As Captain Midnight lay comatose upon the cold ground in the underground chamber, his mind drifted back to the day when the New MBL was formed.
***
The team had defeated a gigantic reptile-like monster that resembled a mutated Tyrannosaurus Rex, and they had just rid themselves of one General Prescott Gerald Forrest by announcing the formation of the MBL—the New MBL. They decided to celebrate by going to the upscale Gascon Club in downtown Thunder City, all expenses paid by the wealthy and eccentric Captain Midnight.
X-Stream, comatose and injured, had been taken to the hospital, while Doug, scared of the publicity, had just fled from their company and disappeared. They would later learn that he merely disguised himself in other forms and trailed them to the restaurant, where he met up with them again disguised as their tablecloth.
And so the four heroes—Hero, Quinn Stevens, Doctor Marvelo, and Captain Midnight—traveled together to the restaurant. Quinn Stevens flew under his own power, and Hero leaped his way there, while Doctor Marvelo used his amazing umbrella to somehow glide through the air behind them, and Captain Midnight swung through the air on a line held in Quinn Stevens’ hand. They had no chance to talk while in transit, but upon landing on the rooftop of the Gascon Club the heroes decided to wait a few moments before entering the restaurant.
“Well, here we are,” said Quinn. “Shall we?” he added, motioning the team toward the single door on the rooftop that led into the kitchen below.
“Let’s wait a few moments first,” Hero said. “I think we need to properly introduce ourselves to each other before we make our first public appearance as a team.” He addressed all three, saying, “My name’s Hero. Officially, of course, I am Hero II. You may have heard of the original. I wear a mask not for any nefarious reason, but because I have secrets to protect. Since two of you also wear masks—” He nodded to Quinn and Midnight. “—I trust you will understand the importance of a secret identity, and why I cannot reveal to any of you my own—at least not yet.”
Hero looked at Quinn Stevens, who stared back at him with a frown, thinking for a moment that Hero was trying to communicate something important to him. After a moment, Hero said, “I know you tried to introduce yourself earlier, friend, but none of us could hear what you said.” Quinn frowned, confused.
“That’s right,” Doctor Marvelo said, leaning casually on his purple umbrella as if on a cane, while twirling his mustache with his other gloved hand, “I believe a sudden gust of wind drowned out your words as you introduced yourself, good sir.” Quinn looked at Marvelo and saw that the refined English gentleman with the silver bowler hat was telling the truth.
“I heard your name,” declared Captain Midnight.
“You did?” said Quinn Stevens, involuntarily gulping.
“But I figured, what business is it of mine if you want to call yourself ‘Green Sheep-Strings’?” Midnight said, shrugging. “Not the most accurate or descriptive name, but what the hey.”
Quinn laughed, grinning widely. He suddenly understood what had happened. Hero had somehow caused a loud gust of wind to obscure Quinn’s voice when he had impulsively blurted out his name. This was a man who could be counted upon, and possibly also trusted with his identity in the future. His father had always warned him to keep his name and identity a secret from everyone, but that eventually he should find a few trusted men in whom he could confide. It was too soon, far too soon to know whether he could trust this new team, but he hoped that eventually one or two of them would become close and trustworthy allies.
He said, after a moment’s thought, “Well, I hadn’t really thought of a code name yet, but it definitely isn’t Green Sheep-Strings.” He laughed again. “I suppose I’m going to have to have a heroic name, or the media’s going to come up with one for me. Any suggestions?”
“Your power suggests an energy-based name, and the silver ‘G’ on your shoulder suggests it should start with that letter,” said Hero. “What about Generator?”
Marvelo winced. “Rather dull, don’t you think?”
“The Great Generator?” Midnight suggested.
“It’s... not bad,” said Quinn, looking at the ‘G’ again, a letter that represented his father to him. “Any other ideas?”
Midnight grinned and said, “How about the Great Energizer?”
“Ugh, no thanks,” said Quinn. “That name sounds like I should wear a bunny costume and carry a drum with me at all times.”
“Hmm,” said Hero, “he may be on to something, though. If you want something simple, descriptive, and implements the letter G, what about something like... Ener-G?”
“Energy?” clarified Quinn.
“No,” said Hero. “Ener dash G. Ener-G.”
“Sounds a bit complicated to explain,” said Quinn, “but I like it a bit better than Generator.”
“Call yourself the Son of God,” said Midnight. “It worked for the big J.”
“Blasphemer!” said Marvelo, chortling with laughter. “We wouldn’t want to incur the wrath of the religious right, now would we? Anyway, as I’m sure you all heard me say earlier, I am called Doctor Marvelo, master of the arcane, the mysterious, and the downright peculiar, and although I don’t wear a mask, I have secrets of my own. All that you need to know about me at this time is that I can be found whenever my help is needed.”
