AMY ATOM: AN OPEN INVITE

[WMDBASSPLAYER]

Because a few of you have shown a great liking for my character Amy Atom, I’m giving an open invite to any and all Hero Machiners to choose one of the five versions shown on my Multi-verse cover, or come up with your own versions of her for a full, non-canon one shot. You can provide art and story or story only and I’ll do my best to illustrate it. Let your imaginations go, but try to at least keep something about her recognizable from my original version, preferably her powers. A nice twist, for example, would be a world where Amy is a giant instead of a dwarf. I’m kicking around a multi-verse idea where Amy is granted cosmic powers and calls herself White Dwarf. If someone else wants to take a stab at that, OK. You can refer to my origin story in my Spectacular Comics Covers thread or Atomic Punk’s Tell My Story version of her meeting One Armed Bandit, to get background info as a starting point.

[The Atomic Punk]

Cool, I would like to see what others come up with. Myself, I have a severe block. Still work ing on Linea’s “Fairy Fight.” Not to mention that my laptop mouse still isn’t working…

[WMDBASSPLAYER]

I hope you overcome block because I definitely hope for some input from you on this. It was time consuming to come up witg that origin, but very satisfying once I was finished and actually fun when I got to doing the layout of the pages. I hope to get enough responses on this to put together something to be really proud of.

[TheNate]

I’d like to help out. Let me get caught up on the art for Zero Level and I’ll do an Amy Atom story.

[WMDBASSPLAYER]

Cool Nate! Any and all input is appreciated.

[TheNate]

“I can say without a doubt that there are an infinite number of universes. Some are just like our own… but for one or two significant events, exactly the same.” – Lex Luthor

It always ends the same. I’m sick of this. He may get ahead at first, but I always win in the end.

The One-Armed Bandit robbed a bank with a shrink gun. By the time the Urban Soul Patrol arrived, he had thousands in shrunken dollar bills in his belt-pouch. He also had enough energy left in his gun to reduce the Urban Soul Patrol to the size of their own action figures.

He didn’t shoot me. Thank God. I don’t need to be any shorter.

Instead, he threw a bunch of little balls that exploded in thick purple gummy smoke at me. How does someone make smoke gummy? What’s the point? Why would someone think of that?

Of course, it takes more than smoke to stop Amy Atom. A few atomic right-hooks tore right through that mess like it was silly string so fast I caught a glimpse of the One-Armed Bandit going around the corner.

I sprinted to the intersection. I didn’t see him. I looked left, I looked right, I looked up, I looked down … I saw little green rectangles on the sidewalk. And thanks to my atomic vision, I saw the little Benjamin Franklin on each.

For a genius, the One-Armed Bandit can be pretty stupid. He had a hole in his pocket.

I followed the trail of miniaturized money like every other New Yorker goes after dollars. It led to an abandoned graffiti-covered diner on 357 West Street. One atomic punch turned the boards over the door into toothpicks.

There was nothing between me and the One-Armed Bandit. For some reason, his suit was blue and white instead of red and black, and he had a sheriff’s badge instead of the dollar sign.

My eyes glowed as radioactive power surged into my fist. “Better hope that new suit of yours will save you from the VIP – very intensely painful – ass-whoopin’ I’m gonna dish out.”

He raised the metal bulb on his stump. “I never run from you.”

I swaggered in. “Sucker, please. You made me chase you this far.”

A familiar voice to my left said, “No, that was me.”

Before I could turn a force as big and hard as the A-train slammed into my side and threw me against the wall.

Through the stars in my eyes I saw the One-Armed Bandit in his usual red costume. “You got a twin?”

The One-Armed Bandit in blue pointed his stump at me. God damn if it didn’t feel like my bones were bending without breaking. “You won’t beat me up this time.”

The One-Armed Bandit in red slammed me again. I couldn’t move or roll. I took it full on the chin, and damn it hurt. My head was rolling. I don’t know how I stayed on my feet.

He tapped some buttons on his wrist. His stump glowed bright yellow. “One-Armed Bandit wins. Fatality.” His stump glowed yellow.

“Hey!” shouted the One-Armed Bandit in blue. “She’s had enough. Let’s call the police.”

“Say what?” the One-Armed Bandit in red and I said at the same time in the same way.

“She’s a criminal,” said the One-Armed Bandit in blue. “That’s why we fight.”

“Maybe in your universe,” said the One-Armed Bandit in red.

I shook the dizzy out of my head. “Hold on. What’s this about ‘his’ universe, One-Armed Bandits?”

The one in blue’s eyebrows almost shot off his head. “I’m not the One-Armed Bandit, I’m the Short-Armed Law.”

“We had a deal,” said the One-Armed Bandit. “We work together to take out our enemies. That’s why we made this diner temporarily exist in both of our universes with a temporal force-field.”

