Joe Rice, known by the denizens of this dimension as The DaDamerican, and by denizens of some other dimensions as the Jester (but that’s another story altogether, or maybe not—we’ll see), wasn’t easily frightened. In his life-time, he had stood face to face with the dark wizard, Evil Bill. He had fought vampires, zombies, demons, aliens, and even mutant pastries. He had been to the home dimension of the Monsters Under The Bed/In Your Closet. He had even survived the combined wrath of Wonder Mormon and the Ice Queen. All this without batting an eye. OK, maybe he batted an eye or two a few times, but, hey, he’s human after all.Joe Rice was terrified.He was terrified partly because of the black machine in his hand. But he was mostly terrified about what he had to do with it. And to whom he’d do it. The first time he’d done it, it was awful, but he figured it would get easier with each time. It didn’t. The paralyzing fear, the nauseating terror that starts in your stomach and branches out to all your major organs gripped him still, after so many times. He hated this. But he had to do it, right?He had to call her and ask her out.He looked at his watch. No, the Oscillating Impregnatron wasn’t being used to summon him to JLAshland HQ. He looked out his window. No crimes he could see. He looked back at the cordless phone. His palms were quivering and sweaty. He looked at his book-bag. All his homework was done. He checked his email. A message from Pookie, one from Trampolina, and two from El Wood. He answered them. He checked the bulletin boards he frequents. Nothing new. He looked at the phone again. He kept looking at it. He sighed. "OK, here goes," he said. He lifted his finger to dial. He pressed nine to get an outside line. Six. Two. Seven. Five—Suddenly, he was no longer in his dorm room. Where he was, he couldn’t tell. He couldn’t see a thing. An incredibly familiar voice popped up: "DaDamerican. Joe Rice of Earth A. Welcome. You’re one of the last to arrive.""What? Where am I? Who are you? Why can’t I see?""That’s just a side-effect of the particular style of dimension hopping we used to get you here. It’ll wear off . . .right about . . .now."Like the man said, suddenly he could see again. Once his eyes adjusted to the sudden influx of light, he could see the speaker. "You look just like—""You? Of course I do. We all pretty much do, except for dimensional peculiarities." The other-Joe gestured towards the other people in the large room. They all looked like Joe. Some less than others. One was around 50 ft. tall. One was covered in fur, and looked rather much like a humanoid wolf. One was a cartoon Joe sprung to life from the page. "Confused?" the first speaker said. "That’s understandable. All will be explained.""What is this?" Joe asked. Our Joe, that is."This," his greeter said, "is Joe-Con One."
DaDamerican, the Joe Rice of Earth A, was completely confused. He was in an immense room filled with slight variations on a theme. That theme was himself. He balked at his greeter (who looked just like him)."How is this possible? I thought all of us were merged into one! That’s how I got powers I never had before. And sometimes I get flashes of memory!"The Greeter Joe Rice smiled. "Well, a lot of us thought that. Until we started bumping into each other. Marvel Joe and DC Joe met each other in one of those Marvel Vs. DC thingees." Two Joes, one in a DaDamerican outfit, one in a Jester costume smiled and waved at the mention of their names. "They figured something was wrong, and it wasn’t just Ron Marz. It seems that we were merged. Kind of. Each of us carry the others inside in some capacity. Well, not all of us . . .""What do you mean, ‘not all of us’?""Well, only the variants connected to a form of Chaos in some sort or another. There are a lot of us with no such connection. Many come from worlds where there is no magic, no metahumans, no nothing. Just a bunch of normals. One guy’s going around saying that he’s just writing this all on his computer. Weirdo.""If there’s no meta-activity in these worlds, isn’t this convention going to alter everything?""They’ll wake up, barely remembering a dream where there was a lot of people who looked like them. It’s ok.""Wow. Hm. So, um . . .what’s the point of this thing?""Well, you can mill around and meet some counterparts, plan team-ups, jam in our music room, and there’s going to be some panels later on, too. Pardon me, but another new guy just popped in. Have a good time!" The Greeter Joe scuttled off to another part of the room.Our Joe looked around the room. It was so odd seeing so much of him, but not quite. He had a tingly sensation in his feet and hands, but not like any previous tingly sensation. The DC Joe from before came up to him."So, heard you been a part-time Jester since the transformation.""Yeah. No offense! The Jester was one of my favorite comic characters, and I thought you were absorbed into me!""I kind of was, and you kind of are in me. I don’t get all the chaos behind it, but it’s pretty cool. I don’t mind at all that you take up the mantle. There’s too few of us Jesters. DaDamericans out the wazoo, but not many of us. Then there’s a few called ‘The Fool’ or ‘The Court Jester’ or ‘Trickster’ or some other such variation. Basically same as me, though. Minor cosmetic differences. A few of them mentioned something about copyrights and such. I try not to think about it too much."Our Joe noticed most of the ones in some Jester-type outfit were in a corner, laughing uproariously. In fact, other than the one he was talking to, only one Jester wasn’t there. "What’s up with that one?" he asked.The DC Jester’s eyes followed our Joe’s pointing finger. Then his eyes grew wide with horror. "Listen to me now," he said, his voice suddenly grave. "Do not approach that one. Don’t speak to him, don’t listen to him, don’t touch him. And you sure as hell better not let him know your ties to J Street and Hatman.""Why? What’s the big—"DC Jester interrupted him. "The less you know, the better. Trust me on that one."Our Joe accidentally made eye contact with the lone Jester in a dark corner. His eyes were fired by something. He smiled a smile that made our Joe uncomfortable enough to break a sweat. He quickly broke the eye contact. "Yeah. Uh . . .I think I’ll follow that advice." He shivered one last time as DC Jester walked off, smiling, urging him to have a good time, anyway.