The Diary Of Ralph Dibny

You Have Been Reading

2007-05-07T13:42:00.000-07:00

(Weeks 1 and 2 were undocumented as Ralph was mostly hiding under a wardrobe.)
Week 3: "would I like a hot beverage"
Week 4: "foam foam yib yib yib"
Week 5: "CliffBen GrimmSteele the RoboThing"
Week 6: "A isn't B"
Week 7: "I swear I was getting an erection"
Week 8: "the red elongated trotsky"
Week 9:"goodbye forever"
Week 10:"I know what happened on Mount Olympus"
Week 11: "big dog, big dog, bow wow wow, we'll crush a bit of evil, now now now"
Week 12: "headquarters are my clothes"
Week 13a: "YOU BASTARDS"
Week 13: "presumably a metaphor"
Week 14: "Emily Dickinson is a world-famous ho"
Week 15a: "suck it... in hell"
Week 15: "the sucky dance, is your chance, to do the suck"
Week 16: "cold and alone on Misery Street"
Week 17: "Doctor Robert Lynchmob"
Week 18: "me and Sheriff John Bunnell"
Week 19: "What do I care about your unsightly nose hair? I've just seen a universe die"
Week 20: "coprophagia in my rooms"
Week 21: "stylin' safari suit"
Week 22: "just like the capitalist world"
Week 23: "get thee behind me, changeling of Satan"
Week 24: "Fredo had to have an accident"
Week 25: "nobody will mourn your johnson"
Week 25a: "Happy Halloween, Phantom Stranger"
Week 26: "John Henry Ass"
Week 27: "the Purple Stretchboy"
Week 28: "I took his clothes away"
Week 29: "get thee behind me, fantastic super energies"
Week 30: "the psychotically idle rich"
Week 31: "barking out the morse code for J-U-N-K"
Week 32: "Superman, or if we can't get him, Vartox"
Week 33: "dear reader, you bastard"
Week 34: "all because you thought Christmas was rubbish"
Week 35: "get back in the sky, you scum"
Week 36: "it's only a space feeling"
Week 37: "maggot-infested scum"
Week 38: "this will be my last communication"
Week 39: "Time Magazine"
Week 40: "there lies an obese bitch"
Week 41: "that's merely the most, fellows"
Week 42: "when he coughs it sounds like the words 'evil plans'"
Week 43: "we're two different people"
Week 44: "more like the Egyptian Scotty Morris"
Week 45: "mild hgnitivolek sauce"
Week 46: "the waiter of vengeance"
Week 47: "Linkin Biscuit"
Week 48: "no funny bit in this episode"
Week 49: "Morgan Freeman Narratodroid"
Week 50: "shocked beyond reason"
Week 51: "Willis War One"
Week 52: "And then a giant alien butterfly ate him."

And now I finally get to break character:

Thanks to everybody who read through this little experiment, even at the end when the lead character was dead in a stone tower and I was forced to rely on the significantly less funny supporting cast.

Thanks especially to anyone who improved the blog by commenting in character (Jean Loring, who started the trend, Green Arrow, Booster/Skeets, Kon-El, Wonder Girl - to name but a few) and didn't try to turn it into their own private MMORPG (Swamp Thing).

And thanks to the writers of 52 for having Ralph push that guy out of his wheelchair which was hilarious.

Shameless Plugging Dept: You can find me at Re:Retro, the retro games blog, in the pages of 2000AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine, in bookstores everywhere come June (August for non-UK folk) and at the International Comic Expo in Bristol this coming weekend. Also, Dr Willis will be available for a chat on Monday evening in the Union server on City Of Villains, if you like that sort of thing.

Well, that was fun.

Let's do it all again soon, eh?

Ladies and Gentlemen, you have been reading...

THE DIARY OF RALPH DIBNY

Heaven Can Suck It

2007-05-06T13:33:00.000-07:00

Seriously, it's the most boring place in the world. I mean, technically it's not in the world, but still. At least in Hell you got a decent cup of coffee. Jesus.

I couldn't even say Jesus out loud because every time I did this beardy middle-eastern-looking guy called Yeshua would pop up and ask if I wanted anything. Seriously, the guy had this pager and every time somebody in the world said 'Jesus Christ' the thing went off, so there was this constant beeping any time he was around, and considering he was by his very nature everywhere at once, that was pretty goddamn constant. And then half the time it's somebody stubbing their toe and the other half it's somebody wanting him to blow up an abortion clinic or typhoon the gays or something.

Yesh had his work cut out for him without all that. "Seriously," he'd say, "it used to be in the middle ages that people would work their entire lives in a muddy swamp or a patch of desert or something, living off insects or being whipped daily by their fuedal lord and stuff. So we get them up here and put them to work on the right hand of Dad singing hosannas and they're so happy to not have bubonic plague anymore that doing some fine choral numbers for all eternity seems like everlasting bliss, you dig? But now we've got all the spoilt assholes who want to bring their SUVs and their plasma screen TVs so they can watch all the sinners frying in Hell and they ask who I am, and I tell them, and they say no, he was a white guy, you're a goddamn ay-rab terrorist by the look of ya, and then they all want to meet Elvis, and they can't, because he's still alive, so they start saying about how they're going to take their business elsewhere and convert to Zoroastrianism so then I have to dress up as Elvis and nobody's satisfied because I'm a goddamn ay-rab terrorist apparently. Did you want a coffee or something? I'm buying."

But we never took him up on it. Because the coffee in Heaven sucks.

So basically I figured it was time I got back into the detective game, seeing as I am the greatest detective who ever lived, and Sue wanted to become a ghost because that's a lot more interesting than just being dead, plus you get to meet people and travel around the world if you're haunting a cruise ship or something. So we decided to combine the two.

Yeshua wasn't having any of it, needless to say. Apparently the Spectre is already being a dead ghost detective because the Spectre is a god damned hog and just being a grim spirit of vengeance isn't enough for him. So Yesh was saying that if we went off and had fun being ghosts, everybody would want to do it and we were nice people and everything or Sue was at least but he really couldn't make an exception. We'd be staying on this side of the veil for all eternity and that was all there was to it.

And then a giant alien butterfly ate him.

Seriously, this gigantic space insect just erupted into Heaven and ate Jesus. And then he started eating Heaven for good measure until he was chased away by what looked suspiciously like Booster Gold. Both of him. So thanks for destroying Heaven, Booster. I'm sure when you're called to account in the next world for being an incredible famewhore your callous murder by space butterfly of the enchanted saviour prince of legend won't count against you. Much.

Anyway, we escaped in the confusion and found ourselves in a post-nuclear hellscape ruled by men in suits of armor riding gigantic dogs, which apparently is Earth-17. It turned out that because of Sue's love of eighties electronica she had in fact gone to Heaven-17 - unfortunately Heaven 17 themselves were not there as they had given in to Temptation and were at that very moment being tormented by adorable creatures with unacceptable features. In Hell. Which I understand is just the high cost of loving.

Anyway, we finally got back to Earth on the Friday.

Obviously I wasn't expecting to have to engage my therapist in a life-and-death struggle for the fate of the planet. And I definitely wasn't expecting to have to do it in a kindergarten classroom. I mean, no sooner had I used my ghostly powers to look in on what Dr Willis was up to - voyeurism being the number one pasttime of all ghosts and Superman - then I found him boring up through the floor of a playschool in some kind of fire-spouting burrowing machine, with an army of half-pirhana half-spider monsters and the most bizarre outfit you ever saw. I mean, Dr Willis isn't a thin guy. A skintight green and purple outfit covered with skulls and a giant 'W' isn't going to suit him. And the really wierd thing was that he was answering his comments at the time. There is such a thing as internet addiction, Dr Willis.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, he was all like, "my bomb will destroy the world!!!", and I was all like "must... use... poltergeist power!!!!" and then I clocked him one and Sue beat up his Giant Scorpirhana Queen before it could birth a new generation of criminal fish-scorpions who liked to rob banks and then I said something like "looks like this mystery had a real 'sting' in the 'tail'!!!!!" and Sue said that was totally my coolest mystery-solving end line ever. And then I kicked Dr Willis really hard in the face until he started crying. It was unbelievably awesome.

Anyway, now that I'm dead and I beat up my therapist and sent him to jail for trying to destroy Planet Earth with a huge bomb and an army of half-insect pirhanas, I guess I can finish off this journal. I am completely cured, after all, as Doctor Willis's face will be happy to tell you, particularly the back teeth I have in a little jar in my trophy room.

So I guess this is it.

Although I should mention there was one more wierd thing that happened on Friday. After we'd beaten Dr Willis like a red-headed stepchild we went to get coffee, and when we came back for the press conference, we stumbled into something out of a nightmare. A nightmarish nightmare.

Just before Willis had burrowed up through the earth in his Infernodrill Tank, the children in that classroom had all taken out their pads and crayons and started drawing something - something I hoped I would never see again, but that seems destined to follow me into the grave itself. Every single one of those children drew the same awful apparition on that paper, and it's no wonder that poor teacher had hysterics and one of the cops blew their own head off while the other took sanctuary in a monastery.

I never thought I'd see Superboy's penis again.

But sketched in crayon it is more hideous than ever and must be fought at every turn. Clearly, while the terror of Superboy's engorged thang is looming over the world, there is no time for a detective, even a ghostly detective who just saved the entire planet from Robert Amersham Willis's dastardly schemes, to be sitting around blogging. Not when he could be sipping cappucinos in Milan, anyway. Also the guy at the internet cafe actually died of fear while I was writing this entry with my transparent ghost fingers, and I don't want too many of those on my conscience. Not unless I want to end up like Martyn Ware.

So at this final stage, before I say my last goodbye and float off into the sunset with my beatiful wife, I really should thank all my readers for putting up with me for this past year.

But I'm not going to because you can all suck it. Do you hear me? Suck it! You won't have Ralph Dibny to kick around anymore!

I am the world's greatest detective and Batman is a ho!

A HO!

Ralph William Dibny
1960-2007

I've tried to be decent about this, but global genocide is really the only option left to me.

2007-04-29T16:50:00.000-07:00

I honestly thought when I embarked upon this new career as a supervillain - which is progressing very nicely, thank you - that I wouldn't be one of those who attempted to destroy the entire world. I mean, it hardly seems fair. I thought when I began this course of action that I would be merely dealing the red hand of my bloody vengeance to those who had smited or snubbed me. Or Ralph. No, Ralph, I didn't forget. Those who wronged you shall pay. Yes. Yes, Ralph. Yes... look stop yammering at me, man! Jordan and Queen will die with the rest of them! Shut up! Shut up!

You see what I have to deal with.

Anyway, my death toll was originally only going to be a few thousand. A million at the very most. Just those who have earned my undying enmity. Not many at all. A small snack for my army of mutant spiderhanas.

(I should explain here that a spiderhana is a sort of cross between a tarantula and a pirhana. They scuttle about eating all day - raw meat, mostly. Expensive to keep, but you'd be astonished what you can get on the black market if you're willing to spend a million or so. Needless to say the practice has been pretty much liquidated along with most of my other assets, so if you're still sitting in the waiting room in the hope of wasting my time with your endless neuroticisms - by all means stay there. It'll be a Starbucks next week, and I'm sure they're very good listeners.)

I was all set to declare war only on those who had wronged me. And then you had to go and have your little ceremony.

I know for a fact that Ralph hated Superboy with every fibre of his being. No, they can't hear you, Ralph - only I can hear you, we established that. I'm sure they know why you hated Superboy, you had to stare at his genitals a dozen times in statue form - yes, yes, fine, I'll tell them.

I can't have a moment's peace.

Superboy didn't even have a proper costume. If every sullen emo kid in a T-shirt had their own yearly memorial service, we'd be constantly expected to stand around in public squares sobbing and wearing skintight outfits and anyway it's pretty obvious that Superboy being beaten to death by himself like that was just the Superman Family equivalent of a tearful Evervescence fan slitting his own wrists. It was simply the most efficient way the wretched little turd could do the deed. Now stop giving the pathetic little bastard attention and get on with your lives! All of you!

That was Ralph, by the way. Not me. I'd never think that. But unfortunately the Superboy worshippers are on the death list nontheless.

So you can imagine my concern when Steve Lombard - already destined to be casualty #305 in what will be known to the future as Willis War One - covered the event for GBS, saying that "The whole world must be weeping for the plucky youngster whose bones were shattered for us all! Over to you, Bambi!" I slumped back in my chair, too overcome even to notice Bambi introducing that week's Face You Want To Mace (Because They Hate Freedom) - probably Al Gore again. So it had come to this! The entire world worshipped Superboy! Except possibly the scientologists, and they also must die!

Well, as Emily Dickinson said, it is better to be the hammer than the anvil, and thanks to my foresight in preparing to take on my new career I have just the hammer for the task. Indeed my finger is on the button as we speak. A true gentlemen must allow those he disagrees with the opportunity for a rejoinder, and also the chance to put any outstanding affairs in order, so you have until Friday before I activate my Thanatonotron and detonate the planet like a gigantic bomb. Please confine any protests to the comments section - you'll never find the Hidden Lair Of Doctor Willis, and if you do, the spiderhanas are ravenous and the cost of raw meat is prohibitive in these uncertain times. I think you get my meaning.

The world ends on Friday, by the command of Dr Robert Amersham Willis, PhD! You're welcome.

My life has been turned upside down by one shocking change after another!

2007-04-22T12:17:00.000-07:00

I was planning to write about the terrible events of what is already being called 'World War III' - much like many other terrible events have been - when the entire world was decimated, as prophecied on the Steve Lombard show, by one of Earth's greatest living legends of swing. But frankly, I think we're all quite aware of the sordid details of that little episode and it would be crass in the extreme to harp on about it in the face of so much global mourning, grieving and assorted bereavement. There are simply too many dead to make light of Black Adam's actions.

Especially considering I was evidently not considered worth killing. How dare he! I'd have considered it an honour to be rent in twain by the man's immaculate fingernails and he knows it. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this whole sordid brouhaha wasn't some callous attempt to snub me. Yeeees, it's all so very clear. He knows I'm his greatest fan. Hasn't he been watching me? Watching me through the walls with his secret X-ray vision that he tells no-one of, so he can watch me? He's never mentioned having X-ray vision - and that's proof he has it. And why would he lie about such a thing unless it was to watch me when I make my ablutions?

Well, there's a space in the cellar for you, Mr Black Adam. I hope you still think that your little game was worth it when I apply the red hot pincers. Oh yes, you'll pay! How you will pay!

Anyway, we shan't talk about Black Adam today. I think you'd rather hear about the wave of shocking changes that have happened in this week, changes that have turned my entire universe upside-down!

For one thing, the superintendant at my apartment block was so horrified by Black Adam's antics that he sank into a terrible depression - and then had a haircut and bought a new shirt! This shirt is a dark shade of blue as opposed to the previous light one, and he's finally snipped off that hideous combover and embraced baldness with dignity. "As the faces of the endless dead flashed through my mind," he told me, "I looked at myself in the mirror, and realised my hair looked ridiculous and cyan wasn't my color. I figured if I was going to meet my maker at the hands of that man, I should get some kind of makeover first."

If you'd told me a year ago that one year later Mr Huggins would be wearing a different shirt and would have gotten rid of the combover he's had for years, I would have been shocked beyond reason. I would have demanded to know how this could have happened. But this isn't the only shocking change that's occurred in my life.

My waiting room has been repainted in off-white, from canary yellow.

I decided to have it done on the spur of the moment. If I had had the opportunity to travel forward in from a year ago to now, one year later, and I had chanced to witness the new soothing shade of my waiting room walls - I would have died of fright. But now that I've lived through this titanic change that has rocked my very world to its foundation, it seems almost like an afterthought - like some mighty yet overworked God shoehorned it in desperately in the middle of something else.

I suppose profound change often hits us like that. Oh, also I quit my psychiatric practice and became a supervillain. But the walls are the important thing.

My rage can be fettered no longer, yumyumlovelycocktails402.

2007-04-15T15:31:00.000-07:00

Oh, I see. So it's like that, is it?

Yumyumlovelycocktails402 is not content with auctioning off one of the greatest heroes of music. He then decides to throw him away in one of the most flagrant displays of carelessness it has ever been my displeasure to impotently witness! Not that I mind that Black Adam has been loosed upon the Earth and intends to return to his one-man war against all of humanity (a subsection of animal life on the planet of which I am part), no doubt not ceasing in his horrific frenzy of violence until no single living human is left to disturb his melancholia. Oh no.

No, I'll be happy to lay down my life in such an assault, happy in the knowledge that my rent flesh may in some fashion provide comfort to the King Of Swing! I'll be glad to - wait. Sarcasm isn't really appropriate here. I actually will be quite happy to do that. Perhaps he can do a quick medley before he tears my head off and dropkicks it into a bus full of burning orphans. That'd be nice.

No, what I cannot abide is yumyumlovelycocktails402 now attempting through the medium of eBay to sell me a giant robot.

Has he no shame?

Is there nothing the man will not pimp through the medium of online auctions? And of course he had to pick Sivana's Omnibot. He couldn't have sold Kobra's Hissotron-X or The Penguin's 200-foot high Morgan Freeman Narratodroid. No. He attempts to sell me the Omnibot, knowing full well that it formed part of the set of Godard's 1960 masterpiece A Bout De Souffle.

How dare he.

How dare he. He knows I can't turn this down. That robot is a historic piece of French cinema. He's doing this deliberately, that's what it is. He's deliberately trying to mock me. The sculpture, Black Adam, and now this - it's an orchestrated campaign against me. All of it.

As I remember, Ralph used to get himself in fixes like this. I told him that he was paranoid. Deluded. On the verge of wigging out utterly. I said, if I recall, that such intricate plots to ruin his happiness simply could not be.

Fool that I was! He was right! Right all the time! They were out to get him, and now they're out to get me - especially the eyes! They float with their accusing stares in the very air itself! To think I told him that he needed medication to control himself! If only I'd known the truth - that ghost hands were coming out of the ceiling to steal the things that I love!

Well, I know who's responsible for the ghostly hands. Oh yes. I'll be answering your feedback request, yumyumlovelycocktails402, but not with a positive rating. Oh no. With a bomb.

What's that you say, Ralph? To destroy... is to enjoy? Yes, Ralph, Yes. To destroy is to enjoy. I see that now. And the world will soon see that as well!

Yet again yumyumlovelycocktails402 has destroyed my day.

2007-04-08T17:25:00.000-07:00

I should start this off by apologising for Richard Dragon's unnecessary intrusion into this most personal of spaces last week. But I shan't. Because as far as I'm concerned, none of you deserve an apology. Where were you when I fought my lonely war against yumyumlovelycocktails402? Where were you when hostilities opened again on Friday?

Oh, he was my Spring, my Summer, my Autumn!
My Artie Shaw, my Jelly Roll Morton!
Dean Martin's talk, Sinatra's song!
I thought I could beat yumyumlovelycocktails402 in an online auction, I was wrong!
Pour away the cocktail, stub out the jazz cigarette,
Dismantle the trumpet and pack up the clarinet
Let the stage lights flicker and grow dim
For I'm going to kill yumyumlovelycocktails402 when I get my hands on him.

I'm sorry, I've been drinking. You would be too if you had a once-in-a-lifetime chance to buy the most important musical legend of your generation and bloody yumyumlovelycocktails402 got in your way again.

On Friday, I had the chance to buy Black Adam on eBay. I immediately put every single liquid, solid and gaseous asset I had together and came up with $1,025,343 including the office, the house, the yacht, the Hummel figurines, the couch, the prosthetic leg and my father's ashes which apparently Keith Richards will pay handsomely for.

I swept onto the auction with a cool million, sure that this was more than enough to buy such a phenomenal item of memorabilia - I mean, enough to rescue Black Adam from his tormentors. Little did I guess that yumyumlovelycocktails402 was at that very moment making his foul plan to thwart my dreams, the cocksucker.

I've had a number of gins since then. You would have too if you'd been denied the chance to have the Egret Of Egypt sing in your home. Suffice to say that yumyumlovelycocktails waited until the very last moment of the auction earlier today and then put forward a bid of one hundred million dollars, and then to add insult to injury he put Black Adam up for auction saying that people hadn't been trying and there had to be someone out there who wanted to buy him and wasn't a swing enthusiast. A personal insult! Probably.

How dare he. Or she. Cocktails and their loveliness are a language that reaches across the gender divide. I don't care, his or her days are numbered regardless. Do you hear me, Mr. or Ms. lovelycocktails402? Your life is mine!

You have earned this night the vengeance of Doctor Robert Amersham Willis! PHD!

Oh God.

I think I may be ill.

DragonKoans™ - The Koan That Won't Make You Moan™!

2007-04-01T14:51:00.001-07:00

Hi, I'm Richard Dragon™.

I was sorry to hear about the passing of Ralph Dibny (pat. pending), perhaps the most fascinating of my students - that is, of those students who failed me, Richard Dragon™, by being utterly useless and unable to grasp even the first principles of the Richard Dragon System™. In the face of such tragedy, I mused with my incredible Richard Dragon Thoughts™, even the most Dragonneriffic™ devotee of the Richard Dragon System™ might find his or herself left stranded, far from the blissful shores of Dragonirvana™, flailing on the rocks of confusion.

If only there was a Zen Koan they could use in such an occasion - one that was picked out especially for them, to meet their needs... your needs. The needs of a man or woman on the go in a fast-paced world. Your world. Koans with a minty freshness that makes you ruler of the boardroom - or the bedroom. Koans that leave your skin feeling smooth, soft, moisturised. Koans that are ph-balanced for you.

If only they had... DragonKoans™.

And now... they do.

You do.

DragonKoans™.

They're a new kind of Koan. A you kind of Koan. A Koan that's proud to be American™.

DragonKoans™.

It's the sound of one hand clapping... clapping you. Applauding you for being the very best you can be. For being the very Zennest™ you can be. For reaching above and beyond. For reaching the stars. For reaching your wallet and pulling out a mere $29.99 plus tax per Koan.

DragonKoans™.

We'll select a Zen™ Koan that's right for you, with the help of expert Koanalysis™ from Fat Steve the Telepathic Monk. A Koan picked fresh from your favourite movie, pop song. or Mature-Readers comic book. A Koan that will make you feel more than just enlightened... it'll make you feel Dragonlightened™. We've got this great one about a goose that we ripped off from some wierd anti-government comic that the kids all dug back in the nineties or whenever. If you're into Blink 182 or Linkin Biscuit you'll probably love it. It's the perfect thing for when your adopted dad's locked himself in a cave for days and when he comes out he looks kind of wierd and he's smiling in a way that suggests serious sexual deviancy. And he won't speak. Not for days. He'll just touch himself.

That's when other kids would start crying.

That's when you reach for a DragonKoan™ and fill yourself with the Dragonlightenment™ you deserve.

All rights reserved.

Also this week - a seminar from Rama Kushna™, the glowing face that respects your space™, on 'Snapping Necks - The Fast-Track Route To Wisdom'. Hope to see more attendance there than there was last week.

This has been a public service announcement.

Indulging my passion for 'outsider art' is proving more and more difficult.

2007-03-25T08:43:00.000-07:00

I'm often told by the common herd - those putterers and cultural agnostics who come to my place of business to simper and snivel over their intensely ordinary lives - that my taste in art is jejune at best and moronic at worst. I have a few pieces of fine art on my walls, pieces that would to the uninitiated fall into the handy mental waste-basket labelled 'modern' - although I consider such a mundane term cannot capture the glory of, say, Klesowsky's Five Litres Of My Own Spunk In A Tin Bucket, which I leave open by my desk on top of a small plinth as the artist intended.

(My one concession to the almost pathetically gauche sentiments of those mendicants who call themselves my patients is the occasional spritz of Forest Glade, to somewhat mollify the fascinating olfactory landscape that wafts upwards from the bucket, the repellent nature of the odour after three years on display making it only more provocative a piece of art in my eyes. But I digress.)

Mr Dibny himself often criticised my taste in art. He constantly repeated Edith Wharton's famous criticism of the modernists and post-modernists, that they showed an unhealthy dread of... no, no, I'm misremembering. What did he say? Ah yes - he constantly told me that I could suck it. Also, Klesowsky could suck it, Damien Hearst already did suck it and anyone else I thought was in any way good at art was a useless, talentless asshole who could suck it dry. In hell.

Ralph had a habit of cutting to the heart of such matters that lesser critics would do well to imitate.

'Outsider art' like Klesowsky's being my particular passion, I decided to alleviate my guilt at the shocking way I treated the late Mr Hrudnyev - little knowing at the time that his corpse was at that moment cooling in two separate freezer units - by doing a little shopping on eBay last Monday. Little was I to know that the most sublime item I had ever chanced across was even then going under the virtual hammer!

