The Adventures of Reaction Man: Episode III

Reaction Man Defeats the Diabolical Designs of Diaper-Face

In their dens at home, Justice Bob Baddecision of the Ontario Inferior Court and Don Alfredo Fettucine of the Fettucine Crime Syndicate turned on their computers and opened a popular teleconferencing app. They had been told to be ready at 6:66 pm for a very important online meeting. They had been given special clocks for the purpose, as regular clocks don’t register a 6:66.

 At that precise moment a burst of flame appeared on their screens which began to emit a smell of sulfur into the air. The flame coalesced into the image of a man with a goatee and ponytail, and the stumps of horns on his forehead. 

“Hi Lucy” they exclaimed. 

 “Greetings my closest friends” said Lucifer, or Lucy, as the gender-confused devil preferred to be called. “I have called this very important meeting tonight to introduce you to my latest scheme.” (1)

 Lucy rubbed his hands together and began to cackle. 

 “As you are aware, some of my recent plans have suffered unfortunate setbacks. Four years ago, my favourite daughter from the Sisters of the Night coven was set to take control of the most powerful army on the face of the earth, and launch the Battle of Armageddon. My plan was foiled, however, by the rise of Donald the Orange, who has been doing the exact opposite of what I wanted, reducing his country’s military presence around the globe, putting out the fires of ethnic conflict that I have been stoking for over a century in both the Balkans and the Middle East, and even going to North Korea to negotiate peace with Kim. I have since unleashed my mutant-demon squad on Donald the Orange in the hopes of getting revenge.” (2) 

“More recently, working through my faithful minions, the Woke Millennial and his Aunty Fa, I unleashed an army of Marxist zombies on the campus of Aberhart Manning University in Brown Moose, Alberta. My scheme went awry, however, due to the interloping of that annoying superhero, Reaction Man.” (3) 

“This time, however, my plot is foolproof. Allow me to introduce you to my new minion Diaper-Face.”

Lucy stepped aside and a new face filled the screen. Or rather, what would have been a face, if a large diaper were not permanently obscuring most of it, leaving only the eyes visible. Diaper-Face said something, but neither Justice Baddecision nor Don Fettuccine could make out what it was due to the combination of his accent and his voice being muffled by the diaper. 

“Ummmm” they both said. 

 “My apologies”, Lucy said, stepping back into the screen. “What Diaper-Face was trying to say was ‘hello’”. 

The judge and the mafia boss both greeted Diaper-Face in return. 

“Diaper-Face used to be a research scientist in a virology lab in China”, Lucy said. “He was performing an experiment one day when an accident occurred and every virus in the lab escaped and infected him simultaneously. He instantly came down with the biggest attack of the sneezes the world has ever seen. You could even call it a sneeze seizure. He left the lab, intending to go to the nearest hospital, but the sneezing attack disoriented him. He ended up going into the glue factory next door instead and let out a particularly violent sneeze that knocked over a vial of the stickiest, most permanent, adhesive ever invented by man, which spilled onto his face. Not knowing what it was, he grabbed a diaper that was for some reason sitting there, and tried to wipe his face off. Instead, the diaper became permanently attached. The experience has driven him mad. He now has no desire except to see the entire world in the same predicament, with diapers permanently attached to everyone else’s face. He called upon me, and I granted him powers in exchange for his soul. With the combination of the powers I have given him, and his own in-depth understanding of virology, it should be a cinch for him to frighten the world into forcing everyone to wear diapers on their faces. The diapers will be specially consecrated in a Black Mass ceremony so that everyone who wears them will be pledging their loyalty to me.” 

“Bwah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha” 

“Diaper-Face is my greatest creation yet! He truly is my left hand.” 

“Don’t you mean right hand?” Don Alfredo asked. 

“No, Steve Earle’s mama was right when she told him back in the General Store that that is the pistol.”

“Left hand sounds funny” said Justice Baddecision. 

“Just think of what people used to use their left hand for”, Lucy said. “Through Diaper-Face, that is what I intend to do to the world.” 

