Super Squad
Times Past, 1972
Not With a Bang
by Dan Swanson
In the years that the Marvel Family and many other heroes were missing from Earth, the Super Squad stood in the gap to protect the world from all threats! So why are they now forgotten? It was the end of the Super Squad, and it came not with a bang, but with a whimper.
***
It was mid-1972, and in a room deep within the League of United Nations building on the bank of the East River in New York City, a fateful meeting was being held.
“We’ve made our decision.”
Master Man, the current leader of the Super Squad, entered the meeting room. The big room was empty, except for one person. Majique, alias Val Coppersmith, was sitting between the arms of the U-shaped table. The rest of the currently active members of the Super-Squad filed in: Quadrechaun, Palette, Crescendo, Elastique, and Oxide — heroes all — and all of them as somber as if they were attending the funeral of a dear friend.
What a sorry bunch they are, thought Val, deriding her teammates in her mind. I can’t believe I ever felt proud of belonging to this pitiful group.
Master Man remained standing behind the chair at the base of the U. “Valerie Coppersmith, also known as Majique, please rise.”
She stood, a sneer on her face. No one knew what she was thinking, but her lack of contrition was obvious.
“You know and understand why we are gathered here today,” Master Man said sternly. “Your peers have reviewed the issues. You are accused of betraying the Super Squad to Blaze and Satanus, abusing your privileges as a Super Squad member for your own personal good, theft of valuable and dangerous artifacts — including the Wand of Gastonburg — from the Super Squad Trophy Room, breaking and entering the St. Louis Museum of Natural History and theft of artifacts from that same Museum. Because you were a member of the Super Squad at the time of these incidents, you are covered by the universal diplomatic immunity granted the Squad by the League of United Nations. Thus, there will be no criminal or civil cases brought against you.”
He paused and looked around the room, his gaze stopping on each member of the Squad in turn and ending on Majique, as he summoned up the courage he’d been granted by the mystical vitacap given him by the wizard Shazam under the guise of a wise old doctor.
“You have brought disgrace on the good name and reputation of the Super Squad. Although we are unable to prosecute you, we can punish you. Valerie Coppersmith, as chairman of the Super Squad, with the unanimous consent of all members, both currently active and reservists, I hereby revoke your membership in the Super Squad, as well as all the rights, privileges, and honors pertaining thereunto.”
“If you’re through?” Val asked sarcastically. Without waiting for a reply, the fallen mage spun on her heels and, striding firmly, with confidence and a slight smile on her face, her nose held high, walked out of the conference room, out of the League of United Nations building, and out of the Super Squad in disgrace.
***
“What a load of crap,” Val swore defiantly, alone in her venerable wooden bow-top Ledge Wagon, which years ago had been the mule-drawn home of her maternal grandparents. She was surrounded by a plethora of magical artifacts, some acquired legally, others through methods of which her former teammates disapproved. A radio played softly in the background. The wagon was her sanctuary, protected by the strongest magic wards she’d been able to acquire.
“These things all rightly belong to me!” she yelled to the moth-eaten tapestries that concealed the wooden walls. “They were wasted where they were before; those who had them were too ignorant to make use of them. It’s only right that they belong to someone who can exploit them properly — me!”
***
In another place, a place some might call Hell, two grotesque figures sat in a room full of flames, watching the distraught woman through a magical window as humans might watch TV, cackling with satisfaction at her anguish.
“After years of watching that cow using your cursed magic bag, it seems your plan is finally bearing fruit, dear brother.” The demon who spoke was humanoid with red skin, female, larger than human, with giant horns on the front of her head.
“You know I don’t like to say ‘I told you so,'” said the male demon, who looked much like his sister, save that his skin seemed black as coal.
“The Hell you don’t!” the female, Blaze, snapped back. They both snickered at the demonesque pun.
“As I was saying,” Satanus continued in a nasty, I-told-you-so tone, “each time she reached into her so called ‘wishing bag,’ her awareness of virtue was eroded, until she now has virtually no sense of right and wrong.”
“You do run on, brother,” Blaze mocked her baneful sibling.
“I hardly need to remind you of the failure of your own earthly agent,” he sneered back at his malevolent sister. “Kali was banished from this plane by Shiva, that miserable execration of the thrice-blighted Shazam.”
“Shiva vanished at the same time as Kali. (*) I would hardly call removing the latest accursed scion of our greatest enemy ‘failure’!”
[(*) Editor’s note: See Shiva: Times Past, 1970: Shiva’s Last Case.]
“Of course you wouldn’t,” he sneered sarcastically.
“I wouldn’t count Kali out yet, if I were you,” Blaze riposted. “Meanwhile, let’s just see how successful this Majique turns out to be.”
Once again they cackled, then turned their attentions back to their magic window and the living sitcom Satanus had dubbed Her Heart Grows Darker.
***
“Too many people know that Val Coppersmith is Majique,” Val mused as she made her plans for the future. “I’ve got to do something about that.” She remembered a magical item she’d drawn from her wishing bag years ago. “The magic bottle I gave to those two simpering sapphos, Palette and Crescendo, as she now calls herself, to make people forget their secret identities. (*) I’ve got a much better use for it now!”
[(*) Editor’s note: See Super Squad: Times Past, 1962: Super Sisters of the Caribbean, Chapter 1: Girls Only Week.]
Val concentrated on what she wanted. She remembered the look and feel of that bottle: cloudy blue glass shaped like a hip liquor flask, studded with barnacles and partially covered with corroded gilt-metal filigree. The metal cap was in surprisingly good condition, and there was something inside that rattled when the bottle was shaken.
When she had the image firmly in her mind, she thrust her arm into her wishing bag to the elbow, though the bag was no more than six inches long on the outside. As she expected, she felt something press into her hand. When she withdrew her arm, she was holding the very bottle she desired.
At that instant, Val heard the two words she hated most; the music on the radio had been replaced by a newscast.
“–uper Squad announced two new members today…”
The red anger rising inside her drowned out the rest of the newscast, and Val exploded in maniacal rage. “Always they talk about that wretched Super Squad! I hate them! I wish everyone would forget the damned Super Squad forever!”
In her tantrum, she threw what she was holding, and just as she finished that sentence, the blue bottle shattered against the wall.
***
Somewhere in a place infinitely far from Earth, but as close as death, Blaze turned to Satanus, and they exchanged a fiery high five.
The End
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