Tornado Man Dreaming! Even the name, with it's kitsch-hip faux-aboriginal stylings, sent a shiver down my spine. I had to know more! Unfortunately some sort of virus was attacking eBay's main server, with the result that the bulk of the text was gibberish - 'FDKJL SADFASL DFKSJ' and so on and so forth, almost as though the auctioneers had succumbed to a terrible attack of ennui and simply typed a vast mess of gobbledegook to fill up the space of the page. So all I had was the name of the piece and a picture - but what a picture!

The emotionless red head, standing atop a podium of bizarre mechanical parts! It seemed thrown together, almost a parody of what the artist thought a terrible modernist sculpture ought to look like, but it clutched at my heart all the same. I had to possess it! The bidding was lollygagging somewhat, at the miserable sum of twenty dollars and seven cents, but I quickly showed the culturally moribund fools at eBay what was what with a sterling contribution of $500.

I expected the opposition to quail before my superior buying power, but evidently there was one among them - going by the somewhat unprepossessing nom de guerre of yumyumlovelycocktails402 - who recognised what a find was nearly in his grasp. He pushed the bidding up to $1000 and the combat began in earnest.

I was evidently dealing with a connoiseur. Every bid I placed, he doubled, quickly rushing the price to a full six thousand within the space of a few moments. Yumyumlovelycocktails402 was playing with me as the cat plays with the mouse, and I was already at the limit of my resources - unless... dared I think it? Dear Uncle Terry - so old and infirm! I know for a fact that his heart cannot stand much, and he had seven and a half 'grand', as the unwashed say, awaiting me in his will. The stairs at his home are badly in need of repair. It would be a shame if he were to... fall. Yes, a terrible shame. But then - the art would be mine!

Like Faust, I shook the hand of Mephistopheles, and immediately signed Uncle Terry's death warrant by raising the bid to a towering $13,000! More than double the bid as it stood. Uncle Terry would understand - I'd explain it to him in depth before my greater strength hurled him bodily down the spiral staircase, snapping his fragile limbs like matchwood! He would thank me as he tumbled like a rag doll, for giving him the opportunity to perish in the name of art!

At that moment I felt like unto a God - but pride goeth before a fall, and my nemesis yumyumlovelycocktails402 trumped me with a single thousand! My will broke! I was left in the foetal position on the persian rug, sobbing like a child! All my hopes were dashed, broken like so many of Uncle Terry's easily-crushed bones, but eBay offered no words of comfort unless FDJKL SDAFJK translates into 'weep not for the end of your hopeless dream' in some ancient scripture.

Thus, Tornado Man Dreaming left my life, never to return. Perhaps one day I will chance to see it in some private collection and muse wistfully on what might have been. And perhaps one day I will have my revenge on you, yumyumlovelycocktails402. If my time as therapist to the World's Finest Superhero has taught me anything, it is that revenge is delicious and best served cold, like a gazpacho. I will be signalling the waiter of vengeance soon and ordering my starter, yumyumlovelycocktails402. Beware.

And as for you, Uncle Terry, please don't read this journal entry, or if you do, think how much trouble it will be for you to change your will at this late stage.

This is the final indignity, Mr Hrudnyev.

2007-03-18T09:44:00.000-07:00

I don't visit the All-You-Can-Eat Buffet often, and I certainly don't expect much from it - a brief slaking of the pangs of hunger on days too filled with activity to consider a luncheon. But I expect simple courtesy at the very least. Closing your restaurant for four days in a row, without any warning, is not a sign of simple courtesy - it's a sign that I should take my business elsewhere.

Unfortunately, when I have a yearning for Bialyan cuisine, Hrudnyev's is the only game in town. So, day after day I have deposited myself outside the door, hoping against hope that the usually-competent Mr Hrudnyev will get over whatever chronic lazyness is motivating him to stay closed and serve me the fresh salt-buttered jerky with a side order of spiced nmpetva that my tastebuds clamour for. Yesterday I turned up more through bloody-mindedness than anything else, and today I was motivated by nothing more than sheer unmitigated anger, wanting to give that wretch Hrudnyev a personal piece of my mind before I turned and left his establishment forever. I've already decided that I'll be mail-ordering my saffron-coated baked sprouts in their mild hgnitivolek sauce from Bialyafoods.bya from now on, although I can't get their website to load for some reason.

Oddly, I've noticed that the delicatessen has raised the price of Bialyan srntyal by several hundred per cent over the last couple of days, and despite this outrageous price hike, their entire stock quickly sold out and no fresh supplies have arrived to replace it. It seems the forces of the world are conspiring to prevent me from satisfying my cravings.

The worst part is that I know for a fact Hrudnyev is in the building - I've heard various noises from within during my impotent vigils outside, ranging from some sort of mewling yelp, like a strangled sob, to long stretches of weeping, to a loud crash and the sound of a man bellowing "Did you think you could hide from me here, Bialyan scum?" in a vaguely Egyptian accent, but deep and resonant as though used to working the stage at Las Vegas resorts. This was followed by a loud crack, like the snapping of a heavy branch, and a sort of wet tearing sound.

All I can say is that if Hrudnyev has time to listen to loud television dramas, he has time to cook me some food.

I've been so enraged by all of this dilly-dallying on the part of my once-favourite buffet restauranteur that I haven't even looked at the news, national or international, for almost an entire week. I'll look forward to sitting down with the Sunday papers the very second I've finished updating this journal.

I'm finding Black Adam's new musical direction difficult to support.

2007-03-11T12:59:00.000-07:00

Those of you with long memories may remember that during my time as the late Mr Dibny's psychiatrist, I developed a fondness for Steve Lombard, who bounced back from that regrettable incident at the New Year to host Lombard's Late Late Lunch Hour, the conceit being that Mr Lombard is so utterly 'wicked chill', in the parlance of the times, that he takes his luncheon at ten o'clock in the evening as preparation for spending the small hours locked in the arms of inebriation and presumably his latest sexual conquest. Thus Lombard is seated at table by a character in chef whites called Alain Kickasse, and proceeds to tear his way through a twenty-ounce steak, served with pommes frites and some of the most unhealthy-looking onion rings I have ever seen, all to the accompaniment of dancing girls, an array of sports bloopers and live music from ZZ Top.

Needless to say, I find it completely fascinating as a snapshot of our current cultural milieu.

During the course of this titanic meal, Lombard presents his view of the current political regime and its opponents using his Freedometer - a sort of sliding scale with a drawing of a capitulating primate at one end and a photo of John Wayne at the other - gives a short precis of the current developments in the sporting arts and provides the viewer with his current pick for 'Ho Of The Show' (this week: Jane Austen). Finally, he invites a guest to his table to share post-prandial cigars. I was expecting perhaps an appearance from Elliott Sadler, who reminds me of Baudrillard as a young man, but the eventual appearance of Black Adam - dressed in a tuxedo as well as his trademark cape - shocked me to the core, considering recent events. It was only last month that Lombard accused Adam in print of being little more than an Egyptian Robbie Williams! I'd have thought that particular hatchet to be uninterrable.

Oh, and also I understand Black Adam's family was murdered by some sort of talking crocodile.

Well, I recorded the show for posterity, as I have long been an afficionado of swing music and all those who turn their hand to it, and I've long been impressed with Black Adam's work in the field. I took the liberty of making a transcript for those reading Ralph's journal - while I know he despised swing and its proponents, he did know both Lombard and Adam, and thus I'm sure he'd have chosen to use the space in this way rather than in yet another rant about the vast sums of money he was owed.

LOMBARD: Compliments to the chef! My left arm is still tingling. Ha ha ha! Ow. Okay, after a meal, what's better than a good cigar? And what's better with a cigar than a little sweet music? Ladies and Gentlemen, it's an honour to welcome onto the show the ruler of Kahndaq, whose fifth album, 'Sphinx Of Swing', comes out two weeks today... Black Adam!

ADAM: Thank you. Thank you very much.

LOMBARD: How do you spell that? Kahndaq? It's two Ks, right?

ADAM: Oh, I can't - can you believe this guy? It's a K and a Q. Hey, say that Robbie Williams thing. Say it to my face, I dare you.

LOMBARD: Can you believe - hey, can you believe this guy? You ain't a Robbie Williams fan?

ADAM: The man is an insult to swing. He's an insult to swing music. I mean, about the time he was making that album, I was punching the Justice Society, and the Flash said to me later he thought I was the better musician. I'd just punched the guy in the face!

LOMBARD: That was after your first album?

ADAM: Yeah, 'The Swing Of Eternity'. I'm kind of embarrassed by that now... I mean, there's so much more I could have done. At the time I was kind of hampered by the whole supervillain thing, I mean, on the one hand, all that time trying to conquer the world, it's time you're not in the studio. Also, people see you hanging out with supervillains, being a supervillain - it hurts sales. I think that's why the fourth album -

LOMBARD: 'Zehuti Frutti'.

ADAM: Yeah. That's why it flopped, because I was with the Society a lot, and the papers were all 'oh, he's a supervillain'...

LOMBARD: Well, it worked for Sinatra.

ADAM: It's a different time now. People don't like it.

LOMBARD: Okay, I'm gonna change the subject a little now... you've had some personal tragedy recently.

ADAM: Yeah. Yeah, this week in fact. Um... I don't know if this got on the news here, but my wife, Queen Isis, and my nephew were, uh... well, they were killed. And in my nephew's case, eaten. By some mad scientist death machines.

LOMBARD: Wow.

ADAM: Yeah.

LOMBARD: How's this affecting the album?

ADAM: Oh, massive changes. Top to bottom. It's going to be delayed. I mean, I've already pretty much gutted the opening track -

LOMBARD: 'You Tear Me Apart'?

ADAM: Yeah, now it's 'I Tear You Apart'. In fact, the whole album, it's not going to be called 'Sphinx Of Swing' anymore. Right now the working title is 'Swinging The Sword Of Horrific Venegeance'. I'm thinking May, June release.

LOMBARD: I know last week, on the phone, you were saying the album was on the theme of hope, kind of about your hopes for a unified world - I guess it's more about horrific vengeance now? Is that specific horrific vengeance, or horrific vengeance against humanity in general?

ADAM: Yeah, it's about total war on humanity now. In fact, I'm kind of declaring pretty much total war on humanity, here, now.

LOMBARD: Wow, on my show?

ADAM: Yeah, yeah, you heard it here first. On Lombard's Late Late Lunchtime. I'm declaring war.

LOMBARD: How about that, folks? Wow, total war. Look, this is going to sound kind of crass, and, y'know, feel free to tear my head off -

ADAM: Go ahead, go ahead. I'm open to criticism on this.

LOMBARD: Look, we had Isis on the show in February as our Valentine's Day Hottie, and she was very much into... her whole political stance seemed to be about not declaring total war on humanity. I mean, she was kind of a liberal. I'm just wondering...

ADAM: All her idea.

LOMBARD: No. Really? Was this before -

ADAM: Her dying wish was for me to declare total war on humanity. I was as surprised as you were. I mean, I guess it's like a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, you know. Anyway, she definitely wanted vengeance, and she didn't really specify against who, so...

LOMBARD: ...so you need to rework the album a little.

ADAM: Right, exactly. I need to change a few things around, but it's still going to be a great album. 'I'm Holding Your Heart In My Hand', you remember, that track I came on and sang last month - that's still on the album. The emphasis is changing slightly, I mean, it's not, y'know, a metaphor any longer, but it's pretty much exactly the same. So yeah, I don't think my fans are going to be disappointed.

LOMBARD: And in the meantime, you've got this war on humanity thing going.

ADAM: Yeah, I'm sorry about that, Steve... I know it's not really what I was booked to talk about, but, you know, the album won't be out until June, and my war starts now, so, you know...

LOMBARD: Adam, you can... I'm flexible, you can come on and talk about whatever you want. Seriously, we love having you here.

ADAM: You're just saying that because of the tearing-in-half thing.

LOMBARD: Aw, come on, I can't - can you believe this guy? Huh? No, we love you, man. I'm even sorry about the Robbie Williams thing. You're more like the Egyptian Scotty Morris.

ADAM: Oh, now you're just flattering me. You're trying to butter me up. I'll kill you last, how's that?

LOMBARD: Can you - seriously, can you believe this guy? Black Adam, ladies and gentlemen. Give him a big hand.

And there you have it.

Personally, I'm somewhat perturbed by this news - it seems that at best, Adam's latest album will have a maudlin quality, and at worst it will tip over into full-on shmaltz. Frankly, as far as the state of modern swing music is concerned, Isis' death couldn't have come at a worse time.

The Daily Planet can evidently do without my subscription.

2007-03-04T05:58:00.000-08:00

There are fewer things more likely to rouse the ire of a man of honour and dignity than seeing his friends dragged through the gutter press when the mortal frames they have left behind them on their trip to the Elysian Fields have barely begun to cool. Imagine, if you can, the towering rage that gripped me at the instant that I espied the following article in Friday's edition of that enduring testament to yellow journalism, the Daily Planet.

It continues in this vein.

"Ralph Dibny's fall from grace was not because he flew through a red sun. For you people. Not that you aren't grateful enough or anything, but I'm noticing there's been a distinct tailing off in visitors to the Superman Statue. Just putting that out there. Maybe if Superman was writing this article, he'd take the time to point out that he's given himself man-tits to save your sorry asses and it might perk him up slightly if he saw a few more people going and spending some time there. There was this one time this old guy in a wheelchair turned up in his WWII uniform and saluted it, and that made my whole weekend. That really made it seem worthwhile. And I'm sure Superman would have felt the same way if he'd seen it.

"We're two different people.

"No, Ralph Dibny's fall from grace was not because he flew through a red sun. It was because of the spectre of mental illness. Harold Chan, 31, was absent the day that Dibny broke into the internet cafe that he works at and attempted to sodomise one of the monitors, but he says that the incident 'still wakes him up in the middle of the night, sweating, in case it happens again while I'm there.'

"This reporter knows what it's like to wake up in the middle of the night, wanting to make a decaf latte with heat vision and then do some light crimfighting. But this reporter never can because he has no superpowers. An experience he shares with Superman. Presumably that's a bit like waking up in the night being afraid that a naked 'detective' will burst into your place of employment and do unspeakable things to the equipment that you have to touch every day. I share his pain, and I'm sure Superman does too despite the total absense of any connection between myself (wears glasses) and Superman (contact lenses).

"What next for Ralph Dibny? Not much, if he's dead. Apart from decomposition, which awaits us all. Even me. Actually, I hadn't thought of that until now. I've got man-tits and I'm going to die. I'm actually going to die. Probably in only sixty years. I might die before Lois, I'm a lot fatter. God, I've got a lower life expectancy than Lois and she used to throw herself out of windows because she didn't have a signal watch. I'm going to be sick.

"Why aren't more of you at the Superman Statue?"

Obviously, I'll be writing a stern letter to the editor, Mr Perry White, and dropping my subscription at once, although frankly it will be a relief to dispense with the Planet after the recent downturn in its journalistic fortunes. Once, Clark Kent was known for groundbreaking stories like "Superman Saves Space Plane", "Superman Gets In A Fight, Again" and "What Superman Had For Breakfast This Morning" - that last one I believe was what won him his Pulitzer. Now, the front page groans under the weight of such Kent-written stories as "I'm Depressed", "Ouch, I Stubbed My Toe" and "Supernova Could Be As Good As Me, I Mean Superman, If He Got Rid Of That Silly Mask And Just Wore An Eyepatch Or Something In His Secret Identity, It Really Works And Nobody Ever Says Anything", which I actually fell asleep halfway through reading.

Confusingly, Mr White is praising Kent to the rooftops on the grounds that the man has conquered new and dizzying heights of writing prowess. This leads me to suspect that the Planet is, and always has been, run less as an actual newspaper and more as some sort of complex corporate insurance scam.

"Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life." - Bertolt Brecht

2007-02-25T05:25:00.000-08:00

To whom it may concern -

Those of you who have been reading this journal since its inception will by now be used to receiving an update from the esteemed Mr Dibny sometime between the hours of Friday noontime and Sunday tiffin, and perhaps will be wondering at my own humble prose taking its place. I'm afraid that, in the event that you are reading this standing up, perhaps using a public telephonic device wired to the global computer network - oh, the marvels of the new age! - I must ask you to seat yourself, preferably with a hot mug of a particularly fortifying tea, made with honey as a bulwark against the terrible shock with which I am about to confound your senses.

This is what I believe is known in vulgar circles as 'a spoiler', as it is likely to spoil your entire day, so if you believe, like Thomas Gray, that where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise, read no further, lest you find yourself also spoiling the fine carpeting beneath your chair with an unstemmable tide of lachrimation, as I did. Who would have thought my own tears could stain a 200-year old persian rug? Yet these are the tiny sorrows which often form upon the heels of great calamities.

Ralph Dibny is dead.

Oh! I promised myself I would not cry again, but as Voltaire so memorably put it, tears are the silent language of grief. My patient is dead, and I grieve! Would that I could cure the cold embrace of the grave as easily as I could cure the tempestuous demons that dwelled within the man's heart and mind! Although on the latter score I must admit to failing dismally, as the man evidently remained a raging, paranoid psychopath until the very instant of his passing. Still, it's the thought that counts, and I would like to believe that he died as he lived, punching people in the face and yelling incoherently.

I was not there to witness his passing, gentle reader. My position is more akin to Watson standing on the Reichenbach Falls and reading a letter contained within a slim cigarette case. Perhaps Mr Dibny is even now climbing up some metaphorical cliff, to spend the next three years dressed as a washerwoman or a hapless stable-boy in a desperate attempt to confound an imaginary gunman. Would that fate were so kind.

This Friday - after two days in which the suspicious absence of ranting phone calls and death treats from my ex-patient had begun to prey on my mind - I received a letter from Mr Dibny reading as follows:

Dear Dr Willis,

I've had a shave. But never mind that.

By the time you read this, I, Ralph Dibny, will be dead.

Dr Fate has informed me that the last hour has finally come, and we'll be firing a chunk of hot lead through my illustrious brainpan in the subtle surroundings of the Tower Of Fate. Apparently the Feng Shui there is really good - we're going to do it up a little with a few floating masks that I'll be blu-tacking pictures of Sue to, and also locking the door so nobody can come in and gawp while I'm trying to do the decent thing. There'll be some wine and cheese too.

The programme so far involves Dr Fate making the pictures of Sue come to life and sort of warble my name, while I have a good cry and a last swig of meths. Then I'm going to put him on my head. I only hope he's washed himself out - I don't want my last smell to be my own crusted flith, but knowing him I'm sure that's exactly what's going to happen.

At that point we're going to have 'Smooth Criminal' by Michael Jackson playing, and I might just bust a quick move as a final homage to his brilliant dance style.

Anyway, after that it's time to pull the trigger and send that bullet tearing into the greatest brain the world has ever known, and after that it's daquiris with Sue beyond the grave, maybe a little light dancing, some mussels, we'll just take it slowly and see what happens.

I understand that Ollie's had that doorway to the afterlife bricked up, so I'll never be seeing you again. This would probably be a good opportunity to tell you that, while I have admittedly always despised you, I have a great deal of respect for your abilities as a psychiatrist.

Yes, it probably would be. But unfortunately I can't tell you that as you're a massive quack and you suck completely at psychiatry and everything else.

You suck, Dr Willis.

Anyway, I do have some slight misgivings about this whole shooting-myself-in-the-head thing - one, my stretch powers are completely back, to the extent that my head is so rubbery the bullet is likely to pass safely all the way through without doing any damage at all. Which means I'm going to have to trick someone into killing my ass in an incredibly ironic magical fashion. Which is going to be a total chore.

Two, I'm pret-ty sure that the guy I'm with is just a Dr Fate, instead of the Dr Fate, if you see what I mean. For one thing he uses the bathroom when he comes over, which disembodied floating helmets don't generally do. Also, I've heard him say things like "HA HA HA soon my evil plans will bear the sweetest fruit of all!" and then catch himself and pretend that he was just coughing, and when he coughs it sounds like the words 'evil plans'. And helmets don't cough either. No throats.

So - worst case scenario - I pull the trigger, the bullet tears the helmet right off mewithout damaging my head in the slightest, leaving it wobbling like a plate of jelly while a big mass of deformed gold smacks into the wall. And then Despero falls out and says it was him all along. It's going to be Despero in disguise, I just know it.

How embarrassing is that going to be? Jesus.

The only thing I can think of to do in that situation is what I usually do, which is lie and pretend I totally meant that to happen all along. Like, instead of a real gun, it's a magic crime-solving gun, and how I always knew Despero's secret plan was to take over the universe. I might even mention a few proper detective phrases, like 'dusting for prints' or 'checking the carpet for hairs'. Once I get started, I can keep it up for hours. That's why I, Ralph Dibny - I've said it before, and I'll say it again - am, or was, the World's Greatest Detective! In your face, Batman, you truth-telling beeeyotch.

Actually I suppose Batman can have that one back now if he wants to put his pina colada down for five seconds and solve a crime.

Anyway, from then on, I'll probably wing it and hope somebody turns up who can suicide me despite the whole rubber-body thing. Like maybe Despero has a space ray or something, or an Independance Day style flying saucer will turn up and blow the whole tower to pieces - something like that. The most important thing is to pretend it was my idea all along and that I am totally the puppet master who controls the strings of everyone's lives with my awesome brain. The world must remember me as The Greatest Human Being Ever To Stalk The Earth, and I figure defeating Despero and his alien hordes will do it.

So for Christ's sake don't go putting this letter on the internet. Okay? Good.

If I don't come barging in later today to punch you with my new extending arms, then I've succeeded beyond my wildest dreams and am dead as a doornail. So you can forget about ever getting any fees out of me - in fact, I've arranged for the $1,800 plus tax I still owe you for treatment to be burned in front of your face, while a crowd of small children point and laugh. You grotesque charlatan.

Yours sincerely,
I sincerely despise you with every fibre of my being,
Ralph William Dibny

P.S. Get Wonder Woman to cry over my gravestone. If they won't build me a gravestone without a body, use my wife's. If you can't get Wonder Woman, try Mary Marvel. If you can't get her... I don't know, Bea or someone. But I want a Dibny tomb and beautiful women weeping going together in some kind of formation. Make it happen.
P.S.S. You're not getting paid for that so don't ask.

And there you have it. The world is a poorer place now, though there is one more star in the heavens to shine the light of true heroism upon us. Ralph may have had certain flaws in his character, especially if the Time Magazine 'Top Ten Greatest Monsters Of History' poll is to be believed, but, as Jesus of Nazareth so eloquently put it, let he who is without sin cast the first stone. In fact, I believe Mr Dibny lived his life by that very doctrine, given that he threw a number of rocks at me on one occasion whilst screaming that his soul was as white as a lamb.

He will be missed.

As a mark of respect for the passing of a valued patient and treasured friend, I will be continuing this journal for the next ten weeks - the traditional period of bereavement as detailed in Joseph Campbell's lesser work, The Baboon With A Thousand Snouts - and will endeavour to keep to the schedule of weekly updates on various matters that he laid down, as well as dealing with any comments you might have. Please treat the "comments section" of this very "post", as I believe the young people have it, as your own Book Of Condolences, the better to record your emotions on the falling of this extraordinary man under the whirling blades of Death's ignoble thresher.

Yours lost in a black mist of grief,

Dr Robert Amersham Willis, Phd.

I'm Fat-Packed With Decency, Mr Bitch

2007-02-17T06:03:00.000-08:00

So anyway, Dr Willis called and reminded me that the folks at the Haven have been waiting for me to solve a mystery there for... about six months now. You'd have thought they'd have found somebody else, but apparently when they finally managed to contact Batman in some resort somewhere he said that - and I quote - "that's merely the most, fellows, but way-out mysteries aren't my bag of jive anymore! From now on, this groovy Bat-baby is just going to swing - swing - swing!"

Apparently he also claimed that the pretty girls were blossoming like flowers, it was delicious, and that he dug this day. So evidently Batman is out of the race for a while.

On the one hand, it was a golden opportunity to show the world the power of Dibny. On the other hand, I'm a man in a hurry. I need to blow my own head off sometime soon - I've got it scheduled for next week, maybe Wednesday - and before then I need to do that scavenger hunt quest pilgramage magic doodad thing with Dr Fate, so I can sucker him into getting on my head before I ram a bullet through it. Oh yes, Dr Fate is going down with me, make no mistake about that! Cunning, thy name is Dibny.

Anyway, I was in a hurry to do things like get my affairs in order and send a box of my own fecal matter to Time Magazine, so I may... and I stress the word may... I may have done a rush job. Or a semi-rush job. Perhaps.

Let us purely hypothetically say that you can fool anybody into believing anything if you're wearing a trenchcoat.

Scratches on a camera lens? Teleportation microcircuitry, baby. A stain on the floor? Hardly. A puddle of nano-disassemblers designed to reduce a man to his component atoms and ferry him between the molecules of the walls to sweet freedom. What's that you say? Your guy vanished out of a locked, sterilised room with nothing in it but him, not even a door? Boom Tube. You never heard a sound? Shhh Tube. It's new. "Shove it under a microscope!" I scream at them. Of course, even under a microscope they don't know teleportation microcircuitry from their own anus, but they nod and pay me a thousand bucks anyway. That's why I'm the World's Greatest Detective, my friend, fancy jet car or no fancy jet car.