Unbeknownst to Lucy and his colleagues, their conversation had been intercepted and recorded, and the recording transmitted to an obscure monastery in the Carpathian Mountains. 

A short time thereafter, Lucy unleashed Diaper-Face. Through the combination of his expertise in virology and the powers the devil had given him in exchange for his soul, he had created two viruses. One of these he called the Viral Bogeyman, although the world was soon to know it by a different name. It produced a respiratory disease that was severe-to-fatal among a small minority, although most infected experienced only mild symptoms. It was the other virus that was the more deadly of the two, for it infected the mind rather than the body, causing people to perceive the first virus as being something other than it was, something on the same level as the Black Death or worse. This virus spread around the globe much more quickly than the first, and infected a lot more people. The symptoms of the infected were that they curled up in the fetal position, sucking their thumbs, and calling upon their government to take away all of their neighbours’ rights and freedoms while they waited for Big Pharma to produce a magic needle that would save them from the Viral Bogeyman. While they waited for the magic needle, they put their trust in a magic diaper, wearing it all times and in all places, even when sitting alone in their own cars, to ward off the Viral Bogeyman. 

Those who were fortunate enough not to be infected by Diaper-Face’s mind virus, looked around in dismay and astonishment, at the foolishness of all those around them who were. Among these were the Right Reverend John Keble Waterland, Bishop of Paleo-Middlesex and his good friend “Eddy” Johnson. Bishop Waterland and Eddy would have tea about once a week, and these days much of the conversation revolved around the craziness of everyone around him. Bishop Waterland would shake his head as he recounted the latest silliness of the Right Reverend Barty Battyblabber, Bishop of the neighbouring diocese of Neo-Soho. Most recently, Bishop Barty had taken to wearing no less than ten magic diapers on his face at any given time. (4) 

“He looks absolutely ridiculous”, Bishop Waterland told Eddy, “but he says that he would rather be safe than sorry. At least I think that is what he was saying. It is almost impossible to make out a word he says under all those layers.” 

The phone rang, and Bishop Waterland answered it. 

“Hello? Oh, alve-say Brother Whippet. I think this is the first time we have spoken since you returned to Romania. How are things over there? Why yes, as a matter of fact he is here.” 

Bishop Waterland handed the phone over to Eddy. 

Eddy took the phone and was soon in intense conversation with the member of the ancient and sacred Order of St. Michael of Marshmallow who had come to Canada and knighted him after he had received the power to turn back the clock on the anniversary of the Reaction of Thermidor, turning him into Reaction Man. It had been Brother Whippet’s superior, Brother Moonpie, who had received the transmission of the recording of Lucy’s conversation. (5) The Marshmallow Monks, having put together what had happened, urged Eddy to find Diaper-Face and defeat him. 

Eddy, after he had finished talking with Brother Whippet, handed the phone back to Bishop Waterland, explained the situation, for the Bishop knew his secret, then changed into his Reaction Man costume and set out to track down Diaper-Face. 

Reaction Man found Diaper-Face standing on a high balcony, surveying the streets below where every visible person was wearing a diaper on his face. Diaper Face was laughing and gloating over his success. 

“I’ve found you at last, Diaper-Face” said Reaction Man. “It is time to set all these people free from the bondage they are under due to the spell of your evil mind virus.” 

 In response Diaper-Face said “Good luck with that, Reaction Man. You can never defeat Lucy and me. All the people of the world will be living in slavery to the irrational fear that my mind virus has planted in their rotting brains for the rest of their lives.” 

Of course, since he said all of this in Chinese and from behind his glued-on diaper, Eddy couldn’t make out a word of that. 

“What did you say?” 

 Diaper-Face repeated himself, but was still indecipherable. 

“Pardon me, could you say that one more time?” 

 Diaper-Face gave his super-villain boast in heavily muffled Chinese again, but, of course, to no avail.

“Well, I still don’t know what you’re talking about, but I guess it doesn’t matter. It is my duty to defeat you and that is exactly what I am going to do.” 

 Reaction Man pointed at Diaper-Face and used his power to turn the clock back. The super-adhesive holding the diaper onto Diaper-Face’s face dissolved and the diaper fell to the ground. 

