gyrich was pissed that Scarlet Witch wanted to take more vacation instead of coming back to the team.

But they had to reschedule because a giant stone monster was rampaging and Beast offered to let Gyrich handle it but he didn’t want to for some reason.

Through some truly impressive teamwork and combos, the Avengers beat the rock monster into gravel, guest star Deadpool warning only too late that there was something lurking under said gravel.

So Iron Man and Daredevil got turned to stone and the Grey Gargoyle promised he would destroy the Avengers.

And then he just pops Falcon right in the face.

Yer a dick, Grey Gargolyle.

Vision jumps to Falcon’s defense and THRAMs Grey Gargoyle stating that since Thor has soloed Grey Gargoyle before, it shouldn’t be a thing for the assembled Avengers to beat him.

This is a valid theory and if the Avengers showed the teamwork they showed last time it would probably be correct.

Hell. Vision could solo this guy. He’s beaten a rock man before by letting him punch himself to death on Vision’s diamond hard abs.

He doesn’t get the chance for some weird reason (and Grey Gargoyle has some methods at his disposal that Statue Knight didn’t so...).

Grey Gargoyle punches him across the synthezoid face sending him flying into a building. Literally into a building. He apparently went intangible just before impact and just before passing out so he’s just sticking out of a wall, untouchable and unconscious.

Apparently when Ultron was having Vision built, he had him built with a glass jaw.

Scarlet Witch runs to check on Vision because these two crazy kids are constantly worrying about each other in battle and Grey Gargoyle takes the opportunity to punch her in the back of the head, knocking her out.

There’s a distinct lack of teamwork going on here...

Beast and Cap were too far off to watch Wanda’s back. But after she’s already been clobbered, Beast jumps on Grey Gargoyle’s and starts punching him in the head. And also criticizing how he treats women.

Beast: “First the Absorbing Man trashes Ms. Marvel, and now you deck the Scarlet Witch! Don’t you bad guys have any sense of chivalry at all?”

Grey Gargoyle: “Not really.”

Beast: “So I see!”

Kind of a weird thing to take issue with. I don’t like that Gargoyle punched Wanda in the back of the head but the other thing Beast cites, Ms. Marvel getting beaten up in the fight against Absorbing Man... Ms. Marvel can take a punch a hell of a lot better than you can, Beast. And she’s in the biz of punching people to get them to stop doing the crimes. Getting punched back is going to happen.

During this exchange Grey Gargoyle flings Beast at Cap. And while the heroes lay in yon heap, Grey Gargoyle reveals his ability to turn anything to stone for an hour by touching it with his right palm.

He uses this on an awning. So it collapses under its own weight and buries Cap, Beast, and Wasp in shards of rock.

Speaking of Ms. Marvel, she’s the last standing Avenger. I don’t know what she was going this whole time (teamwork real bad for some reason) but she comes up behind Grey Gargoyle, grabs him and throws him against a building.

This seemingly knocks him out but when she goes to investigate, he kicks her in the head, knocking her out.

I coulda sworn she’s taken a lot more damage before so her durability here isn’t really ringing true.

That’s one of the annoying things about team comics like the Avengers. When the plot requires someone to solo them, they go down super easily even when it doesn’t make any damn sense.

Anyway, even though the Avengers are all at his mercy and he said he would kill them, Grey Gargoyle suddenly changes his mind now that it would be super easy to kill them.

Grey Gargoyle: “I could kill you now, all of you, but why bother? There will be plenty of time for that later... when I’ve less pressing matters to attend to... or perhaps, when I become bored.”

I guess villains tenderly gripping the villain ball must go hand in hand with the heroes getting easily soloed. There wouldn’t be an Avengers if the villains actually killed them after they were easily defeated.

MEANWHILE AT THE MANSION OF AVENGE

Jarvis is cooking a hearty goulash for the Avengers when they get back from their hearing because dammit he’s a good butler and all that legal drama might make them hungry!

But then he hears a tapping and a pak-ing on the window door. Only Redwing and nothing more.

Falcon’s pet falcon is desperate to get out so Jarvis opens the window. AND NYOOM that to-be-a-vampire-in-the-future bird can book.

Meanwhile, back at the scene of the Avengers’ latest embarrassing stomp.

Ms. Marvel is the first to shake off the one blow that seemed to be enough to completely knock her out for some reason.