What can I say? I was on a roll, and I felt like grabbing me a silver wheel of Nyorlath - Dr Fate had been badgering me about it for days - so I figured it would be the work of a single second to divine its exact whereabouts with my incredible cerebral skills.

Now, what has wheels? Ambulances. All ambulances have wheels, it's a fact. Show me one that doesn't. And where do ambulances drive to and from all day? Hospitals, where people recover from debilitating accidents and injuries - often with the use of wheelchairs! WHEELS! Do you see? Ambulances also visit asylums - asylums much like the one I was in! Coincidence? I think not.

"Who have you got in a chair?" I bellowed. The Doctor seemed stunned - stunned by the breadth of my intellect.

"W-what do you mean?"

"Bring me your most unfortunate chair-guy! This instant! Come on, these people work with giant killer robots, are you telling me there isn't a crushed spine in the bunch? Not even a dislocated hip? Guy in a chair! Now! Do it!" And then I sprung the scratched-lens trick on him so he'd have no doubt that I was a mind far, far beyond his ken.

So ten seconds later I was in Professor Milo's Prisoner-style two-up-two-down. He didn't know me from Adam - Adam Strange, that is - and frankly, I had no idea who he was so I made something up. If you drop Batman's name, any crap you spout has instant validity, although now that he's digging this day I may have to switch to Superman or J'onn J'onnz or somebody to work that particular trick.

Anyway, I figure he's in a home for science-crooks and he's all magicked up with the wheel of Zardoz or whatever, so it's time to break out 'technomancer' and take it for a spin. That's part of what I call my 'Dibny Dialect' - words that mean absolutely nothing but have the absolute air of convincingness that a detective needs when he's trying to con the marks out of their hard-earned cash. And then, while he was reeling with the feeling of having his technomantric crimes exposed to the world, I tore the wheel right off his chair! In the name of justice!

Oh, he played a good game, the big faker. He even lost control of his bowels, as though that was going to convince anyone. It was all I could do not to burst out laughing there and then. And then the guy running the place - Mr Dewhurst, although he might as well call himself Mr I Have A Severe Mental Problem And Can't See A Fake Cripple When One Is Lying In Front Of Me With His Pants Filled With His Own Wretched Feces - went and ran to help him up like the rube he was. He even asked me if I had any decency at all!

I think we all know the answer to that question by now, Mr Dewhurst.

Anyway, I nearly pissed myself laughing. I had to get out of there or I was going to collapse into a fit of the giggles. Only Dr Fate rained on my parade as usual - "the final hour is at last upon us", he smirked, like he couldn't wait until I was pulling the trigger. Well, screw you, Dr Fate. You can wait until next week like everybody else.

Also, it turned out Dr Fate had already picked up the silver wheel of thingy at a jumble sale. Turns out Professor Milo's wheelchair was just made in Greece. So that was kind of a blow.

Oh well. It was still funny.

Oh yeah, and my nose seems to be twitching again. Hopefully I'll actually be able to shoot myself next week, because if my superpowers come back and the bullet bounces out of my head and into a pram or something I am going to be p-i-s-s-e-d.

Dr Irons Needs To Get Off My Television Right Now

2007-02-11T13:26:00.000-08:00

Seriously, let's assume you'd almost single-handedly brought down one of the largest and most deadly cases of corporate corruption in modern history, while wearing nothing but a pair of sweatpants, and in the process you'd won a fearsome battle with a ruthless business leader with Superman's powers, despite getting a hole the size of an axe handle right through one kidney. What is the first thing you'd do in that situation? Is it, by any chance, call for a god-damned ambulance?

Or would you in fact - ignoring the fact that your spleen was even at that moment attempting a break for freedom through the ragged hole in your gut - stand on a ledge, look out over an adoring crowd and shill your new weight-loss manual "I'll Diet With A Hammer In My Hand"? Hmmm? I wonder.

He's not even a Doctor of Nutrition. He got his Phd building superguns and 'accidentally' selling them to crack fiends. That doesn't make him an expert on weight loss, even if he did run a hospital for about five seconds back in the nineties. The myth-copying tard. Also, Dr Irons, there's no point telling the cameras how you shed the pounds and got your fantastically ripped torso if the cameras are pointing at the immense hole in said torso the whole time. I paid $4.99 for a burrito that I was then unable to eat because I'd stared for too long at your bloody insides. Is that part of your diet plan? Or do I get to sue you for mental distress?

Anyway, it seems like you can't go two days without flicking on the TV and seeing that guy propped up in his hospital bed saying that YOU - yes, YOU - can take just ten short minutes out of your day to 'Hammercise' the flab away, while chowing down on a precise mix of pure fruit sugars and wholegrains that will leave YOU feeling as if YOU could out-pound a steam-driven hammering machine from before civil rights were invented. And then die. Of heroism!

"And the best place to get that precise mix is in a tasty Steelworks Brand Captain Tommy's Hominy Crunch Bar. You can trust the Captain! I understand he loved John Henry like a son or something. I don't know, I'm a weapons designer, I don't have time to listen to folk music, I'm too busy 'accidentally' dropping a gigantic energy rifle capable of destroying Milwaukee next to a skeevy-looking guy in a beanie hat with an immense gold chain and a ghetto blaster. And then coincidentally picking up a briefcase full of money. With no connection between the two events. Did I mention my girlfriend's in jail for aiding and abetting a known killer?"

"When the trains roll past YOUR grave, will they say 'there lies a steel-drivin' man?' Or will they say 'there lies an obese bitch?' IT'S UP TO YOU. I'm Dr John Irons and I approve this message!"

Those weren't his exact words, but I can read between the lines. Needless to say, Time Magazine absolutely adores the man.

Who Could Have Dreamed That A Green Plastic Ring I Found At The Bottom Of An Ancient Box Of Cracker Jack Could Possibly Snap So Easily?

2007-02-02T23:39:00.000-08:00

I'll have you know that Dr Fate - who knows a thing or two about Fate - thought that that ring could withstand the crushing neck pressure of a hundred insane rearing sea beasts, never mind just the one! Unless he was being sarcastic. But it's still on him! All of those deaths! The disrupted shipping! Pitcairn Island digested - Japan all but wiped from the face of the Earth by a rampaging undersea horror's vengeance-crazed wrath - none of it can be pinned on me, so in your face, Time Magazine! I'm not the 'New Osama' by any stretch! Nor am I a 'serial killer to rival the Joker, if he used criminal negligence instead of an acid-squirting flower'! This libel - this unfounded, slanderous libel - it will not stand in a court of law or anywhere else, particularly not under the sea where I'm justly feared as the bringer of destruction! Not with any cause, mind you, but still. Just watch yourself, Time Magazine. That's all I'm saying. I mean, sure, maybe I did swap a magically unbreakable chain with a plastic doodad that was made in Taiwan sometime during the late seventies. And maybe - and I'm just going to run this one up the flagpole - maybe I could find another magically unbreakable chain somewhere. With a monster on the other end. Somewhere. Somewhere close to your offices. Hypothetically. If, say, you don't collectively shut your fat face. In a hypothetical manner. There are a lot of old boxes of Cracker Jack in the world, Time Magazine. An awful lot. Just... just thought I'd mention that. Nobody wants another Tokyo, Time Magazine. Well, the Japanese do, the one they originally had was eaten, but you know what I'm saying.

Don't go printing that. That was off the record.

Like you will be.

Time Magazine.

Anyway! I digress. Dr Fate dropped by early in the week to continue the pilgrimage. Apparently he's been in therapy for a few weeks, and whatever ridiculous overstuffed quack is currently funnelling money out of the poor sap decided that the best way to heal is to build bridges with friend and enemy alike. That will feed some much-needed chicken soup to his soul bird or something ridiculous.

Frankly, I thought I was done with tooling around one mystic realm after another with him acting like a decapitated tourist guide, but whatever. It wasn't like I had anything better to do, and the computer in the Ralphcave doesn't have any games on it unless you count that weird computer simulation where you play a six-year-old boy and you have to input tactical strategies to prevent the deaths of a random-looking rich couple in an alley somewhere. That one kind of creeps me out a little.

Anyhow, I figured I could always shoot myself later. A mystical scavenger hunt in the forgotten ruins of Fair Atlantis was just what I needed to perk myself up a little, and Dr Fate was in a remarkably chatty mood.

I've got to admit, though, I had a chill run down my spine myself when I thought for one horrible second that Aquaman had become a zombie. That would have been a really hard thing for me to deal with, especially since fire doesn't work so well underwater, but that thankfully wasn't the case - he was just half out of his mind on LSD and sitting on a rock in his dressing gown dribbling like the unfortunate lunatic he's evidently become. Dr Fate even got away with calling him 'magician' and I know for a fact he hates any mention of that Donovan song. Tough break, but better than being a tragic corpse refashioned into a cruel parody of human life - am I right, Ollie? Hmmm?

Anyway, he managed to help us out and it looked like our undersea antiquing was going to come to a successful conclusion, thanks to a little assistance from Sailor Jack and a plastic ring he happened to leave in a box of peanut and popcorn candy. Or so we thought.

Yes. So we thought.

It's not my fault what happened to Italy. Dr Fate said with his own lack of a mouth that it was a 'well chosen' plastic trinket. If he's going to make deadpan cracks like that instead of shouting 'Jesus Christ Ralph what are you doing it's plastic!!?!' then frankly, he should take the blame.

Anyway, that's what I screamed at him after all the carnage was finally over and they'd managed to fire the beast into the Sun. To which he replied that he wished he'd never laid eyes on me and he wished he'd never laid eyes on his therapist either and we should both just shut up shut up shut up shut up!!!

So I guess the soul bird is going hungry today.

The Undead Will Feel My Wrath

2007-01-28T08:35:00.000-08:00

After last week my comments section was plagued, literally, by wave after wave of zombies - including Booster, that grotesque shambling abomination, who evidently faked his own death to lust after whorish fame even more and is now making scurrilous accusations about things I allegedly did that never, ever happened, and even if they did I was drunk at the time.

I've taken it upon myself to rid the world of this plague of evil. I'll be doing it without the help of Dr Fate, who seems to have switched his allegiance from noble order to unholy chaos by refusing to pick up the phone, but those zombies should be no match for me, Ralph Dibny, saver of souls, especially when I have zombie-destroying fire on my side!

The first to feel the blazing torch of righteousness will be Hal, since he's fairly close - unless Coast City's on the other coast, I can never remember - but then I'll be setting the torch to Ollie, Booster, Rex, Swamp Thing and anyone else I can think of who has been dead and now isn't. You heard it here first, zombie scum! Ralph Dibny is here to take a bite out of your zombie ways before you take a bite out of an innocent civilian's brain. I know you're thinking about it.

Also, I need to change my email address because these round-robin emails are really starting to pile up, especially from the Question:

From: questionauthority@fightthepower.emo.com
To: worldfamouselongatedman@lexmail.org
22/01/07 11:23

Dear Everybody,

Feel... cough... worsening. Everything's... starting to grow dim. Is... is that you, God? I'm cold... so cold. Oh Danny Boy... the pipes, the pipes are calling... from glen to glen... oh, I can't type anymore, I'm too weak.

This will be my last communication.

Yours,
The Question

---

From: questionauthority@fightthepower.emo.com
To: worldfamouselongatedman@lexmail.org
23/01/07 9:48

Dear Everybody,

I was just thinking about who would carry on my legacy as a faceless crime crusher. Obviously Montoya is available, but she's dragging me up a mountain instead of crushing crime so I'm starting to think she might not be up to the task. She says hi.

Also, my vision is blurring and I think I see angels overhead... is... is that you... um... whatsername... daughter of my ex-lover whose name I forget? I'm sorry I forgot your name, it was a long time ago... My... heart... no... longer... beating... my last words are 'Question the power of The Man'... urrrrgh...

This will be my last communication.

Yours,
The Question

--

From: questionauthority@fightthepower.emo.com
To: worldfamouselongatedman@lexmail.org
24/01/07 16:10

Dear Everybody,

Mustn't. Black. Out.

This will be my last communication.

Yours,
The Question

--

From: questionauthority@fightthepower.emo.com
To: worldfamouselongatedman@lexmail.org
25/01/07 20:38

Dear Everybody,

Today we were ambushed by Nazis and I heroically hurled myself off my deathbed and onto a grenade to save Montoya's life, while shouting 'This one's for you, Sergeant Rock!' It was absolutely f***ing radical and I wish there'd been someone there to see it, but unfortunately I didn't die after all and now my entire body is riddled with shrapnel and also cancer. Added a new word to my delerious ramblings yesterday - 'butterflies'. Feedback is good, so I might craft my last words around that.

So cold. So very cold. Is that you, William Howard Taft, 27th President and 103rd Chief Justice of the United States? I thought it might be... feel... brain... exploding... urrrrggghhh...

Oh Danny Boy... the pipes... the... pipes... are... actually those are rubbish last words. I need to think of something better.

Don't... do... drugs... aaaaarrrrrgggghhhhh...

Yours,
The Question

P.S. This will be my last communication.

--

From: questionauthority@fightthepower.emo.com
To: worldfamouselongatedman@lexmail.org
26/01/07 08:01

Dear Everybody,

Montoya started crying again this morning. I'm the one who's dying of cancer, lady. Self-absorbed or what? I don't know. And she's been bogarting all the morphine.

In other news, I'm so cold. Is... is that you, Professor Rodor? Probably, you're an old man and there's certainly no need for you to stick around if I'm going to bite it. Urrrrgh, lungs filling with blood, lymph glands bursting, blah blah blah. Oh Danny Boy. I can feel death's cold hand closing about me... I... I can see an assemblage of great heroes... like Blue Beetle and the old Captain Atom and Judomaster, who's probably dead since I know for a fact he's been replaced by a chick.

What... what's that you say, Blue Beetle? It's... it's my time? But... so hard to let go... urrrgh... must... find strength... to mumble... my last words...

When... when you stand... for what you believe in... and find the strength... to do... what's right... that's... turtle power... urrrrrrrgggghhh...

This will be my last communication.

Yours,
The Question

--

From: questionauthority@fightthepower.emo.com
To: worldfamouselongatedman@lexmail.org
27/01/12:42

Dear Everybody,

I've had a brilliant idea! I'm going to make Montoya drag me around in the shape of a big question mark just before I buy the farm. Also I might get her to put my mask on, but I'm in two minds about that since it could muffle my historic final words. I'll just rip it off if that happens. Oh yeah, plus I'm definitely knocking that 'Danny Boy' crap on the head now and going with the butterfly metaphor I've been working up. Plus I've told her to lay on the waterworks. I want history to see me at my most wise and mentorly.

This is going to be great!

Blah blah I feel cold, aeeeeeiiiigh, what... what is this skeletal face I see before me... gassssssp... is it... the visage... of... death...? Moooooaaaaannn... uurrrrggghhh...

Don't do drugs!

This will be my last etc,

Yours,
The Question.

That was the last one I saw. I've got one new message in my inbox today, but I don't dare to look at it.

You Zombie Bastards

2007-01-21T12:08:00.000-08:00

Oh, I see. So it's like that, is it? No sooner to I buy a fat wreath with the word 'Remembrance' picked out in lillies, get my suit drycleaned and book another flight to San Diego than I get another round-robin email from Ellen. It's a similar story of getting a mysterious feeling from the depths of space, only this time it was a feeling that Buddy, while having been dead, was now mysteriously alive for some reason and so the funeral wouldn't be on Thursday after all.

Thanks, Buddy, you monumental asshole.

It's bad enough you bore everybody with your fantastically dull 'abduction story' every chance you get, but now you can't even have the common decency to stay in your grave and be buried. It's not even the first time you've done this either - I remember getting a letter from Ellen saying you'd been run over by a car and then another one the same day saying that you'd hatched out of an egg or something and there was no need to panic. Well hear this, you dying-and-coming-back-to-life bitch - if you ever, ever come back to this planet I will shoot you myself and state in my defense that I figured you'd just come right back to life again. Also, you now owe me $112.60 in total. I suggest taking on the abilities of a mink and then selling your own hair.

In other coming-back-to-life news, I've received an email from somebody calling himself goforthegold@timemasters.kandor asking if I've seen Skeets lately and could I let him know if I do. I really hope this doesn't mean what I think it means.

However, if Booster is somehow alive - I can only assume alive in the form of a rotting zombie eternally cursed to walk in unbearable pain, or I hope so anyway - I'm telling him right now that I will not rest until he's back in his grave where he belongs, and I'll be calling on my good friend and ex-therapist Dr. Robert Amersham Willis, Phd, AKA Supernova, to tear his shambling undead corpse into its component pieces and stuff it into some kind of medical waste bin. So do yourself a favour and cremate yourself now, Booster Corpse.

And that goes for the rest of you maggot-infested scum! The next person who comes back to life I will personally send right back into the depths of Hell, especially you, Barry, you freak of nature. I, Ralph Dibny, have no problem with being the guardian who stands firm at the doors between life and death if that's what it takes to save me the cost of another plane ticket. No problem at all.

Oh yes, and if anyone talks to Ollie, you haven't seen me for months, I'm not living in a cave with a giant penny in it and you definitely, definitely don't know who took a whizz on the Mayoral Portrait and anyway I was miles away in Gotham when I did it so it couldn't have been me.

Okay? Super.

Ellen Has A "Feeling"

2007-01-13T06:33:00.000-08:00

I got an email from Ellen Baker - apparently she had a 'feeling' that came to her from the general direction of space, and she started crying in the middle of doing the laundry and then her kids came out to ask if there was any jelly left or had they eaten it all.

So obviously Buddy is dead.

As opposed to being alive in deep space which is what she claimed he was before despite all evidence to the contrary. Frankly, I was perfectly okay with all that because it meant I wouldn't have to spend any money on getting my suit cleaned for the funeral or buying flowers, but now because Mrs Baker's had one of her 'cryptic space feelings' I have to go to the drycleaners again and buy a wreath.

Personally, I think the fact that I had to go to her funeral should absolve me from attending Buddy's. We're all standing about in the pissing rain listening to him fall apart and then a week later he calls me up and acts surprised when I mention it. "Actually, that was all just a dream, Ralph! I guess you were having a dream too. Or something. Ciao for now!"

I'll tell you who wasn't having a strange dream, Buddy. My drycleaner! Who charged me $15.99 for services rendered during the course of that strange dream! And the florist! And the greeting card store! And who do you think bought that nice headstone? I put five bucks into the hat like everyone else! So in total your unpleasant dream cost me $89.99 plus tax. I hope Ellen's got time between sobbing tears of pure portent to write me a juicy check.

I had what I considered a frank and civilised discussion with Buddy about it at the time, but apparently I yelled at him so loudly that it frightened him into a parallel-universe coma. Which is Buddy all over, quite frankly.

Or was.

Oh well! It's only a space feeling, after all. I'm sure he's fine. And it's not like there isn't a dry-cleaning machine in the Ralphcave that I can use for free (it's just next to the robot tyrannosaur) so I only really have to spend money on flowers.

Anyway, it's not like a proper superhero died! When Superman died they started a whole bunch of tasteless internet jokes about it. Well, actually, that was me... anyway, I don't see why I should be feeling upset just because Buddy's kicked the bucket - and probably only as part of some odd dream I'm having, knowing him.

I mean, it's... it's only Buddy.

I'm sorry, I'm going to have to sign off for a while. Or possibly forever, depending on whether I can find a chupa chup for the gun barrel. Ciao for now!

How Dare They

2007-01-07T07:39:00.000-08:00

"HOW DARE THEY??" I screamed into the microphone. "HOW DARE THEY?!? They've made a mockery of what the Steve Lombard New Year Funbag Dance Party is supposed to represent! A mockery of a parody of a sham! GET BACK IN THE SKY, YOU SCUM!! Get back in the sky or so help me I'll sue each and every one of your families into the gutter where they belong!!"

Hasty words that I now regret.

That was probably the low part of the New Year broadcast, to be frank, and despite Steve's courageous attempts to contain the damage by cutting off 'Down To Earth' by Curiosity Killed The Cat in mid-song and replacing it with 'I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow' by The Soggy Bottom Boys, the complaints kept coming in like a tidal wave of bile.

Apparently GBS's complaints department received more calls than the emergency services this New Year's, which considering the circumstances is saying something, although frankly I'm convinced that that was more to do with the abysmal performance of the Skysoaring Neverplummet Dance Troupe than my own tiny blunder. The clue's in the name, guys. I tell you, if Dr Invulnerable hadn't smashed into a substance resembling Chunky Italian-style Pasta Sauce on contact with the hard concrete eighty stories below him, he would be so fired right now.

Anyway, as you can probably guess, I was shown the door, Steve Lombard was fired and it doesn't look like I'm going to be a respected talking head for anybody anytime soon, what with Newstime rushing out that 'Most Hated Man Of 2007 Already' edition with my face all over it. I had a call from the Flash Museum telling me the 'Ralph Room' has been ritually cleansed with fire and another one from my gold statue people telling me that they're building a new statue from base lead showing me pointing at a dead superhero and laughing, with the inscription 'Here Lies Earth's Wickedest Mortal', and it's all going on my bill.

So the suicide thing is on hold until the heat dies down a little - obviously Sue is the number one thing on my mind (or suing people is, anyway, which is almost the same thing) but Hitler shot himself too and I really don't need any more feature articles comparing me with him right now. Seven is enough.

The only real blow was being evicted from my apartment by the landlord - on account of being 'a low-down crumb' apparently - and having to move to Gotham to escape angry mobs. Now I find myself living in a cave, like Osama, and looking out at the fabulous mansions nearby with a terrible envy as I type this journal on my laptop. Actually there's some incredibly good wi-fi in this cave for some reason. It almost makes up for the vermin problem.

Anyway, I hope you had a Happy New Year, and you didn't get too much blood on you. I know my shoes were ruined. That's $100 the City of Metropolis owes me, not that I expect them to pay, the cheap bastards.

Deadman Was Dead

2006-12-30T18:32:00.000-08:00

To begin with - there was no doubt whatsoever about that. The register of his burial was signed by Superman, Batman, the Phantom Stranger and Ultra, the Multi-Alien. I signed it: and my name was good for anything I put my hand to. Deadman was as dead as a door-nail.

So why in Christ's ass he chose to shove his face through my door-knocker - the brand new door-knocker I'd just purchased for $49.99 plus tax, in order to spruce up my home in time for the inevitable wake that would follow my plunge into the icy depths below the Keystone Bridge - I will never know. It's not like he was ever particularly good-looking anyway, so why he thought his hideous features would improve the look of my property is beyond me.

Anyway, once I saw his horrific fizzog tarnishing the valuable metal of my door with ectoplasm, I knew I was probably in for some sort of lecture, so I got a quick meths in while I could. Sure enough, the deceased bastard burst through the wall in a self-consciously 'spooky' manner and proceeded to ramble on for several hours about the true meaning of Christmas and how if I failed to listen to his interminable warnings then an eternity of lugging around some heavy chains would be mine.

"Bah! Humbug!" I snorted, taking another swig of meths. "This is quite obviously a plot by a cosmic space supervillain to ruin my elegant suicide with Christmas-based foolery. There's more of Grayven than of grave about you, whatever you are!" But no matter how I tried to duck out of it, it seemed as though I was doomed to spend my Christmas Eve being moaned at by a ghostly trapeze artist and a trio of other assorted dead freaks. There was nothing for it but to finish my bottle of meths and steel myself for the worst.

Sure enough, the worst came strutting through the door in a red and pink suit. Oh Christ, I thought, it's the Red Bee.

"Ha ha! I'm the Ghost Of Christmas Past - the Red Bee! How kitschy is that? Heee-yuck! Look, I wore pink stripy tights! I fought crime with the aid of a pet bee named Michael! Ho ho! Go on, look at me! Aren't I fabulously post-ironic and filled with retro goodness? Don't you find me oh so amusing and hip, Ralph? Don't you? Don't you? Don't you??" But answer came there none as the mere sight of the Red Bee had already bored me to sleep.

"Wake up, Ralph! Am I not both hilariously rubbish and also indicative of a gentler and more innocent age of superherodom?" he mewled, waving one of his stripey legs at me and then cavorting about the room like some kind of bee-based Timothy Claypole.

"No, Red Bee." At those harsh words the spectre collapsed into a mass of ectoplasmic tears (which spattered all over the carpet - a further $29.99 dry-cleaning costs added to Deadman's bill) and flung himself into a corner.

"All I wanted was a scrap of legitimacy!" sobbed the spirit. "I thought that my post-death status as an ironic, cult joke superhero would make me popular - but now everyone's sick of hearing my name! And I've somehow managed to inspire some descendant to start using robot bees to fight crime as some sort of post-post-post-ironic commentary on my failed life! When will it ever end?" My heart was softened slightly by the ghost's anguish until I remembered that he was a whining little bitch.

