"He means dead." Theodore whispered. "He means we're all dead."
   "God, you're a fucking genius, aren't you?" McAnguish hissed back. "He
speaks backwards, of course he bloody means we're all dead, I can work
that one out for meself. What I want to know is bloody why we're all
dead."
   He reached forwards and placed his hands on Bizarro Jesus' shoulders.
   "Listen to me, you sodding git, how do we all die? What's any of this
got to do with Katherine?" He demanded.
   A thin line of saliva ran from Bizarro Jesus #1's mouth, hanging
loosely from its point of origin between his two rows of mis-matched
teeth and forming in a puddle on his white robes.
   "S...S....Se...." He whispered, like that of a man on his deathbed.
   Violently his mind searched to translate the name but could find no
opposite.
   "S...S...Se..."
   The name was so vulgar, so unique that it could not be reversed. It was
impossible.
   "S...S...Se...SEXDEATH!" He screamed out.
   McAnguish allowed him to drop back to the floor and turned to face his
somewhat furry companion.
   With shaking hands he reached into his cigarette box and drew forth a
thin white tube of paper hiding the tobacco within. He lit it and exhaled
loudly.
   "Shit."
   "What is it?" Theodore demanded impatiently, his coal black eyes wide
with terror.
   "We're all fucked." McAnguish announced.


The Minx: DC: FS
"Mamma Mia"
Pop Act II (Of II)

Written and created by Jacob Milnestein
Edited by Mark Peyton and Alex Cook

Bizarro Jesus #1 created by Bryan Hall and Jacob Milnestein

Based on concepts and characters created by Peter Milligan and Sean Phillips

   Katherine Schwarz looked at the small monkey in the pinstripe suit.
   Her mind reeled as she tried to comprehend the absurdity of her
situation.
   "This is insane." She whispered, shaking her head from side to side.
"Jesus Christ, what sick bastard did this to you?"
   The monkey looked her in the eyes and smiled in a relaxed fashion.
   "No one has done anything to me, Miss Schwarz, not since I was a lot
younger and living in the jungle."  He beamed back.
   "I don't fucking understand any of this." She sighed, slumping down
onto the cold floor of the train platform and digging through her pockets
as she searched for a packet of cigarettes.
   "I'm sorry I had to present myself to you in such a fashion instead 
of being all mysterious and the like but this is of the greatest
importance." The monkey continued. "Not long a book came into your
possession, a book that was handed to you by someone you can no longer
remember, am I right?"
   She pulled her bag protectively close to her chest and nodded simply.
   "Now, listen to me carefully, my child. The man who gave you the book
no longer exists. Everything in that volume can now be considered a lie,
we are being wrote out from its very pages!" He paused dramatically as if
to emphasise the point. "But while the content is void, it is still a
magical totem in itself. In the wrong hands it may be used to pervert
time itself in any fashion. There is one such who claims himself to be a
messiah who would do these things, you must not let this happen."
   "But surely the book would change as we became less and less
significant, wouldn't it?" She found herself saying despite her better
nature.
   The monkey shook his head sorrowfully.
   "I'm afraid not. The book is a relic from a past that is no longer
ours. Its wisdom belongs to no one now."
   "How do I keep the book from this messiah then?" She questioned.
   The monkey allowed himself a short-lived smile.
   "You must eat it." He replied.
   
   The traffic jam stretched out for miles ahead, a road paved with the
many colours of vehicles both hovering above the traffic lanes and
trapped on them.
   In a cramped black London taxi, SexDeath was hunched over the
decomposing corpse of its former driver, chewing mindlessly on his spleen
as (s)he waited for the traffic to speed up.
   To say that things weren't going to plan would be an understatement.
   With irritated fingers, (s)he brushed the dead man's body and reached
down for the radio, waving the dead hand over the motion sensor so as to
activate it
   It awakened with the deafening roar of a Lo-Fi Beathoven version of
Mamma Mia, all squealing feedback and choirgirl voices.
   SexDeath squirmed at the sound of the music until (s)he was distracted
by the vision of the man in the navy blue JLE windbreaker making his way
down the line of cars and taping upon each of them, imparting his wisdom
to the drivers.
   There was a sudden clear-cut rat-a-tat-tat that sliced through the
musik and she turned to see another uniformed JLE member standing besides
the stolen taxi and looking inside, his long hair unfurling in dreads
from beneath his Bobbies' helmet.
   (s)he flicked a switch and the window opened, the smell of the freshly
dead taxi cap driver assaulting the tall, Jamaican JLE representative.
   SexDeath smiled weakly.
  "I'm sorry, officer," (s)he smiled politely. "But I seemed to have
suffered a tad of road rage on my way here."
   His/her smile broadened and revealed a row of yellowed teeth as the JLE
officer bent double and vomited over the side of the taxi.  
   
   The solitary eye of the Star Conqueror glanced up in the direction of
the Heavens. 
   Over the past century and a half, it had noticed the thin lattice of
complex timelines evolve over that period of time whilst resting upon its
laurels.
   As a result of this, time had passed the vast starfish shaped alien by,
leaving it alone and distant.
   It sighed once more and closed its eye.
   In the distance it could hear the train station being constructed
around it and once more it resigned itself to its fate.
   Its star conquering days were over. 