Wanda is up not long after.

And... wow, geez. Wasp blasts her way from under the pile of rubble and drags Beast out from under it. While tiny sized.

Um, good hustle, the Wasp?

Cap is also okay, having gotten his shield between him and the rocks fall nobody died. Weirdly it seems there was a layer of rock between him and Beast when they were sprawled on top of each other before Grey Gargoyle brought the awning down.

Wanda is concerned about Vision though. He’s still unconscious and if he is badly hurt, they can’t even help him because he’s intangible!

And then Vision sits up, perfectly fine.

Vision: “My systems shut-down was merely temporary -- and undeserving of your rather dramatic reaction. You have acted strangely ever since your return from Attilan, my wife. Something troubles you. We must talk.”

I hope we’re not back to the point where Vision would deride Wanda for being concerned about him BECAUSE EMOTIONLESS ROBOT.

But they really should have that important relationship talk.

Which maybe they do off-screen while Beast and Cap go to check on Iron Man and Daredevil.

Yup. They’re stone.

But its like they can still hear Iron Man’s voice on the wind.

Oh wait, they can.

In a kind of cool moment that probably makes total sense if you don’t think about it too much, the man inside the armor is perfectly fine (give or take an aggravating itch on his nose). The Grey Gargoyle’s touch turned the armor to stone but left the gooey center alone.

And as the Avengers leader, Stone Man is ordering them to not worry about him and Daredevil. Track down the Grey Gargoyle before he does anymore harm. And prey that no pigeons find Daredevil and Iron Man before the stoning effect wears off.

Which solves the dilemma of what to do with their stoned buddies really. Good call, Stone Man.

Also the reason why you shouldn’t think too hard about Grey Gargoyle’s stone effect is because then you might start wondering. If the Iron Man armor was turned to stone but Tony left squishy, does that mean that Daredevil’s insides are as blood and organs as before and only his skin has been made stone?

DON’T THINK ABOUT IT.

Also, at this point, Beast notices that Falcon is missing.

Beast notices this. Cap was apparently oblivious.

Way to be conscious of your best friend and partner, STEVE. He’s only here as a favor to you!

But where is the Falcon? I guess as the first one rock punched, he was also the fastest to recover and has been secretly trailing the Grey Gargoyle as he has rooftop hopped across Manhattan.

Grey Gargoyle finally reaches his destination. The apartment he rented under his human identity when he started operating in New York months ago and--

So remember how this whole thing started when Grey Gargoyle in his rock monster spacesuit fell from space?

It turns out that when you disappear (into space), your landlord tends to rent your apartment to other people.

And in this specific case, Grey Gargoyle’s secret lair is now the home of Margot Neil.

“She considers it her sanctuary against the concrete and combat of inner city living.” Emphasis mine.

So obviously a giant stone man is going to OH YEAH through her window.

What did she expect, setting up dramatic irony like that?

Margot runs for the door, yelling that when muggers dress up as pet rocks and crash through twelfth story windows, moving to Montana starts looking good.

But Grey Gargoyle jumps over her (geez, he can book for a guy literally made of stone) and turns her door into stone, rending it unusable as an aperture.

And now that he has a captive audience, Grey Gargoyle does whatever any self-respecting villain does upon gaining a captive audience.

Exposits about his backstory.

SEE HE USED TO BE A BRILLIANT SCIENTIST

But not so brilliant that he didn’t accidentally spill chemicals on himself like a stupid asshole.

And since he was a comic book brilliant scientist, obviously he has superpowers now. Anything he touches with his chemically contaminated right hand would turn to stone for an hour.

And since his body absorbed these chemicals, he could also touch himself to suddenly become as hard as rock.

Easy joke. Sorry.

But that’s why he’s a rock man. He turned himself into rock but because of his exposure to chemicals, he could still move even as a rock man.

And then like most scientists who practiced insufficient lab safety and got powers as a result, decided to become a supervillain.

So he decided to fight Thor to steal his hammer under the assumption that Mjolnir would make him immortal. This is an assumption that everyone keeps making for some reason.

But then Grey Gargoyle realized that the magic was inside him all along. For all practical purposes he IS immortal! He can survive prolonged periods underwater and even in space.

That’s where he was assumed dead, by the way.

A rocket carrying him to Earth in Thor #259 exploded. Luckily for him, he managed to cover himself in cosmic particles and wreckage that he turned to stone and which for some reason didn’t turn back after an hour.

