The Return of the Giant Rat of Sumatra: Part 7

The Exciting Conclusion of:

THE RETURN OF THE GIANT RAT OF SUMATRA

Synopsis: In our last episode, things were not going well for the Valiant Arthian (that's

one of Young Dullard's nicknames for all you people who came in late). He was being pursued

by agents of the Interplanetary Confederation for Criminal Investigation, better known as

ICCs, in the belief that he was a confederate of the notorious space criminal, Hubba the Rat.

He was also being pursued by the evil Atlantian goddess, Athrozetz; her monstrous boyfriend,

Erus; and Hubba the Rat herself, disguised as the attractive female May Daye (do not forget

that this serial started before that Bond movie came out, critics), all of whom have plans

for the Thessalapian Jade statuette Dullard has in his possession. He is also being chased by

an angry duck, an irate rhinoceros, and the famous detective Ceasar Woof and his assistant,

Goodlose, the last two merely because they're trying to find out what's coming off.

Following a chase through the New York Subway, Young Dullard has made

his way back to his Secret Hideout in Grand Central Station. While he's being delayed by Frau

Sprodeknochen, who's been looking for her cat since Chapter III of this story, and a band of

muggers, several people have preceded the Arthian Avenger to his Secret Hideout. Ceasar Woof

and Achie Goodlose have invaded his secret sanctorum, only to be knocked out be

tranquilizer gas. May Daye, leading a ferocious band of punks (armed with lethal guitars and

safety pins) have been captured by mechanical tentacles coming out of the walls and trap doors.

Athrozetz and Eruz have been immobilied by quick hardening plastic spray. Event the angry

duck and Frau Sprodeknochen's cat have been captured.

Young Dullard enters, only to be trapped himself as the chair he sits in turns into a

robot, as do three other pieces of furniture. The setter of all these traps steps out of the shadows

with a ray gun and reveals himself to be:

"The Generic Fiend!" cried Young Dullard as he recognized his captor.

The low-browed, chinless, long-nosed, buck-toothed, acne-scarred face of John Smithdoejones twisted into a hideous scowl as he heard the name, "Generic Fiend."

"Don't call me that!" he shrieked, gestulating with his ray gun. "I hate that stupid name."

The name Generic Fiend had been given Dr Smithdoejones due to his numerous defeats at the hands of various superheroes ... 37 different heroes, heroines and teams at the last count, 39 if you count funny animal characters. Being caught by Young Dullard he last time had been the most humiliating defeat of all, the more so since Young Dullard had been the first hero to somehow avoid violating any of the Fiend's constitution rights, so that the Fiend had finally ended up in prison.

"Generic Fiend, you fools call me," he snarled. "I'm a clown to you bums, an amusement, not even worthy of a brand name. I'll show you all now. Dullard, you're only the first to feel my wrath."

He pressed the trigger of his ray gun. An ominous glow developed in the gun's barrel, as whirring and bubbling sounds came from its innards.

"Takes a few seconds to warm up, that's all," grumbled the Fiend. "Now is when I get my own back. For everything. Like the time that fool kid kept me from blowing up New York with my homemade A-bomb. Do you know the work, the effort I'd put into making that thing ..."

Young Dullard struggled in the grip of the robots as the sounds from the gun grew louder and the glow brighter.

"And the time they stopped me from taking over that third world country so I could steal all its mineral wealth and starve its entire population, instead of just the half that was starving already. And the time I tried to use orphans in my dog food factory. Dammit, you blasted heroes never let me have any fun!"

The whole weapon was glowing, obviously about to fire. Young Dullard took the only course he could see open to him. He lashed out with his foot, trying to kick the gun from the Fiend's hands.

He missed, but the small hassock sized robot that was holding onto his leg was swung forward by the force of the super-kick, and hit the gun's barrel. The weapon was jerked up, just as it fired a beam of coruscating green energy. The energy bolt hit the ceiling of Young Dullard's secret hideout, spreading out nearly twenty feet as it burned away at the steel and concrete and finally dissipated just before it would've burned through the pavement above them.

