MV1 Saga

#5

BY Jason "J1" Kenney

"Man, this town is dead."

"What do you mean it's dead?" asked Max as he kicked back another beer.
Jack's was dead too at the moment, Max and I being two of maybe five people
in the place.

"I mean there's not much going on here." And there wasn't. Fantastic Four
was supposedly back, but who knows where they were at the moment. The
Avengers were around, but they seem to be focusing on reorganizing more than
anything. The Thunderbolts are still running around and everyone's just
waiting for them and the Avengers to meet up. Until then, New York City was
dead superhero activity wise.

But that wasn't what was really bothering me.

"Something will pop up. The Avengers will organize eventually and they'll
do something."

"Yeah," I said, staring at the bottle in my hands, "eventually. And until
then I sit on my hands. Hell, Jameson will probably have me go cover some
high school sports since that's my forte. And why is it the Avengers?
Where are the others? Hell, this world is full of folks in spandex running
around, why can't they come through here?"

"Look at it this way," said Max as he waived down a waiter with two fingers
up for two more beers, "what else is there in this town? You got Daredevil
down in Hell's Kitchen, but you're lucky to catch up with him let alone get
through that part of town with your wallet. Parker's got the Spiderman
market cornered. Everything else is either laying low or elsewhere, but
this is the calm before the storm."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, and this storm's gonna be huge."

"Exactly," said Max as two beers were set on the table. "Until then, we lay
low."

"Maybe the X-Men will pop up."

Max sprayed beer at that comment.

"Uh-uh, no, no, not me, Josh, not after that tree guy. You're on your own
with muties from here on out, man."

I just laughed a bit. But I was serious, I wanted action.

"I'm a reporter, Max, you're a reporter. We report on things! When
nothing's happening, we have nothing to report on. When we have nothing to
report on, we have no articles for Jameson, who has no pay checks for us."

"Which means you're buying the next round so we even out," said Max, leaning
back with a smile, "cause I am not going broke alone."

Just then my beeper went off and my hopes rose. Yep, the Bugle was calling.

"That sounds like a pay check to me," said Max as I got up to find a pay
phone.

"I could only hope."

Someone answered the phone on the first ring. Must be important.

"This is Josh Anderson," I said, "whatcha' got for me?"

***

MV1 presents:
MV1 Saga #5
March Year 1
Busy Work
by Jason Kenney

***

"Man I wish I was sixteen again."

"Max, ignore the cheerleaders and just take pictures of the game."

New York State High School Varsity Basketball Championship Semi-Final game
between Westchester and Queens was well under way. Robert Way was the man I
hated at this moment. The guy was supposed to be covering this game but
decided it would be fun to fall down in the bathtub and displace his hip
this morning. Ah, the high school sports beat. Home again, home again.

"There better be blood or I'm gonna be pissed," said Max as he took pictures
of the game. It was a close one and with less than two minutes to go Queens
just went up by one. But, much to Max's dismay, and mine really, it had
been a clean match. No low blows, no blood, no blatant fouls. Sigh.

"Soon it will be over and we can go home," I said, trying to cheer myself up
as well as Max.

Back and forth, back and forth, whoa, Westchester gets a 3, they're up by
two, less than a minute to go. Back and forth, back and forth, five
seconds, well I'll be damned. Queen ties it up, clock ticks down, we're
stuck here for overtime.

"You jinxed us," said Max to me with a hint of frustration in his voice,
"you said Jameson would put you back in high school sports and here we are."

"Okay, fine, the Avengers are gonna come crashing through the roof any
second and we'll have a real story to cover. Let's see if that works."

It didn't. We were bored for the rest of the game as Westchester eventually
won 85-83 in double overtime that threatened to go triple if not for a
well-timed and awfully loud coughing fit from a particular press
photographer.

***

"Maybe we could look into those S.H.I.E.L.D. guys breaking into your place,"
said Max as I drove us back towards the Bugle with our groundbreaking
basketball coverage.

"How? Go up to the Hellicarrier and knock? No," I said, rubbing my neck
where I was hit with a dart, "I'd rather just say I never saw Fury and leave
it at that."

Silence. Max started beating his hands on the dashboard like drums. I
started to wish this car's radio worked.

"Where did you get this piece of shit," said Max as he thankfully stopped
drumming.

"It's a loaner. My car's still in the shop from the rear ending it got when
the Avengers came back."

"Ah."

Silence.

"Man, those cheerleaders were hot," said Max.

"For children."

"Young adults, my friend. Some of them were even 18."

"They're still in high school, they're children."

"A woman's a woman."

"Unless she's a girl."

"Christ, Josh, do you ever get any?"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean? Just because I don't desire
children doesn't mean I don't get any."

"Oh, come on, you can't tell me those cheerleaders weren't hot!"

"I'm saying their children!"

"Just the same, they were hot!"

Silence.