"Bah! Humbug!" I shouted, tossing the plastic bottle that had once contained deliciously purple fluid at his ghostly face. But he had already left, the snivelling bee-based tool not even having the gumption to show me a heartbreaking tableaux of how the lonely child Ralph Dibny had first learned to spurn Christmas. As I remembered, I had begged for my parents to make me a gigantic cardboard sign to wear on my back, so that everyone would know that I was the World Famous Ralph Dibny. But instead 'Santa' had brought me a shiny red bicycle! How dare he! I immediately called a press conference to burn that bicycle on the front lawn, although my accursed mother stole the limelight by bursting into tears in front of the cameras. Clever work, Mother, but who's hogging the spotlight now? I'm the World's Greatest Detective and you're rotting in a pine box! Advantage Ralph!

Anyway, the next of the three Christmas spirits was due, presumably the Ghost Of Christmas Present, and I was drumming my fingers waiting for the whole charade to be over with. But I was shocked to find not one spook but two barging through my door - and even more shocked to see that they were those young turks Firestorm and the Atom, translucent and laden with ghostly chains!

"Are you two the Ghosts Of Christmas Present?" I asked in wonderment. Ryan Choi shook his head mournfully.

"No, that was supposed to be the Question, but he's dragging his own death out a bit. The drama queen."

"What?? Poor Tiny Charlie, at death's door?" The words I had spoken earlier to my idle nephew - "I hope that bastard the Question dies of cancer or something" - came back to haunt me. I blushed to my roots. Of course I had meant that I hoped he died of cancer or something after he paid the $10 he owed me, but it was too late now for taking back hasty words.

"Yes!" shouted the ghostly, fiery face of Jason Rusch. "Although it is a rare form of cancer which could be cured by the application of a truly enormous turkey, if only someone was filled enough with the Spirit Of Christmas to buy such a bird!" He looked at me balefully. For some reason.

"We are the Ghosts Of Christmas Future!" moaned Choi, rattling his chains.

"But neither of you are dead!"

"In the future, we will be!" sobbed the Atom. "We will be mercilessly killed within the next five years and replaced with the white Atom and the white Firestorm." Too emotionally overwrought to continue, he collapsed into an armchair, wiping his tears with a copy of The Oxford Book Of Scientific Quotations.

"Our one comfort is that at least we're both men. So we won't be sexually assaulted first." murmured Firestorm, blowing his nose on a billowing sleeve.

"But the worst of all fates is reserved for you, Ralph Dibny! Heed well!" The Atom's ghostly fingers waggled in the air, conjuring up misty visions of the near future...

I squinted. There was a figure in the mist. He wore a purple costume, as I once had, and a leather jacket with a giant E on it, along with an earring and a goatee beard. Somehow I knew - though I knew not how - that he was a huge fan of now, happening musicians like Eminem and possibly Limp Bizkit. As I watched the tattooed young person flip his skateboard into Desaad's wrinkly face - the face emblematic of 'The Man' that this cool new hero existed only to flip the bird to - a youthful voice came to my ears:

"Like, grody, dude! This Big Kahuna, Darkseid, is most totally heinous - or my name isn't The Elongated Beeeyotch! Westsiiide!"

"Yes, Ralph Dibny!" howled Firestorm, his head flaring up like the fires of hell. "You have been shot through the head and replaced with an extreme skateboarder as the controversial prelude to a galaxy-spanning cosmic event that will redefine our whole universe for the Noughties! And all because you thought Christmas was rubbish."

"Oh, Spirits!" I wept, "Tell me I may sponge the self-consciously hip graffiti from this wall!" But I was once more alone in the room. I was shocked to see the time - why, it was Sunday afternoon! The Spirits had done all their work in one week! Causing me to miss Christmas entirely. Nice work, Deadman, you bleached tit. You'll be hearing from my lawyer.

But just because I have no Christmas Spirit hardly means I won't be observing New Year's! In fact Steve Lombard has graciously allowed me to choose the tunes for his New Year's Funbag Dance Party Show at the stroke of midnight on GBS! I'm confident that my mix of "It's Raining Men" by the Weathergirls, "Free Falling" by Tom Petty and "Down To Earth" by Curiosity Killed The Cat will fit this New Year perfectly, and the Superhuman Skysoaring Neverplummet Dance Troupe performing above the GBS building will make quite an impact on those watching below!

See you there, everybody, and Happy New Year from Ralph Dibny!

This Will Be My FINAL Final Journal Entry

2006-12-22T08:13:00.000-08:00

Well, I was all set to launch into the most glamorous suicide of all by using the Flash's Cosmic Treadmill to project myself back to the beginning of time and be blown up in the Big Bang itself - which may coincidentally have meant that the entire universe would have been remade in my image, which can't be bad - but then I got a look at the broom closet they're remembering me with, and I just can't be bothered. What is the point? I ask you. What is the point of doing anything when these miserable skinflints won't even spring for a proper room to remember it by?

I don't know. You work hard all your life solving bizarre mysteries - you slave and you slave for a pack of freaks and scum who wouldn't give you the time of day if you didn't wear a giant sign on your back proclaiming you the World-Famous Elongated Man - and at the end of your illustrious career, what do you have left? Nothing. A few cabinets. A picture that doesn't even show your good side. And one measly gold statue. One.

That whole room should have been gold! That should have been the Elongated Man Museum Of Elongation and they should have given Barry that pokey little piece of nothing to store his pathetic so-called 'trophies' in, rather than trying to cage my magnificence in that grim hovel they call 'The Ralph Room'. 'The Ralph Room'! The sheer gaucheness of it all.

Barry would have agreed with that idea. Barry was a true friend, and besides he had a martyr complex a mile wide. Look at how he killed himself. There's a glorious suicide for you- another example of how he callously stole my thunder every step of the way. The filth. He wasn't worthy of my greatness and neither is his ridiculous excuse for a museum. I gave them the contents of my storage locker in good faith after their promised to create a shrine to the beauty and grace of Ralph Dibny. And what do they do? They piss on me. I gave them my best gun and they put it in a silver display case with a placard that reads 'This is the gun which the World-Famous Elongated Man once contemplated snuffing out the awesome brilliance, like unto a thousand suns, that was his mortal existence'.

A silver display case.

There's a golden display case for Barry's cowl and that's just a shabby old bit of red cloth filled with dandruff. It's an insult. A calculated attempt to crap on my face. And they wonder why I'm angry. The bastards.

I've had enough. Even Dr Fate is starting to sass me, like an unruly teenager, just because I enjoy the occasional methylated spirit. All great men have. Edgar Allen Poe drank meths all the time when we solved the case of Jack The Ripper. Or possibly that was me, I was drunk at the time... well, Edgar Allen Poe won't have Ralph Dibny to push around any longer! And neither will you, dear reader, you bastard.

If this is Christmas, you can keep it. I hate and despise Christmas and all it stands for, and what's more, I wish that I, Ralph Dibny, was never born! I tell you, everyone in this miserable town would much rather I was dead than alive. That's why, the very second I've finished this bottle of meths, I'm going to hurl myself off the Keystone Bridge! Merry Christmas to nobody!

Bring me more meths, damn you!

This Will Be My Final Journal Entry

2006-12-17T13:55:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's been a fun ride, but it's time for Ralph Dibny, the Greatest Detective And Superhero Of All Times, to finish his race to glory and take his place in the houses of the immortals!

By blowing his own head off!

Regular readers may be wondering what brought me, Ralph Dibny, The Man Who Dared, to this unfortunate pass. Why would the Most Illustrious Television Celebrity And Talking Head Of This Or Any Other Century decide to fire a rocket launcher into his magnificent face? Surely a man who subdued a Yeti with his fantastic fists could never take that step into the dark unknown, especially by means of an immense vat of acid? "Mr Dibny," I hear you cry, "You're so brilliant, perfect and special! How can you even dream of hurling yourself off the top of the Daily Planet building with lit fireworks strapped to your belly?"

Well, it's a long story. And it started just after I completed last week's entry, when Dr Willis called me up to tell me that he wasn't Supernova. The fool. Anyway, he seemed concerned that my manic-depressive cycles might be intensifying, which would mean that one moment I could be blubbing like a little goth child about how much it hurt when Sue used to stack the fridge in her special way, and the next minute I might be so convinced of my own supremacy that I would think nothing of leaping on top of a Yeti and wrestling it to the ground.

YOU'RE A FOOL, WILLIS! A FOOOOL! YOU SHOULD STICK TO WHAT YOU'RE BEST AT WHICH IS BEING SUPERNOVA!! YOU'RE JUST JEALOUS BECAUSE YOU'VE NEVER BEATEN UP A YETI AND LIVED TO TELL!! NOT LIKE RALPH DIBNY -- WRITE HIS NAME IN BLOOD -- THE MOST INCREDIBLE SUPERCREATURE EVER TO CONVERSE WITH THE VERY GODS THEMSELVES!!!

That's all I have to say on that subject.

He also said that he was sending me a voucher for a week's complete rest at a local spa. I told him I wouldn't pay a penny for his quackery, and he in turn - like the pious freak he is - said that it would be a gift to me. Since it was, after all, nearly Christmas.

Nearly Christmas! And I'd bought nothing for any of my friends!

Which was fine by me because I have no friends. They're all scum. But I should at least buy something for myself, like perhaps a gold crown and a sceptre so everyone can see how wonderful I, Ralph Dibny, Yetislayer, truly am.

Which is how I found out I'd left my wallet in Nanda Parbat.

After all the trouble I had the last time I mislaid my wallet, I wasn't about to just give it up, and frankly I relished the chance to tell Richard Dragon exactly what I thought of him. Actually, since I plan to jump in front of a Japanese bullet train at the first rays of dawn, I should take that chance right now.

Richard Dragon, you suck.

Nanda Parbat sucks too. It sucks like the cold, empty vacuum of space, which is coincidentally where I might well end up firing myself out of a gigantic cannon. Would it kill those goddamned monks to put some signposts in? When you're halfway up a mountain with a floating helmet jabbering at you and you realise you're on Mountain 21 instead of Mountain 22, it makes you feel pret-ty foolish - foolish enough to sue the Nanda Parbat Tourist Board for everything it's worth! Don't think my imminent demise will save you from the wrath of Dibny, Tourist Board! I'm going to squeeze you dry, like an overripe fruit, from beyond the grave! I've made provisions in my will for a legion of attorneys to go after anyone who so much as coughed on me during my time on Earth! You're all going down, you shifty bastards! Do you hear me? Every last one of you!

The money raised will be used to construct a gigantic golden statue of me to rest on my grave. The statue will depict me wrestling a Yeti, with a specially carved inscription that will read "Ralph Dibny could wrestle a Yeti, and you couldn't, you pathetic worm." Thus, future generations will know that I was best. Don't thank me. It was the least I could do for you lesser beings.

Anyway. Dr Fate, like the lesser being he is, was starting to moan about how I'd led us halfway up the wrong mountain, which was my cue to make up something about how this was actually the mountain we wanted to go up all along, because of something Batman had said at a particularly dull wine and cheese party he'd thrown in 1993. And that's about when the Yeti attacked us.

The same Yeti whose ass I later kicked, fight fans.

I won't bore you with the full details of my amazing adventure, but suffice it to say that I had a fantastic time chatting to Rama Kushna, a God from beyond space, and to a Chinese superhero who could cure cancer by cracking his knuckles or something. Good thing there hasn't been anybody up on Nanda Parbat who needed some cancer curing recently, or he might not have been there to provide the vital distraction that allowed me, Ralph Dibny, The Man With The Power, to take down the Yeti menace and win an audience with Rama herself.

Yes! I, Ralph Dibny, have met God! And I've seen the incredible words that fly in the air below her wierd face. Words that presumably began the universe! Words which seem indecipherable to lesser intellects but to the initiated provide the secrets the unlock reality itself! And for just $500, payable to the Ralph Dibny Golden Statue Gravestone Fund, I can tell you what those words are. One of them is 'Hey'. The rest are merely a few benjamins away.

Anyway, it turns out that - to quote God directly, because I've met her - the end is already written and I wrote that very ending back in May, in the Ambassador Hotel at the end of the Crisis. And what did I do in that Hotel? I'll tell you.

I failed to blow my own head off.

It's pretty clear if you ask me - the best way to meet up with Sue again is to off myself, and that's what I'm going to do. But a gun is too mundane a means of execution for Ralph Dibny, Ultimate Messiah! No, I'm going to take a few days to think of something really special, like jewelled pirhanas or possibly hurling myself into the fiery heart of a nuclear reactor. Feel free to drop in some ideas of your own, but remember, they need to be pretty goddamn spectacular ways out of this vale of tears to be worthy of The Greatness That Is Dibny.

But suffice it to say that, according to my will, next week's entry will be written by Superman, or if we can't get him, Vartox, and will be called 'Ralph Dibny: Our Pathetic Lives Did Not Deserve To Be Brightened By The Eternal Flame Of His Radiance.'

See you on the other side, everybody!

Your Superior,
Ralph Dibny, Man Of Destiny

Richard Dragon Can Suck It

2006-12-08T08:56:00.000-08:00

If I never see him again it'll be too soon! This last month has been like being tortured by Ben & Jerry. And I still can't take a punch to the balls! I know because he hit me in the nads with some sort of branded rubber mallet the day before I left. Repeatedly. While playing tapes of his own voice telling me only I had the power to stop myself smoking.

Anyway, Dr Fate still refuses to speak to me - either that or he's traumatised - but at least he was sick enough of Steve the Monk's terrible imitation of Bradley Whitford to haul us both out of there. I think it might actually be the trauma thing, considering I'm telling everybody I meet how much of a little bitch he is and he just hangs in the air and takes it. That's right, Dr Fate. You're my bitch now. Invert yourself, Daddy Ralph wants to drain the main vein.

So my first priority was to get some food. Frankly, yours would be too if you'd been hung by your gentials in the middle of a freezing wasteland being told to cherish the pain. Let me tell you, Richard Dragon is a sick, sick man.

Anyway, all I had on me was a hip flask that I'd cleverly filled with barbecue sauce in case I needed to fake out a sniffer dog. Ralph Dibny's first rule of travel - they are out to get you. If it's not the customs officers looking to meet their quota of terrorist suspects to lock up without trial, it's your fellow passengers trying to slip a condom stuffed with heroin into your rectum while you're bending over to pick up a discarded boiled sweet. Dr Willis might call me a paranoid maniac, but let me tell you, if there's some trained bloodhound barking out the morse code for J-U-N-K while he's sniffing your starfish, it's a lot better to pull out a flask of barbecue sauce and claim that all dogs love the sweet smell of Smoky Maple than it is to be sodomised to death in a Turkish prison! Take a tip from the Dibster! I know!

Where was I?

Oh yes.

Anyway, I was starving and I figured Metropolis was as good a place as any to get some lunch, especially since I needed to request an audience with Steve Lombard of the Steve Lombard Bounce-N-Bikini Blooper Bonanza - and who should I run into but Cassie, who I hadn't seen since... since...

..since...

...

...since the unpleasantness.

Frankly, it was all I could do not to vomit. But I took a big slug of Hickory Ted's Sweet'N'Hot BBQ and decided to tough it out by pretending that I'd actively been looking for her. Which was smart, because she actually had a bucket-load of real proper clues! Being a detective is great. You can just piss about doing whatever you feel like for weeks and then somebody hands you a Secret Mysterious Folder containing the Next Piece Of The Puzzle. And then you get to take all the credit. It beats real work, I can tell you.

Also, she said that the whole cult was just a big scam, apart from the wife-coming-back-from-the-dead part. Which was sort of the important bit. I mean, I'm sure they were a big scam in that their robes were made of cheap velour and not the finest silk as I'd been led to believe, but in terms of the tiny, small things like, y'know, bringing my charred corpse wife back from the beyond in the body of a stuffed doll, they were surprisingly genuine. You idiot.

She'd made this brilliant deduction because 'Devem' wasn't Devem's actual name. I understand her next job will be tracking down Sting, Madonna and Cher for their heinous scam scandals. And to add the final cherry to her stupidity icing, she told me that The Mysterious Supernova was none other than... Superboy himself!

Which is complete nonsense. I know exactly who Supernova is. The face beneath the expertly-designed mask of Supernova is none other than...

Dr. Robert Amersham Willis, PhD.

Yes! The keys were there all along. Right after Superman disappeared, Willis started in with his Joseph Campbell nonsense, and then Supernova appeared! And they're roughly the same height and they sound sort of alike if you put your hand over one ear. And his powers are based on Jungian symbolism... probably... anyway, all Willis would need is the proper device - a sewing machine! To sew that eye-catching costume. I even know where he got his fantastic powers - the key to his office was obviously hewn from some kind of radioactive mineral! You can tell by his masked confusion when I made that particular pun that I had the 'key' to the whole affair.

No wonder Supernova seemed so incredulous when I told him I'd found out his true identity. No wonder he seemed to be holding back a fit of the giggles as he begged me not to repeat what I'd said. Dr Willis knows how easy it can be to lose ones own sanity to such an incredible shock - the shock of knowing that the man who you thought you could fool has been in on your secret all along! That's right, Willis! They don't call me the World's Greatest Elongated Detective for nothing!

Don't worry, Dr Supernova PhD - your terrible secret is safe with Ralph Dibny! And with the people who read this.

I imagine.

The Richard Dragon System™ is THE ONLY SYSTEM™!

2006-12-02T10:41:00.000-08:00

Hi, I'm Richard Dragon™.

You may know me as the inventor of the Richard Dragon System™, a foolproof method of actualising™ your inner potential™, as well as various other Richard Dragon Brand™ Products™. For this reason, many of my clients think of me as some sort of God, an infinitely handsome Adonis, muscles rippling as I survey my mountain home. And that's true. I am an infinitely handsome Adonis. But really, despite my fantastic command of the mysteries of Zen™ and my impeccable pectoral development, I am, in the final analysis, no more than a mere man.

If you prick me, do I not bleed? No. I don't. Because I've learned the Richard Dragon Supercoagulation Mantra™ which prevents all blood loss upon wounding, a mantra you too can learn for the low price of $49.99, payable to Richard Dragon Incorporated™, Mountain 22, Nanda Parbat™. But despite my ability to stem all blood flow with the slightest thought, I am nevertheless only human. I'm capable of feeling hurt. Betrayed, even.

"Why?" I asked Ralph, as he hung over a bubbling cauldron of boiling oil, steam scalding his flesh. "Why would anyone bother going to the Empty Quarter and wasting their time with the numberless Ten-Eyed Tribes when they could come to Nanda Parbat™ and enjoy the benefits of the Richard Dragon System™?"

He didn't have an answer. Of course, his head was entirely encased in a terrifying iron mechanism designed to drive spikes into his eyes if he blinked, but that's neither here nor there. The important thing is that I felt deeply hurt that - despite the fantastic, easily-affordable secrets I have waiting for you here at Nanda Parbat™ -- some of you still choose to fritter away your time and money with lesser minds.

Do you honestly think I couldn't grow an eyeball at the tip of each of my fingers if I really wanted to? Do you honestly think I couldn't give you the secret of possessing similar eyeballs for a mere $599.99 per eye - and not just on your fingertips, but on any bodily protruberance you might care to name? Do you honestly think I couldn't slice the dark, brooding paranoia from your very soul itself with a giant knife? I could certainly try, although I would ask you to sign a disclaimer first.

When it comes to my attention that there are good people driven to these charlatans - these grotesque ten-eyed quacks who prey on the insecurities of the psychotically idle rich - well, honestly, it drives me crazy.

And I must be crazy - BARGAIN crazy, that is - to offer YOU these fantastic deals!!

For just 7 days, I'm offering YOU the COMPLETE Richard Dragon System™ for - not two hundred dollars - not one hundred dollars - but just $99.99 plus VAT! Let's see a grotesque ten-eyed mutation offer you THAT kind of once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!

Don't delay - order TODAY for your bargain price Richard Dragon System Package™, including Voice Tapes™, Cauldron™, 1 Gallon of Richard Dragon Easy-Cook Vegetable Oil™ and Blink-O-Matic Eye-stabbing Helmet™.

Be Who You Are. Be You. The Richard Dragon You™.

This has been a public service announcement.

I Can Give You REAL&trade Superpowers - The Richard Dragon&trade Way!

2006-11-25T09:07:00.000-08:00

Hi, I'm Richard Dragon™.

We don't have television here on Nanda Parbat - we have Richard Dragonvision™. Ordinary television relies on a foolish box powered by the idiotic technology of the western world, some silly wires and perhaps a ridiculous satellite or two. But Richard Dragonvision™ uses the purer energies of a team of telepathic monks who pick up the signals with the power of their minds - minds enhanced by the Richard Dragon System™ - and then act them out on a little stage.

Now you may be thinking "No, Richard Dragon™. I like paying $800 for a brand new plasma screen monstrosity every six months. I like giving my hard-earned money to the corporate whores who are busily destroying our ecosystem with their ravenous monetary claws. I like being a moronic fool, a pathetic puppet, a crass, retarded shill for people who would kill my entire family rather than go a single day without bathing their genitals in purest Moet & Chandon." You may be thinking that. But you're wrong.

Imagine watching your favourite shows in Richard Dragonvision™. Imagine watching Aaron Sorkin's semi-watchable drama Studio 60, for example. Wouldn't the tortured, mangled, American-written 'English english' of that one who was in the UK version of The Office sound so much better coming out of the mouth of a telepathic monk named Steve? What if you never had to look at Matthew Perry's face again? I can teach you the secret of never having to look at Matthew Perry's face again. I can teach you to watch HBO with your mind.

It's not TV. It's RDV©™. And it can be yours. For a small consideration.

But I digress. I was watching my Richard Dragonvision™, and Steve - in the role of Lex Luthor - informed me that he, Lex Luthor, not Steve, could bestow on me tremendous super powers. I could, according to Steve's brilliant impersonation of the Lexcorp CEO, divert the course of mighty rivers with my bare hands. I could fly like an eagle or burrow like a mole. I could sprint faster that light itself without even breaking a sweat.

Do you know what I did when Steve informed me of this tremendous offer?

Customer, I laughed.

Luthor is a fool. I'm given to understand his 'super powers' flake and itch. They're unsightly and prone to shorting out at unfortunate moments. They smell. I've had a communication from one 'E.S.Pete' who claims that in order to gain control of the mind of a criminal he must give up control of his bowels. His superheroic efforts have met with scorn, hatred and a cease and desist letter. He asked me what I, Richard Dragon™, could do to help. What could I, Richard Dragon™, do to aid this poor unfortunate man who only wished to rid his streets of crime?

Customer, I laughed.

E.S.Pete is a fool, and like all fools who refuse to follow the Richard Dragon System™, he is destined to live out his pathetic days either toiling in obscurity or wallowing in his own filth. Superpowers cannot be given, my friends. They can only be earned. As the Richard Dragon System™ explains, when you no longer want amazing superpowers, only then will they come to you. And you have to really not want them! Not just say you don't. You have to scream "Get thee behind me, fantastic super energies!" no less than eight times an hour. And mean it.

Take Ralph. As I type this on the keys of my inner mind, he is stark naked, pushing a massive boulder covered with razorblades up a steep, icy cliff-face. If he fails to meet the challenge, he will be beaten with iron poles. If he succeeds, he will be rewarded by being ritually cleansed, in the form of a beating, with iron poles. Every fifteen minutes, I walk out on my verandah and scream at him through a megaphone: "Ralph! Would you like some really brilliant superpowers to help you with that?"

Like a fool, he starts to cry! Weeping tears of want. He does not understand the Richard Dragon System™, but you can, for a small consideration. You could do it in your own comfortable home. Instead of an icy cliff-face, you could use a sofa cushion propped against the wall. Instead of a razor-coated boulder, you could use a bread roll. Instead of being beaten with iron poles, you could have a sandwhich. The principle is the same. The important thing is that you have a tape of my Richard Dragon Voice™, available for $19.99, asking whether or not you want superpowers.

Don't listen to Luthor. His superpowers are rubbish, and I'm confident that they will be the undoing of those who possess them. Whereas the superpowers I can give you are really great, and will be good and not rubbish like Luthor's are. That's a promise. A Richard Dragon Promise™©.

This has been a public service announcement.

Have YOU ever thought about unleashing YOUR inner zen™?

2006-11-19T07:34:00.000-08:00

Hi, I'm Richard Dragon™. Ralph has kindly allowed me to post on his online journal, as the only way to gain access to the internet in the far-off land of Nanda Parabat™ is through me.

It saddens me to say it, but Ralph's zen™ is weak. His years of hatred, avarice and envy have made him unworthy, which is why I took his clothes away and chained him to a metal post in the snow. It's all part of what I call the Richard Dragon System™. Ralph, you see, must learn to embrace and cherish such things as freezing cold and hyperthermia. Only when he asks them to stay will they finally leave. I'm confident that as soon as he embraces the pneumonia raging through his system, his skin will lose that unfortunate blue shade and he'll never get a cold again.