“My diaper! My beautiful diaper!” Diaper-Face screamed, this time in English. 

“Finally you said something that makes sense”, Reaction Man said, “although I beg to differ. That diaper was as ugly as sin.” 

“You don’t understand. All the power that Lucy gave me was contained in that diaper. Without it, the spell will be broken.” 

 Diaper-Face lunged for the diaper, but Reaction Man was faster. He grabbed the horrid thing and threw it into an incinerator that for some odd but convenient reason was located there on the balcony. As the diaper hit the flame, it burst into a cloud of brimstone. 

 All around the world, people woke up from the paranoia that the mind virus had induced, realized how foolish they all looked wearing diapers on their faces, threw them in the garbage in disgust, and resumed living their lives, no longer bound by fear of the Viral Bogeyman.

(1) Lucy the gender-confused devil and Justice Bob Baddecision first appear in Lucy’s Day in Court. Don Alfredo Fettucine first appears in Justice for Minnie? 

(2) See The Witches’ Sabbat and Brother Moonpie and the Devil’s Apocalypse. 

(3) See The Adventures of Reaction Man: Episode II – Reaction Man Versus the Marxist Zombie Army (4) Bishops John Keble Waterland and Barty Battyblabber first appear in Bishop Bartholomew B. Battyblabber and His Big Bad Bash. 

(5) As told in The Adventures of Reaction Man: Episode I – The Origin.

Brother Moonpie and the Devil’s Apocalypse

Hidden away in the mountains, in a forgotten branch of the Carpathian mountain range somewhere on the border between Transylvania and Cisylvania, is the last remaining monastery of the ancient and holy Order of Marshmallownians. It is also the Order’s first monastery, founded over a thousand years ago by St. Michael of Marshmallow himself, shortly before he was captured by Count S’more of Cisylvania, who sent him to his martyrdom by burning him at the stake. The Marshmallownians are a very devout Order, who fast three days a week, and slow on the others. They never miss their daily recital of the seven hours of prayer, and often stick an eighth and even a ninth one in to boot. The prayers are never said in the vernacular, nor is ordinary Church Latin good enough for them. Only Double Dog Latin will do for the Marshmallownians and each member of the Order is expected to be fluent in this lamentably neglected sacred tongue. If you ever get a chance to visit them, be sure to do so and to join them for prayer, for you will never hear anything like it anywhere else.

The current head of the Order is a man whose family name is Cracker and who at birth was given the name Graham after a distant relative who was a famous evangelical preacher. His parents gave him this name because they hoped that he too would become a preacher but he opted to become a monk instead. To his fellow Marshmallownians he is known affectionately as Brother Moonpie, and they rightly esteem him to be the holiest and most devout of them all.

You can imagine the surprise, therefore, when one morning, during Matins, before they had even gotten to the ibi-tay erubim-Chay et-ay eraphim-Say in the Te-ay, eum-Day audamus-Lay, he up and walked out of the chapel.

Brother Wagonwheel, worried that something was wrong, followed him out. Brother Moonpie, not seeming to notice that he was being shadowed, walked down the corridor to the monastic library, where he went to a neglected shelf in the back and pulled a dusty tome forward. A wall swung open to reveal a hidden chamber. It too was lined with books, older and dustier, for the most part, than the ones in the main part of the library, and contained a study desk upon which what looked to be the oldest and dustiest book of them, lay open. Brother Moonpie sat down in front of the book, turned a page, and then said:

“If you ever wish to moonlight as a detective, Brother Wagonwheel, you will need to learn how to trail people in a much less noticeable manner. I have a DVD that might help you in this. It is a very rare copy of the film version of the only known collaborative work between Ian Fleming and Erle Stanley Gardner, a James Bond/Perry Mason teamup which was published under the alternate titles The Defense Never Rests and The Case of the Debonair Assassin when the manuscript was discovered after both of its authors had passed on. Someone managed to talk Sean Connery and Raymond Burr into reprising their most famous roles for the film. I really do recommend it and you could pick up some marvelous tips.”