   The monkey leafed through the ancient volume with amusement.
   "Ah, yes," He beamed. "Grace Schwarz, the first Minx and her companion,
Minxy the Minx Hound. I remember her from 1946. There wasn't another Minx
until 1960 when Dana Schwarz took up the role, she had quite an
impressive rogue's gallery, if I recall correctly." He smiled again and
turned the page. "Yes, here we are, Galactron, a fiendish creature who
plucked planets from their orbit and liquidated them using his Soda
Stream helmet. He was defeated in 1963. Or what about the fearsome King
Cock, the genetically modified rooster? And then there was the Festive
Man, a local crime boss who fell into a vat of acid and was disfigured to
the point where he resembled one of Father Christmas' Elves?"
   Katherine shook her head slowly from side to side.
   "The man who gave me this book said that this wasn't spandex shite."
She protested.
   The monkey looked up.
   "And quite right he was. You see this book has its origins within our
own dimension, however, the actual gift of the Minx is quite alien to us,
indeed. We believe that it may have passed through a large wormhole and
into this dimension." The monkey explained.
   "Wormhole?" Katherine questioned.
   "Think of it as one of God's orifices. Since we discovered an opening
in God located in one of the large American deserts, we believe there may
be others located around our continuum. Ancient Kryptonian scientists
discovered a wormhole before their planet was destroyed. We think it might
have been God's arsehole."
   Katherine cupped her head in her hands and sighed.
   "This is all too much. What the fuck is happening here?" 
   A look of sadness graced the monkey's face.
   "The wormhole is falling apart." He said quietly. "Anything influenced
by aspects that have passed through that wormhole are bound to be
influenced."
   She looked quizzically at him.
   "We're all fading from existence, Miss Schwarz." He announced.
   
   McAnguish flicked a match against the wall and inhaled deeply.
   "So what the fuck are we going to do then?" 
   Theodore looked saddened, his large brown eyes cast towards the ground
and his ears drooping at a slightly odd angle.
   McAnguish sighed audibly and sat down on the cold, stone floor watching
as Bizarro Jesus #1 rocked gently back and forth.
   "I don't fucking understand any of this." He said out loud. "We had it
all sorted, didn't we? I mean we were gonna be the bastards who rid the
world of those fucking wankers with their tight pants and X-ray fucking
eyes. I mean we were going to make the world a better a place. No more
fucking Batman, goodbye sodding Superman, up yours Starman, piss off
Challengers of the Unknown, bollocks to Ronin and toodle-pip Sandman. All
we needed was to rewrite history and now the sodding bastard is rewriting
us."
   "I don't suppose there's much point in finishing construction on the
Starro Street station, then is there?" Theodore sighed.
   "Doubt it," His bipedal colleague replied. "Don't even fucking know if
the bastard will still be there once we've gone, do we?"
   "Guess not." Theodore said, his voice burdened with sorrow.
   Bizarro Jesus #1 folded his arms around himself and gently, as he
continued to rock back and forth... 
   
   "So all this shite has been for nothing?" Katherine exclaimed.
   The monkey nodded sagely. 
   "I'm afraid so, Miss Schwarz. If you look very carefully you'll notice
that I no longer have a pair of legs and my torso is actually hovering in
mid air. The process appears to have begun."
   "But about this SexDeath character?" She exclaimed, her heart racing as
she tried to find a way to prolong her existence.
   "In this world?" The monkey's eyebrows arched. "SexDeath was an old
Superman foe during the 1960s here. It is of little consequence. Perhaps
in the `other' universe, the one that spawned such concepts as you and 
I, it was more important but alas, here, amongst the myriad of deranged
freaks in brightly coloured costumes, the SexDeath creature isn't even a
curiosity."
   "Well, can't Superman do something then?"
   The monkey shook his head as his body and arms faded away, leaving only
his floating head.
   "I'm afraid not. And, to be honest, I don't really think he'd be much
help, now would he?"
   Katherine shrugged but the monkey head seemed not to notice.
   "I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me now, Miss Schwarz, you see, I
don't think I exist anymore."
   "Oh." Katherine said out loud and then realised she was talking to
herself.

   The door of the taxi cab shattered open in a blossoming flower of
breaking glass and bent metal, the rapid fire of several quantum rifles
obliterating what little was left.
   SexDeath bellowed with fury as (s)he darted through the fire, limbs
flailing as it flowed like liquid across his/her smooth, dead skin.
   The JLE representatives continued to fire even when his/her flaming
corpse hit the smouldering tarmac of the roadway, twitching in a macabre
spasm of epilepsy as the intelligence inside the corrupted corpse died a 
second time.
   Smoke cleared and eventually the gunfire stopped, leaving a semi-circle
of men in navy blue uniforms surrounding the charred creature.
   "What the fuck was that?" One of them questioned.
   "That was SexDeath." The tall Jamaican officer who had discovered the
creature exclaimed. "One of the Superman's many enemies."
   "Do you think we should call him?" The other asked.
   "Who?"
   "Superman."
   The Jamaican turned and scowled at his sub-lieutenant.
   "Who do you think he is? A civil servant? No one be phoning the
Superman, shit, he don't even have a phone!"
   The sub-lieutenant perspired beneath his JLE windbreaker as SexDeath's
corpse slowly faded from reality.
   Within a few minutes, all evidence of its existence had been expunged
from the timeline.
   "Why would we want to call Superman, sir?" The sub-lieutenant asked,
looking up at his superior with a puzzled expression.