With a mighty heave, Dullard shook loose from all four robots at once, throwing them around the room. The Generic Fiend brought his weapon to bear again.

"Nice try," the villain smirked, "buy no cig-gahh!"

This last came out as seven very surprised pedestrians, including a little man in a singed hot dog vendor's uniform, crashed through the eighth of an inch of concrete that was all that was left of the street above and crashed on top of the Generic Fiend, as well as other places in Young Dullard's Secret Hideout.

Things happened thick and fast after that. One fellow landed on the snoring overstuffed chair, waking (and just missing) the cat who was sitting on it. He also woke up the chair, which stood up with aloud snort. The cloth and man fell from it, revealing it to be Ceasar Woof in disguise. "Mein Bootsy!" screamed one old woman with suitcases who had fallen in. She tried to snatch up the cat, only to bump against a panel in the wall. The panel opened to release a very sexy blonde woman in revealing armor.

"Mae!" shouted Young Dullard. "What are you doing here?"

Meanwhile, the Generic Fiend's weapon had gone off again, this time taking out a good deal of floor and walls, and bursting open a water main. As the water started poring in, an oddly dressed young man in a Mohawk hairdo rose out of the floor, pointing a guitar at the Generic Fiend.

"Take this, you %$#(@*^!" screamed Nigel, unleashing a truly devastating chord. The deadly vibration missed the Fiend and struck the two statues. Shards of plastic coating falling around them, Athrozetz and Erus shook themselves, now free to wreck havoc.

As Nigel and his friends began to pull themselves out of the traps they had fallen into, four short, stocky figures appearing in the doorway. Dullard recognized them: Wahshday, Raineday, Badday and Farrahday, the agents of the ICCI.

"Don't anybody move!" shouted Wahshday. "This is a blitz .. I mean a lightning invasion ... I mean a raid!"

As the ICCIs pointed their blasters at the milling crowd, Nigel's friend, Dirk, spotted what he thought was a door and tried to sneak out through it. It turned to lead into a dead end cupboard, and an angry duck came flapping out, bowling several people over.

"Uff!" said Goodlose as the water hit him, rising up and tripping one of the robots as he did so.

Athrozetz and Hubba spotted the greet statuette at the same time. "The Jade!" they both yelled.

Immediately Young Dullard's one track mind railed back to the Jade. "Protect it at all costs," May had told him.

The Valiant Arthian seized the Jade and leaped up out of his sanctuary to the sidewalk, knocking over several of the crowd that had gathered around the gigantic hole as he did so. The crowd began to break up and flee as the ICCIs came flying out after him, followed by a bizarre assortment of robots, monsters, goddesses, a Labrador Duck, and all and sundry.

* * * * *

"Give up, Dullard," ordered Wahshday. "You can't receive a path!"

At the Arthian's blank look he pulled out his Terran phrase book, consulted it, and then shouted: "I mean you can't get a way!"

Wahshday leaped aside as twin blaster beams missed him by millimeters. May Daye had emerged behind him, guns drawn and firing.

As the ICCI agents turned their guns on her, Dullard attacked! They were menacing the girl he thought he could get to like! The Nemesis of Crime swatted the little men (and woman) around like flies, apologizing profusely to Farrahday as he booted her across the street.

"Leave her alone!" he commanded.

"We have a warrant for her arrest, you numbskull!" shouted Wahshday. "She's wanted in six different galaxies!"

"Dopes!" shouted the Arthian. "Can't you see she's an Earth woman? A terran who's never left this beautiful little world? A true human?"

Dullard gestured at May Daye in her futuristic armor, a ray pistol in each hand.

"Can't you see she's a perfectly normal antique collector?"

Athrozetz came flying out of the pit, wreathed in an aura of flames and crackling lightning.

"There you are, you rat!" she shouted, letting loose a bolt of mystic energy.