And thats where the rock monster spacesuit came from. The Avengers were kind enough to punch him loose from that.

ANYWAY

Its been fun chatting but now he’s going to use the chemicals he hid in a secret compartment behind a mirror to become even stronger.

Why have his chemicals been replaced with bourbon and dom perignon??

Well. The secret compartment wasn’t so secret. Margot found it when she moved in and figured she’d throw out the smelly chemicals so she could have the classiest liquor cabinet.

I like you, Margot.

Grey Gargoyle is distinctly less fond though.

Grey Gargoyle: “Why, you dimwitted witch! I’ll crush your silly head into jelly!”

Thankfully this is when Falcon chooses to show up and tell Grey Gargoyle to take it ease.

Grey Gargoyle wastes no time being surprised and throws a suddenly stone bowl of candy at Falcon and then tries to him with with an entire stone couch.

Falcon grabs the couch mourning Margot and leaps out of the way of the SKABLAM but then with a SKAWK Redwing flies into the apartment.

I love you, comic book sound effects.

Do you know whats wrong with comics these days? Constant rebooting series to #1s in a ill-conceived attempt to create jumping on points? Derailing characters for shock value? Too many big events? The fact that Phyla-Vell is still dead and she and Moondragon aren’t having a sapphic road trip through space? All of these things maybe. But definitely the lack of sound effects.

Falcon tells Redwing to go get the other Avengers (because Timmy fell down a well?) but Grey Gargoyle grabs the bird and turns him into stone. Rendering this entire mercifully short subplot moot.

I should be glad that the book remembered Redwing at all.

Falcon stashes Margot under a table for safety (which she mocks) while he goes to fight the dude that soloed the Avengers.

But using his agility and not standing around like an idiot, he manages to get about a page of keep away, thus giving him the best record against this guy so far.

Eventually the Gargoyle does manage a glancing punch to Falcon’s chin which floors the guy and leaves him unable to acrobatics. But thankfully someone (Cap) throws a mighty shield and Grey Gargoyle’s midsection must yield.

The Avengers have arrived! They heard reports of a “war” going on in an East Side brownstone and figured it was either the Grey Gargoyle or at least something else requiring punching.

Geez, news gets out fast.

Anyway, this time the Avengers remembered to have their teamwork turned on. Because we’ve hit that point in the page count where the Avengers win instead of getting taken down like fool chumps.

Wasp blasts Grey Gargoyle with a full force bio-power sting, which actually hurts his forehead region. Then Ms Marvel grabs Grey Gargoyle and swings him all around while also pointing out that he only won last time because they fought him one on one like idiots. And then she throws Gargoyle at Vision who punches him BRAMM. And as the punch slams him into a wall, Scarlet Witch uses her probability altering powers to turn Grey Gargoyle back to flesh.

And. I guess he just wasn’t wearing a shirt or pants this whole time. His costume is a cape, a domino mask, gloves, boots, and underwear.

I guess when your skin turns to stone you don’t need real clothes but if not for an art trope, he would have been flashing stone nipples to everyone this whole time.

Oh. And now that Gargoyle’s face is not stone, Beast lays him out flat with a punch.

Then we zoom out to see the shambles the fight has turned the apartment into. And Margot crawls out from under the surprisingly intact table (wow, Falcon was right that it would protect her!) and meekly asks

Margot: “I, uh, don’t suppose some of you would care to stay and explain all of this to my landlord, would you? Please?”

I like to think that some of them did. Or at least that a sighing Tony Stark wrote a check for damages. And by like to think, I mean that the caption box on the following page does confirm that the Avengers were cool people and did have a word with her landlord.

You’re not bad some of the times, the Avengers.

The last page of the book finally gets us back to the subplot about the senate hearing.

And even though the hearing heard the rest of the testimonial Gyrich had prepared, it seems like the senators have already made up their minds.

A senator: “Thank you for your testimony, Mr. Gyrich. Your concern that the Avengers might pose a threat to our nation’s security is greatly appreciated.”

“However, the recent incident with the Grey Gargoyle seems to reaffirm that this group’s prime concern is the safety of not only American citizens, but of law-abiding people everywhere, and that they require a certain amount of freedom to carry out that purpose seems indisputable.”