“I suppose you can all call me Ener-G, or maybe just G,” said Quinn, “at least until I can figure out a better name.”
“Sure thing, G,” said Midnight. “And all of you must recognize me as the amazing Captain Midnight, doer of deeds, righter of wrongs, helper of... uhh... helpers. I wear my mask, costume, and these snazzy goggles not only to hide my true identity but also to make a fashion statement.” He indicated his costume. “Wine-red leather says as much about me as you need to know for now.”
A rock dove, which had been circling the rooftop for a few moments, landed and perched itself on the edge of the rooftop. It stayed there silently, as if listening to the discussion.
“What impelled you to give us the name MBL?” Hero asked Quinn. “After that New York business with those terrorists, it’s not exactly a popular acronym.”
Quinn said darkly, “There have always been those who try to soil the good name and reputation of the MBL. It’s up to us to reclaim those initials for what they had always been—the mark of the greatest team of heroes this world, or any world, had ever seen.”
“I must admit, young sir, that I barely know of them,” said Doctor Marvelo.
Quinn said, “They were not from this world, but their exploits in other, parallel timelines, inspired for a time a small team of heroes for hire in this timeline.”
“And the initials?” asked Hero. “Did they always stand for the Metahuman Brotherhood of Lib—?”
“No!” Quinn exclaimed. “They never stood for that. My father’s told me many stories of the MBL, not least of which was the meaning behind the initials. The full name of the team was rarely used after it was first formed, because it made little sense after that first formation. Ever since, many have tried to use the acronym MBL to create new names, but none of them stuck. Only the initials had any lasting power.”
“So what was the MBL originally called?” asked Midnight.
“The MBL was originally called the Message Board League,” Quinn said, smiling.
The others waited for a moment, before Hero finally said, “Are you serious?”
“Deadly serious,” said Quinn. “I know, I know. The name sounds meaningless and silly to us now, but it originally meant something. As I said, the full name was abandoned very early on, and only the initials MBL remained, maybe because of the impact the original team made upon the world scene. I suppose they figured that it was better to keep the initials and abandon the full name than try to start over with an all-new, all-different team name.
“In a nutshell, here’s how it happened as my father told it to me so many times:
“There were many superheroes and supervillains on the world where the MBL was formed, and such heroes had existed at least since the late 1930s, beginning with the great Meta-Man. He had inspired the wave of metahumans—called such after him—to follow his heroic example. The beginning of World War II galvanized the growing number of metahumans, or mysterymen as they were called then, to fight the evils of the Axis powers and home-grown crime wearing tight costumes and, in many cases, capes. While they originally fought a slew of gangsters and criminal scientists, a few super-powered villains began to arise, dividing the metahuman community between those who chose to fight for good and those who chose to use their powers only for personal gain at others’ expense. An exclusive team of the greatest mysterymen of those early days was formed in 1940, calling themselves the Mysterymen Brotherhood Society, which now admittedly sounds like a very sexist name. They lasted into the early 1950s before finally breaking up. When America entered World War II, a larger team called the All-Adventurers Squadron was formed under the direction of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt himself, and this team encompassed nearly all of America's superheroes at the time.
“By the late 1990s, decades later, the world had seen many such superheroes and supervillains come and go, including several super-teams, but no team had the stature that the MBS once had. The superheroes on that world were extremely disorganized, and when crises came along, such as an alien invasion or a cosmic menace, the numbers of competing heroes were often more a hindrance than a help to each other, rarely showing good teamwork together. Few teams existed at the time, except for the LLB, and the Seven Soldiers of Virtual Reality—a team comprised of seven teenagers with reality-altering powers—had just recently broken up. Many were asking what would happen if the world then saw a new, extremely powerful menace arise, one worse than any previously seen? There was no MBS around any longer to rally the superhero troops.
“An incredibly wealthy metahuman called by many names—including Mad 67—who had once been a superhero, decided to rectify that situation, knowing that soon such a menace would arise. Some months earlier he had taken advantage of the internet’s rising popularity to set up a private superhero message board where superheroes from all over the world could exchange information and discuss their adventures with each other. It was originally used for little more than an online social gathering place, but this man decided to use it for something new. Mad 67 began a thread, a discussion on that message board, that called for his fellow heroes to make nominations for a new superhero team, one that would be a modern day version of the MBS. Without giving it much thought, he called this new team the Message Board League for the simple fact that he was organizing it over an internet message board.”
“Not very creative,” said Hero.
