“Initially? Sweet FA. After jacking the bathroom window and attempting to prowl the deserted place, I stuck my foot through the floor, plus a door fell over when I pushed too hard. Came across a stack of rotting mail behind the door, years and years old, addressed to Alice and Patrick Deaps. Nothing with ‘Wolram’ on it. Figured the name was a coincidence.”
The Brick eased the car into a corner. “Guess.”
“When I was snooping round the back, I got caught in a real heavy downpour, so I busted into this ramshackle shed they had in the yard. Inside, wrapped up tight in several sheets of blue tarp, protected from the rain, the snails, and also probably the decades, were boxes of old comicbooks from the 1960s. Hundreds of them.”
“Man, oh man, what a natty discovery!” the Brick enthused — Jack could see the dollar signs in his eyes. “DC? Marvel? Dell? Not Harvey, I hope an’ pray.”
“No Harvey. Silver-age Marvel. Plus black-and-white reprints of their stuff, in a British rag called It’s Terrific, some Dell titles, an old issue of DC’s The Flash, when Barry Allen wore the costume. Batman too.”
“A treasure trove. Sounds like one o’ them archaeological digs they used to indulge in, like the one with King Tut.”
The Brick had taken out a Big Boss Cigar, started chewing, and then chucked it out the window. Instead, he slid a bona-fide cigar into his mouth, something Cuban from the looks of it. He bit off the end and lit up.
“‘Scuse the smell. I’m still listenin’. How’s this relate to the costume?”
Jack tried not to cough, did anyway, and wound down his window. “Getting there,” he said, breathing in fresh passing oxygen mixed with automobile exhaust. “Sandwiched between issues of Thor, I found this letter addressed to someone named Wally Deaps. It had Marvel’s company address in New York on the stationery, along with a picture of Spider-Man and a U.S. stamp, but the postmark was illegible. Inside the envelope was a note signed by the secretary to Stan Lee—”
“Get outta here? Now, I reckon yer pullin’ me leg.”
“Nup. It was there, all right, along with a folded up, hand-drawn picture of a superhero.”
“Stan Lee done his own art? Thought the guy was scribe only.”
Jack frowned. “Well, no, maybe I said that wrong. They were returning a picture this Wally Deaps had sent them.”
“Ahhh.”
“Anyway, after lugging these boxes back to my place — it took several trips — and somehow not getting nabbed by the cops, I read through every issue. A few times. I lost count how many times I’ve done so since then. But it became clear that the artist of the drawing in the Marvel envelope, this Wally character, had nicked his image from the cover art of Captain America 102 — originally concocted by Jack Kirby and Syd Shores.”
“Can’t say I know it.”
“One of the comicbooks in this Richmond stash, a 1968 issue in which Cap is tossed aside by a Nazi robot, the Sleeper, while Agent Carter looks on, dismayed.”
The Brick sighed in loud fashion. “Yer losin’ me precious attention span, kid. What in Sam Hill are ya on about?”
Jack laughed — somewhat abashed, as they put it in old tomes. “Well, yeah, yeah, I know. You’re right. Not important. Comicbook stuff.”
“Glad we got somethin’ straightened. Remind me to bore you more to death about cars — fair’s fair. But go on.”
“Okay, I’ll get to the point — this plagiarist did a pretty good job. He reversed the cover and changed the costume. The new outfit was supposed to be darker blue, with the white-starred flag from the Eureka Stockade stuck on the chest — minus the centre star, like you and Gypsie-Ann picked up on. He also had a mask covering all the face aside from the eyes — made him more like the Black Panther than Cap. ‘Southern Cross’ was scrawled at the top. So, when I came here and they offered me the option to be anybody, I gave them that picture. Besides, the concept struck me as funny.”
The Brick furrowed the cobbling shaping his brow. “Lemme remember —‘cos all the smog an’ rain and shitty weather in Melbourne’ve eliminated any sign o’ the real constellation it’s named after — like ya already mentioned.”
“That, plus I was nicking someone else’s design they’d, in turn, nicked from a great artist — Jack Kirby. Bet this Wally kid never pictured a living, breathing version of his pirate copy.”
THE CR1ME CRUSADERS
#130
“Before the Equalizers came into being, there were two rival crime-fighting groups plying the trade in Heropa,” Pretty Amazonia said. “One of them was the Felon Fighters, run by Capitol Hill, the other the Crime Crusaders Crew, helmed by Major Patriot.”