“Therefore, it is the decision of this committee that the Avengers priority privileges and security clearance remain intact -- and that the restrictions on their autonomy be lessened considerably, as detailed in the committee’s report.”

Cue Beast dancing in triumph in the background and saying “Awriiight!”

Henry Peter Gyrich, lessened liaison to the Avengers, takes this with all the grace he can muster.

Henry Peter Gyrich: “Well, Iron Man, you’ve won. I suppose this means you’ll go back to having more members than the Mormon tabernacle choir?”

Iron Man: “No, Mr. Gyrich. We probably would have cut our membership to about what it is anyway, if left to ourselves.”

Henry Peter Gyrich: “I see. Very well then, I’ll drop by next week to supervise implementation of the committee’s new guidelines. Good-day, gentleman.”

So with a lot of mustered grace. Really, the only way you can tell how disgruntled he is is that he takes off his sunglasses for the first time to wipe them and squint at Iron Man.

I wonder if they’re prescription.

Also, it sure is lucky that a supervillain attack happened just when the Avengers were not really but kind of on trial regarding how necessary they were. In a more cynical title, it would have been staged. Or just somewhat down the line from now in Marvel. Like how Reed Richards once staged a supervillain attack when he was testifying in Congress. Or something coming up moderately soon in Avengers.

Cap congratulates Iron man and says that things can get back to normal now. But Iron Man looks at Vision and Scarlet Witch having a relationship talk by the windows and says he has a feeling that for some of them, getting back to normal isn’t going to be that easy.

And thus ends the era of the Gyrich Restricted Avengers.

It was mostly wasted potential. It shook up the team roster a little bit but Falcon was the only real new thing aside from Wasp being on the team without Yellowjacket. And the new roster didn’t really get shown much due to subbing people in and out.

The stuff before the new roster, where the Avengers tried to operate without the usual privileges they enjoyed like launching jets and access to government databases made more of an impact.

More could have been done with Gyrich’s roster as he intended. And more could have been done with the idea of a more restricted Avengers team. They really only pay lip service to the idea with Cap having to go over Gyrich’s head to get presidential approval to save Scarlet Witch and the Avengers fretting briefly if Gyrich would approve them stopping to help the Russians with some elements of doom.

I guess it was an inherited plotline so David Michelinie and assorted other filler writers didn’t really have a clear idea where to go with it. Per Shooter, he intended Gyrich to be an asshole that has a point so I wonder what he would have done with the post-Korvac stuff.

At least we’re not losing Falcon immediately. No, we have him until 194.

=|

Its a shame because this issue was really the first time he shined on the team. And it wasn’t great but it was okay. By recovering first and following Grey Gargoyle, he led the Avengers to where he was which saved the life of Margot Neil. And he put up the first good fight against Grey Gargoyle the entire issue.

I think it could have been better with a minor change. Instead of Redwing flying to the battle and getting turned to stone, have Redwing fly to where the Avengers were and lead them to Falcon.

Could have gotten some brief comedy out of that with Redwing flying off and then flying back and trying to communicate with people he doesn’t have a psychic bond with and then Beast finally says ‘I think we’ve all seen enough Lassie to know he wants us to follow him.’

It would have made Falcon look more proactive and also demonstrate why having a psychic link to a bird can be handy.

Alternatively, buy him a walkie talkie so when he flies off alone he can just call you up. Did walkie talkies exist yet? The idea at least of portable communications must have existed. Like Dick Tracy’s radio watch.

Anyway.

Falcon did a good job. Good job, Falcon. I wish you got myriad moments to shine at the beginning of your time on the roster like Beast did. That’s how you build up a new Avenger.

... I just realized that Daredevil never shows up again. Matt Murdock shows up in the background of the last page but Daredevil’s contribution to a comic that had him on the cover was to catch Cap out of a fling and to ineffectually warn Iron Man of something.

Not a great crossover! Its neat in the interconnected universe way but that could have been accomplished just by having Murdock show up. Sorry, Daredevil fans!

Next time: STEEL CITY NIGHTMARE -OR- PERIL IN PITTSBURGH!

See. Not everything happens in New York.

If you want to see a new Pet Avengers with Redwing, Lockjaw, Tippy-Toe, and of course Pizza Dog, follow @essential-avengers. I have no power to actually make it happen though. Don’t get your hopes up. Also follow if you just like me doing these posts. They take so much of my time...