“I know,” Quinn said, laughing, “but I really don’t think he had intended it to be the name that the team would actually be called. He probably wrote down the first thing that came to his mind, something that would remind people of the MBS without using its sexist name. He had probably planned on eventually asking for suggestions for a team name, but circumstances didn’t make that possible.
“After several prominent heroes of the time made their nominations for this new team, all those nominated (as well as a few interested observers who had not been nominated) were invited to the Watchtower, a new Moon-based headquarters for the proposed team that Mad 67 had spent months adapting from the ruins of an extraterrestrial starship he had recently acquired. All the nominated superheroes were then put into a series of contests in order to choose the seven heroes most worthy among them to become the new team.”
“Why seven?” asked Midnight. “Why not fourteen, or simply include everyone?”
“Many of them were asking the same questions,” Quinn explained with a shrug, “but Mad 67 insisted that the number seven was the number of perfection, and that such a number was ideal to build a spirit of teamwork between the team’s members. He had no intention of creating a modern-day version of the sprawling All-Adventurers Squadron, which had over 70 members at its peak, and which was notoriously difficult to manage. Anyway, while the trials began for all of those nominated, the world’s media caught wind of the new team and its unfortunate name. Although the superhero message board was supposed to have been private and used only by the world’s heroes, it was difficult to keep anything secret with so many users. In the eyes of the world, the Message Board League—even then usually reduced to the acronym MBL—was born.
“Meanwhile, on the Watchtower, the nominated heroes continued to be pushed through numerous exercises designed to eliminate the less worthy. They were all quite surprised to learn that the team they were proposing to form had already been formed, according to the world, and under the name MBL. Their moment of surprise was short-lived, however, as they were soon faced with the menace of a rival team of evil metahumans called the Injustice Board Gang that had arisen as a direct challenge to the MBL.”
“Injustice Board Gang?” asked Hero. “What kind of a name is that? Why would any grown man call his team that?”
“Well, the IBG was led by a megalomaniacal, prankster-like leader named Albino Chameleon who was only a teenager himself, so that might explain it partly,” said Quinn. “But they quickly dropped the full name in favor of the acronym as well. Albino Chameleon had been a prominent superhero, a shape-shifting member of the Seven Soldiers of Virtual Reality until that team broke up some months earlier due to internal bickering, largely caused by Albino himself, as the reality-altering powers he had were inherently corrupting. Anyway, the assembled superheroes on the Moon were forced to confront the Gang when it began attacking the Earth. Still disorganized, and even moreso because their founder had disappeared off into space for some twelve days, the superhero team dubbed the MBL fought against the IBG poorly despite their overwhelming power and numbers. Various MBL members were led into traps and wild goose-chases, and this combined with a spirit of distrust divided their team, allowing the IBG to largely conquer them.
“The IBG’s leader had made hints that one of the MBL members was secretly a traitor working for the IBG, which further divided the team. Finally, one MBL member who was also a former member of the Seven Soldiers—again, their reality-altering powers seemed to have an inherently corrupting influence—was revealed to have been tempted by the IBG’s sex goddess Rai to the dark side, falling under the power of an evil spirit. Under the dark spirit’s influence, this one-time hero—called ‘Gooz’ by his friends, a nickname more than anything—was made to steal the powers of several of his fellow defeated teammates and a cosmic being called Prometheus X to become the greatest menace that the world had ever seen, bringing the multiverse and reality itself under his control. The MBL seemed doomed forever.
“Dark Gooz, as he was called then, managed to bring another of his former teammates under his snare, and he seemed almost invincible. See what I mean about the inherent corrupting nature of reality-altering powers? Rai knew that only other beings with reality-altering powers were a threat to Dark Gooz’s power, so those who could be corrupted were corrupted, while those who were incorruptible were kept too busy to use their powers to stop Dark Gooz. In fact, Rai herself kept another ex-member of the Seven Soldiers of Virtual Reality—whose name wasn’t really Steve even though everyone called him that—out of the way by trapping him during the most critical phase in a virtual reality room where Steve’s power was wasted on phantom enemies.
“Still another ex-member of the Seven Soldiers named Marston came to confront Dark Gooz and his acolytes just when it seemed that he was unstoppable. Marston used his own reality-altering powers not to battle them but only to make a connection with their original selves, the still-uncorrupted parts of them that were heroes, even as he appealed to them to turn back from the precipice before it was too late. He then left, and although it seemed that nothing had changed, Marston’s actions were the tipping point that allowed Dark Gooz to be defeated.
“Dark Gooz and his acolytes finally met their match when Prometheus X, the cosmic being whose power he had supposedly stolen, returned to meet him in battle with power equal to his own. Prometheus X defeated Dark Gooz and removed the evil spirit that had possessed him. Gooz, now largely depowered, was a traitor no longer, but ever since then he would live with shame over the deeds he had done while possessed, and his career as a hero after that time would always be marked by a sense of repentance.
