Interlude - The Shocker
My name is Herman Schultz, also known as the Shocker, and I am a career supervillain.
Okay, why does it feel like I should be saying that shit while sitting in a cozy circle, sipping tea and listening to someone's life story? I guess those group meetings in prison did leave an impression after all. Here I thought I'd gotten out unscathed...
It's easy to see why the supervillain thing always gets people curious - people wonder why we do the things we do, what our true motivations are. Most of my colleagues are in it for the drama, the theatrics, the thrill of being bad in really gaudy costumes. They buy into the capes and fancy headgear and the eternal metaphor of good versus evil, dedicating their life to beating up the goody two-shoes in bright spandex. I always just wanted to treat it like a real job. Keep my head down, make a living, and get out early. A self-respecting criminal, if you will.
So maybe that makes me a coward. Perhaps it makes me that two-bit second-stringer that everybody only remembers because he used to be in the Sinister Six, and Seven, and Twelve, and Syndicate - a lot of sinister things, really. I was in the Masters of Evil, and with a name like that, what could you honestly expect? Most of my rep I got from knocking down the spider-guy a couple times, early in his career.
Yeah, it's all kinda lame, but being minor-league keeps the bigger guys from noticing me, and I'm alright with that. It works.
Because let's face it - I'm just some guy. Spider-Man and his kind have honest-to-God superpowers, while I'm just a regular dude, not even all that fit, who needs some serious assistance to even attempt to measure up to the bigger guns. People forget how scary that kinda thing can be, so there's a reason I have regular appointments with a psychotherapist. I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm nuts, but I can live with that, and I've had enough concussions that she's probably got half a point.
One obvious example: I wear a quilt. A yellow-and-brown pineapple suit. It's a testament to the insanity of the city I live in that nobody really mentions that, even when I get my groceries with the mask on. Live and let live, I suppose. I've never done the secret identity schtick, so it's fine.
Why do I do the things I do? Guess we need a bit of a history lesson. I dropped out of high school early, mostly because I got involved in some trouble involving drugs, and guns, and a superpowered hitman who may or may not have been sent to murder one of my teachers. When all that was said and done I ended up in jail for a few months - nothing too drastic they could stick on me, but I ended up with a black mark on my record. Needless to say, nobody wants to hire a criminal dropout with low self-esteem and a foul mouth, so that was pretty much the end of a normal life for me. Most of that wasn't even my fault!
The mob's always on the lookout for people in my situation, so I got involved in less than legal things to get by. It started with theft and extortion, then a few burglaries and robberies here and there, the usual small stuff. Amateur stuff. I didn't have the quilt yet, or even my fancy moniker, but I was a pretty great safe-cracker, and that worked well enough for a while.
I finally fucked up one too many times, and landed myself in proper prison. Seven times in a row, I think, maybe eight. I stopped keeping count after the mob got me a lawyer that was in their pocket, and my sentences were reduced to little more than community service. I've built up something of a resentment to graffiti, considering the number of time I'd been sent to clean the same damn walls.
Even with the mafia help, my robberies eventually caught up with me. I got four years in the clink, no ifs or buts.
That's where the group sessions and psychotherapy came in.
At the suggestion of my therapist I picked up an old hobby again - I was gonna be an electrical engineer before things went to shit, and the prison was trying one of those 'educate your inmates' projects to try and reintegrate folks back into society. Bunch of bullshit, obviously, since I had enough black marks by now that it wouldn't matter, but I'm sure it looked good on their quarterlies. I went and got myself some proper training, and that's when I hatched my plan.
I'm not a genius. My IQ's somewhere around 'above average', which isn't that amazing when you consider what dumbasses regular people can be. But if there is one thing I'm pretty smart at, it's soldering neat gadgets out of wire and metal. Took me a year and change to work out the theory and basic design, and then a few more months before I got anything to actually work in practice, but I did it - I made myself some Vibro-smashers. Or vibro-shock gauntlets - take your pick. They vibrate things.
I nearly killed myself testing the first ones, but they worked. It was irresponsible to risk using my makeshift gadgets for anything big, but I was getting pretty damn impatient behind bars, and I still had two years to go before my release. Fuck that.
Turns out that breaking out of prison is easy when you've got superpowers. My first excuse for a suit just consisted of heavy padding on my forearms, and I got pretty rattled from using my own weapon - but I robbed a few armored transports with my new trick, and got the cash to do it again, but better. Pretty sure my gauntlets rattled my brain too, because that's when the quilt happened.
People make jokes, but it's actually a very effective shock-resistant padding which protects me from the kickback of my own weapon, coupled with a solid bullet-proof vest. I can take punches from Spider-Man, and that's pretty damn good. But it looks silly, so nobody cares. Figures.
Last time I teamed up it was with Fred and Aleksei, the Living Brain, and some newbie I wasn't as familiar with. He sucked pretty hard, and I don't care to remember his moronic nickname. We went by the classic Sinister Six, just for old time's sake. Fred and Aleksei are Boomerang and Rhino by the way, for the uninitiated. An asshole and a dumbass respectively, but they know what they're good at, and my costume looks positively mundane contrasted with those guys.