All thanks to the Richard Dragon System™. A System™ that could be yours to own.

You see, the Richard Dragon System™ isn't just about making confused, troubled young men into the best martial artists they can be. It's also about making YOU™ into the best YOU™ you can be. I can teach YOU™ secret zen™ skills such as pretending to be confined to a wheelchair. I can teach YOU™ to allow a scorpion to crawl over your face. And most of all, I can teach YOU™ the secret of getting RICH!

Look at your boss's fancy convertable. Wouldn't YOU™ like one of those? I can show you how to get one - the right way. The ZEN™ way.

Much as pain will only leave when you ask it to stay, money will only stay when you ask it to leave. The sooner you ask your money to leave, by sending it to me, Richard Dragon™, and buying my pamphlet 'The Richard Dragon System™ - Zen™, Scorpions™ and YOU™' - the sooner you'll be RICH beyond your wildest dreams.

Don't believe me? Just ask Ralph! He's not quite worthy to speak to you in person yet, but I'll be happy to relay his answers to you! He'll be happy to tell you how it feels to grow RICHER™, HAPPIER™ and MORE SUCCESSFUL™ every day - the Richard Dragon™ way.

This has been a public service announcement.

You Are My Bitch Now, Dr Fate

2006-11-10T09:10:00.000-08:00

So I ended up taking a dump in Dr Fate.

Basically, he'd told me we were setting out for the giant magical hand of Neron at precisely ten o'clock sharp, Monday morning, in order to make a Faustian bargain. So I figured I could set the alarm for eight, take a shower, have a nice leisurely breakfast and get my things together in time for him to knock on the door at about a quarter to or so, right?

Wrong.

At five o'clock in the goddamned morning he starts butting my door with his golden face - carving huge chunks out of the wood with that damn fin of his that I'm going to have to pay to get repaired - and he doesn't stop with his hammering until I'm standing there in my dressing gown blinking at him. And then - then - after he's woken me and all my neighbours out of a sound sleep, after he's destroyed my front door, after he's sold me for a pack of cigarettes to a bunch of interdimensional Native American mafiosi, he stares at me with those creepy glowing eyes of his, and frigging intones:

"You betray your heroic legacy, Ralph Dib-"

He didn't get any further. I mean, I don't even have a legacy! There wasn't some guy in WWII who explored the stretch-making properties of tropical-fruit-flavoured soda. That was me. I was the first. I'm like the Isaac Newton of stretching. It's a whole new art form, and I'm totally the Picasso of it. Which would make Plastic Man the Duchamp, I guess, but he just fell in some goop like an asshole. He didn't examine a fruit drink. The guy who examined a fruit drink and its relationship to circus freaks was myself. That's what makes me, Ralph Dibny, the No Longer Elongated Man, the greatest superhero of all time. So if anybody wants to take their legacy from me and become Elongated Man Junior or Elongochild or The Purple Stretchboy, I can think of no greater honour for them. And for just $500, cash, they can have my personal guarantee that I won't sue them within an inch of their zitty lives for trademark infringement. That's the mark of a hero. That's the mark of Ralph Dibny. And it can be yours. For five hundred clams.

But I digress.

The reason Dr Fate didn't get any further was because I, the heroic Ralph Dibny, grabbed him by the fin, turned him upside down and let go my entire straining bowel deep inside him. I'd had a heaping helping of Queen Chili the night before as part of Ollie's pre-victory celebrations (which I was invited to, no matter what Ollie, the guest list or any of the bouncers had to say on the matter) and frankly, it needed to come out. And come out it did. I'm not going to belabour the point here, but I shat in Dr Fate. Repeatedly. It felt good.

Things changed a little after that, I can tell you. Suddenly he's not floating around the place like some big-ass Lord Of Order! Suddenly he's crying in the corner like the Lord Of Being Filled With My Fecal Matter! Frankly, it did more for my therapy than five years of going to Dr Willis, although I doubt he'd agree even if he wasn't still mooning over Emily Dickinson's restless skeleton. But screw him! The new kick-ass, take-charge, heavy-hitting, golden-hat-defecating-in Ralph Dibny takes no prisoners and obeys no rules, least of all those about not filling up Dr Fate's golden helmet with human ordure.

Suffice it to say that I was in charge now. And I was taking us to see a giant magical hand a little more to my liking. A giant hand associated with heroism. And admittedly unspeakable torture and death. But heroism nonetheless.

Unfortunately that didn't turn out quite as well as I thought it would.

Don't get me wrong! The Spectre had a great plan! I was going to take some of his power and take care of the bitch Loring once and for all! With a Dibny-style Spectre Poetic Vengeance, involving her watching herself stomping about on my wife's brain forever and - and this is the clever part - not enjoying it at all! Genius!

It was pretty emotionally intense, mind you, and that was probably why it didn't work out too well. I mean, I was crying, Loring was crying, Sue would probably have been crying if she'd known she was going to have her brain stepped on, and a vase got knocked over. But things were going completely to plan. Anyway, then Loring says something about how I'm only punishing myself, and I'm just thinking about how that's total crap since actually I'm punishing her, and that's completely the whole point of this, Loring -

- when she suddenly elbows me in the balls!

I mean, so much for the big vengeance plan. We both snap back to the present, except she elbowed me so hard it's a few days later, and I'm left doubled over in the fetal position. And then the Spectre takes all his power back because I got elbowed in the balls like a complete gimp. And I'm all like "you tricked me!" Because he did! I was meant to have the invulnerable scrotum of the Spectre for that vengeance. But I guess he was worried a stray meteorite might hit him in the nads or something so he kept that for himself. And he's all like, "blah blah blah bargain blah blah you're a wuss blah blah."

Anyway, I'm wise to his game now. By letting me take that hit to the balls, he told be something crucial - that I, Ralph Dibny, need to learn how to get punched in the balls without feeling it. Luckily I know a secret martial arts monastery where a guy can learn the secrets of taking blows to the groin and then getting right back up and kicking some Jean Loring flavoured ass. Once I've mastered those mad skills, we're heading right back to the vengeance, baby. It's not over, Loring. There's some brain-stomp-watching to be done in your future, and it's on an infinite loop. And you don't even get popcorn, unless it's special guilt-flavoured popcorn of vengeance.

Anyway, here I am in the mountains where there isn't any internet and people communicate by telepathy. So I had to plug my modem into a monk. He kind of wants a break now, so I'll sign off until next week. This is Ralph Dibny saying - vengeance is mine!

What The Christ Is John Irons Doing On My Television Instead Of Me?

2006-11-03T09:24:00.000-08:00

I do not believe this. It's like he's marched into my living room and cut a hole in my TV and climbed inside it, only to burst out of it and punch me in the face. How dare he steal my thunder with his new shiny-shiny looks and his ideologically-opposed neice? I'll bet if I had a living relative who didn't despise me I could train them to hold whatever viewpoint is most abhorrent to me in order to scare up some sweet ratings bonanza. Not that I would! Because unlike a certain former hospital administrator I could mention, I happen to have principles! Principles that mean that I, the world-famous ex-Elongated Man, would rather go on a show that's honest, that enriches the culture - a show like Steve Lombard's Sports Bloopers Funbag Fairground for example, if only that mullety bastard would return my calls - instead of Jack Ryder's horrific excuse for a circus.

Ryder is apparently trying to become a left-wing Bill O'Reilly, but his idea of being left-wing is to shout at superheroes especially loud. Christ knows what that show's going to end up as - presumably some awful parody of Vic Sage's old show, with a few minutes devoted to aping Keith Olbermann thrown in in some desperate attempt to keep things current. Christ knows what he's going to do apart from that. It's not like he can get any mileage out of attacking President Home - let's face it, politically the President's a total cypher, but the way Ryder rattles on you'd think he'd just suspended habeus corpus or something. Anyway, I know I wouldn't soil my dignity by appearing as a celebrity guest and/or talking head on a show like that, no matter how much of a prime-time slot it gets or how many thousand it pays per appearance.

That god-damned steel-faced rat bastard, I knew he was trouble from the moment he showed up in the JLA instead of me! You think I couldn't rip off Superman for some easy fame? You think I didn't consider basing my whole shtick on being like an armored folk hero? I could have been The Elongated Paul Bunyan Of Steel, but my wife said it sounded like too much of a mouthful.

Well, fine, war has been declared, John Henry Ass. You think you can go stealing Ralph Dibny's face-time? I'll just put a call in to Jack Ryder myself and see what he has to say to a little elongated commentary from the nation's most famous ex-superhero, celebrity and talking head. Somehow I doubt we'll be seeing you or your cunningly-orchestrated family disputes on that show again, Irons, because Jack 'Bandwagon' Ryder is going to have his hands full squeezing opinions from the ripe political-commentary fruit that is Dibny. Now that Dr Fate's out of my hair for good, I can devote the whole of next week to rebuilding my career as the wild child of media product endorsement, starting with another call to that hairy frat gimp Lombard. In fact, the phone is ringing as I type this - doubtless the funbag-obsessed one himself come to beg my forgiveness and install me a permanent place in the 'Perky Puppies Political Parade' slot.

It wasn't Lombard. It was Dr Fate. The Magic Mafia wants me to keep the whole of next week free. For favours.

God Christing Bastard.

Happy Halloween, Phantom Stranger

2006-10-31T06:50:00.000-08:00

Picture the scene: having just returned from the very depths of the dimensional abyss after weeks of unpleasantness, ugliness and passive-aggressive bitching from a certain golden helmet who will remain nameless, up to his eyeballs in debt to some kind of Native American Mafioso from beyond time and space, your humble narrator decides to sit down with a couple of beers and relax for once in his goddamned life. Little does he realise that the Phantom Stranger is about to come crashing through his brand-new window and get glass all over his rug. For no reason.

It's unbelievable. I've barely sat down and suddenly this caped bastard with terrible shoes hurls himself into my living room. Does he apologise? Does he my ass. He just rolls around on the carpet in front of me like some sort of flapping fish, shouting "I'm appearing from nowhere! From nowhere!" over and over again, and then says that if I don't tell everyone that he appeared from nowhere in a puff of phantasmic smoke then I'm really gay. Just as I'm explaining the fine points of suing a guy for smashing a window while claiming that he's coming out of nowhere in a puff of smoke, he starts staring off into the middle distance - he just keeps looking away at one of the sofa cushions until I tail off - and then he turns around and starts bellowing at me in this big, deep, booming voice.

"Your bizarre story reminds me of a strange tale that happened to me ten years ago. I call it... The Window That Was Not Broken!"

Then he goes off on this huge tangent about when he appeared out of a puff of smoke to talk to this billionaire occult antiques dealer who had a magic window that kept breaking and then magically repairing itself, expect it turned out to be the work of a sinister double glazing salesman who was his half-brother who wanted to claim a million dollars by saying the window was haunted or some ridiculous crap like that, and this story went on for two and a half hours. I went to go fix myself a microwave meal halfway through. Anyway, at the end, he's all like "That window magically repaired itself... perhaps this window will as well... for I am the Phantom Stranger!"

I know who you are, dingus. You're the asshat who broke my window in frigging October at the dead of night and now expects the bits of it to magically reform themselves. You gigantic bitch.

Anyway. I'm about to ring the police when somebody kicks my door down. As if the smashed window wasn't enough. And who should it be but Dr Terry Thirteen, who I'd hoped was finally dead after he'd allegedly spontaneously combusted in some kind of snottiness-related accident, but who had evidently punched his way out of the afterlife while claiming that the entire vale of Heaven was just a mass hallucination or a mirage because that's how he rolls.

Terry being Terry, he doesn't once apologise for smashing my new lock to pieces and causing another couple of hundred bucks' worth of damage. No, he starts in on the Phantom Stranger as usual. "Pah! You might be able to fool Dibny with your phony 'magic', Phantom Stranger, but you can't fool me! That window was already broken - and you only appeared to smash it by projecting a movie camera onto a sheet! The rest was merely our minds filling in the blanks, in the same way that a primitive caveman would believe lightning was crafted by Zeus or that a deer nailed to a log was in fact the risen Lord Jesus! But I've devoted my life to the twin goals of foiling superstition everywhere and looking exactly like Rip Kirby and so I have no option but to expose your scheme!"

The Phantom Stranger isn't going to take this kind of crap lying down, mostly because he's a world-class prick. "Mortal man," he intones patronisingly, "once again you attempt to use your pathetic 'science' to deal with that which you do not understand. I appeared from thin air in a puff of eerie smoke, and as you can see, Ralph Dibny is at this very instant going all goggle-eyed and saying 'Why, he appeared just like a g-g-ghost!'... Ralph? Ralph! What are you doing with that whisky? Get out here and say I appeared just like a g-g-ghost. Or you're gay."

Terry chuckled dryly, as though he were about to open up a secret panel in the wall of my apartment and reveal a tape recorder that had been cunningly set to make spooky noises. "Ha ha ha, you blind fool. Why, this reminds me of something that happened to me in darkest Haiti, where a voodoo Bocor thought that he'd smashed a window kicking a football, but it was all a scheme by an unscrupulous glazier... a story I like to call... It Was All A Scheme By An Unscrupulous Glazier."

At that point I decided to cut my losses and head out to the nearest bar to enjoy a couple of beers in peace. When I got back, Terry's appalling story was still going on - he'd just got to the bit where he explained to his wife for the seventeenth time that all his ancestors had been famous debunkers of the supernatural, apart from all the ones who were burned at the stake for being incredibly supernatural - and it looked likely to keep going all night. Why these two assholes think that the way you solve a mystery is to tell a long rambling story about how great you are, I have no idea. The way to solve a mystery, geniuses, is to elongate your body to tremendous lengths as any student of the form could tell you.

I must have dozed off in my chair, because the next thing I remember the story was over and Thirteen was moving right along to the next part of his modus operandi - the punching. He'd grabbed the Phantom Stranger's hat off his head and was waving it around, screaming "This isn't even a real hat, you phony! You've cunningly projected the image of a hat onto the empty air using a sophisticated movie camera! I'll expose you if it's the last thing I do!" And then he hurls the hat on the ground and starts leaping up and down on it, which kind of disproved his movie-camera theory because the thing flattened like a pancake. Anyway, that's when the Phantom Stranger grabbed hold of one of my empties and smashed it over Thirteen's head. He was shouting something about using the mystic power of the Tetragrammaton to restore his friend's sanity, but it looked more like assault with a deadly weapon to me.

Maybe it was the drinking, or the severe depression, or maybe I just wanted to see Terry's head beaten in by a large man pretending to be a ghost, but I found myself unable to muster the will to stop the terrible scenes of violence that followed, as the Phantom Stranger pummelled Dr Thirteen about the head and face, the latter howling that he was sustaining no damage at all as the entire fight was being faked by hypnotism - and he could prove it! Finally the Phantom Stranger ran through the remains of the doorway, screaming "Look the other way! If you don't look the other way I can't vanish!" as Terry bounded after him with a new hammer I'd bought to put up some shelves, shrieking "Your hidden projector will be smashed! Smashed! Smashed!". It seemed to provide a coda not only to the scary night of the 27th of October but also to my entire wretched life. Unfortunately I'd run out of Chupa Chups to stick in the gun barrel so instead I let myself sink into an uneasy sleep.

But the most eerie thing of all was that when I woke the next morning, there was no sign that any of the activities of these two strange undead spectres had occurred... apart from the broken window... and the door was still off its hinges. And the coffee table was broken from when Dr Thirteen had punched the Phantom Stranger onto it. And I was missing my hammer, although it later turned up in an abandoned pram.

But apart from my completely destroyed apartment, it was as though none of it had ever happened... or had it? Or... had... it?

According to my solicitor, it had, and if I can convince a court of law of that then I can probably walk away with every penny the Thirteen family owns, and that expensive-looking hippy pendant the Phantom Stranger always seems to be wearing. We'll see.

I Have To Do A Faustian Bargain For The Magic Mafia Or They'll Cut Off My Johnson

2006-10-27T11:07:00.000-07:00

It's been roughly half a year since I began this whole journal thing, and in that time I haven't had a week so unbearably horrific that I wasn't able to get it all down in one go.

Until now. I'm going to hurl myself at this one as a tribute to my ex-shrink and hated enemy Dr Robert Amersham Willis, who's still in the lowest pit of Hades attempting to get jiggy with Emily Dickinson's eternally-wandering spirit, but the events of the past 168 hours have been so horrible that I'm going to make a Halloween Special out of it and spread it over a couple of days.

As regular readers will know, I started the week in hospital after being worked over with baseball bats by a bunch of ghostly Native American mobsters from somewhere beyond the grave, which was kind of unusual. Anyway, that unpleasant debacle left me with fractured ribs, arms, legs and head and no pancreas worth mentioning, so I was pretty sure that my seemingly-endless quest to get myself beaten to a bloody pulp by magic goombahs was over and I could now look forward to spending the rest of the year, and quite possibly the rest of my life, taking it easy in the luxurious confines of the Star City Extreme Physical Trauma Unit.

Oh, how untroubled that world seems to me now! How pleasant the friendly banter with the chummy, laugh-a-minute Doctor Grimsilence as he told me how I would never walk again! How soothing the gentle trickle of my bodily wastes into the colostomy bag that was now my companion for eternity. If only I could once again return to that world! Perhaps at the time I might have said unkind things about the staff at the hospital - I may even have begged them to shoot me - but I didn't realise I had it so good! Yes, I was crippled for life and unable to even crap myself without help, yes I was trapped in a state of unending agony, misery and despair, but say what you will - Doctor Fate was not in that building.

Whereas now he's hovering right next to me reading every single word over my shoulder. Well, I hope you like what you see, you golden gimp.

Anyway, Dr Fate obviously decided that I didn't owe enough favours to the Magic Mafia, so, having watched me spend a couple of painful and unnecessary days learning how to pee again, he breezed in superciliously and healed all my wounds before conjuring me a particularly horrible blue polyester shirt. Dr Fate doesnt have expressions as such, but he was smirking like a little bitch, believe you me. Especially when the hospital refused to remove my catheter in case I had a sudden relapse. I still have a bag of my own piss strapped to my leg and I can't get them to take it off of me no matter what I do. I called Dr Mid-Nite but he said that urinology wasn't his field, which frankly sounds like some sort of pee-avoiding cop-out to me.

So anyway - Dr Fate whisked me off to yet another hellish zone of infernal torment, to teach me yet another lesson about not disrespecting the Godfather, and frankly by this point I'd had enough. Mustering my most witheringly sarcastic voice, I asked Dr Fate how long I'd been traipsing about after him. I should have known better - passive-agressive behaviour like that is meat and drink to the little turd. That was his cue to launch into a giant speech about all the interesting people that he knew in Hell, and how the only person there that I remembered was completely rubbish and crap and couldn't even sell his soul to Satan because it was made entirely of plastic like a toy out of a Kinder Egg. And at the end of this hugely long speech he managed to make me even more indebted to the mob than I was last week, which is ridiculous.

Apparently someday - and this day may never come - I'm going to make a bargain. Almost a Faustian bargain, if you will. And if I welsh on that bargain like I'm some kinda rat, Mickey No-Nose is gonna fit me up wit' a concrete overcoat. A Faustian concrete overcoat. And then he's gonna send me for a swim inna river. The river of Goethe. And if I turn it down, they'll cut off my Johnson. Dr Fate was all "If you end up here, nobody will mourn you. Ever. And nobody will mourn your Johnston if you even think about crossing me. Ever ever." It would have been pretty creepy if he didn't look kind of like the end of a Johnson himself.

So I get home and I wait for the opportunity to make an ill-conceived and bitterly ironic transaction with my soul as currency. And that's when the Phantom Stranger bursts through the window.

More on that tomorrow.

The Magic Mafia Are Going To Make Me Sleep With The Fishes

2006-10-21T07:30:00.000-07:00

So I caught Studio 60 on Monday and it seemed to be all about Sting playing a magic lute that made people deal with their love issues, and I started wondering whether I was actually in Star City at all and not in some even more ironic suburb of Hell. I mean, Sting. Playing a lute. Jesus Christ.

So I figured the best thing to do would be to head back to Hell and rejoin Dr Fate on his stupid pilgrimage. I figured I'd be okay if I just nodded my head and said 'yes' and 'no' in the right places when he went on one of his interminable three-hour rants about his credit card debts and how much he hates Dr Willis (apparently Dr Willis often needs to pee after midnight, which is apparently the rudest behaviour a human being can possibly display and doesn't he know Dr Fate needs at least eight hours of sleep every night and if it isn't him it's the inhuman keening coming from the pit of slime-coated demons in the next room and don't they have any consideration for other people, it's because they're Polish you know over there they live in mud huts etc etc etc etc) and then once he'd done his thing and I'd maybe seen my wife, like he's been dangling in front of my face FOR A MONTH, I'd head back home and watch something decent on television for once.

And that's how I found myself in a sit-down with the Magic Mafia.

I mean, after I've had a huge lecture from Dr Fate's big fat golden face about how dare I go off and enjoy some decent burritos and a sleep in a proper bed, he decides it's time to head onto the next stage of the Pilgrimage - the Happy Hunting Grounds of Native American lore! Which is a big giant field with some trees and a couple of rocks, and an assload of wolves, who presumably hunt humans as there's nothing else around. Also, apparently this is only accessable by crawling through a gigantic urethra.

Now, I've never been as knowledgable on the folklore of the Native American tribes as I could have been, but I did read a few books on the subject at school and I don't remember a gigantic urethra being mentioned. You'd have thought it might have deserved a chapter of its own, or at least a mention in the index. Anyway. Moving on.

We got to the Hunting Grounds and I was immediately attacked by the aforementioned assload of wolves, while Dr Fate did absolutely nothing to help out. Apparently I was embarrassing him in front of Flying Stag, who's this big, big guy in the world of Magic. Huge guy. A made man, if you will.

Dr Fate said I was 'a friend of his', and Flying Stag asked if I was 'a friend of ours', and Dr Fate said no, just a friend of his, except I wasn't a friend because I was an utter, utter bitch. Thanks Dr Fate. I've seen The Godfather, I know what all this 'friend' stuff is about. Flying Stag didn't want to be my friend at all. He wanted to know if I've ever whacked a guy. Or something.

Anyway, Dr Fate said that I was the guy who'd come about thing, you know, the thing about the thing, and then Flying Stag leant forward and pinched my cheeks and said I looked like a good Italian boy. By this point I was seriously creeped out, especially when Dr Fate said that I wanted to be part of this thing of theirs, but I wasn't going to roll over on them like Fredo. I asked who Fredo was. Flying Stag gave me this long look and said that Fredo had to have an accident because he wasn't paying Flying Stag the proper respect.

I had this incredibly patronising look all over my face, so Flying Stag says "I got a little lesson for you here, Mister Dibny" except he's got this Marlon brando voice on so it's all like "I guhdda liddhl lessuhn fuh yuh heah Mistuh Dhbneh" and then right on cue this poor guy falls out of the sky! And he's all like 'what did I do wrong Godfather' and Flying Stag's all like "Yuh huhv nuh wun tuh blemm buht yuhsuhlf... did yuh think tuh wuhd buh POWUH w'thuht OBLUHGUHSHN..." and then he totally sends the guy into some Hell vortex! It's like Al Capone is breaking a guy's skull with a baseball bat in front of me.

Anyway, then Flying Stag's all like "This is thuh buhddum luhn... thuz no fruh luhnch..." which I assumed meant that someday, and that day may never come, he would call upon me to do a service for him. But until then I should accept this big-ass glowing rock that fell off a dead guy as a gift on his daughter's wedding day.

Anyway, I completely didn't care and I must have had that written all over my face because Flying Stag grabs me by the beard and shouts "What huv uh uhver duhn tuh yuh tuh muhk yuh suh duhsruhspuhtfuhl... yuh duhn't uhvuhn cuhll muh Guhdfuhthuh!" and then a bunch of Native Americans in pinstripe suits pop out of nowhere and work me over with baseball bats.

Which is why I'm writing this from a hospital bed back on good old Earth. Thank you, Dr Fate, and if I ever see you again, I'm going to pee in you.

Hell Is Other People If Those People Are Named Dr Robert Amersham Willis

2006-10-13T13:49:00.000-07:00

So anyway, no progress has been made on the Pilgrimage, unless you count Dr Fate progressing from a full-on screaming fit on Sunday to making sarcastic comments just out of my earshot yesterday and generally refusing to budge a single inch until I apologise for what I did. Whatever that was. He won't tell me, he just says "Oh, you know" and then floats away to glare at me from a distance.

