Ambush Bug: Let the Buggy Bizarro, Chapter 2: All This and Bizarro Stew

by GDL629 19136

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“Great Scott!” exclaimed the Kryptonian Kapitan. “What’s all this, then?”

“Don’t worry, Superman!” cooed the Continuity Queen, Jonni DC, gently tracing Supes’ S symbol with her Continuity Cane. “We’re here to make sure that Ambush Bug never troubles us again. Isn’t that right, baby?”

“Jonni…” Supes said blushing, his eyes darting side to side, “…that was a long time ago. I was really trashed on red krypto–”

Buggy lay still, one eyelid flickering ever so slightly. One could almost hear the strains of snickering.

“Enough chit-chat!” Argh!yle! impatiently interrupted. “Time is a-wasting. Let’s ship him off!”

“Ship him off?” questioned Superman. “What are you talking about? And move that spare boot away from my foot, Argh!yle!” Superman’s eyes began to glow red. “Now.”

The red sock beated a hasty retreat, a beam of heat-vision nipping at its heel.

“Kal-El, that green !#&$@#% has been making all our lives a living hell. This is our one chance to get rid of him!”

“B-but… you can’t mean…?” asked the troubled Big Blue Boy Scout, worried at what Julie would say.

Jonni DC laughed. “No, you big silly, we can’t kill him! He knows he’s a comic-book character, so we only have one option.”

“We’re shipping him off into space,” Argh!yle! chuckled. “No return.”

“It’s so… so simple. But I can’t let you do that,” declared the four-hundredth Last Son of Krypton (not counting the rest of the population of New Kandor on Rokyn). “That would be wrong,” he pontificated.

Jonni shook her head in her hands. @#^%#$@#@%& Boy Scout, she moaned inwardly. “Sorry. We’re doin’ it. Now stand aside.”

Superman stood his ground.

“Or need I remind you that you’re supposed to be in ‘Kryptonite City’ right now?” (*)

[(*) Editor’s note: See Superman: Kryptonite City.]

Supes turned pale.

“Remember? Whole city. Kryptonite. Starsky’s still writing it? Ring a bell, Clarkie-baby?”

Sweet Rao, she’s got me! Superman cried inwardly. He started pacing nervously, digging a trench in the ground.

“Tell you what, Kal-El baby, I’ll look the other way — if you look the other way. Sound good?”

Superman sighed, then turned and started to walk away, whistling nervously. But as Kal-El skipped forth, a plush-type paw sagged and landed on one of Jonni’s purloined weapons.

A beam of Kirby-like dots suddenly enveloped Superman!

“Oh, no!” screamed Jonni DC. The black dots faded, and the ghastly results were there for all to see.

“You am Superman. Who am me?” were the words uttered by the creature sitting next to the seriously perturbed Kal-El. The creature was dressed in a grayish-blue costume resembling Superman’s with dingy red boots and cape. The S symbol was reversed on the duplicate’s costume. The creature was pale white with a chalky texture to his grotesque features.

“Oh, no! Not Bizarro again!” said Superman, slapping his hand to his forehead.

“Me am Bizarro Number One?” asked the scholarly duplicate.

“No, you #@^%%^& fool! Bizarro Number One is dead! You am Bizarro Number Two!” added the ever-bright-and-cheery Argh!yle! sarcastically. (And sparing the lazy-ass writer an explanation for the new character’s name!)

“All the Bizarros are dead!” screamed Jonni DC, hopping up and down in a continuity hissy fit. This was the last thing she needed her superiors to see. The Bizarros were hacked off on panel. If she was lucky, they’d just fire her for this. “Oh, God, why did I have to bring the Bizarro Duplicator Ray along with the other weapons?” Jonni then started slapping herself in the face repeatedly and saying, “Stupid! Stupid! I’m so stupid!”

The strains of snickering were still in the air, while Buggy’s unconscious form lay slightly twitching.

Cheeks, as usual, was full of empty eloquence. “…”

Bizarro Number Two suddenly realized that he am alone. “No other Bizarros? Me am it?” A gleam hit the obtuse creature’s eye.

Superman saw Bizarro Number Two eyeing the Duplicator Ray, but before he could put two and two together, Bizarro Number Two grabbed it, and with a reckless tongue lolling out crazily, Bizarro Number Two started firing the gun wildly.

The beam shot around wildly. (Sorry, lost my Roget’s!)

When the smoke cleared, ten more Bizarros suddenly greeted Superman.

Next to the still form of Ambush Bug lay a pale green Bizarro dressed in a smoking jacket and appeared to be immaculately groomed.

“hey now whats all going on here whys my daddy asleep like that what did you do to my daddy” a shrill voice rambled on without any regard for capitalization or punctuation from behind Jonni and Argh!yle! All of the parties involved turned to face the owner of the unending babble.

“Sweet Jesus!” cried Jonni DC.