Also, yes, I realize that we were only five people, not six. Thank you - that's very observant of you.
I'm back on my own now, after the Living Brain got caught and Fred accidentally ran into Daredevil and got his shit wrecked. He's got a couple of broken bones, so I expect he'll make a comeback in a few weeks. Who knows, perhaps he'll finally save up enough to get some new digs? Aleksei's just chilling at home for a bit, and he sometimes comes by for a drink - he's smart enough to leave planning crimes to other people, which sometimes makes me wonder if he's really as dumb as he acts. The Russian accent doesn't help, I guess.
Alright. I've been meandering enough. Why do I do what I do? Yeah, I'm a bit more pragmatic than most - the cash is nice - but that still doesn't really get to the bottom of it. What is my endgame? Am I just gonna keep doing this until I end up in jail for keeps? Until someone realizes that I'd probably be least dangerous if they just put me in a dark cell and threw away the key? Until I finally burst someone's aorta by accident and get the needle? Was that it?
No. That's why this a special week for me. For once, I am not going to jail.
Someone offered me a fucking job. Like, legit Monday-to-Friday nine-to-five dental-plan employment. To the fucking Shocker. Last time I had a job it was at Burger King while I was still in high school - fucking ancient history.
My new employer even went out of his way to grease the wheels and get me out of jail quicker - it'd never been quite this effortless. He had big money, and bigger dreams, and I couldn't see a way this would be a bad thing for me. I mean, I figured I could actually earn an honest buck for once, or alternatively he was hiring me to pull of some heists (which would be sweet.) If worse came to worse, I could always rob his place blind and make a run for it. I didn't know this Stark guy, alright? He was just some rich asshole on television when I got the offer. So I said yes, and felt kind of giddy about the whole thing, and wondered if he'd let me wear my suit on the job or if that was too tacky.
I didn't expect to see Stark's face on my television, overriding my beloved reruns of Babylon 5 with his pale, bald mug. Guy looked like he had cancer of the everything, but he seemed chipper enough. Until he started talking about the impending apocalypse, and the arrival of Smaug the great and terrible, and all that jazz. I was halfway out of town before I even started thinking about where I would go - I didn't know jack shit outside New York.
I already admitted I'm a coward, did you honestly expect me to stick around? I'm the Shocker, not freaking Captain Marvel - she might fly into battle at the slightest whim, but she was also implausibly powerful and badass. I was just some guy.
Unfortunately, I'd said 'yes' to Stark, and he seemed to take that sort of thing pretty seriously. He'd already appealed to supervillains on television, a pretty ballsy idea, but I really should have expected he'd go the extra mile to rope in ones he actually employed. He knew he had me by the short hairs here - if I ran away, I could say goodbye to that nice comfortable life he was offering, and odds were there wouldn't be much of a city to go back to. I was essentially offered a choice between maintaining my old life elsewhere, or risking my life to get all the goodies.
There's a reason I'm getting out of town, is what I'm saying.
I really should've expected Stark to try a little forceful negotiation. I knew his type well enough. I didn't expect this. His negotiator hung upside-down in front of my car, dangling from a webline attached to an honest-to-God black helicopter that wheeled overhead, which was clearly marked with Stark's logo. Spider-Man tapped on my window and waved cheerily.
Me and Spidey go back a good while - I'm one of the first guys he beat up in costume, and I think it makes him kind of nostalgic. It's probably why he tends to go easy on me, too. That, and the fact that I'm one of the only villains on his roster who doesn't go around killing, I'm sure. First time we met he had his arm wrapped in a sling made of webbing and he still kicked my ass - that kind of set the tone for everything that followed. I mean, he once beat up the entire Sinister Six, so it really shouldn't be that much of a shock that I got bested.
We're apparently on the same side now. Weird.
He's come to retrieve me, obviously. I have powers, after a fashion, and that's the kind of thing the city needs right now. Perhaps I could have taken time considering my options, deliberating whether I should risk anything for possible great rewards, all that nonsense - but the truth is, I'm a rational person. I hit the gas, trying to speed off in the direction of safety. That's when Spidey webs up my car, attaches it to his fancy helicopter, and it promptly carries the whole thing off through to the sky. Didn't see that part coming.
I should've been angry - but honestly, I kinda get it. Spidey isn't the type to drag random people into danger. Quite the opposite, really. The fact that he spider-napped me anyway implied he knew more than I expected. He knew I wanted out - that I'd wanted out since before I put on the costume. And he also knew I'd only commit to that path if there was no escape clause. He probably knew from experience how easy it was to slip into inaction - I'm sure he could see right through me. His red-and-blue pyjamas are, after all, just another quilt.
Fuck it. If there's no other choice than forward, I'll own it. I was the fucking Shocker, and it was about time to show some of these bastards what that shit meant! Let's make like Galen and slay some fucking dragons!
Then maybe run away, and hide, and wait until it all blows over.
Sounds good to me.