Young Dullard interposed himself between the angry goddess and the light of his life. The bolt of energy, ignoring all rules of maic and physics, ricocheted off his chest, striking a robot who was struggling to escape from the hole with a number of other villains, detectives and innocent bystanders. The robot promptly transformed into a Harley Davidson motorcycle, a function not imprinted on any of its memory banks. A bag lady, also escaping from Young Dullard's hideout, leaped aboard the vehicle, pulled an old motorcycle helmet out of her bag, donned it and roared off into the distance, yelling: "Look out world, Big Axle baby is ridin' again!"

Young Dullard confronted Athrozetz, Jade tucked under his arm.

"A woman with your record doesn't have any call to call anyone else a rat!" he said ferociously.

"Oh no?" said the Atlantean goddess dryly. "Take a look behind you."

"You thnk I'm going to fall for that old gag?" demanded the Valiant Arthian as he glanced over his shoulder by reflex action. "Eeep!"

Behind him a nine-foot tall rat loomed, scraps of armor and lingerie falling from its shaggy body. Hubba had found it impossible to maintain her human shape in the excitement of battle. She gripped both guns in her scrabby claws.

"Now, you imbecile," she chittered, "the %$#(@*^ stature!"

Young Dullard took in the situation at a glance. Where the woman he'd thought he loved had been standing a little while ago, there now stood a monster rat in the tatters of her clothing. Therefore ...

"You've eaten May Daye!" the Arthian shouted.

With a wild cry he hurled the Thessalapian Jade at the Rat. Hubba ducked, thereby taking the Jade between the eyes rather than the chest. The ricocheting figurine caught Badday in the solar plexus, leaving him spinning around and around in the air. Finally it crashed back on the sidewalk, missing Nigel by millimeters. The near miss made the punk rocker's hair stand up straighter on end.

'Hubba the Rat, I arrest you in the name of the Interplanetary Confederation of Criminal Investigation for planetcide, space piracy, sloat smuggling, Interspacial Hitchhiking, financial sabotage, dissemination fo tax loopholes to minor ..." droned Wahshday.

"Young Dullard, I place you under arrest for aiding and abetting a known criminal," put in Raineday.

Neither paid the ICCI agents any attention. Hubba was still dazed from the blow. Yung Dullard was holding the rat's mouth open and screaming down her throat:

"May, can you hear me? Are you down there? May, it's Dullard! Answer me!"

Athrozetz dived to retrieve the Jade. A hail of blaster fire from the agents drove her back.

"Don't touch it, it's evidence!" commanded Farrahday.

Athrozetz responded with an onslaught of badly aimed fireballs, lightning bolts, ice blasts, energy bands, dagger barrages and clouds of sneeze gas. The agent spent the next few minutes frantically dodging the attacks.

The Generic Fiend, unnoticed in the confusion, slipped over and snatched up the Jade.

"Anything this fought over ought to be valuable," he muttered.

"You said it, man," said Nigel, snatching it out of the Fiend's hand.

The Fiend raised his blaster. Nigel, Nasty, Barry and the rest of Blistered Mister raised their guitars.

Dullard was getting beautiful echoes from the Rat's throat with his shouts, but no sign from May if she was still down there.

"Turn and face me, Dullard!" roared Erus as he leveled an atomic bazooka at Young Dullard.

The Arthian turned to see the demon warrior aiming the weapon at him. Erus grinned evilly. The weapon he held was capable of annihilating an entire city block and then some.

"So long, sucker," he laughed, and slowly began to pull the trigger, savoring every second he could stretch this confrontation out.

"You!" screamed a voice from the crowd. "You wrecka my business!"

Vito Ferduccio run up to Erus, gesticulating and yelling, and, incidentally, spoiling the Dark Titan's aim.

"You blowa my cart up all ova da street!" bellowed the ex-hot dog vendor. "You blowa me all ova da street! Where'm I gonna getta da new cart? Where'm I gonna getta back da customers who gotta splattered wid' mustard an'a relish?"

"Shut up, human," Erus snarled. "Before I ... OWW!"

This last was uttered as Vito kicked Erus solidly in the ankle. The demon lord's bazooka went off straight up in the air, as Erus hopped around angrily clutching his injured foot.

"I'll gnash you in a gnidderling!" he roared. "I'll tear out your hazlett! I'll ..."