“Um, thanks, I think. I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

Brother Wagonwheel really didn’t know what else to say.

“So, you must have followed me, to the ultra-secret reserved section of the library that up until now only I knew about for a reason. Is there anything I can help you with?”

“I followed you because I was concerned. It is not like you to slip out of Matins before it is even half sung. I was worried that something was wrong.”

“Well, you were right to be worried. Something is wrong, very wrong, but not with me. At least, not in the sense you were thinking.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Something is very wrong in the world outside the walls of this, our safe haven, my friend. I have observed the signs for years and they have been increasing. I have been unable to concentrate on anything else and so have come here to meditate upon the situation.”

“Signs? Of the Apocalypse you mean?”

“Yes and no. As you know, both Testaments of our Holy Scriptures, contain Apocalyptic writings, vivid prophesies of a climactic final battle, in which our Lord and Saviour shall return, defeat the forces of darkness, judge the living and the dead, and reign forevermore. Signs of this Apocalypse would not disturb me at all, for it is the blessed hope for which we are commanded to watch and wait.”

“What other Apocalypse is there?”

“There is nothing pertaining to our Lord that Lucy has not attempted to counterfeit.”

“Lucy? You mean the daughter of the innkeeper in the village down the mountain?”

“No, I mean Lucifer, the enemy of men’s souls.”

“Oh, right, that Lucy.”

“This foul tome that lies open before me is Lucy’s Apocalypse. We keep it here for reference, but in this strictly restricted section, because it is more wicked than the Necronomicon, the Satanic Bible, the Communist Manifesto, the Feminine Mystique, Locke’s Two Treatises and all other such works put together. As you might expect there are both similarities to the Apocalypse in our Holy Scriptures and significant differences. Like our Apocalypse it tells of a final decisive battle between God and the devil. In Lucy’s version the devil wins.”

“But there is not the slightest chance of that happening.”

“Of course not. But that will not stop Lucy from trying to make it happen. Indeed, Lucy has attempted to make it happen several times throughout history. In your studies you have probably encountered the fact that several historical figures have been identified by Christians in their day as the Antichrist, the Man of Sin who will arise to lead the devil’s forces in the final battle. In one sense this identification was a mistake, for none of these figures turned out to be the final Antichrist who features in our Apocalypse and will be defeated directly by Christ at the Second Coming. They were, however, previous attempts by Lucy to bring his own version of the Apocalypse to pass.”

“His version? With a name like Lucy shouldn’t it be her version?”

“The fact that someone is confused about his gender does not give him the right to impose his confusion on the rest of us. Professor Peterson has some excellent videos on this subject, I’ll send you a link.”

“So the Apocalypse of St. John the Divine, if I understand correctly, tells us what will happen at the end of time because it has been foreordained by God to happen at a time that He has also determined but not revealed, whereas Lucy’s counterfeit Apocalypse gives the outcome the devil wants to make happen. God’s version will inevitably play out in history but only once, whereas Lucy’s version will periodically recur because he lacks the power to bring about his desired outcome and will keep trying until his final defeat in the real Apocalypse.”

“Exactly.”

“And you think we are living in one of those periods now?”

“The signs first became evident a decade or so ago when the first of the Four Justins of the devil’s Apocalypse appeared on the scene.”

“Don’t you mean the Four Horsemen?”

“No. Remember, Lucy’s Apocalypse counterfeits the true Apocalypse. It is in St. John’s Apocalypse that the Four Horsemen are described as being unleashed upon the earth when the first seals on the seven-sealed scroll are broken. In Lucy’s version, the Four Justins are beings that Lucy sends to wreak his wicked will through the means of popular entertainment. We have seen three of the four make their appearance.”

Brother Moonpie indicated with his hand an envelope on the desk next to the book and Brother Wagonwheel opened it and looked at the three glossy pictures inside. He then objected:

“I thought you said they would be popular entertainers. This one is a Canadian political leader.”

“Evidently, you are not familiar with Canadian politics. It is a form of popular entertainment, a subgenre of ordinary clowning. The individual you have indicated is well known to be a clown. Many people have a hard time distinguishing between clowns and the bogeyman. There is a reason for that.”

