The Sordid Life of Action Figures - Episode II

The Tale of
SPIDEY & SASQUATCH

Being a super-powered individual is a rough life. Sometimes the bad guys mess up and things are easy - like when they reveal their entire evil plan right before they're about to hit the Doomsday button, giving you an opportunity to save the world and get the girl yet again, right when the timer hits 0:01. This is basic stuff. Superhero 101. What they don't tell you is the other, non- 'fate of the world' type stuff. Like how to hold down a real job when you have to go zipping around town all day rescuing babies from burning buildings and preventing pedestrian fatalities. Never mind trying to have a decent relationship, especially if you can't reveal your secret identity to anyone.

It's not easy to make friends being a superhero either. There are frequent ego clashes, and a lot of 'my powers are way better than yours' sentiment all around. Sometimes, however, things just seem to work out. This is such a tale.

Spider-man had always led a double life. By day, he was nerdy Peter Parker - barely making the rent, having trouble with women, failing college and getting yelled at by JJ Jameson all day. (We all saw the movies.) At night he'd prowl the rooftops as Spider-man. This was his time to really shine. What a lot of folks didn't know was that there was a reason why he was always cracking jokes and taking off from place to place all the time. It seems that there was a different 'Mary Jane' that had recently taken hold in Spidey's life...just a puff or two to get 'in the zone'....

Meanwhile, in the backwoods of  British Columbia, Sasquatch was having problems of his own. Since the break-up of Alpha Flight, he'd been wandering from place to place without much purpose. His relationship with Aurora (aka Jeanne-Marie Beaubier) had long since disintegrated, and the other AF members didn't really want to have much to do with him anymore - except maybe Puck, but Sas always found him kind of annoying. In his mind, they were all a bunch of wussy crybabies who couldn't handle a little berserker rage now and again. (It's not like the Canadian Government couldn't just spring for another super-stealth spy plane....)

 Although capable of reverting to his human state whenever he felt like it, Sasquatch always preferred to remain in beast form. Sure, Walter Langkowski might find it easier to go to the supermarket or score with the ladies, but Walter also couldn't scare the pants off of hikers, smash down walls with his fists or launch a jay-walker into space. Things just seemed better - more natural, and more fun - when you're 10ft tall and bristling with orange hairy muscles. Being in Sasquatch form also allowed him to drink a lot more beer....which he did as often and as much as possible.

Peter Parker, desperately needing the work, took an assignment from the Daily Bugle to investigate a series of strange happenings in Vancouver. It seems that someone had been breaking in to the local breweries and stealing all of their stock. Many head of cattle had also gone missing in the area, and an emu farm had been stripped clean of all its birds. There was a lot of damage to the buildings and reports of loud, monstrous growling and belching sounds. There were no eyewitnesses, but several plaster casts were made of the large footprints left at each of the crime scenes. Although Peter was there to photograph the carnage, it was Spidey who would head up the real investigation. He decided to stake out the next logical target of the robberies - a warehouse full of beer near the outskirts of town, not far from the last crimescene.

"Spider-sense tingling.....smell of wet dog and stale beer in the area....it can only be...."

"Sasquatch!"

"Listen here, little bug-man," said Sas, "This is my turf, and I don't need no snot-nosed American tourist sniffin' around my business! Back off and let me get back to getting wasted!"

"I think you've had enough already,"  said Spidey.

Obviously, that was the wrong thing to say. With surprising speed, the orange behemoth grabbed Spider-man, threw him to the ground and began to show him how they deal with trouble-makers up here in Canada....

...with a couple of extra shots thrown in just for being a wise ass.

Suddenly, with an excellent demonstration of why he's called the Amazing Spider-man, the web-slinger quickly rolled away and recovered, then retaliated with a hard kick to the Sas-crotch.

Although it completely (and thankfully) covers his entire 'naughty' areas, all that orange fur doesn't provide much in the way of padding...

Ol' Web-head quickly sought higher ground...

...safely out of the reach of the now-berserk Sasquatch.

After a while, when both of the combatants had calmed down somewhat, Spidey thought he might appeal to Sasquatch's better nature.

"Listen Buddy," he said, "I don't know about you, but I'm hurtin' pretty bad...I think there's a few teeth floating around loose inside this mask right now. I know you're a straight ahead guy, and you're not hurting anybody (except me) - you're just looking to get your drink on and all that. Truth is, I could use a few myself! Whaddya say I come down there and we work something out?"

And they did just that. They talked for a while about their respective problems and found out that they had much more in common than they could imagine. After a few days in Canada, Spidey decided he didn't want to go home. His job sucked, his girlfriend was a basket case (always whining about Broadway shows and whatnot - you saw the movie), and Aunt May could take care of herself for once. Sasquatch basically had nowhere to go, so the two decided to stick together and see what kind of excitement they could find.

Vancouver was starting to get pretty stale after the first month, although they did have a lot of good times there. They even managed to double date with Catwoman and the She-Hulk a couple of times. When the two decided to take a road trip, She-Hulk even lent them her car (unknowingly; when she wasn't looking). Spidey and Sas were on the road! They immediately set out for the bright lights of Las Vegas.

Needless to say, that town hadn't seen anything like it since Hunter S. Thompson was there in the 60's...drugs, alcohol, money, women and all-around super-powered partying. Many hotel rooms (and a few cars and a tour bus) were trashed. Their vacation was truly the stuff of comic book legends.

Their stay was not without its' problems, though. The heat was murder for Sas' fur, and a horrible 'backwoodsy' smell accompanied him wherever he went. Spidey gambled away all their money and had a bad trip out in the desert, but thankfully, Sasquatch was there for his friend.

After much soul-searching, the two decided that it was time for a new direction. They needed some cash. Sas saw a newspaper ad looking for superheroes to form a new team back up in Canada. It was the brand new start they both needed. They got back in the car and headed for Winnipeg....

*********

to be continued...

*********

Until next time:

May the Force be with you...