At this point Vito kicked him in his other ankle and shoved the off-balance demon back into the hole in the pavement. The furious Erus splashed about in Young Dullard's secret sanctum, ignoring Archie Goodlose's monumental efforts to boost Ceasar Woof out of the hole.

High up in Earth's stratosphere, the gigantic semi-saurcer shaped spaceship slowly descended. The extraterrestrial army inside the huge war engine prepared to launch their devastating attack on the unsuspecting planet. The invasion plan was perfect. A single ship, but it packed enough firepower to easily seize the entire world, and equipment sophisticated enough to come upon the hapless earth creatures undetected. They would not have a chance to resist ...

The shell of the atomic bazooka hit the great ship in its most vulnerable area. The last living action of the last surviving invader was: "How did those stupid earthmen get wise?"

Meanwhile, back on Earth, things were heating up nicely without the aliens' help.

A robot lurched into Nigel, knocking the Jade from his hands. The vicious automation then fired an energy bolt from its cranial gun torrent at Athrozetz. A mystic pass on the part of the goddess, and the world's largest mechanical frog fled the scene of the battle with a ribbet, a hop and a clank.

Hubba-the-Rat recovered a share of her consciousness, saw the Quarard Stone and grabbed it. Instantly, the ICCs, Dullard, Athrozetz, Blistered Mister, the Generic Fiend and his robots were all after her.

The air suddenly vibrated. Eiree sounds came from the punk rock band's guitars as they tuned up for the biggest performance of their career. The air seemed to quiver and turn strange colors around them as they struck the first chord.

"Wow, man, a light show," said one of the members.

Blistered Mister cut loose with their latest hit: "How Can I Mass Ya If Ya Don't Go 'Way?"

Electric bolts shot all over. One of the Generic Fiend's two remaining robots gave in and collapsed in a pile of nuts and bolts. Lightning played about the band. Dimensional walls wavered. Buildings started to topple. People fled screaming, their fingers firmly jammed in their ears. Young Dullard rushed the group, only to be pushed back by a wall of hideous music, battering him, pinning him to a wall, which itself was crumbling ..."

"So long, sucker," thought Nigel as he and his bandmates prepared to focus their no-good vibrations on the hero.

A pistol barked six times. The punks of Blistered Mister cried out in horror as six bullets passed through the necks of their guitars, severing every string.

Barnyard Goetz reholstered his gun.

"It had to be done," he said coldly. "They were murdering Rock and Roll."

"You fool!" screamed Athrozetz. "You complete and utter moron! In a second those clowns would have broken the dimensional barriers with their music. The Jade would not have to be destroyed at all. Now, let's see how you like it as an aardvark!"

"Over my dead body," cried Young Dullard, interposing himself between the angry goddess and Goetz.

"Any way you want it," said Athrozetz, forgetting her attraction to the Arthian Avenger in the heat of anger. She started to make the mystic passes.

"So long, sucker."

An angry black and white duck flew in the goddess' face. With judicious wing buffets and dive bombs, Calvin Quincy Welk kept the sorceress who had transformed him into a fowl too busy to cast any spells.

"The Rat!" yelled Young Dullard, pointing to the fleeing rodent and nearly breaking Goetz's shoulder with the force of his grip. "She's getting away with the Jade."

Statuette gripped in her jaws, Hubba was beating a slow retreat, exchanging blaster fire with the ICCS every inch of the way.

Dullard charged after the Rat.

Erus, emerging from the hole again, charged after Dullard, and promptly fell flat on his face as a meaty hand gripped his ankle. Ceasar Woof, trying to get out of Dullard's secret hideout, had grabbed the nearest handhold available.

A small dimensional gate opened, and a deformed little hunchback emerged from it.

"Mistress!" cried Nergon as he ran towards Athrozetz.

Blistered Mister strove grimly to rearm their guitars with their spare strings.

The Generic Fiend got Young Dullard in his sights again. "This time nothing can stop me."

A rhinocerous rushed by him, sideswiping him. The bolt from his raygun disintegrated the last of his robots.