“Are you saying that he is like Pennywise?”

“It is hard to tell exactly where on the scale of clownish evil he falls – perhaps he is closer to the Joker, maybe he is closer to that guy who sells hamburgers – but either way he is a definitely a clown and like the other two Justins has all the signs of having come straight from Lucy himself.”

“Two of the three are Canadians, the other is an American. Does that mean that the fourth one when he appears will be an American?”

“It is possible. We know that Lucy’s most recent attempt to raise up the Antichrist involved an American. Three years ago one of Lucy’s American daughters, a member of the sisters of the night, the most sinister witches’ coven of all, was poised to take control of the American military-industrial complex and start World War III. Lucy’s scheme was defeated, however, by the triumphant rise to power of Donald the Orange.” (1)

“Wait, would that not mean that this round of the devil’s Apocalypse is over?”

“I wish it were as simple as that. But Lucy is not admitting defeat and, indeed, seems, if you will pardon the expression, hell-bent on bringing down the man who thwarted his designs and is more determined than ever to bring his version of the Apocalypse about.”

“Why?”

“I don’t have all of the facts, but this much I can tell you, that Lucy’s relationship with Mick and Keith has been under a lot of stress in recent years and the Orange Caesar’s defeat of Lucy’s daughter happened to follow immediately on the heels of the latest and ugliest quarrel. Illogical as it seems, Lucy appears to blame Donald for the fight.”

“How do you know this?”

“Do you remember how a year or so ago we granted sanctuary to a man named Cesare Salad?”

“Yes, he was a sort of a rough looking character.”

“He had been an enforcer for the Fettuccini crime syndicate in Ontario, Canada. His godfather, Don Alfredo, the head of the syndicate, is a good friend of Lucy’s. (2) One day he happened to overhear Lucy discussing his plans with Don Alfredo and some Ontario judge (3) and it frightened him so bad he ran away, all the way to us.”

“What kind of plans?”

“Apparently Lucy has been using the findings of stem-cell research, of which he has plenty to make use of for every aborted foetus is a sacrifice to Satan, to conduct experiments in the genetic engineering of demons and has found a way of crossing the harpies from the seventh circle of his infernal domain with the Malebranche from the eighth to produce a kind of super-harpy. He has made four of these fiends so far, which he calls his “squad”, and they are supposed to be so terrible and horrifying as to make the Justins look tame in comparison. He has sent them to wreak his vengeance on Donald the Orange.”

“Surely he will just send them back where they came from.”

“Most likely. In the meantime, however, the signs are continuing to increase.”

“What is the latest one?”

“The disturbing increase in veganism. Everywhere you look, these days, you find these new plant-based meat substitutes being advertised and sold.”

“I know that veganism is disgusting and silly and wrong but is it really a sign of the devil’s Apocalypse?”

“Of course it is! It is central to Lucy’s entire plan. Have you forgotten that is was by persuading Adam and Eve to eat a piece of fruit that he brought sin into our world long ago? Or that he caused the first murder by inspiring the plant-eater Cain to be envious of his carnivorous herdsman brother Abel? Lucy knows that even with Original Sin working in his favour the only way he will ever be able to deceive enough people to follow his Antichrist will be if he can starve their brain cells of essential nutrients and that the easiest way of doing so is to persuade them to voluntarily reject the most delicious source of nutrition that God in His grace has given to man.”

“So what you are saying is…”

“That to foil this part of Lucy’s scheme we must get beyond vegetarianism.”

At this point Brother Moonpie glanced at his watch and exclaimed “Look at the time! We have been discussing this all day. Vespers will have started already. Come with Brother Wagonwheel. With any luck we will still be in time for the agnifcat-May.”

The two monks left the secret room, carefully concealing the entrance again, and walked back to the chapel to resume their prayers.

(1) See The Witches Sabbat.

(2) Don Alfredo and the Fettuccini crime family feature in Justice for Minnie?

(3) Justice Bob Baddecision of the Ontario Inferior Court first appears in Lucy’s Day in Court.