So I've been mostly hanging around in the coffee shops of Ironic Hell, which are just like regular coffee shops. I mean exactly like. The prices are the same, the staff are the same and the coffee tastes the same - I think the afterlife has possibly become too ironic at this point. I mean, sure, coffee shops are expensive and the staff are often very sullen, and sometimes the coffee is bad and they're part of a nebulous chain and occasionally you have beat poetry, but just changing the name to 'Hellbucks' and then putting tiny little horns on the sulky coffee girl is just so... so utterly lame. I mean, where exactly is the punishment here? Am I supposed to be agonised for the rest of time by the sheer Mad Magazine-ness of it all? Is the reminder of a jillion terrible stand-up comedy routines that totally had this joke in them supposed to drive me mad with ennui or what? They do hazelnut coffee, so maybe this is all a set-up for somebody who's allergic to hazelnuts and they'll keep accidentally getting his order wrong for all eternity or something.

Anyway, I was just wondering about the punishment factor when Dr Willis showed up. So under the circumstances I don't think anybody can blame me for screaming "Get thee behind me, changeling of Satan!" and attacking him with a chair. It's what Jesus would have done. That and be crucified or something.

Bizarrely, it turned out that this was the real Dr Willis. Since I haven't been replying to my comments lately (and that is a Hell thing, the computers here mostly don't let me so I can be more easily enraged and frustrated by the parade of idiocy) he'd come to check on me and see if I was okay and still taking my meds.

In Hell.

He's obsessed. Let it go, Dr Willis. I'm taking my pink pills, I'm dealing with the death of my wife in a perfectly reasonable and legitimate fashion i.e. journeying into the depths of the realms beyond life to have a chat and possibly get some coffee together, I'm not attacking people randomly any more unless they're you. Your job is done, Dr Willis. These are not billable hours and even if they were I wouldn't pay you.

As it turns out, it's not that bizarre after all, since there's a doorway to the heart of the inferno located in Star City - Pentagram City more like - and it's just behind the adult bookstore on 7th avenue. Actually, I guess that is bizarre when you think about it. Anyway, there's a doorway to Hell there. They don't advertise it in the guidebooks because... well, it's Hell. Not even a particularly good Hell, just this crappy ironic one where everything's pretty much the same. Anyway, I was fairly angry that I flew all the way to Egypt - twice - and then crawled through a cavern of sinister evil and descended an infinite stairway of dread and all that business with the demon tied up with its own naked body that I still don't want to think about and I've been in the afterlife for two or three weeks now doing absolutely nothing... and I could have just walked through a door behind a porno theatre? I tell you, I could have killed Dr Willis when he told me, but if I had he'd probably just turn up in exactly the same spot. So I didn't. I left him down there trying desperately to flirt with the damned spirit of Emily Dickinson. I'll probably head back in a couple of days if I can be bothered.

Right now, though, I'm back in my lovely, warm, non-Dr-Fate-inhabited apartment catching up on Studio 60. Disappointingly, that's another thing that was exactly the same in Hell as it is here. I figured the fact that this week's episode didn't have an ending was some kind of Hell thing, but it turns out it's not, and neither was the Gilbert and Sullivan business. Go figure.

The Afterlife Sucks

2006-10-06T17:51:00.000-07:00

First of all, I have to get on the damn plane to Egypt again, and put up with Dr Fate moaning and bitching and constantly asking the stewardess for extra peanuts because he thinks the bags are too small again, and then I have to crawl knee-deep in filth through all manner of caverns measureless to man again, and then when I finally cross the threshold of the infinite and reach the depths of perdition itself, who's the first person I end up meeting?

Barry Allen.

Jesus Christ, I was hoping I'd never have to run into him again, and of course the first words out of his mouth are "Has everybody on the satellite been keeping to the dishwashing rota I put up on the noticeboard?"

No "Hi, Ralph!" or "Hey, what brings you to the dismal regions of damned souls, Ralph?" or "Long time no see, Ralph, let's sink a few down by the Well Of Eternal Sorrow!" No, he's yammering away at me about who's washing the dishes. All right, Barry, one, the satellite got blown up so no dishes will be washed there in the forseeable future, and two, you're dead. I assume you have your own problems right now.

If that wasn't rude enough, then the asshole starts yammering on at me about interesting facts he's learned about the physics down here. That's another thing he did when he was alive - if you were draining the main vein and he walked in on you, he wouldn't think twice about going right up to you, leaning into your face, and telling all about how the Deer Mouse has no collarbone, which means that it can flatten its body so much that it can squeeze into an opening one quarter of an inch high. Imagine listening to that while you're trying to empty your bladder, or worse yet, your bowels. I'll never forget the time I was trying to crimp one out and he vibrates the molecules of his face through the door of the stall so he can let me know some ridiculous factoid about how long you can run a 100-watt lightbulb on chicken feces. Gee, thanks, Barry! I'm especially glad that you stared at my dangling junk while you told me that, with an expression on your face that lingered halfway between concern and open criticism. How can I thank you enough?

And he's late for everything. Not in a protecting-my-secret-identity way, or a sorry-didn't-notice-the-time way - he's late for everything because he thinks it's wonderfully amusing. He'll walk in fifteen minutes after the movie starts with this smug 'Isn't it funny that I'm the Flash and I'm always late' grin, make some pitiful excuse to any poor schmoe who isn't in on his stupid-assed secret identity, and then turn around and wink at you. Because yeah, he's totally disrupted everyone's plans and made a complete nuisance of himself, but heaven forbid that you don't find it hilariously ironic. I bet that's the main reason he's in Hell. That and the time he killed that dude.

Also he owes me $4.77 from a poker game. I firmly believe that the reason he went into the future and lived in the 30th century for a while was so he didn't have to pay me that back.

I hate him and I wish he was dead. Even more dead.

Anyway, him and Dr Fate are talking at each other now at tedious length about whether there's a scientific reason why I'm such an utter, utter bitch, so that gives me time to blog. I couldn't manage it yesterday, but now we seem to be in one of those Hells that mirror the real world, because that's really ironic that Hell should be just like the capitalist world that we have made for ourselves, do you see? So I've found an internet cafe, although it's ten dollars for half an hour which is ridiculous. That's Hell for you, I suppose.

I'm Not Letting Dr Fate Have The Map Again

2006-09-29T05:01:00.000-07:00

He was the one who kept moaning and bitching at me to get on with this goddamned pilgrimage through the nether realms of mysticism and now he's not holding his end up. To start with, we had a huge argument at the airport about the ticket, because Dr Fate wanted to bump the ticket up to Business Class. On my dime. Apparently in Economy Class he feels cramped. Apparently ostentatious golden hats need more legroom. Well, boo hoo, Dr Fate, maybe if your non-existent legs need to stretch you can goddamned walk to Egypt next time. Also, currently your half of the 'pilgrimage' comes to $1,340 plus tax - that is money that I am owed, Dr Fate, so the sooner you can break out the Enchanted Wallet of Xyliphetas and pay me back, the sooner you can come out of the luggage compartment and take in the in-flight movie. That's all I'm ready to say on the matter.

And not contect with all that, he then proceeds to go off and force himself on the creatures of the underworld.

First, after dragging me into some dark dimension or other that he swears is the correct route to the Fiery Pit, he tells me to wait at the top of the Nigh-Infinite Stairs Of Negruthazzar while he goes and 'interrogates' the Demonic Guardian Of The Gate Of Mictlan. 'Interrogation' is allegedly what the hip kids are calling it these days. So I'm sitting on a mysterious stairway to nowhere, twiddling my thumbs for seven hours and eventually I start hearing this wierd groaning sound and I figure Dr Hat probably needs help, or at least something vaguely interesting might be happening to him which would beat sitting at the top of some metaphysical stairs without even a pack of cards or a book because Dr Bitch had to spend all of my duty free money on a walkman and a tape of The Greatest Hits Of Lionel Ritchie.

So what do I come down the Infinite Stairwell to find? A demonic guardian knocked out and tied up with his own limbs while Dr Fate rubs his grotesque helmet-face between his satanic buttocks and makes little cooing noises. I tell you, it made me feel physically sick, and I said so, but Dr Fate screamed that I didn't understand his needs and that he was sick of me judging him and WHY COULDN'T I LEAVE HIM ALONE?? And then he burst into tears. After that he stopped speaking to me altogether, which was frankly a relief although it did leave me to find some explanation to give to the creature so he didn't sue us blind the minute he woke up from whatever rohypnol trance he'd been put into. God knows I've managed to avoid enough legal trouble lately without being ensnared in Dr Fate's web of sickness.

I figured the only way out was to smooth things over and make sure he didn't go around complaining about how he'd been treated, so I decided to act like I was in charge and not to be messed with. That involved waving a packet of dental floss around and making up some nonsense about his bones cracking and shattering. And then kicking him down the stairs. Just one of the many tricks you learn when you're Ralph Dibny, Mystical Detective.

Anyway, from there on we simply had to cross over the Mictlan Gate and finally enter the depths of Hell for the next step of my mystical journey. Dr Fate still didn't have a word to say to me so I took the iniative, crossing the Threshold Of Thresnabazog to find myself on some terrible plane of drab greyness. Wrecked and twisted buildings lay everywhere, a spectral wind howling between them, and on the faces of the damned spirits who lurked in this hideous place was written a terrible despair, as though all hope of redemption had been ripped bodily from them by their unspeakable circumstances.

That's when I turned around and saw a big sign saying 'WELCOME TO DONCASTER'.

Anyway, I'm now stuck in Doncaster, which is apparently on Earth although you could have fooled me. Dr Fate still refuses to speak to me, although he's racking up immense bills on my mobile phone calling the USA to loudly inform the Spectre that he's not paying for another ticket to Egypt just so we can start all over again. I must have somehow missed him paying the first time.

Hopefully next week we can actually get somewhere more mystical than Doncaster, but I'm really starting to have doubts about Dr Fate's navigational abilities, and everything else about him - although frankly, I think he's just jealous of my new stylin' safari pants. According to the guy who lives in a box outside the train station, I'm like a young, hip, ginger version of Des Lynham, whoever he is.

Jesus Christ, Dr Fate

2006-09-22T06:23:00.000-07:00

I still haven't gone to the airport yet for the next stage of the Holy Pilgrimage Of The Lords Of Order, but I had to send the countertops for the new kitchen back to Ikea three times because they'd been damaged in transit, plus I had to yell out the UPS people because the new entertainment center I bought has been logged as lost in Poughkeepsie or something. So obvously I've got no time to be going on any quests right now. Maybe next week.

So anyway, things have calmed down on the pilgrimage front, but christ almighty Dr Fate is an annoying little bastard. I was just getting my head down for some sleep after a hard day of wrangling on the phone with Ikea when I hear a knock on my bedroom door, and who should it be but goddamned Dr Fate headbutting my new paintwork with his goddamned fin.

"Look," he intones, "I'm sorry to bother you, but do you think you could stop jangling your keys QUITE so much when you go in and out? It's not fair on the other people who are trying to sleep in this apartment. I mean, I shouldn't have to ask, any considerate roommate should know to keep the noise down, surely? And another thing, would it be too much to expect you to buy some bleach? The bottle under the sink is almost out and how else do you suppose you're going to keep that toilet clean? Do you think it's up to me to do it? I'm a Lord Of Order. I do plenty around here already, I'm the one who keeps a thousand demons from the veil of Nergalheim from bursting into this reality and having their terrible way with children and animals, I don't think cleaning the toilet should be my job as well. And for GOD'S sake can you PLEASE remember to leave the toilet door OPEN when you leave it! Because otherwise I think someone might be in there and I end up waiting for ages, because OBVIOUSLY I can't turn the handle or knock because what if somebody IS in there and while I don't STRICTLY need to go because I'm a floating helmet, it's not INCONCEIVABLE that some chaotic spell might lead to me having to -" And on and on in that vein. I just nodded and said yes and no in the right places and went back to bed. Dr Willis has shown me that the first impulse isn't always the best impulse, which is why I didn't grab Dr Fate, turn him upside down and crap in him.

Ten minutes later, another knock. Dr Fate again, floating there with a few more flecks of my paint on his metal face.

"Why are you turning the landing light off?"

Well, it wastes electricity to leave it burning all night, Dr Fate. We're in the middle of an energy crisis -

"DO YOU WANT ME TO BREAK MY NECK?"

You don't have a -

"I could be severely dented if I smack into the wall. I suppose that's what you want. God, it's not rocket science to remember to leave a light on -"

Look, what kind of Lord Of Order can't walk along a landing in the dark?

"What kind of person doesn't remember to leave a light ON at ALL TIMES so the mystical headpiece guiding you on your spiritual journey doesn't smack into the wall LIKE A RETARD?"

Well -

"Just THINK in future! JESUS!"

And he slams the door with his mystic abilities. Now I figure I want to avoid a repeat of that if possible, so I decide that the best thing to do is make a little sign out of paper - 'LEAVE LIGHT ON' - and stick it next to the switch, so I'll remember next time. I mean, this is a nice thing to do. In addition to paying the phone bill so Dr Fate can bitch to the new Spectre about how I'm shirking my cosmic responsibility, and the internet bill so he can look at Suicide Girls all day, I'm now making sure I remember to waste an assload of electricity every night. What the hell am I going to say to Al Gore next time I track down a missing jewel for him? "Oh hey sir I really liked your film, I liked it so much I totally ignored it because my roommate was whining like a petty, obsessive little bitch! Give me a medal!"Christ!

Anyway. Ten minutes later, another knock. By now my bedroom door totally needs repainting and Dr Fate totally needs a polish, which he's totally going to make me do.

"ARE YOU TAKING THE PISS?"

No, Dr Fate. No, I put that sign up to help me remem-

"ARE YOU TELLING ME YOU CAN'T REMEMBER SOMETHING AS SIMPLE AS NOT TURNING OFF A LIGHT? GOD! I HATE stupid people - I absolutely HATE stupid people! I am SICK of you! DO YOU THINK IT'S FAIR that I have to scream at you like this? DO YOU? DO YOU THINK IT'S FAIR?"

Look -

"DO YOU?"

...

"DO YOU THINK IT'S FAIR?"

No. No, Dr Fate, I don't. I think I've been very unfair. Now, it's nearly three in the morning and I need to get some sleep. So get back in your hatbox and leave me alone.

"DON'T CLOSE THE DOOR ON ME! YOU BITCH! YOU UTTER UTTER BITCH!"

So he spends the whole rest of the night yelling into the phone at the top of his absent lungs to the Spectre, all about what an utter, utter bitch I am. And this morning I had a note from the Super saying there'd been a complaint about me from an anonymous source saying I was 'a super huge doody head', which he took to mean I'd been indulging in coprophagia in my rooms, which was against the conditions of tenancy.

I need to go back to Egypt and continue my mystic pilgrimage. Either that or dropkick Dr Fate into the river. One of the two.

I Can't Pilgrimage 24 Hours A Day

2006-09-15T05:27:00.000-07:00

I need to get a few more things done before I really get going on this whole pilgrimage thing, like furnish my new apartment and catch the new episode of Queer Eye. Is it just me or does Ted carry the whole thing these days? I mean, it used to be a fairly unbreakable Ted-Kyan axis, but since Kyan developed those heat powers and started fighting crime as Dr Inferno he's barely there in most episodes. He'll turn up in that horrible orange costume (nice work Carson), do a very rushed version of his usual spot and fly off again. One time he actually screamed "What do I care about your unsightly nose hair? I've just seen a universe die!" which kind of put a damper on the whole episode. I realise how the five of them are a brand and everything, but at this point I figure they need to cut Kyan loose and get a new grooming guy who doesn't -

Dr Fate, I am blogging. I'll be done soon. No, I won't be going to the airport after that. I need to organise the spare room. No, then I'm making some dinner. Look, you heard what Dr Willis said. I shouldn't be rushing into things at this stage. The world won't end if I take a week - well, I've only got your word for that. Look, we'll talk about it later, Doc, okay? Okay.

It's been like that for days now, ever since the flight from Egypt. I mean, I know I had to follow the holy path of the ancient Egyptian Lords Of Order but on the other hand, I absolutely had to resolve my apartment situation and set my digital recorder, otherwise I'll miss Deal Or No Deal. Don't ask me to choose between the final fate of the Earth we know and Howie Mandel, Dr Fate. You might not like the choice I choose to make.

Anyway, it turns out the mystical helmet of Dr Fate is a complete buttinsky and if you deviate from his anal little schedule for thirty seconds he moans into your mind constantly - even on the toilet. Pee time is me time, Dr Fate. Jesus, he's even on at me as I type this. Yes, Dr Fate. Sure. Okay. Great. Two thumbs up. Brilliant. That's perfect, Dr Fate. Now just shut your golden face and get back in the hatbox. Actually, if you're going to keep yelling at my brain like this, you can give me a hand in the spare room. Just use your magic powers to float around and headbutt a couple of nails into the wall. I need help putting up some shelves.

What's that you say, Dr Fate? The holy power of magical order is not to be used to help put up a shelf? Fine, then it's hatbox time. Get in that box.

Right... well, now that he's finally shut up, I can let you know that I've found a terrific loft space over in Star City - god dammit shut up! Shut up! I can hardly hear myself think with you banging on, you cowcatcher-faced helmet bastard! I'm trying to write my therapy journal here, Mr Magic Bitch! Do you want me to have another nervous breakdown? Do you?

Then shut up! Shut up! Shut up!

Wait, he's stopped.

I think he's finally realised he can't get anywhere with this incessant whining. Either that or he's in a sulk. Dr Fate? Anything to add?

No?

Good.

That's that.

Finally.

Okay.

Well, as I was saying, I JESUS CHRIST DR FATE SHUT UP!! SHUT UP!! SHUT YOUR HOLE!!

SHUT UP!! SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UUUUUUPPP!!

SHUT UP!!!

What A Wonderful Week It's Been

2006-09-08T09:57:00.000-07:00

It's been fantastic every step of the way! First Dr Willis suggested a relaxing trip to one of the resorts I used to visit with my late wife. Apparently I need to 'reconnect' - think of my wife in the context of happier times rather than as a charred corpse murdered BY LORING, that sun-orbiting bitchhag -

What's that you say, Dr Fate? Anger is not the path toward enlightenment? Yes, Dr Fate, yes. What? You think I should take another of my pink pills? But I've had so many already - yes, Dr Fate. You know best. Yes, I'll take one right now. Yes.

Anyway, I figured the best place to 'reconnect' would be in Marseilles, one of the most beautiful and culturally vibrant places on Earth! Of course, when I've had one of my special pink pills, everywhere seems like the greatest city on Earth! And that reminds me, I should really have another. Should I, Dr Fate? Yes. He says yes.

I didn't want to be bothered while I was 'reconnecting', but I was thinking that my old buddies in the Famous Fictional Detectives' Inspirations' Grandfathers' Neighbors Club Of Marseilles might want to know I was in town, so I cleverely used the alias of the guy who was the neighbor of the grandfather of the guy who was the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes. Needless to say, I was expecting Henri or Jean-Luc or one of the other crazy guys in the FFDIGNCOM to turn up dressed as Bob Hepplethwaite or Mrs. Lancaster or another famous neighbour of the grandfather of the real-life person who'd inspired a famous fictional detective. That would've made my weekend!

Instead, who should I look up from my pina colada and see? Bobo.

What's that you say, Dr Fate? I have to be nice to Bobo? He was only trying to help? I should take a pink pill? Yes, Dr Fate. Yes. I should take a pink pill. You're quite right. I must be nice to Bobo. Bobo has a charming personality, he doesn't have a massive drinking problem, and he doesn't smell like an old carpet that's been defecated on by an army of tramps! And he's not a god-damned, greasy, dirty ape bastard who still! After five years and seven months! Has not returned my DVD copy of World's Wierdest Police Chases Vol. III which features a getaway car crashing into my stretchy body and then pinging back to crash into another getaway car, in slow motion! And me and Sheriff John Bunnell giving two thumbs up to the camera! And that damned dirty chimp has been sitting on it for five whole -

Yes, Dr Fate. I'm being unfair. You're quite right. I said all that when he showed up and he had a perfectly good explanation that he lost it in a drinking contest and besides he was bringing me work. I shouldn't snap. Yes, Dr Fate. Yes. Another pink pill? But I only just had one - no, Dr Fate, you can't have too much of a good thing. You're quite right. Yes.

These pink pills certainly are tasty.

Anyway, Bobo had a bit of work for me involving my old detective's club that I left behind like the pathetic bunch of losers they were and the mystical helmet of Dr Fate, which is sitting next to me in this cafe. Apparently Tim Trench put it on and died horribly, which means I can maybe get the thirty bucks he owes me out of his will. Anyway, I heard Bobo was hanging around with all these big-ass mystic types now, so I figured if I brought them in, they'd just do all the work for me. I've noticed that generally if some big magic person gets involved with anything, they'll be the ones to say something like "There are forces here beyond your ken puny mortal, blah blah blah, we must venture to Egypt and the sit of the yadda yadda yadda..." which is a pain in the ass if you're not getting paid, but it's excellent if you are, because you can just sit back and watch the money roll in while some gimp in a Harry Potter costume does all the heavy thinking.

And that's exactly what happened this time! I just sat back, made a few random cryptic comments about this being a desperate crisis and hey presto! A free trip to Egypt and two hundred dollars - without me lifting a finger! Forget magic, baby, this is the Tenth Age of Dibny, and don't you forget it. Anyway, the jet lag was going to be a complete bastard, so I popped a couple of pink pills, and then I had another two because it was so hot -

- and that's when Dr Fate's helmet started to talk to me.

I mean, first it showed me this crazy vision that seemed almost like a hallucination caused by overmedication, but this was definitely real. And then he started telling me what to -

What's that you say, Dr Fate? I have to leave this place and be back about my pilgrimage? I have spent too long with the petty responsibilities of the mortal world? Yes, Dr Fate. Yes, I have spent too long. Yes. No, Dr Fate, there are plenty of pink pills left. I have hundreds of them in my jeep. No, Dr Fate, I've never tried taking five at once. Yes, Dr Fate, that does sound like a great idea.

Well, time to get back to my mystical quest! Like I said, it's been a terrific week of adventure, and I don't need another pink pill to know that next week should be even better! Although having said that, another one wouldn't hurt. Anyway, I should have a moment next week to tell you how it's all going, and I'll let you know if Dr Fate has any instructions for you out there!

Apart from that you should see Dr Robert Willis and get hold of some of his special pink pills. And eat them. Do that now.

I've Never Been Shot With A Tranquiliser Dart Before

2006-08-31T17:07:00.000-07:00

It's kind of like playing paintball, only with mood-altering drugs instead of paint.

So yeah, basically Dr Willis got really angry with me, hunted me down like an animal and shot me full of Tamazepam. For something I didn't even do. I mean, there is such a thing as due process in this country, Doctor Vigilantism. Sorry my civil rights offend you, dude. Jesus.

Okay, so I ran around naked for a while. So I survived by eating berries off trees and stealing pies from windowsills. So I gave a few internet cafe users a cheap thrill on my occasional forays into civilisation. And yes, I'll admit, maybe I gloated unreasonably over Booster's horrific, painful death. Possibly I may have been a touch insensitive towards any friends or relatives he might have had. Perhaps. (If you are a friend or relative of Booster and you're reading this, and Booster left you money in his will, please remember that $230 of that money is rightfully mine.) But that doesn't mean that Doctor Punishment can just run up and shoot a high-velocity needle full of happy juice into my ass.

Damn, I'm getting really steamed. Time for one of the blue pills.

Anyway, sorry I offended you, friends of Booster. Actually, considering most of his friends seem to be dying like flies, there probably aren't any left to complain - I mean, Ted got shot, Dmitri was blown up or something and even Buddy's missing presumed dead in the depths of space (although he's been lost in space for a long time before that if you get my meaning. He's a couple of goats short of a petting zoo). Frankly, I'm pretty sure that if Sue had ever told Booster to his face what she thought of him, she'd be alive today. (Hey, how about that, Dr Willis? I managed to mention Sue's name without oh god christ

Sorry, I had my gun in my mouth for a while there. Time for another of the orange pills! Dr Willis has turned me on to the the benefits of taking my medication regularly. According to the packaging, if I have too many of the big pink ones my heart might stop, but an extra dose of sanity-sweets never hurt anybody, right? Right?

Where was I? Oh yeah, the reason Dr Willis turned into Judge Prozac. Apparently he figured I was responsible for shaving Ollie's beard off last week, the sole reason being that it's something I've fantasised privately about for the last eight years. There's a thing we have in this country called innocent until proven guilty, Doctor Robert Lynchmob.

Anyway, it turned out it was the All-New Beard Hunter, who's a hot chick now. She used to be a bearded lady at the circus, but she lost her beard in a tragic depilatory accident and now she's decided that if she can't have a beard neither can anybody else, so she came up with this plot to steal the beards of the Justice League, only she sent one to Dr Willis by mistake. Happens all the time.

One by one, the beards fell to her power! She got Hal Jordan's horrible sideburns from when he was 'on the road' about eight decades after it was cool. She stole Superman's beard from one of those times he was off in space and had to grow one for some reason. The Flash tried to grow a goatee once. Where is it now? Being used to power a deadly ray, that's where!

