Journey Out Of Misery (comic story)
Journey Out Of Misery was the fifth and final full-length installment in the Journey Into Misery subseries of the webcomic The Cosmic Beholder, divided in two chapters. Written and drawn by Paul Hoppe, it was released both in serialised webcomic form and in a limited print run. It starred the Terrific Two (Kelly and Jenkins).
Contents
Plot
Chapter 1
On a starry night, a mysterious flaming figure falls out of the sky and crashes in an alleyway in New York City, their celestial nature going unnoticed.
Meanwhile, Kelly and Jenkins are still wearing on each other's nerves, in this case clashing over their conflicting opinions as Pippi Longstocking fans. The argument gets so literally heated that Kelly, in a burst of rage, blasts Jenkins with the full potency of her fire powers, reducing him to a pile of ash. Ecstatic about finally being free of the irritating man to whom she'd been shackled for so long, Kelly goes out to party, while elsewhere in the city, a second individual falls from the sky: a mysterious toy-sized robot moving under its own will. A little boy picks it up only to throw it down again when his mother tells him off for picking things up off the pavement; mysteriously, the robot begins to grow in size as they walk away. Meanwhile, at the bar where Kelly is celebrating her newfound “freedom”, the mysterious person who fell from the sky, looking humble and miserable, accosts random people to ask them if the world “is worth saving”.
While the robot continues to be noticed by various civilians, and grow in size every time it is hit with any kind of force, Kelly finds her super-strength is beginning to fade away. She phones Professor Madison and Rodney, who theorise that it is Jenkins's “absence” (Kelly obviously not having owned up to the murder) that is causing this lapse in her powers: Jenkins and Kelly got their powers together, and it appears they only work when they're close to one another. Madison is especially worried about this revelation, encouraging Kelly to get back in “range” of Jenkins as possible, because the robot has now grown large and fierce enough to make it to the televised news, and Madison wants the Terrific Two on the case to protect the city. In the meantime, Madison activates her robot duplicate in New York, who rallies Mysto the Space-Wizard, Terry Tornado, the Big Bad Wolf, Red Riding Hood and the Human Tree to take down the robot, since neither the Odds nor the Protectors seem to be responding quickly enough.
The heroes rush onto the Robot, but it throws them all off, growing from the impact yet again. Meanwhile, Kelly gets into a scuffle in the bar over her flirting with Luke and Matt, unable to back up her dismissive threat that she “isn't someone you want to piss off” as the last of her super-strength gives out. She silently vows revenge against the women who thus humiliated her.
Chapter 2
The superheroes rallied by Madison continue fighting the Robot with little success, and are joined by the Odds — here including Captain Evening, Centennia, Armstrong Fatbuckle and Merv the Griffin. The Captain orders the heroes to try and keep the Robot contained without making further attempts to destroy it, while he tries to think of a more definitive plan. Meanwhile, Kelly visits her witchy former interns Alicia and Babs at their college dorm to get them to bring Jenkins back to life.
Hank Richards, previously believed dead, reveals himself to have been alive in hiding and offers up a device that can suck energy out of a robot (and may therefore be capable of shrinking the alien robot they're currently fighting), which he admits to having built with the intention of using it against Professor Madison. Glow Girl, having joined the fight after hearing of the crisis through live television, puts herself forward to act as a distraction while the other heroes hook the robot up to Richards's machine.
Meanwhile, Alicia and Babs have set up a ritual to allow Kelly to project her mind into Hell without permanently dying, where she will be able to bargain for Jenkins's resurrection. She is angry that the ritual appears to involve actually killing her, but soon finds herself face-to-face with the Devil himself, who tells her that she'll have to sell her soul to him in exchange for Jenkins's resurrection. On the surface, the Odds' plan, with them managing to hook the robot to Richards' machine and begin to shrink it, but the Protectors, the city's other, higher-profile superhero team, show up and oafishly declare that they'll take it from here, instantly beginning to pummel the robot once again, undoing the Odds' work and causing it to grow larger than ever before. It kills the entire Protectors theme with a blast of fire from its hand, leaving the Odds facing the humongous entity, with Richards' apparatus now useless.
In Hell, Kelly is extremely willing to trade away her soul, with her matter-of-fact eagerness even weirding out the Devil, but he hands her a contract to sign while Mephista brings out Jenkins, who is rather confused at Kelly saving him immediately after killing him. Fairly relieved not to have to deal with either of them anymore, the Devil propels them back to the land of the living with a “good riddance”. They materialise back in Alicia and Babs's room, only for a disappointed Kelly to find that her powers haven't returned yet. Madison informs them over the phone that they need to renew a closer connection after their time apart, something which could be done using a specialised machine, but which the Two eventually figure out they can more expediently achieve by sleeping together.
As soon as her powers return, Kelly flies off, with Jenkins clinging to her for dear life, to fight the robot. Despite how much of a journey it was for her to get there, her powers have no effect whatsoever on the robot and it knocks her away easily. This sends Jenkins into fits of hysterical laughter, and, accosted by the strange man about whether the world is “worth saving”, the laughing Jenkins answers that the hilarity of this moment alone justifies every bad thing that led up to it. Casting off his vagrant disguise, the man reveals himself as an Agent of the Cosmic Order, sent here at the same time as the robot (the Cosmic Solution) to give the Earth one last chance: if even a single human being sincerely argued for Earth to be spared, it would earn a reprieve of one million years. Calling off the Cosmic Solution, the agent flies off into spce with the robot in tow, advising humanity to use this million years wisely.
In an epilogue, Kelly and Jenkins, walking down a street, briefly debate whether to stay together for the sake of keeping their superpowers, but ultimately agree that it's not worth it and part ways. However, before her powers fade, Kelly takes the chance to go back to the bar and use her super-strength to get back at the people who made fun of her earlier.
Worldbuilding
Universes
- This story takes place all in one universe, named as Reality Z-25 31-H for the first time.
- The Bureau of Singularity are also observing a variety of other worlds, including Reality 69-T-0.
- The Bureau's headquarters are in a strange dimension called the Nexus of Realities.
Other
- Kelly likes the “American Pippi Longstocking movie” while Jenkins prefers the Swedish films, finding the American adaption to be “totally Disneyfied”.
- Captain Evening seems to display one of his few known superpowers as he survives the flames projected by the Cosmic Solution from its hands.
Continuity
- Professor Madison recalls how the Terrific Two got their powers at the same time, as seen in COMIC: Journey Into Misery.
- Hank Richards reappears after his supposed death in COMIC: Ghost in the Apparatus of the Spirit in the Shell of the Machine.
- Professor Madison's robot alter-ego from COMIC: Singularity War reappears.
- The Cosmic Order was seen deciding to try something else to handle the Earth business than sending Armagedda again in COMIC: Epilogue To The Epilogue.
Behind the scenes
Read online
Journey Out Of Misery is available online on the Cosmic Beholder blog.