“Great Scott!” cried Superman.

“Haaa-haaa-haaa!” laughed the eeevil Argh!yle!, unable to contain himself.

“He am the Great One!” cried the fabulous Bizarro boys in unison, awed by the countenance of the being that stood before them.

(Cue church bell with rain noise in the background; cue singer:)

(“What is this… that stands before me?” sang the singer.)

The flesh was pale and chalky, but the dingy red and yellow costume with the cute little buggy-antennae and reversed C could not hide the identity of who this Bizarro was made from.

The lively little creature would Not. Stay. Still.

Or quiet.

Yes, kiddies, say hello to BIZARRO-CHEEKS!

“… … …” Cheeks was aghast at the mirror image that twitched and prattled aimlessly before him.

“hey why you not like me why you so quiet my daddy have two left feet on the dance floor the rain in spain falls mainly on the plain…” Bizarro-Cheeks droned on ad nauseum, equally shocked as his not-as-loquacious counterpart.

The eleven new Bizarros were prostrate before the newborn Bizarro-Cheeky. “We am atheists, so we am worshipping you, Bizarro-Cheeks!”

Rao give me strength! thought Superman. I have to stop this insanity! With a leap (cue Sir Robin’s minstrel), brave, brave Sir Kal-El flew away, flew away… (Ohhh, don’t worry! He’ll be back! Sheeeez!)

Just then, Buggy stopped feigning unconsciousness and sprung up, startling the holy heck out of the Bizarro-Ambush Bug next to him.

“Whoop-doo-do-whoop-whoop-whoop-whoop-whoop-whoop-whoop!” Buggy cried, jumping up and down as he pointed at the strange new Bizarro-Ambush Bug Number One.

“I say, just what is the meaning of all this, you poorly attired phymatidae?!” Bizarro-Ambush Bug Number One said, brushing the lint molecules off his well-groomed self.

“Hey, who was here in this universe first, Lord Buckley?” scoffed Buggy, who was about to turn to the Bizarros, only to find a cloud of gas emanating from Jonni DC’s gas-gun. Buggy and Bizarro-Buggy both plopped to the ground.

Thank you, Wesley Dodds, thought Jonni, making a mental note to sneak the gas-gun back into the Dodds Estate on Earth-Two — yet another thing that could get her into trouble with her superiors!

“Why you am wake little green men up?” asked the Bizarro-Taberknackered Choir, gazing at the slumbering buggies before them.

Just then Superman returned.

“Ever the thoughtful host — he even brought the Bizarros some gifts!” cooed Jonni DC lasciviously, flashing back to the weekend under the checkerboard covers with the raspberry pearl jam tarts, when a red K-influenced Supes wore his Little Bo Peep outfit.

Kal-El opened the lead container holding that Bizarro soporific of choice, blue kryptonite. The Bizarros went down faster than Mimi from the Drew Carey Show at an all-night buffet at Raoul’s Trough-for-One.

Bizarro-Cheeks lamented in his non-stop manner, his little chalky plush body twitching worse than William S. Burroughs in rehab. “what you doing why you put my daddy out again see my daddy in bed crying see his hair been turning gray mmmffflllmmmfff”

Poor Biz-Cheeky’s cries were cut off by one of Argh!yle!’s Foot Soldiers, strategically placed by joltin’ Jonni. And there was rejoicing.

“Okay, let’s load ’em all up into the spaceship!” Jonni said, rubbing her continuity-stained mandibles together. “We’ve gotta remove all the evidence, boys! Or we’re all up Slaughter Swamp without a paddle!”

Superman cringed at the thought of wading through Solomon Grundy’s personal bathroom. “I can’t believe I’m stuck in the middle of this!” Clearly, ol’ Supes was having severe late ’50s, early ’60s flashbacks. He finally lost it. This was worse than when he had to team up with Binky to infiltrate Lois’ Eastern Star meetings.

“Weisinger! You — you deranged old %@^@$%! This has you alll over it! I bet you’re orchestrating this from beyond the grave!” Kal-El ranted at the sky, rendering the eardrums of everyone within a ten-mile radius to a bloody pulp.

Jonni, blotting her ravaged ear canals, helped the nigh-hysterical Superman load the hapless Buggies, Cheekies, and Bizarros onto the ship. She patted poor Clarkie on the shoulder, who was now sobbing rivulets of rust. “There, there, therrre… it’s alll riiight… just do what I do and keep telling yourself it’s only fan-fiction… it’s only fan-fiction…”

Once loaded, Argh!yle! flipped the bird… uh, switch (or possibly both), and the rickety rocket put-putted out into the final frontier.

“Bon voyage, suckers!” Argh!yle! proclaimed gleefully.

“So… where’d you send them?” asked Jonni.

“Who cares?” said an uncharacteristically apathetic Superman. “I just set any old coordinates! Let them worry about it!”

The End

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