All the super-powered beards went into a beard ray designed to wipe the beard from every adult male in the western hemisphere and then transfer all that beard growth to her so she'd grow a giant beard and be Queen Beard of the Universe. As evil plans go, it was fairly straightforward, which was nice.

Anyway, it was probably the biggest crisis to hit this planet in its entire history. Every superhero on Earth got together to fight the beard threat - Jesus, what am I telling you all this crap for? It's not as if you don't know about it already. It was all over the news. The only way you could possibly have missed it was if you were in space for five days.

Still, you probably want to know how we managed to end the threat - by uniting all the souls of Earth's heroes into one giant Soul Patch, which faced off against her Evil Spock Goatee that she'd made with the spirit energy of Earth's villain population! Beard Versus Beard in a battle for the fate of the very cosmos entire! Finally she was absorbed into her own evil beard, becoming a huge cosmic energy creature, which always seems to happen during these get-togethers, although they're not usually made of hair with bits of food stuck in it. Anyway, we beat her up despite that and won the Crisis On Infinite Beards or Crisis On Follicle Earth or whatever we're calling it.

Ollie's beard sacrificed its life to save us all in a battle against Deathstroke's beard, so we buried it on a specially constructed Hill Of Heroism, in a shoebox. And then Dr Willis snuck up on me and shot me in the ass.

Nobody wants to think about how close we came to a world without beards, so it's not being talked about at all anymore on the news or the internet or anywhere else, but even if nobody ever mentions it again, I'll always look up at the stars and thank the Bearded God Almighty that - thanks to the courage and commitment of this world's mighty collection of hairy heroes - I'll always be able to grow a really excellent crop of face foliage.

Oooh, time for one of my pink pills!

This time Ralph has gone too far.

2006-08-25T13:33:00.000-07:00

Hello, all.

As you will all no doubt be aware at this late stage, I am Dr Robert Amersham Willis, Phd. I would like also to state that I am responsible for Mr Ralph William Dibny's mental care. I would like to - but I cannot! For he has finally gone so far beyond the pale that I must regrettably wash my hands of him. As Emily Dickinson would have it, "behaviour is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes" - and Ralph's behaviour over the past 24 hours has been so utterly shocking that I can scarcely type for my shaking hands.

I received a package from Federal Express this morning. As you can imagine, I was at a loss as to who might have sent it to me, as most of my friends know that I despise the hustle and bustle of these modern times, in particular the disgusting haste embodied in the Federal Express commercials, and would rather recieve a letter or other item through the refreshingly civilised auspices of the noble postie. After all, is there anything created by man or God which absolutely, positively has to be anywhere before elevenses have been consumed? I hardly think so. When I have a missive to send or a parcel to post I always find that it relaxes the mind immeasurably to leave it unsent on the table while enjoying a snifter of fine brandy and a cigar. This allows me to consider what I am about to send off into the rushing current of the mail service and perhaps take the time to amend a hasty decision or two. This very journal entry will be finely considered over a small glass of twelve-year-old malt, as I digest a luncheon of quail's eggs and pate de foie gras. In this way, we men of refinement cock a snook at the world of vulgarity which rages, like unto the tide of chaos that existed before the world began, all around us. But I digress.

In the package was Oliver Queen's beard.

I am at a loss as to how the deed was done. A mayoral candidate must presumably have some form of security to guard against ne'er-do-wells, and I understand that Mr Queen is great friends with a certain righter of wrongs with whom he happens to share a resemblance that verges on the uncanny. Be that as it may, somehow - despite being still, as far as I can determine, completely denuded of any and all habiliment aside from an unprepossessing hat - Dibny managed to gain entrance into Mr Queen's residence in the watches of the night, shave his facial area and send me the resultant mass of hair.

Mr Queen himself called me not half and hour ago, bemoaning the time and effort it would take him to regrow his pride and joy. "Baby," he said, adopting his usual vernacular, "right now, my chin is a lonely worker oppressed by a slumlord - cold and alone on Misery Street, without even a newspaper to keep him warm! And dig it - my lower lip feels the pain of the rainforests, cut down and stripped bare to feed the grease-fat bellies of the fat cats in their ivory towers! How can I be down with the kids - and their 'hip', 'now' struggle for their own crazy truth - if I don't even have a groovy set of sideburns to call my own? Something is wrong! Something is killing us all! Some hideous moral cancer is rotting our very souls and beards!"

While I thoroughly detest the man, on this occasion I could do naught but sympathise with his tragic loss. Tonsorial elegance is perhaps the hardest attribute for any man of worth to achieve, and to have such a stylish facial accoutrement amputated without so much as a by-your-leave - well, it sickens the mind and befouls the soul to contemplate it!

Ralph has crossed the line! To think that I once felt pity for that wretch of a man! But now is not the time for regrets. Now is the time for action! And action there must and shall be! "Fortune befriends the bold," as Emily Dickinson said!

This will be the last entry I choose to make in this forum, for it is unseemly to be contributing my thoughts to the journal of one who is no longer my patient - but is now my arch-nemesis! Look to the forbidding sky, and tremble, Ralph Dibny! For by this vile deed you have incurred the incalculable wrath of Dr. Robert Amersham Willis, Phd!

Ralph, if you're reading this, please turn yourself in or at least put on some clothes.

2006-08-17T16:58:00.000-07:00

I've just heard from the Metropolis police department, Ralph. They're very busy checking for deadly radiation in the midtown area and giving everybody decontamination and they really don't have the manpower to chase a mentally unstable nudist. Also, the midtown Metropolis branch of Go-Go Luthor's Swingin' Coffee Bean And Internet Paradise Bongo Cafe (dear god, I despise that chain, it panders to the worst instincts of the culturally stagnant) called saying that you owe them three dollars and fifteen cents for the time spent on their machine before the police managed to arrive.

From what I understand of the chain of events, the police were informed that a naked man was rampaging through the above-mentioned internet cafe. When they finally arrived on the scene, the naked man in question - now identified as one Ralph William Dibny - had decided to slap his accoutrements repeatedly against a monitor screen with an enlarged image of poor Booster Gold's dessicated skull plastered across it, shouting - and I quote - "The sucky dance, is your chance, to do the suck. Do the sucky suck, come on Booster, do the sucky suck."

I understand that this is a mangling of a song by a group called Digital Underground. One of the police officers who held his gun on you is something of a fan.

I also understand that you extricated yourself from this hideous situation by hurling something at the arresting officers that is unmentionable in polite society. I refuse to go into further details on a blog which children may have access to, but I want you to understand how very, very disappointed in you I am.

Hurling your gametes is not the sign of a well-balanced individual.

Give yourself up, Ralph. I'm warning you, I don't take a personal hand in the affairs of my patients very often. I generally don't have to. But you're about to cross a line, Ralph. It's a line you'd rather not cross, I warn you now. Don't cross my line, Ralph. Walk the other way. In a metaphorical sense. In a non-metaphorical sense, any direction will do so long as it's towards either a police station or a reputable tailor. But the line is inviolate.

This is not an empty threat. Remember the words of Emily Dickinson, Ralph. "It is better to be the hammer than to be the anvil." Cross me again, Ralph, and I warn you that it shall be hammer time.

And nobody wants that.

SUCK IT, BOOSTER

2006-08-17T12:58:00.000-07:00

SUCK IT... IN HELL! AH HA HA HA HA HA HAAA!

Did anybody record it on Tivo? I hear GBS zoomed in on his smoking skull. Can somebody burn that to DVD for me? Also if anyone has any clothes.

Dammit the cops are here gotta go

My love of Emily Dickinson has caused something of a rift.

2006-08-11T04:42:00.001-07:00

Hello again.

My name is Dr Robert Willis, Phd, and as many of you will know, I have taken over the writing of this journal while Mr Dibny is convalescing from mental damage at the hands of Mr Hal Jordan and his sleazy associate, Mr Oliver Queen. Many of you have been curious as to how Mr Dibny has been keeping over the past few days, and whether the brief periods of lucidity demonstrated in the comments section - mostly where money is involved - mark a return to the Ralph we have all grown to know and tolerate. Well, as Emily Dickinson put it, "Success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed" and in this respect I must confess to count success as very sweet indeed. In other words, I have failed Mr Dibny, and I have failed you, his supporters and well-wishers. Oh, the shame of it!

Ralph is missing and has not been seen in thirty-six hours.

He appears to have climbed out of the window of one of the staff toilets, dropped twenty feet into a tree and then made his way from there. I'm somewhat worried for him as - as far as I know - he is completely stark naked. "Wherever you are, that is home", Emily Dickinson would say in this situation, but I doubt a naked man with a severe and violent mental complaint has a home anywhere in polite society.

At least he's left that horrid dummy behind. I shall break the vile thing up and use it for fuel this coming winter, as it promises to be brisk.

Casting my mind back to the hour of his disappearance from my company, I seem to remember that he had become fixated on his reputation as a detective.

To quote: "Get that needle out of me you god-damned fraud! I'm a world-famous detective and Emily Dickinson is a world-famous ho! You heard me, Dickinson! You can suck it! SUCK IT!!"

Unwilling as I am to forgive so merciless a slight against the divine Emily Dickinson, I very much regret my later course of action. Receiving a telephone call from another psychiatric institute - this one being a centre for the treatment of criminally insane scientists with a propensity towards the outre - I was informed that they had a missing persons case that was baffling them and that they understood my patient was something of a devotee of bizarre and fantastic mysteries.

I should make it clear that this is the telephone call Mr Dibny has been waiting for for some years, as he has always felt that solving strange mysteries is his true calling and any other line of work is beneath him. I told the staff at The Haven that Mr Dibny would be glad to take the case as soon as his health was improved, and then - shamefully and against all proper psychiatric practice - I dangled the phone call like a carrot before him, playing upon his love of the detective arts like Marcel Tournier (1879-1951) playing upon a harp. As soon as he demonstrated that he was fit to rejoin civilisation, I said, he could get straight to work. I may have demanded an apology on behalf of Emily Dickinson as well.

After an initial flash of rage and violent threats, during which time he threatened to burst free from his straightjacket, he calmed considerably and seemed fascinated by the prospect of solving a new case. He begged me to fetch him his medications so that we might drive over at once and investigate.

Fool that I am! He merely wanted me out of the room so that he could mount his escape bid. He had loosened his bonds sufficiently to slip free, and now ran to the nearest unbarred window to hurl himself into the leafy arms of his compatriot on the road to freedom, the humble Quercus laceyi, before running naked into the distance like some sort of mentally deranged wood-nymph. Needless to say, this represents such an immense psychiatric faux pas on my part that I can hardly see how I shall ever face my other patients again.

I can only assume that Ralph intends to solve the puzzle of Dr Morrow's vanishing into the ether, though how he intends to do that without the benefit of clothes is beyond me. I have the police scouring the neighbourhood for him, but should they fail to find him, I fear the worst - swift degeneration into a mindset more befitting that of a wild animal than a human being.

Ah, well. "People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles", as Emily Dickinson said.

Mr Dibny has had a slight setback.

2006-08-04T04:58:00.000-07:00

Hello.

My name is Dr Robert Willis, Phd, and contrary to what Mr Dibny might have told you, I have Phd's in Psychology, Applied Psychiatry and Philosophy, all of which are pursuits which edify and elucidate the lives of men. It's no secret that since the loss of his wife he's been somewhat erratic, and his refusal to take his medication has made him worse and worse with each passing day, but unfortunately an event this week seems to have triggered a descent into almost total psychosis. As I am the one who convinced Mr Dibny to begin this journal, and it is the only suggestion of mine that he has ever followed - including suggestions such as 'please don't hit me again Mr Dibny' - I feel somewhat obligated to continue posting on his behalf until such time as he feels more able to take the reins. I attempted to pacify him by giving him the laptop earlier, but he only got a sentence out before hurling it across the room and attempting to attack me in a fit of demented rage, so it looks like it's down to me to let you all know where Mr Dibny is and what he is doing at the moment.

He's strapped down to a bed in the Opal City Psychiatric Hospital, and he's foaming at the mouth and howling like some kind of baboon. More on that as it develops. Also, he seems to be very attached to the remains of a shop window dummy of some kind that's lying in the corner of the room.

I've only managed to get the vaguest idea of what the event was that sent him over the edge, but it seems to be connected with some sort of service for his dead wife, being held by the dubious cult he had (very much against my advice) made himself a part of. It seems that since the idea was to 'bring his wife back from the dead' (presumably a metaphor) he invited a number of other people who had previously been 'dead' (again, presumably a metaphor) so they could compare notes. I think he was planning to greenlight a TV series of some kind about it - I know he's been very active on the Steve Lombard Sports Bloopers Show recently, which I wholeheartedly approve of as Lombard's delightful parody of a beer-swilling NASCAR-headed booby places him as one of the great thespians of our generation. I watch his sublime broadcast daily. But I digress.

Now from what I've heard of this ceremony, I wholeheartedly approve of it. It seems like a brilliant theraputic idea - getting the bereaved to confront their feelings of loss head-on in invisible theater! Genius! I'm going to set up a similar 'cult' myself and try it on some of my other patients. However, on the day, Mr Dibny was sadly suffering from an attack of paranoia, which meant that he sought reassurance from the friends and collegues that he'd brought to witness the event. In particular, a Mr Jordan and a Mr Queen. I would have thought that any friends of a man with a severe mental disorder would think twice before goading said man into one of his periodic violent outbreaks.

Evidently I would have thought wrongly.

If Mr Jordan and Mr Queen are reading this, I'd like to point the finger of blame directly at them. You gentlemen, in your apparent desire to play a fratenity house prank, have sent Mr Dibny's therapy back years! If not decades! The man may never recover! What in God's name were you thinking? Using Google, I've discovered that Mr Queen is in fact running for Mayor of one of our neighbouring cities - doubtless this ugly tomfoolery is his idea of a mayoral campaign. Well it isn't mine, and the Star City Herald will be hearing of this in the morning, as soon as I can be sure Mr Dibny's vital signs will remain stable. As for Mr Jordan, I will be content with bringing proceedings against him in a civil court.

When I found Mr Dibny, he was under a bridge, clutching the aforementioned shop window dummy, with what can only be described as a 'lunatic grin' on his face. (I've been chasing him for weeks in a final desperate attempt to get him to take his medication.) He literally collapsed into my arms and apologised for calling me a quack and a charlatan! I knew then that he was at his breaking point. This is not the Raph Dibny who punched me in the face and slashed my couch with a straight razor when I accidentally insulted his dignity. This is a broken shell of a man! I hope you're happy, Mr Jordan.

This anger I'm feeling towards these overgrown schoolboys who've all but destroyed Mr Dibny's health is starting to take its toll on my own mental equilibrium, as the poets might say, and besides, Mr Dibny has begun shrieking again, so I must depart. I'll be continuing this journal over the coming weeks, so I can give reports of Mr Dibny's progress to the people he considers his real friends, such as...

Such as...

Well, I'll speak to you all next time, whoever you may be.

I'M NEVER INVITING ANY OF YOU TO A PARTY EVER AGAIN

2006-08-04T04:45:00.000-07:00

YOU BASTARDS

Swamp Thing Is A Massive Asshole

2006-07-27T12:46:00.000-07:00

He's obviously got a Time-Looker-Forward-Tube or something, because just as he predicted when he opened his big mossy mouth in my comments section, I ended up in goddamn Philadelphia and now I'm wearing a 'ceremonial robe' in the shape of Superboy's foreskin and blogging in front of a huge stone sculpture of his face with a giant replica of his super-schlong flopping out of his mouth. A statue with built-in wi-fi function. So it seems Compost Kid can predict the future by a couple of days. Which is evidently far too much power for a man with oregano pubes.

I mean, seriously, what would you do with a glimpse into the future? Would you be out there saving lives? Or getting loads of sweet corporate cash like Booster Famewhore? Or would you be dicking about with another guy's free will? I know what this is about. He wants to be my friend. He wants to be part of my team. I've seen his blog, the whole thing seems to be an extended fantasy about how all the superheroes love his fungus-infested ass. With a few naked shots of his wife for good measure. NOT SAFE FOR WORK. Well, here's a message direct from the team leader of my super teeeeam, Captain Carrot. THERE ARE NO MORE PLACES AVAILABLE. IT'S A TEAM OF ONE. IT'S CALLED RALPH DIBNY. HEADQUARTERS ARE MY CLOTHES.

Don't try that again. If I want to know what I'll be doing on a Thursday, I sit around and wait like decent people. That goes for the rest of you, especially you. You know who you are.

Anyway, if not for that goddamned cryptic warning about going to Philadelphia, I wouldn't be in Philly right now. Sitting on a stone representation of Connor's hackysack.

Basically, as soon as I heard that, I got this stabbing pain right behind my eyes and decided to get as far away from Philly as humanly possible, which meant either China or Deep Space, and Deep Space is full of complete assholes. So I decided to head for China. That is where the bizarre chain of events that I have decided to call 'Swamp Thing Blows Goats I Have Proof' began.

I honestly forgot that they have superpeople there these days. And those superpeople have been pretty much tasked with keeping all the other superpeople out of China. And since I've gone around telling everybody that I can still stretch like a fiend if I felt like it, I'm on the list. So rather than being met at the airport by a friendly limo driver expecting a ten dollar tip, I was met by a member of the Great Ten EXPECTING TO KICK MY ASS. And succeeding in that expectation.

It was a heavily pregnant woman in some kind of wheelchair! How was I to know I was being attacked by Chinese state-sponsored superpeople? I was almost beaten to death by more than twenty people and they all came out of her... I can't say it. Trust me, it makes sitting around on a representation of Superboy's overemphasised bits seem positively mundane. What kind of world are we living in where somebody's superpower is to give birth to grown humans who kick me hard in the face?

Anyway, after I'd been 'restrained' - and had my beard shaved down to stubble in case it had drugs in it, along with the rest of my body hair - they put me on the first plane back to the USA.

Which went to Philadelphia.

You plant bastard.

Anyway, the first thing I wanted to do when I got there was avoid Cassie. To hell with the case and to hell with my wallet - all I wanted was a drink and some pretzels before I caught a flight right back to Opal City. So I head for the airport bar and she's standing right there! Of course cults infest airports! Of course it had to be her cult! Because Swamp Bitch can't be wrong!

So I panicked and ran for my life. I could swear I heard her screaming above the wind and the noise of the traffic, asking for more personal effects. Did I have other rings? Nipple rings? How about a Prince Albert Mr Dibny? Just get in the ol' drowning hole and we'll yank that sucker right off under the pretense of giving you a rubdown! Obviously I had to get off the streets, but I might have been remiss in grabbing a fire escape, climbing up five stories and breaking into the first apartment I saw. I figured I'd join some family at dinner, wait it out for a while and then grab a greyhound to the next state. At the time it seemed like a foolproof plan. I didn't realise whose apartment it actually was.

There's only one proper procedure when you break into the apartment of the very person you've been trying not to come into contact with for days, and that's to pretend it was totally what you meant to do all along. So when I heard Cassie come in I hurled myself into an armchair and started talking nonsense like my life depended on it. Thank God I had some Superman playing cards on me - if you hold them upside down, they look like evidence! It's little tricks like that that have put me at the top of the detective game. And kept me out of prison.

Anyway, she told me why she wanted the ring. At the time it didn't register that much - I had the face of someone with a couple of days jet lag and a concussion from being kicked in the head by a superfetus - but now that I'm sitting on a huge statue of Connor's family jewels dressed in some pretty sumptuous velour, I'm starting to like the idea more and more! I mean, who doesn't want their wife back from the dead? Apart from guys whose wives are still alive. And spouse murderers. Anyway, I'll be changing the layout a little to reflect the coming change to a new Dibny dawn of love, so next week this blog will be called Ralph And Sue's Togetherness Diary Of Happiness. That's if I have time to post! Geddit?

In fact, if you like Swamp Thing's blog, come back next week because this one's going to be a chronicle of well-adjusted married people in love just like it. How could it not be? I mean, they've got a guy called 'Devem'! That's like Devo with an M! I guess if Dr Willis were here he'd be telling me not to pin my hopes on something that is completely and utterly mad and undoubtedly is only going to lead to a further mental breakdown and yet another psychotic episode, but he's an idiot. Nothing can possibly go wrong. This time next week all my problems will be over and I'll never need a psychotherapist again!

Honestly, I'm Not A Pedophile

2006-07-21T06:44:00.000-07:00

There is a perfectly good explanation for what happened in the park. I can explain everything.

Essentially, I had to make a trip to Washington DC in order to bail Ram out of prison. It turns out he was arrested by two undercover officers while attempting to purchase two kilos of uncut cocaine. With my money. I've got to admit, sometimes Ram plays it a little close to the vest even for me. I guess in many ways I'm like the tough captain who orders his best cop to drop the case, and Ram is the street-wise maverick who had to solve the mystery the only way he knows how - by abusing vast quantities of recreational drugs and having wild unprotected sex with adult film stars. (Although apparently the wild unprotected sex is a sacred mission imparted to him by the Guardians Of The Galaxy rather than part of the case at hand. I don't pretend to understand the cosmic mysteries of the universe myself.)

Anyway, quite obviously it was a case of two undercover investigations crossing paths with tragic consequences, which left bail at around ten grand, which frankly is a little out of my budget but I felt I could at least plead Ram's case. And maybe find the real drug pusher in this tantalising mystery. Number one suspect at the moment is Hourman. So I figured I'd scope out the park looking for dealers before I went in and showed those two-bit badge monkeys what Ralph Dibny Justice was all about.

And what should I see but some cultists. I HATE CULTISTS.

Just like that the Adventure Of The Desecrated Grave And Stolen Wallet was reopened! Again! Cultists can shake in fear because I'm not dropping this case again. No matter what the courts decide. Not that they'll decide I'm a pedophile. That certainly won't be happening. I have a good explanation for that.

Anyway, I hate cultists because they stole my wallet. And also built a giant statue of Superboy's engorged thang that I had to look at for at least thirty seconds. So it was clearly time for tea with the Reverend Fist. If you get my meaning. Regular readers will know that I'm not in the least bit violent - unless I'm provoked, that is - but sometimes desperate times call for desperately hard punches to the face and body. With my fist. And this was one of those times! I reckon Superboy himself is behind the whole thing - probably standing upside down as part of his plot, hence the upside down 'S' - so I started my line of questioning with that. And a few choice blows to the solar plexus. Sometimes being a hero means having to make hard decisions like that.

Anyway, I was really getting my groove on - I said something about the cult being everywhere and nowhere at the same time, which sounded very cool, let me tell you - and suddenly I realised that I was wrestling a twelve year old girl in a park in the dead of night.

I swear to god I didn't realise. I thought it was a midget. Anyway, as soon as I can get through to Bea I'm going to ask her to check my top secret government file to see if they think I'm a kiddy-fiddler. I really don't need that right now.

Oh, also my new home has been broken into. By cultists. I've been renting this storage locker, which is seriously about a third of the rent of a real apartment, and I can fit all my stuff into it. I sleep on a couch I installed there. It's surprisingly comfy. I recommend it to anyone. Anyway, they didn't take anything of much value, apart from my wife's clothes. They're probably fitting them onto a straw doll or something even as I speak, and then they'll dance around it in a circle, shouting 'Big Dog, Big Dog, Bow wow wow, we'll crush a bit of evil, now now now'. I've seen it happen. It's what they do. I've decided to defer getting a new shrink until I've sorted the whole cult thing out, because I'm not paying good money to be healed of mental scars one day so they can tear me some new ones the next - that's just a waste of good shrink money.

Anyway, it's now total war with cultists. And also with shaving. I've got my beard back and if Ollie doesn't like it he can stop making up ridiculous stories and sending me cuttings from Spank Magazine Reader's Wives claiming that they're him and Sue. We're all sick of your tall stories, Ollie. We know about your big road trip to find America - or as Hal describes it, your trip to the Deli to stock up on milk. So much for finding your soul on the twisting roads of this great nation, you old blowhard.

So Anyway, Bob Is The Quakemaster

2006-07-15T06:11:00.000-07:00

I'm not entirely sure how I didn't see that earlier. Anyway, that's why I'm posting late this week and also why my apartment is now a pile of smoking rubble.

On the plus side, though, I did totally kick Dr Willis to the curb! So score one for me.

But back to Bob. The penny should finally have dropped when he started wandering around the apartment on Monday wearing a hideous green and purple number. I swear to god I am as liberal and tolerant as you can get but when I saw him standing there in skintight latex shouting about how he's going to use his power-charged jackhammer to teach me a lesson and pound me into the wall until I scream - what was I supposed to think? And then he orders me to go put on my costume so we can wrestle as befits Olympian Gods and not mere men. I know what happened on Mount Olympus. Say I'm just another example of the new wave of subtle homophobia that's plaguing modern American society if you like, but I thought Bob wanted to chain me to a slab in a dungeon and flog a giant puppet of me while I watched. I hear that's how it works when you're into hot, kinky deviant shenanigans.