Young Dullard managed to catch up with Hubba and wrest the Thessalapian Jade from her. The twin bolts from her blasters ricocheted harmlessly off the Arthian's dense skin. Dullard charged down Times Square, the Jade tucked under his left arm, his right arm outstretched in front of him. He dodged a flying tackle from Nergon by a porno book shop, stiff-armed Erus at the tripple-X rated cinema, sidestepped an attempted interception by the rhinoceros at the massage parlor, broke through a defense by the ICCIs at the novelty store (formerly a Head Shop) and was heading for the fifty yard line when a batch of shaven headed men in robes blocked his way. Armed with butterfly knives, nunchuckus, bo sticks, throwing stars, and fighting chains, the Go Long monks prepared to take revenge for their injured master. "There he is," screamed the injured master from his wheelchair. "Get him."

Dullard saw the monks blocking his way and tried to stop. At the speed he was running, it wasn't that easy. Dullard came to a full stop ... after he had passed though the crowd of martial artists. Every one of them had tried to stop him, and every one of them was now injured, if not unconscious.

"Young Dullard!"

It was May's voice. Young Dullard turned to see the light of his life approaching him, wearing nothing but a torn-down awning cloth wrapped around her person in hte manner of a sarong.

"You've got to protect me," cried May, falling into his arms. "Those horrible little people, and that witch, and that giant rat! You've got to save me from them."

"Don't worry, May, I'll protect you," answered Dullard in his best heroic voice. "They'll have to get past me first, and they won't get past me."

The hero threw himself between May and the direction he figured the onslaught would come.

"I knew I could count on you," said May as she picked up the Jade. Treasured Quarard Stone now in her grasp, she quietly began to slip away, leaving Dullard to handle what was coming.

An angry rhinoceros turned the corner and, further enraged by Young Dullard's orange, purple and lime green costume, charged the Arthian. As the rhino bore down on him, Dullard noticed his boot had become unlaced and bent to tie it. The horn missed him, but their foreheads met solidly. The rhino immediately collapsed unconscious at the feet of the astonished Dullard.

Athrozetz, Erus, and Nergon--who seemed vainly trying to get the Goddess's attention--came racing around the corner, followed by Blistered Mister, followed by Calvin the duck, followed by the Generic Fiend, Goodlose and a puffing Ceasar Woof, followed by a short, dark, mustached man riding a mechanical frog and waving a toasting fork like it was a cavalry sword, followed by Goetz.

"They're all here," sighed Young Dullard. Then he heard the blaster fire behind him. He turned to see May in a gun battle with the four agents.

"May!" he screamed.

A lightning bolt from Athrozetz cracked against his chest. The Arthian Avenger found himself flying involuntarily into the thick of battle. He crashed right into May Daye, sending her flying through a store window.

"Are you okay?" Dullard called after her, unmindful of the ICCI's blaster fire.

"Sure," said May, emerging from the broken glass, "I'm ... fine!"

As the astonished do-gooder watched, the blonde girl of his dreams began to change. She grew bigger, her hair turned gray and covered her entire body, she sprouted a long, hairless tail, her teeth turned into rat's chisel tusks, her face became a whiskered muzzle, her eyes turned read and beady, her hands became scaly paws, and her ears flaired up and out. Young Dullard, the Thessalapian Jade at his feet, stood confronting the Giant Rat of Sumatra.

"Now to settle you once and for all," chittered the Rat, setting both her blasters on full power.

"Set blasters on full power," ordered Wahshday to his three subordinates. "We can't take any chances with this guy!"

"I have had it!" hissed Athrozetz, making the magic passes necessary to hurl the dread multi-blast spell at Young Dullard.

"Now I've got him!" chortled Erus, aiming his Atomic Bazooka again.

"Not if I get him first!" snapped the Generic Fiend, aiming his disintegrator.

The Mister Blister boys started tuning up again, all pointing their guitars at Dullard.

"No, stop!" yelled Negron. "Mistress...releasing all that power at once..."

Vito leaped off his mount and hid behind it.