"Okay," I said, "maybe the one on the end closest to us was hot, but the
rest were kids."

"Whatever floats your boat man."

And then this big guy came flying out of the side of a building about a
block ahead of us. Well, not really flying out, looked more like he had
been forced out, thrown or punched maybe. He was followed out by some guy
in a trenchcoat who just waltzed on through the hole.

I slammed on the breaks and jumped out the car, Max right behind me. Yea, a
story!

"...Ben Grimm, is that you?" asked the guy who first went out the wall as he
steadied himself.

"Whoa," I said to Max. "Thor?"

"Here's the storm," said Max as I heard the all too familiar sound of a
clicking camera. I fished out my tape recorder as things started to happen.

The man in the trenchcoat tore it off, revealing himself as Crusher Creel,
the Absorbing Man. He moved into a better position on Thor, unfortunately
with his back to us. That changed quick as Thor threw his hammer at him and
he came flying back...at us...

"Aw, hell," said Max and we dove for the ground. There was a crunching
noise and we rolled over to see the Absorbing Man nestled right in the hood
of my loaner. I could just see my insurance rates climbing.

Absorbing Man pulled himself from my car, taking on the same steel
attributes and shouting at Thor. I have no idea what he said, I was too
busy running to out of the way with Max.

And am I glad I ran. Creel leapt at Thor and they went tumbling into a
parking lot across the street, tearing into more cars.

"This is prime stuff," said Max as he kept taking pictures.

***

To sum it all up, Creel seemed to get the upper hand as Thor was looking
pretty out of it. They went tearing through a building on over to the next
block and by the time Max and I got over there, Thor had turned the tables
and frozen the guy by doing some trick with his hammer. Ends up Creel was
just trying to get this doctor to help wife, Titania, when he ran into Thor
and went into defensive mode.

Fifteen people were hurt by the fight when someone went underground and blew
up a gas main. The subway wasn't running by the anytime soon, either.
Luckily no one was killed, but fifteen injuries and a few million dollars in
damage is quite a price to pay for a doctor.

***

"Stop the presses, Robbie, we've got your front page headline right here," I
said as we walked into Robbie's office, tossing a disk on his desk. I had
pulled my laptop out of my ruined loaner and typed the whole story on the
bus ride over to the Bugle.

"A high school basketball game is hardly front page worthy, Josh," said
Robbie as he continued to look over papers.

"This isn't the basketball game," I said, getting his attention as he
stopped what he was doing and looked to me. "Max is over developing
pictures of Thor versus Crusher Creel, the Absorbing Man! Came out of
nowhere, too, this story fell into our laps here."

"Is Max developing pictures from the game?"

"Yeah, sure, I guess, I think they're on the same reel, but Robbie..."

"Josh, do you have the basketball story written yet?"

What? Basketball story? I just handed this guy Thor vs. Absorbing Man and
he wants basketball?

"No, not yet, I was working on the Thor story."

"Josh, I asked you to get me a story of the State semi-finals. Did you go
to the game?"

"Yeah, but..."

"The find a computer and write me a basketball article, Josh," said Robbie,
looking back to his papers.

"Robbie..."

"Josh," he said with a sigh, looking to me again, "Jameson is not the only
person here concerned with getting a paper out. Despite our status as a
national paper, we're still a local paper first and locals want to know
about the basketball game. They get Thor all the time, they don't get
Queens going to the state basketball finals everyday."

"Actually," I said, humbled as I understood his point, "Westchester won."

"Even better. I need that article, Josh. I'll look at the Thor piece even
though I already have someone else working on it, but I sent you out for the
basketball story and I need it."

Damn. It's never good to be lectured by the boss.

***

Someone else got an article published on Thor, page five of the front
section. The basketball story ran page three in sports. Max had pictures
published for both.

The folks at Jake's were happy to hear about Thor from me, though. The
place was a bit busier than when we were in there earlier so I actually had
an audience. But, I don't know, the story just wasn't that fun to tell
after Robbie rejected it.

Pop would have told me the same thing I got from Robbie and I knew it. I
was still new at the Bugle and had to earn my stripes. I had been lucky
with the heroes returning and getting two front-page articles out of the
whole thing, but I needed to prove I consistently deserved that spot.

But, let me tell you, that was a damn good basketball article.

***

Author Notes:

I'm baaaaaack.

It has been almost two years since I last wrote an issue of MV1 Saga. Over
a year since I've written any fanfic. Wow. I figured it was about time I
got back into things. Now, I can't promise this will keep up. It may be
another two years before issue #6 is seen. I hope not, but we'll see.

A quick thanks to Sam Everett for the amazing job on MV1 Saga #5, any time
you want to have another go at Max, have at!

I stole this plot from Ralph Angelo's Thor #505. Yea, Ralph!

As always and unless further notified,
Jason Kenney - J1
March 28, 2001