So anyway, I told him I wasn't that way inclined and then he flew into a rage and told me I would feel the wrath of the Quakemaster. And then I did the dumbest thing imaginable, which is ask if Quakemaster was the name of the sex toy he was carrying. I swear it looked like a giant massager. And now I know who Quakemaster is, because he stuck his goddamned cosmic dildo against my NEW KITCHEN TILE which I'd finished less than 24 hours ago and basically obliterated it with the flick of a switch, and then started on the work surfaces.

It's one of those times that I really wish I had my stretch powers again. I know I go around telling people that I could stretch around if I felt like it, but I really felt like it then - I mean I wanted to elbow him in the face from across the room like I used to do to people who irritated me, even at parties. Anyway, he trashes the whole kitchen with this thing and then starts on the other rooms, and meanwhile Mrs. Levin next door is banging away telling me to keep the music down. Thanks Mrs Levin. I'm being murdered by a supervillain and you think it's japanese noisecore.

Anyway, my goose would've been cooked if not for that new guy, Supernova. When Bob blew out the window in the bathroom, he flew in and started taking care of business. I mean, seriously, he's got the skills. POW! SOCKO! All that stuff. Very old-school. It was all over in thirty seconds maybe, although they did destroy a couple more walls, including a supporting wall which means the whole building has to be closed in case it falls down, but that was Bob's fault, not Supernova's. And not mine either, despite what Mrs. Levin told the landlord. Anyway, thank God for Supernova, that's what I say. I figure I can turn my meeting with the Star Of Tomorrow (I thought that up, it's copyright Ralph Dibny) into a few tasty appearances on the Steve Lombard show. So I guess I can thank Supernova for a couple of extra thousand dollars in the bank as well as saving my hide. Thank you, Supernova! I am your biggest fan.

Hey - maybe I could be his 'pal'! Jimmy Olsen gets thousands in endorsement deals every year, and I've already got a signal device from the JLA days, which could be turned into a signal watch if I knew anything about signalling devices and how they work.

Apart from that, though, I'm homeless and the landlord kept the deposit and he's threatening to sue, which is ridiculous because supervillains attack buildings all the time. Apparently it was my fault for not vetting Bob thoroughly enough. Well excuse me Mr high-and-mighty Rabinowicz, but last time I checked, you had arrested precisely zero super-villains. I think the fact that I happened to let one slip by is no fault of mine.

Anyway, I took all this to Dr Willis and the first thing he asked me was whether I felt that my poor detective skills invalidated me as a human being. The first thing. Oh, he apologised after I hurled his diploma across the room and tipped the couch over, but it was too late for sorry! I've taken a lot of crap from that grotesque shyster but this was the last straw! This fraud, who couldn't diagnose his way out of a paper bag, telling ME - The World Famous Ex-Elongated Man - that I was a poor detective? I've had enough of his lies. He's called me a borderline psychotic, a manic depressive, a possible threat to those around me - he's even tried to addict me to mood-altering drugs - but this was the end. I walked out of his office for the last time, a free man, and if he thinks I'm paying for that last session he's got another think coming. Goodbye, Willis - goodbye forever.

Hourman (the new one who's a junkie or a pusher or something) recommended a guy called Dr. Huntoon, who seems to have a pretty good success rate. He operates in Gotham, which is a good town for profitable mysteries, so I'm going to head down there and see if there's any apartment space. Anyone got anywhere to live in Gotham? I don't smoke.

Oh, there was another postcard from Ram forwarded to me. Apparently he's into Johnny Moustache for three hundred large and he's contracted some kind of disease from the red light district and can I send a check for expenses. I'm starting to wonder if this has anything to do with finding Loring at all.

Oh God

2006-07-07T08:50:00.000-07:00

I despise myself.

I was supposed to go on the TV this morning on the 'Steve Lombard Early Early Morning Greatest Sports Bloopers Of All Time Show' (6.45am on GBS) to give my list of which ten superheroes are the biggest famewhores but I just couldn't face it. It seems like this week all I could do was look over and over the events of my pathetic, wasted life.

I was telling Dr Willis that when I think back now over my early adventures, it's like all the color's been drained out out of them. But the thing that really hurts is that everything I got up to in the early days just seems so... cheap. Like all those years of solving mysteries put together isn't even worth seventeen bucks. Or twenty-three dollars Canadian. Just a bunch of cheap thrills about painting horses purple or far out crooks who jigsawed Flip Philips' long green. Whatever the hell that means. I hated Flip Philips then and I hate him now. And I hate myself. A lot.

Once upon a time I lived to solve strange and bizarre mysteries. Now the only strange and bizarre mystery is why I should get out of bed in the morning. And this time it isn't a fake mystery my wife cooked up to celebrate my birthday. Because it isn't my birthday and my wife is a charred corpse.

Dr Willis told me I should start taking the pills again, but he's probably trying to poison me. Like all the others. He thinks I don't know about the eyes watching me, but you need to get up pretty early in the morning to catch Ralph Dibny. Actually, you don't have to get up at all. I haven't yet today. The point is, Dr Willis is a lying bastard who's trying to pump my brain full of an assortment of dangerous mind-frying chemicals to cover up the fact that he's the worst therapist ever. In fact he's the worst human ever. Apart from Booster, that is. He's the actual worst. Apart from Bob, who's the actual actual worst. He defecated in the microwave yesterday, but I can't find the willpower to clean it out. When I confronted him about it, he told me that the day of the super-do-gooders was over and now crime would rule the city, which seems like a fairly pessimistic viewpoint. I guess he's as depressed as I am.

I'm going to go and stick my gun in my mouth again. I've gotten around the taste problem by coating the end of it with honey glaze and sticking a chupa chup into the barrel, so hopefully I'll actually pull the trigger this time. So I guess it's goodbye forever.

EDIT: I haven't pulled the trigger yet, but I did get another card from Ram. He's in Las Vegas now, apparently snorting crack cocaine off the breasts of a C-list adult film star. It sounds like some pretty deep undercover work to me, so I hope he's okay. He's probably going to need some extra money if he's going this deep into danger so I sent him $1000 out of my checking account. I don't need it, because this time it totally is goodbye forever. So goodbye forever, everybody!

EDIT: I still haven't pulled the trigger yet and I'm out of chupa chups. But I will. Soon. Goodbye forever. I mean it this time.

I Kick Rich People's Asses

2006-06-30T03:39:00.000-07:00

So yeah, I'm a superfly vigilante crimebuster now! And I don't just deal with stuff like wallet theft and grave desecration, I'm totally bringing true justice to the oppressed, relevant streets and hitting the "fat cats" and "slum lords" where they hurt. I mean, technically, Ollie was doing all that stuff, but I totally helped. I even swung down this giant rope that he fired from an arrow! AND IT ROCKED! I looked so good doing it I might just travel that way all the time now, like when I need to go to the laundromat or something. That's what socialism is all about, apparently, so I guess you can call me The Red Elongated Trotsky now because I'm totally down with the communists! I told Ollie and he called me a running dog, which is probably liberalese for 'brother of the breadline' or something.

I see a new career developing as a tough-talking, famous celebrity, speaking out against the shameful tactics of those in power where it'll do the most good, on high-profile late-night sports blooper shows, and endorsing ethical products only UNLIKE BOOSTER. Or I could even run for Mayor! I was dropping all sorts of hints to Ollie when I saw him that I should become the new Mayor of Star City, but I don't know if he liked the idea. Maybe he sees the responsibility of power weighing down my youthful shoulders. I can't blame him. It's only natural he should want to look out for somebody much younger and handsomer than himself.

(I should mention that the reason I was in Star City in the first place was to visit Ollie, because Ollie threatened to sue over the beard. I don't know if you can copyright a beard, but I do know what it's like to feel the touch of jealousy because somebody is better than you at everything and that somebody is Ralph Dibny. Or I can imagine what that must feel like. So I took pity on him and shaved.)

But the big news is that on the way from the train station I saw one of those upside down 'S' symbols like the one on my wife's grave! So instantly the case was open again thanks to my incredible detection skills. Obviously I had to pretend to Ollie that I was following a giant lead or he wouldn't have come along. I felt bad lying to the guy but I still got to kick down a door! Take THAT, you wallet-stealing fat-cats! Unfortunately nobody was home, so I had to pretend that this was all par for the course with these freaks. In the detective game you have to fly by the seat of your pants and roll with the punches, particularly if you're as brilliant as I am, but Ollie might not understand that and the last thing I need when I'm looking at a golden statue of Superboy with an immense Tom of Finland-size dingus dangling out is Ollie pointing his finger at me.

Seriously, I couldn't stop staring. What's with these people? I don't need to see Superboy's idealised schlong. It's not right. That wasn't the worst thing, though - the worst thing was when I turned around and saw a giant phallus with Connor's grinning face on top of it. It had veins. I almost couldn't finish my sentence. Anyway, after I threw up on Ollie he gave me the finger and left, but screw him! I don't need Ollie! I don't need anybody, because I'm the world's greatest detective and everybody else sucks. This case is as good as solved and then I'm dragging these wallet-stealing, obscene-statue-building scum through the courts. I'm unstoppable. I am Ralph Dibny. You have been warned, crime and criminals!

Oh, I almost forgot - according to Dr Willis, I'm in my 'manic phase' and I'm probably going to swing back towards suicidal depression. Apparently I need to start taking my pills again. What Dr Willis doesn't realise is that I'm a golden, glittering success and he's a pathetic, shoddy failure with an ugly, unkempt beard, unlike me - yes, I'm talking to you, you godforsaken shyster.

Watch your mouth, Willis, or it might be time for another consultation with Doctor Fist Punchington, MD. THINK ON THAT.

EDIT: Another postcard from Ram. He's now in Ibiza, 'raving to some wicked E and banging the honeyz'. So Mr. E has turned evil and teamed up with the Queen Bee. I assume. This all goes deeper than I thought.

My New Beard Makes Me Look Dignified

2006-06-23T03:39:00.000-07:00

It's a keeper. I mean everybody used to say that I could only grow a sad haze of fluff there, but now I'm a jet-setting, world-class detective and television star, I need a world-class Tom Selleck to match. And the new chin foliage is starting to look pret-ty stylin', let me tell you. I'm like the thin Orson Welles. I'm probably going to get maybe a pipe as well, or a watch and chain - something to really say to the world "Ralph Dibny is here! And one of you is - a murderer!" Take that, Audrey Steiner! (Audrey Steiner dumped me in college because she thought my moustache made me look like a hobo. Dr Willis knows all about it.)

Also, Booster can suck it. He can suck it on live television. And did! I think it's on YouTube now if you type 'booster sucks' into the search bar.

Basically, after all the promises he made in the comments section, Skeets never came. Meanwhile, things with Bob have totally deteriorated. He peed in the kitchen sink last night and the dishes were still in it. He goes in the shower too. I mean, where did this guy learn manners? He keeps muttering about how there's "things about me you don't know, super-cop" and how he's going to get revenge on Uncle Sam, which I assume is some kind of tax-related thing. I don't know. He's starting to really freak me out.

Anyway, no Skeets, and I still need a decent lawyer. So I decided to play it cool and went over to Booster's place to flash him my new beard. I made up this thing about how I'm investigating the theft of my wallet so I didn't seem needy, but seeing Skeets floating around doing nothing when he could've been evicting Bob - well, I got pissed off and started calling Booster a famewhore again, which he totally is by the way. Although who's the famewhore now, Booster? Eh-h-h? It's not me, buddy. I'm a respected television celebrity and talking head. Call me if your career ever recovers, babe.

Oh yeah, also I shoved his head into the wall.

I kind of realised while he was standing there that his whole thing is being from the future and since I'm a World-Famous TV Celebrity now, (suck it Booster) that means my wife would be in the history books as a famous celebrity murder or something. So obviously I attacked him. Dr Willis says I need to keep these violent impulses in check, but he's only saying that because I broke his nose that time.

Anyway, I was totally on a roll, so I gave him this huge speech that I can't remember now about how he's a giant famewhore. And then he's all in my face about not having the stretch powers, blah blah blah, thanks for rubbing it in Booster, and then he has to do some boring rescue stuff or stop a riot or something... and then the coolest thing in the world happened! You can go watch it on YouTube, but suffice to say I saw the opportunity to totally stick it to Booster. And get some of that sweet, sweet celebrity cash in the process! Who's the man? I'm the man! I was like 'All cameras! All microphones! Here! Soak up the sweet beard action of Ralph Dibny, the World-Famous Elongated Man!' I swear I was getting an erection. It was like the first time I ever hung a giant sign on my back saying how world-famous I was.

I notice since my live television debut some folks have called me a hypocrite, and Dr Willis seemed really disgusted with me for some reason when I told him how great it felt to screw up Booster's life, but let's face it, every word I said in my new status as famous television commentator on current events was true. Booster is a total famewhore and I'm not afraid to say so on any television, or while holding up any product. I've already got a two-minute slot on "Steve Lombard's Late Late Sports Bloopers Show" (3.30am Tuesday on GBS) to talk about how much Booster sucks, and I'm sure I can parlay that into worldwide fame soon enough. When I started, all I had was a purple costume and a big sign to go on my back. And now I have a beard.

That's what happens, Booster. That's what happens when you owe me $230 and you don't pay up. Think on that.

EDIT: Another postcard from Ram! This one's from Jamaica. He's apparently found 'the most powerful herb ever', so I assume he's talking to Swamp Thing about a way to reach Loring through the astral plane. That's a hero you can really count on, Booster.

Dr Willis Is Really Starting To Drive Me Nuts

2006-06-16T03:15:00.000-07:00

He's become an objectivist now. So now - at $122.77 per session, mind you - I have to listen to him banging on and on and on about how A is A and there can be no compromise between good and evil and if you choose any part of evil (black) you will become grey(corrupt). NEWSFLASH Dr Willis that's not very theraputic, especially when you wear the scary white metal mask and jump around on the furniture.

Still, it is nice to be told I'm a heroic being (damn right Dr Willis) and that my own happiness is the moral purpose of my life! YEEEAH! I always knew that was true. Also, I can't change reality by just wishing it were different. I mean, I have been able to in the past, usually on adventures involving wishing wells or mystic wish-granting rings, but that isn't the case any more. As Dr Willis would say in his scary monotone voice, Man must deal with reality by understanding it, accounting for its constraints, and interacting with it in accordance with one's power to effectuate material changes consistent with one's rational desires.

Which is what I was doing when I punched Dr Willis in the face.

I probably got caught in the moment. Anyway, I put an extra $10 on the check, so hopefully he'll still agree to see me next week - I don't know if I could handle finding another therapist right now, and some of that objectivist jazz really was making sense to me. I mean, say what you like, A isn't B.

I'm going to have to start effectuating a few more material changes around here, like getting my wallet back and getting the bank to issue me a new credit card and also getting rid of Bob, who's eaten all my food that was clearly marked with my superhero symbol like a god-damned hog. I had a whole steak that I was saving for dinner and he cooked and ate the damn thing while I was seeing Dr Willis. And then he said it was cool because I could help myself to a breadstick any time I wanted one. I mean, that's pretty goddamn grey (corrupt) if you ask me.

When the hell am I going to be able to eat steak again? It's not cheap. Oh yeah, also I need a proper paying case to solve, seeing as The Adventure Of The Desecration Of My Wife's Grave And Also Theft Of $175 Bucks And My Credit Card seems to have petered out. Apparently there's a missing cat in the neighbourhood so we'll see where that goes, and if Mr Levin is sleeping around like Mrs Levin keeps screaming through the wall, she might require a certain no-longer-ductile detective to try and catch him doin' the mambo. As we call it in the super-hero game. It's not exactly fighting Le Fromage Fou in the beautiful bohemian quarters of Paris, but I'll take whatever I can get right now.

One lucky break - I managed to get some free legal representation! Skeets apparently has some serious legal knowledge, although when I talked to Booster about it on the phone, he sounded like he was freaking out about something. He kept asking me about my reach and if there was anything I wasn't smelling. I mean the things I am smelling are bad enough because they're huge puddles of pee. Anyway, all I know is I have a binding agreement with him to get use of Skeets for one day a week. I figure I'll only need him one day to sort all this out once and for all, so as long as nothing happens to Booster next week, Bob is GONE by the end of the month.

Finally things are going my way!

This Week I Ate A Sandwich

2006-06-09T00:49:00.000-07:00

Which doesn't sound like much, but let me tell you, it was a really amazing sandwich. I just picked it up at this random deli - it was Cantonese-style barbecued pork with three different kinds of lettuce and tomato on a fresh-backed sesame seed roll, and the bottom of the roll has sesame seeds in it too. How awesome is that? The only problem is that I kind of forgot that the bank was still trying to sort out my credit card, so I had no money on me, which basically meant that I had to grab the fresh sandwich and run out of the deli shouting "Write to the Justice League Satellite! I am a superhero and there's an emergency!" That used to work when the satellite existed, kind of, but it wasn't working now because this old chinese guy chased me for about six blocks. Eventually I ducked into a big office building and lost him. I had to eat my sandwich in their breakroom - this big metal box of a place - and thank God the lady in there didn't say anything.

But I didn't have any time to be embarrassed because the TV was on in there and it was all Lex Luthor talking about crazy superpower drugs. I had a mouthful of sandwich and when he said 'every man and woman can be a superhero' in his special President Voice - he's got a President Voice and a Car Salesman Voice - I spat it across the room. I mean, this is the return of the stretch powers we're talking about. I was seriously already rehearsing cool things to say in my head, like "You're going away for a long STRETCH Loring" and "I hope you can STRETCH to doing some time for murdering my wife because you're totally going to".

Oh, and guess what? It turns out that lady in the break room used to work in a diner, and one time Lex Luthor drove up in a big limo and offered her a whole wad of cash to be his sex slave! How bizarre is that? She actually thought about it for a few minutes - I mean, we've all seen Indecent Proposal, and this would've been like Fat Proposal or something - but then he drove off. Apparently to this very day she can't help wondering about what kind of drugs he was on. True story! Anyway, she kept the security tapes and sold them to the National Enquirer when Lex was President - used the money to move to the city and get a degree in Information Technology. Now she puts away 50k every year. Good old Lex, huh?

Anyway, the return of the stretch powers. Leave it to Dr Willis to rain on my parade like a jerk made of rain. "Ralph, I worry you've placed too much of your self-worth in having amazing superpowers blah blah blah blah." Apparently he thinks there's some Freudian implications. Oh really Dr Willis do you think so. Boy I can't imagine how the fact that I miss being able to elongate any part of my body led you to dive into the Freud. The man's a complete dildo. At least while he's babbling about penis envy he's not yakking away about the trickster god and the hero's journey. I don't care if he's dead, if I ever meet Joseph Campbell I'm going to send his head on a heroic journey into a toilet. The flushing symbolises the rebirth of the fertility god Mithras Joseph Campbell you giant nerd.

Oh yeah, speaking of flushing things, it turns out not only does my new roommate Bob not flush, he leaves big puddles of pee all around the toilet. I'd kick him out but he's signed the lease and stuff so I totally don't know where I stand. I need to get in touch with a Lawyer Superhero but the only one I can think of is some guy from an alternate dimension which fought our dimension once. It was completely insane - I was fighting this guy with a pipe for no reason and he knocked seven shades of crap out of me, and then our universes merged so I was suddenly The Elongated Fantastic and married to Susan Storm Dibny and had The Sun Boy Torch in my house - I don't know what the hell he was meant to be except he was on fire all the time which was terrifying. And Cliff Steele was there, only he was called Cliffben Grimmsteele the Robothing. This is totally the last guy I'd have living in my house as my supposed best friend because he utterly creeps me out. Every time I see him he introduces me to a new girlfriend and then takes me aside and says something like "listen, I don't want you to act funny because she used to be a man" or "I know she's twenty feet tall right now and her head's been replaced by a sun but she has a mental disability so please don't stare" - it's like he's flaunting it in my face how goddamned PC he is to be dating all these troubled women. And I wish Larry would make up his mind about what his genitals look like. Is he a hermaphrodite or isn't he? You can't have it both ways, Lar.

Man, this whole blog thing is really theraputic. I guess Dr Willis was right for once.

Oh yeah - good news from Ram. He's on a beach in Tahiti following a really important lead, so watch out Loring because you're going down baby. He sent me a postcard with all these women's asses on it and it distinctly said the trail was definitely getting hotter if I know what he means and he thinks I do. So that's good news, I assume.

The Bastard Sons Of Bitches Got My Wallet

2006-06-02T15:08:00.000-07:00

I had a hundred and seventy-five bucks in there! Those god-damned corpse-worshipping ass-munchers. God damn it. I'm sorry, I've been drinking since nine this morning and I only just found an internet cafe.

Anyway, this is meant to be my journal for the whole week, so I should mention that this is all the fault of you Dr Willis. You god-damned quack. I know you're reading this.

I should have known something was up when I turned up at Dr Willis' office and saw that old guy being taken away in a straitjacket. He must've been 90 years old if he was a day - Stuart something or somebody Stuart. He kept yelling about how he lived through WWII because he could see ghosts. "I tried to tell them, General!" He screamed. "I tried to tell them how the tank was 'haunted'! How you were the 'ghost' of the 'haunted' tank!" I swear to God he was doing finger quotes.

"I tried to tell them you were there! General! You were real! Even your beard was real! Especially your beard! It was the most real part of you! I remember everything you taught me... how a brave man can outwit a howitzer in the face... how a well-trained horse is better than a thousand nuclear bombs... how the South will rise again and sweep the Yankee scum into the sea! Yes, General Jeb! I HEAR YOU. The black men must be kept in their chains for the sake of our noble Confederacy. FOAM FOAM. YIB YIB YIB."

And that was when six men came in and beat him around the face with truncheons. Sometimes I wonder about Dr Willis' success rate.

That said, apparently ol' Jeb back there was a minor abberation. Dr Willis was really pleased with how I was doing - apparently by investigating this whole vandalism thing I'm confronting my own deeply buried inner truth. Frankly, that was all I needed to stand up like the true hero I am and get my wallet stolen by a bunch of cultists.

I walked right out of there, confronted Cassie and her frigging monk sect, got half drowned because I was expecting a free massage and had my wedding ring stolen. My wedding ring from my dead wife. And my wallet. With one hundred and seventy five bucks and a credit card. So I went back home and sat around with my gun in my mouth for a few hours. Thanks Dr Willis.

There's some good news this week - I got in touch with an Internet Superhero who can help me with that bitch Loring who killed my wife and is now haunting my comments section. His name's Ram and he used to be in the New Guardians. This guy has been bringing cybernetic justice to the pick-up joints of San Francisco since the days of the Atari ST, and let me tell you he's just as powerful now as he was then. So your days are numbered Loring. Shake in your shoes, you wife-murdering freakshow - Ram is on the case! Or he will be when he gets back from The Horny Toad bar and grill, where he's been since last night. Apparently he's 'perfecting the technique of passing on his DNA' which is some high-level cosmic crapola, let me tell you.

Plus, I got a new apartment! I'm renting with this guy Bob Coleman. He's an architect. It'll be great! Like Friends. Wish me luck!

EDIT: It turns out Bob doesn't flush.

Nothing Happened This Week

2006-05-26T10:49:00.000-07:00

It's been a couple of weeks since the unpleasantness with the alternate earths and the killing and the shouting and all and my therapist thinks I should start keeping a journal of my inner thoughts and feelings. Well screw you Dr Willis. If you were any kind of therapist I wouldn't respond to a serious global emergency by sticking a goddamned gun in my mouth. I blame you for the last three suicide attempts, you quack. You're just lucky I can't afford a real therapist so I have to put up with your bargain basement Jungian crap.

So anyway, I pulled the big reveal on Cassie last week. I was all Mister Cool Detective, pulling out the polaroid and saying 'Hey, upside down this means... resurrection!' It was great. I felt like I was an actual proper detective solving a proper crime, not a miserable failure who has to investigate why his odometer's wrong.

I despise myself.

Anyway, suddenly I had this wave of nausea. I mean, this is supposed to be about my dead wife, not my own feelings of self-empowerment. (Yeah, Dr Willis, I learned one of your giant quack words. Bite me.) So I turned around and walked straight out before she could even say anything. And then I threw up outside, all over this statue of Superboy nailed to a cross made out of Barry Allen's face. That was just the last thing I needed so I ran away.

So after that experience I spent all of this week sitting in my hotel room. Mostly weeping.

The same thing happened just after I visited my wife's grave after it got vandalised - I said I was going to solve that mystery, and then like an idiot I tried to wiggle my nose like I used to and it just gave this pathetic twitch. So I ran away again, with the cemetary guy asking was I okay and did I need a hot beverage - I just ran back to my wrecked house and curled up under half a wardrobe for... jesus, it was days.

Anyway, I've got to do something to get myself out of this fog, so I'm taking Dr Willis's crappy journal advice. Hopefully I might manage to get something done by next week's entry. I'm not sure.

Possibly the week after. I need my pills.