The Past Few Weeks

They say that war is hell, and I can fully attest to that.

Several weeks ago, I told Maria what had happened to me, and she offered me the support I had needed to get through the rough seas of my life. We spent a wonderful weekend together, and when Monday came I was all set to hang up my supposedly worthless costume in favor of a normal life with her. Fate stepped in, in the form of a fellow named Wonder Man, and I was whisked away (with costume) to the office I registered at. A man in a blue jumpsuit named Reed Richards was there to greet me. We chatted for a bit about where I came from, and then an alarm went off.

"Captain America and his team are getting into the Negative Zone," said Richards as I looked on, dumbstruck, "We have to get there and stop them. Are you with us, er, Land Captain?"

I looked at him for a moment. A fellow named Captain America was an enemy of the government here? Had I stumbled onto some crazy communist dimension? I asked him which side Spider-Man was on. The Internet had been vague about that.

"Oh, he's a traitor," said Wonder Man, "We have to get there immediately, and since you're a registered hero, consider yourself drafted onto our side."

Fifteen minutes later I stood at the back of a crowd of costumed heroes facing off against another crowd of costumed heroes. There was a lot of shouting and quite a bit of fisticuffs, and I found myself face-to-face with Spider-Man. I was overjoyed, but confused: what was I supposed to do?

"Who are you supposed to be, the Yachtsman?" quipped Spider-Man.

"No, I'm the Land Captain. I met you in another reality," I said.

"Ah," said Spider-Man. Then he jumped over and punched me, and it hurt. It hurt like the dickens. I hardly had time to register the pain when we were all sucked up by a colossal black vortex and spat out into what looked like New York City. As I plummeted to the ground below, someone grabbed me and placed me safely on the ground. Before I could turn around to see who it was, they were gone. Then I noticed that the fighting had simply expanded, like an explosion, and there I was caught in a hurricane of costumed characters, and I was one of them.

I was one of them.

I immediately felt very small and very large. I was one of many, but surely this was something huge, and I was a part of it! The only problem was I had no idea who was with who, so I just sort of tried to find the more frightening people and assumed they were the enemy. I laid my eyes on a giant orange stone monster and jogged over, but my fists up, and coughed politely. The behemoth turned around.

"Whaddya want?" he said.

"Stand down, creature, or I shall be forced to take action!" I was proud of that.

The creature just laughed, "You got spunk, so I won't clobber you. Now leave me alone, I got to get some kids out of that boss Iron Man just knocked over. If you get in my way, expect my promise of no clobberin' done."

The creature, this thing, then chuckled and walked off. All these other heroes were punching each other and firing off laser blasts, but this brute was taking his time to help the civilians caught in this. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Spider-Man kick Reed Richards in the throat. I sighed and dashed off after the orange rock-monster and asked if I could help. He laughed and said I could get the kids he saved out of the battle. By the time I turned them over to some policemen and got back, the battle was over. I'm not sure who won or what they were fighting for, but I knew that it wasn't as important as what the orange monster was doing.

I found him and he explained that Iron Man's side had won, which meant a lot of Mister Grimm's (the orange monster's name was Ben Grimm, the Thing) friends were pleased with themselves but a lot more were about to get screwed over, pardon my language. I sat down on a piece of masonry.

"What can I do?" I asked Mister Grimm, "I'm just a man in a costume. I don't even have any powers. Compared to these people, compared to you and everyone else I have no right to the title hero."

"You're the Land Captian, right?" he asked, "Maybe you can just drive around the country, helpin' people out."

"Oh yes, I'll just ram my non-existent car into them," I said.

"None of that, you sound like Spider-Man. Tell you what, give me your address and I'll send you a nice big check to start yourself off with. Get yourself a nice ride and the world'll be your oyster."

"Gee, thanks Mister Grimm," I said.

He winked and said, "Call me Ben. Now you going to help clean up this mess or keep moping?"

I spent the next week helping clean up the area damaged by the battle. Several heroes had been injured in the battle, so I guess I was lucky. At the end of the week, they got some men from an agency called Shield (I think it's actually SHIELD) to take me back to Los Angeles, where I told Maria about my brief adventure. She was proud of me, and excited when I told her about what Mister Grimm was going to do.

Every day for the past week I've been going to the gym for self-defense classes and general working-out, and I feel better already. I can hardly wait for the Thing's check to come, then I can really start making a difference.