******Later******Joe thought about what it meant that he found a female dimensional counterpart of himself attractive. He didn’t like it at all. He tried not to look at the way the black leather hugged Jo Rice, DaDamerican’s body. After a few pleasantries, he moved on, trying to remove all temptation to think about that.******Later Still******Joe approached an interesting looking bunch. There was a Joe with a peg-leg, hook hand, eye-patch, etc. There was a medieval looking knight with the DaDamerican insignia on his shield. Next to him stood a DaDamerican covered in scales with a tank of water on his head. Floating to the right was a disembodied brain. The last person in the circle looked identical to our Joe, who walked in in the middle of a conversation.Pirate Joe was gesticulating wildly. "Arrr, indeed! So then, I had that Irish lad Gallagher where I wanted him. We both knew I was the better swordsman! So I started toying with the wee land-lubber, ya see?"Our Joe thought about that. Gallagher. The Joe Gallagher Corps! "Wait! We’re just a cheap rip-off of the Gallagher Corps!"*I must disagree,* said a new voice in his head. The floating brain throbbed. *They are an organized, unified force. We are just assorted multidimensional counterparts. We are not tied together by any bond or group. Some of us are even enemies. Everyone has dimensional counterparts, we just decided to have a convention.* The DaDaknight nodded in silent agreement. The one that looked no different from Our Joe smiled."Our lovely mass of grey matter here is right. I’ve [fornicating] had to kill a few of us in my time. [Fornicating] Archons had already got ‘em. In fact, if it weren’t for this [defecation]-eating ‘peace zone’ here, at least twenty more would have kicked the oxygen habit already, eh? I’d just best get back to the moment I left when this is over, or my team’s mission will be in deep dog[defecation]. And then, you’ll all be [fornicated]. King Mob warned me about this [defecation].""Did someone say ‘Gallagher’?" said a man that looked human, but not as much like Our Joe. "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Joseph Gallagherice. A lot of folks that thought they were the one true Joe Rice have had similar questions. Well, I’m a Joe Rice, but I’m part of the Joe Gallagher Corps. Let’s just say being a Joe Rice is like being part of a big extended family, one whose members often hate each other. Being in the Corps is like being in the military, or some police force. It’s a job. Why, in fact—"Gallagherice was interrupted by a blond man with a goatee, wearing a Hawaiian shirt, khaki pants, and red Chuck Taylors. "Put a sock in it, sparky. I’ve got a bar to get back to, and I’d prefer it was before all the patrons die of stupidity."Before Gallagherice had a chance to retort, the loudspeakers boomed, "THE FIRST PANEL, ‘TO DATE OR NOT TO DATE’ WILL TAKE PLACE IN THE NORTH ROOM! SIMULTANEOUSLY, THE SECOND PANEL, ‘ROCK AND ROLL THROUGHOUT THE DIMENSIONS’ WILL BE IN THE SOUTH ROOM! THANK YOU!"
Cartoon hands give the strangest handshakes. That’s what Joe was thinking when he shook hands with an animated dimensional counterpart of himself. The convention was winding down. Joe Con One had been a tremendous success. It seemed that all the Joes learned something about themselves. Stories were told, team-ups were promised, music was made.Joe had avoided the Jester that made everyone uncomfortable the entire time. He had awful feelings about that one. He carefully made sure that one was already gone by the time he went through the portal to Earth A. He said his goodbyes and stepped on through.******Interlude******A CIA office that shouldn’t exist:"Janice, what’s this message here? From ‘Moira’? Moira who?"The intercom buzzed back, "Um, she didn’t leave one. Just that envelope.""Thank you, Janice. That will be all." Slowly, precisely, he opened the envelope. Inside was a piece of parchment. As he unrolled it, a magical hologram appeared in front of him. It was of a woman, one more beautiful than most men have ever seen. She spoke."Special Agent James Douglas Morrison, my name is Moira. Perhaps you’ve heard of me." He had. This was big. "I am forming a council to defeat my enemy Jonah’s lackeys. One of these is the being you know as DaDamerican. I am prepared to offer you a seat on my inner council. When we win, I will give you your own dimension to control. I—" The hologram went on for a while, but Morrison stopped listening.Ooo, my own dimension! he thought, rolling his eyes. Her sort of power is ridiculous and not at all what I’m looking for. World-dominating supervillains. Feh. Idiots are no more realistic than the "heroes" they fight. He crumpled up the parchment and threw it in his garbage can. He pressed the intercom."Janice, dictate a letter. ‘Dear Moira . . .Sorry, but I’m not . . .worthy of your . . .amazing offer. I’m . . .honored by your . . .’"******End Interlude******Joe looked back at the phone. "[Fornicate] this! I have better things to do." He checked his window for onlookers and leapt out onto the street, ready to bust some heads. A few minutes later, his phone rang. Were he to check his voice mail afterwards, he would have heard:Uh, this message is for Joe. This is George Gordon. Percy, Mary, Charles and I are hear. What’s that? Oh, yes. That’s right. Ok, like Babbage just reminded me, you haven’t met us yet, but we’ve met you. Um, we’ll find you later. This is important. Ta ta!But will he? Read next issue and maybe you’ll find out!