   Katherine Schwarz had left her bags on the station platform.
   No need to worry about them any more, she figured, as they could fade
out of existence within a handful of minutes.
   Shortly after she had left the station, she had clambered on a bus and
now, several hours later, she found herself at the old art studio where
she had arranged to meet McAnguish.
   With an effort, she forced the ancient deadlock doors to open and
stepped inside the ancient building.
   This building had always been a enigma to her especially as McAnguish
insisted that he didn't own it but rather that he rented it from a German
Shepherd he'd helped escape from Battersea dog pound several years ago.
   But then again, McAnguish did speak a lot of bollocks.
   Casually she made her way past the boarded up windows and the ancient
tribal masks that lined the wall, following the sound of McAnguish's
distinct voice as it echoed through the building.
   After walking down several flights of steps she found herself in the
cellar.
   The voices were loudest here and through a crack in the door that lay
before her she could see her 'mentor' talking animatedly to what appeared
to be a large, scruffy dog and a statue made from glass.
   He had his back to her and was currently ranting about the myriad of
costumed adventurers he seemed to have taken such a dislike to.
   Avidly, she pressed on.

*

Cambridge, 1939
   
   William Jones had died a year ago, the costumed Science Hero reflected.
   A heart attack, the doctors had said, however the Science Hero knew
very differently. 
   The truth of the matter, alas, was that poor Mister William Jones had
come face to face with a daemon, not Etrigan, admittedly, but a daemon
none the less.
   The daemon that had struck such terror into the heart of poor Mister
William Jones had later been inaugurated into the Science Hero's own
secret society and thus he felt that the least he could do was attend the
poor chap's wake.
   The crowd in attendance was an odd group. He thought he saw one or two
family members, bereaved sisters or crying aunts, but the majority of
people that surrounded him appeared to have been old University chums or
the like.
   The Science Hero shook his head sadly and sipped at his brandy.
   It was then that he felt a tugging upon his costume.
   He looked down and was confronted by the sight of a small boy holding a
book far older than him close to his clean, white shirt.
   "Excuse me, sir," The tyke said apologetically. "I wondered if you
wouldn't mind signing my book?"
   The Science Hero looked puzzled for a moment and then he remember that
this was only a small boy, after all, and that the reason for fighting
such a war as they were currently engaged in was to protect young 
innocents just like this.
   "Of course." He smiled and placed his glass of brandy down upon a
coffee table.
   The young lad thrust the book towards him and the Science Hero picked
up a pen from the desk and opened the volume.
   Inside, there seemed to be a chronicle of events pertaining to a fellow
masked avenger, one who appeared to call herself the Minx.
   The Science Hero could honestly say that he had never heard of the Minx
but never the less, he took hold of the pen and on the title page, he
scrawled his name and the date.
   With gentle hands, he passed it back to the expectant child.
   "Thank you, mister." The child beamed, doffed his cap and then darted
back into the crowd.
   The Science Hero smiled to himself.
   The Minx, he reflected.
   Now there was a name to remember!

*
   
   McAnguish turned as he heard her push the door open and cross the
threshold.
   She smiled weakly at him and then looked around the room, taking in the
air of damp futility.
   "Hallo, pet." McAnguish said softly. "I trust you're here for the same
reason we are."
   Katherine smiled incredulously and sat herself down on an upturned milk
crate.
   "I just met a talking monkey." She smiled stupidly. "He said we were
all going to be wrote out of history."
   Both McAnguish and the scruffy looking dog nodded in agreement.
   "Unfortunately, that seems to be the case." The dog announced and
passed her a half-empty bottle of red wine.
   She looked at the dog in a puzzled manner and then shrugged, downing a
large swig of the wine.
   After talking monkeys and books that wrote time, Katherine Schwarz was
pretty much ready to accept even the most ludicrous of truths. 
   "So what are we going to do?" She questioned.
   McAnguish shrugged and lit another cigarette.
   "Bollocks." He announced in a prophet manner.
   The other conscious attendees of the end of their existence turned and
looked at him.
   "Bollocks." He reiterated. "Because that's what it comes down to, isn't
it? It's all bollocks in the end." 
   They murmured in agreement and passed the wine around between the three
of them and as the sun set over the Welsh valleys, they faded away like
ghosts in a smoke filled room.
   There would be no trace in any of history that these players and
player-haters had ever existed, not a birth certificate or a driving
licence, not a dog eared book nor an empty packet of cigarettes to
validate the lives that they once led.
   And why should there have been? Because, after all, it was all
bollocks, wasn't it?

FINIS