“It later turned out that Mad 67 had returned after twelve days in space to find the MBL in the midst of battle with the IBG and Dark Gooz. Originally planning on confronting them himself, Mad 67 soon discovered a critically wounded and powerless Prometheus X. Knowing that, if even that powerful cosmic being could be defeated, he stood no chance alone, he realized that he could only do one thing to help stop the new menace. You see, Mad 67’s superpowers were based upon a powerful, cosmic artifact embedded in the comet Kohoutek, which made its appearance in our solar system in 1973, and every six or seven years this hero had to replenish his powers with it before they faded completely, requiring a round trip into space that took twelve days. He had just returned with replenished powers, but like a true hero he now chose to sacrifice those powers completely by jump-starting the godly powers of Prometheus X.
“Mad 67 could not accomplish this task alone, so he recruited Marston, the ex-Seven Soldier whose reality-altering powers he guessed were a threat to Dark Gooz. With the help of Marston, Mad 67 began transferring his power into Prometheus X to rekindle that cosmic being’s own power. Such a sacrifice took time, so he sent Marston to confront and distract Dark Gooz for a time, hoping that Marston was one of the few with reality-changing powers who couldn’t be corrupted. Marston was able to cause a long enough distraction for Prometheus X to be restored to his full power and battle Dark Gooz before it was too late. And so the crisis was ended, and the multiverse was saved. Mad 67, however, had seen how ineffectual his MBL had been and was disgusted. They had managed to save the multiverse and reality itself, but only just barely. He decided to disband the Message Board League, since it was too unwieldy and disorganized to be effective.
“And that would have been the end of the MBL, had it not been for an individual called Rypta. One of the superheroes who were nominated for the MBL, he was an Australian rhyme god who was still youthful even though he had been active since the 1940s, when he was a member of the MBS and the All-Adventurers Squadron, and he had probably been around for quite a while by then. Rypta decided to reform the MBL under his strong leadership with a small core number of heroes, including the repentant Gooz. Rypta, believing in the need for a modern-day version of the MBS, retained the acronym MBL but mostly abandoned the original name of the Message Board League. As I said, many tried to create new names to fill the acronym MBL, but none have stuck. Under this new leadership, the MBL flourished and grew to become the greatest superhero team of the multiverse, its membership changing many times but still retaining the heroic standards it set for itself.”
“Wow,” said Midnight, “that’s confusing, but still kind of cool.”
“I’d heard the name MBL before,” said Hero, “but I had never known until now where it came from. Thank you for your explanation. I hope that we, the New MBL, can live up to the standards of the original.”
“We will,” said Quinn. “I know we will.” He glanced at the silver G on his shoulder and thought, Thanks, dad.
A long moment of silence impelled Doctor Marvelo to finally say, “Well, now that we’ve made introductions, shall we dine?”
The others agreed, and the four heroes entered the restaurant through the rooftop entrance, making their way into the restaurant itself to meet the public. None of them noticed that the pigeon that had landed on the rooftop earlier now changed into the form of a small mouse, which followed them quietly into the restaurant, and which eventually turned into a tablecloth, covering a table moments before the New MBL members were seated there. Doug had been glad to learn a bit more about his newfound allies. The history lesson had inspired him to remain with the team after all.
***
In the present, Captain Midnight began to stir. He looked angry, muttering to himself, “Where’s the dead man who slugged me?” He pushed himself up on his elbows. “And where the fuck am I?” He looked at his gloved hands. “And why the hell am I wearin’ this gay-ass suit?”
He stood up and winced as the blood rushed to his head. He then took off his utility belt, black shorts, red leather suit, goggles, and gloves, and kept only his stained, sleeveless white wife-beater shirt and his boots. Rummaging around a few boxes, he found a stash of clothes left behind by the Reptile, and he found a pair of dirty jeans. He had second thoughts about the goggles and utility belt after all and put his goggles around his neck and the belt around his waist. Still smarting from the pain of the blow to his head, he scratched his unkempt red hair, revealing an old long-healed scar along the top of his skull, as if a bullet had grazed him. Had any of his former allies been around to see him, they would have noticed the vastly different way he now carried himself, as if he were an entirely different person altogether. Even his voice was different, now suddenly speaking with an almost exaggerated New York-based accent, like one heard in the movies.
The man known to the New MBL only as Captain Midnight took stock of his surroundings and began searching for an escape route, finally finding a corridor that could take him to the surface. As he left, he growled, “The day some bastard attacked Jack Nasty is the day that poor, unlucky bastard signed his death warrant.”