Calvin Quincy Welk prepared to make a kamikaze divebomb at Athrozetz.

"Good Lord, they're going to...run for it, Archie!" yelled Woof.

Goetz saw the odds facing Dullard and groaned, "Oh boy, so long, you poor sucker."

Athrozetz, the ICCIs, Erus, the Giant Rat, the Generic Fiend, and Blistered Mister Punk Band all fired on Young Dullard at once.

The Valiant Arthian did the only thing he could think of in such circumstances...he screamed and fell down, curling up in a fetal position.

The multitude of full powered blaster bolts, the disintegration ray, the lethal musical notes and Athrozetz's mystic combination lightning bolt, flame blast, cold ray, acid spray and poison gas attack all hit the jade statuette.

Which disappeared in a swirl of green vapor.

The meeting of all these awesome energy forces caused a massive shockwave to rush through the area. Windows shattered. A mystic bolt struck a window full of porn magazines and miraculously put clothes on all the nudes in them (the shop's owner promptly converted his place into a revival mission, the Shrine of the Miraculous Censorship). Young Dullard was sent flying into the Generic Fiend. Hubba was knocked flat on her back, all four ICCIs on top of her. A dimensional warp opened and sucked in Athrozetz, Nergon and Erus. Woof was blown off his beet and snt into Blistered Mister, bowling them all over. Energy bolts struck the duck, turning him back into Calvin Quincy Welk. The giant mechanical frog turned into a huge, shiny Hot Dog vendor's cart, with a smiling, non-trademarked face on its front.

It took a bit for Dullard's mind to focus again on what was going on. Three little men and one little woman were trussing up the giant rat in magnetic shackles, chains, and ropes. Suddenly it hit him, leaping up from the unconscious Generic Fiend, he ran over ot Hubba.

"Get back, mister," hissed Wahshday, "she's a wanted criminal. You're lucky you're not being pulled in yourself."

"The shame of it!" gasped Dullard. "My girlfriend, a wanted felon! What is the world coming to..."

"Aw, blow it out your ear!" squeaked Hubba.

"May!" Dullard said, forgetting the girl of his dreams was now a ten foot rat. "Will I ... see you again?"

"Oh, brother!" said the Agents in unison.

"Not if I see you first!" snarled Hubba.

Dullard turned his heel and left them. That certainly settled that. The little men flew off with Hubba.

Calvin Quincy Welk was dancing around happily shouting, "I'm me again! I'm human again! I'm myself again..."

He kept this up until the police grabbed him for indecent exposure. His clothes had not survived the double transformation.

"Congratulations, Dullard!" said the Chief of Police. "You caught that little nut that was running around, the Generic Fiend, the escaped rhinoceros, and that gang of monks that was beating up and mugging people, all in one day. You've overdone...I mean, outdone yourself again!"

The members of the Blistered Mister Punk Rock Band were being issued tickets for disturbing the peace. Barnyard Goetz had quietly removed himself from the scene of the mayhem. He wanted no repetition of his early brush with the law, where he'd shot down four youths who had only been asking him for money while pointing chainsaws at him.

Woof and Goodlose were already several blocks away, trying to flag a taxi.

"Archie, I learned a great thing today," said Woof.

"What, boss?"

"Keep the heck away from super-people, that's what," rumbled Woof. "Say, there's a hot dog vendor."

"Fresha hot dog, sir?" asked Vito as he strolled up to the pair.

"Fresha hot dog, sir?" echoed the face on his pushcart.

* * * * *

"My powers depleted from the battle," raged Athrozetz. "We've been blown back into limbo, the dimensional gate is still shut, this imbecile (pointing to Erus) manages to break his arm, we've lost the Thessalapian Jade, and now you tell me our castle was looted in my absence?"

"Not looted," peeped Nergon. "It's just this guy broke in and stole the Talisman of Kreeen and the Gargoyle of Gillisdrim!"

"And where were my loyal guards when this was going on?"

"Well, they were all in the room with him when it happened. Now, we're finding them all over ... unconscious on the roof, out cold in the cellar, in pieces on the dancing room floor."