“I didn’t know you were a crook when we did that,” said the Short-Armed Law. “I thought Ivy Isotope was bad in this universe too.”

I asked, “Who’s Ivy Isotope?”

The boarded up door on the other side of the diner exploded into toothpicks. The girl who came in looked just like me except her suit was bright yellow and her eyes glowed blue and purple. And instead of my smile, the one boys say lights up my face like a pinball machine when you win the free game, she had a scowl sourer than rancid cream cheese.

She pounded her palm with her fist. “Two Short-Armed Laws? I got twice the ass to kick.” She cocked her head at me. “What’s with the ugly girl?”

I cocked my head right back. “Excuse me?”

The One-Armed Bandit shot the Short-Armed Law in the back with a concussion blast that threw him against the wall. “Ivy, help me take out Amy Atom and together we’ll conquer two universes.”

Ivy Isotope’s eyes glowed a violent shade of violet. “As long as we split it.”

Now when I say I get out of tough situations, this isn’t what I’m talking about. Fighting your nemesis and an alternate universe version of yourself after getting a super-powered smackdown – that’s not tough, that’s impossible.

But I run after bad buys, not away from them. I dug my heels into the ground and put up my dukes.

The One-Armed Bandit charged his stump.

Ivy Isotope put her glowing fists together.

They were going to hit me with their best shots. I diverted my energy into an atomic shield. It wouldn’t absorb all of the punishment, but maybe there’d be enough left of me for my mama to recognize.

I shut my eyes.

I didn’t see the Short-Armed Law blast Ivy Isotope as he slammed against the One-Armed Bandit. Both of their shots went wide enough to miss me.

Ivy Isotope charged another blast. Before she could fire I hit her with an atomic right-hook. She rolled with it and responded with an uppercut.

The One-Armed Bandit and the Short-Armed Law wrestled. The One-Armed Bandit got on top. He charged his stump and held it high. “You won’t look like me anymore.”

I couldn’t let this happen. I didn’t even think about Ivy Isotope pulling back for an overhand punch. I hit the One-Armed Bandit’s chest with a blast that threw him through the open door.

The Short-Armed Law leaned back and sent a blast of his own into Ivy Isotope’s shoulder. She stumbled and fell into the street.

Both the One-Armed Bandit and Ivy Isotope ran away, off to their own universes.

The Short-Armed Law smiled as I helped him up.

“It always ends the same,” I said. “We fight, I win, he runs away. I’m sick of it.”

The Short-Armed Law said, “It’s nice to win against Ivy Isotope for once.”

“What. You don’t always win?”

“Ivy Isotope runs me down and beats me up so often I’m so sick of it.”

“But you’re the good guy!”

“I fight so she won’t hurt anyone else. I assumed she – you – were the same everywhere. I didn’t ask too many questions I reached across universes the same time the One-Armed Bandit did. I don’t deserve this, my only victory.”

“If you always lose, why don’t you give up?”

“If you always lost to the One-Armed Bandit, would you quit?”

“I want to say no, but …”

The Short-Armed Law became more transparent. I could see through him like he was a ghost. “I don’t think you would if it meant saving other people.”

“Why are you disappearing?”

“The temporal force-field is fading. Soon we’ll be separated by universes. All we have left is this moment.”

He crouched. We hugged. I felt him fade through my fingers.

[The Atomic Punk]

Rock on! One-Armed Bandit setting up his alternate universe self. But what of the miniaturized Urban Soul Patrol? Stay tuned, cats and kittens.

[WMDBASSPLAYER]

Now that’s what I’m talking about! Nate, that was fantastic! I’m going to have a heck of a time illustrating it, but I’m up for the challenge! Great twist of making the alternate Bandit a law man and alternate Amy the bad guy. And I love the names! This is definitely going in my Tales from the Multi-Verse!

[Herr D]

Ordinary forgotten plot devices like holey pockets and multiversal dumb crook mistakes go well together. Good job, Nate; good luck with this, WMD.

[WMDBASSPLAYER]

The opposite character is an obvious choice that can easily be too cliched. Nate handled it great and kept the personalities of the original characters intact. I also like how he used a different face for Amy/Ivy that reflected her personality perfectly but still looked like the original Amy. Short Armed Law was perfect!

[WMDBASSPLAYER]

Here’s a possible first page.

[TheNate]

The black-on-black is rather hard to read. Maybe it should be bulk yellow against white stars – like Star Wars’s intro crawl.

[WMDBASSPLAYER]

Okay. I thought with the white underlining it gave it a bit of a dramatic touch. Here’s page 2.

[WMDBASSPLAYER]

Getting ahead a bit with this shot. I might post the occasional w.i.p. teaser as I go along. I hope this doesn’t take me as long as Amy’s origin. I still have her brother’s origin and the Sibling Rivalry one shot to finish.

[WMDBASSPLAYER]

Another panel, or maybe I’ll use it as a full page.

[Author]

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