"Never mind. Who was this guy?"

"No one I knew. Some old gezzer with a long gray beard and a patch over one eye. Said there was no reason for such a fuss, he was just borrowing them."

"If I'd been here when he came and pulled that stuff," blustered Erus.

"You!" yelled Athrozetz. "If you'd stayed here the idiot would have broken the Quarard Stone and gotten us out of here for good. But, no! You had to run out and fight him! You loused it all up you big..."

"And I suppose that the Rat double-crossing us had nothing to do with it," argued Erus. "You were the one who enlisted her help."

"And you with your stupid atomic whatever-it-was..."

Nergon quietly tiptoed out the door and left his mistress and the demon-lord to each other's company.

* * * * *

Young Dullard noticed the Red Rooster surrounded by reporters and photographers.

"What's up?" he asked a passerby.

"He just caught a bunch of guys trying to put a bomb in the Statue of Liberty."

"Why can't I ever do things like that?" Dullard asked jealously as he walked off. Here he had been fooling around with that fool Rat while the Red Rooster had been really doing something!

"Bootsy? Here, Bootsy!" he heard the old lady calling. "Puss, puss, come down."

Dullard walked over to see Frau Sprodeknochen trying to coax her black and white cat down from a pile of boxes.

"Here, Madam, let me get your cat for you," he politely offered.

"Dankusun, young man. Mine Bootsy has gotten herslf stuck oudt uf mine reach!"

Bootsy saw the big lug reaching for her and jumped down into the old woman's arm.

"Bootsy, du badt girl, all day I'fe looked for you," said Frau Sprodenknockhen as the cat licked her face.

She then gave the Arthian the once over.

"Say, du look like a strong yunk man. Vill du valk me backen to mine apartment? I'fe valuable things in dis suitcase."

"Sure," answered Young Dullard. He doubted there was much in the battered suitcase the old lady was carrying, but he didn't want the poor old woman to lose what little she had.

Frau Sprodeknochen held her cat tenderly and her suitcase in a grip of steel. Inside were all the jewels she had guarded all these years and the jade statue of the funny little goblin with the four dialed clock in his belly.

"Such a nice young man," she said to Dullard as they walked home under a setting sun.

"Just doing my duty," said Young Dullard.

THE END

Philip De Parto

May 27, 2011

There is quite a bit of backstory to this tale. One thread concerns Young Dullard. The other, Hubba-the-Rat, the Giant Rat of Sumatra.

Hubba's story is the simpler of the pair. There are a number of Sherlock Holmes cases which are only alluded to by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and not elucidated. In "The Adventure of a Sussex Vampire," Holmes tells Watson that the story of the Giant Rat of Sumatra is "a story for which the world is not prepared." Chuck was not the first person to use that comment as the basis for a yarn.

The story of Young Dullard takes a bit longer. One day science fiction Richard Grant (this is the fan, not the writer of the same name) mused that he might "write an autobiography and call it YOUNG DULLARD. I thought it was a great name and appropriated it several years later when I was starting a fanzine (an amateur science fiction publication).

I was playing Dungeons & Dragons at the time with a fellow named Andy Knaster. Andy had some artistic ability and presented me with a drawing of a superhero in tights standing beneath the letters "Young Dullard." It became the cover of the first issue.

Charles Garofalo was taken with the idea and wrote an article covering the origin of the hero, how he had come to Earth as an illegal immigrant, and his encounters with a mishmash of odd villains, including Athrozetz and Erus. Clearly this thing was taking on a life of its own, so I sat down with Chuck and hashed out some ideas. The first installment of an adventure began in issue number three.

After close to 20 issues over a span of several years, the press of projects took me away from YOUNG DULLARD. Fortunately, I keep good records and kept hold of the works I never published, including the final installment.

So here is the entire story for the first time. Only a small group of people saw it in print, and those fortunate few have it with illustrations by Cathye Faraci, Lissanne Lake, Janice Kitick and others.

I hope you enjoyed it.

Philip De Parto, editor of YOUNG DULLARD