GammaGirl, Issue 51

Cover: Artist's discretion

Inside front cover: Ad space

Page One

A full-page panel (with space for book title and artist credits superimposed). Just before dawn. The Gammacar, seen through the closed gate of a cyclone fence topped with barbed wire, has just emerged from a cornfield. The last row of corn stalks is under the Gammacar's wheels. The Gammacar's headlights illuminate a sign which we can't read from our perspective (we're behind the sign).

Page Two

Inset, upper left: Closeup of the Gammacar's grille: The Gammacar's emblem badge snaps aside (CLACK!) to reveal a weapon port.

Containing panel, full page width: View from inside the Gammacar as a red beam flashes in an arc to cut open the gate's hinges. (Dust refracts the light so we see a "slice" effect as the beam cuts.) Now we can read the sign, which says "Quarantine zone. Keep out. By order DoE, EPA."

Narrow centre panel, full page wide (text only): "Somewhere in Kansas..."

Bottom panel, full page wide: The Gammacar moving forward over the fallen gate. A tire crushes the sign.

Inset, lower right: Close up of GammaGirl's face.
– GammaGirl: "We're in."

Page Three

Top panel, interior of the Gammacar. GammaGirl is driving and her android assistant Sydekiq rides shotgun. We see that GammaGirl has her navel "plugged in" to the Gammacar's dash, powering the laser system.
– Sydekiq: "Let me get this straight..."

Sydekiq's dialogue continues in his distinctive speech bubble style, overlaid onto a large panel showing the Gammacar cruising down the dark and abandoned main street of a small town.
– Sydekiq: "The trail of the stolen weapons-grade plutonium* leads us here,"
– Sydekiq: "An abandoned town in the center of America."
– Sydekiq: "Still scanning the pee-yew dead ahead, by the way."
– Sydekiq: "A town quarantined by the DoE and the EPA,"
– Sydekiq: "And we just...drive in?"
Text inset: "* seen last issue"

Bottom panel, interior of the Gammacar.
– GammaGirl: "Why not, Sy? There's nothing here that can hurt either me or you."
– Sydekiq (rolls eyes): "Archives of previous models indicate that I've heard that before* ...."
Text inset: "* Issues 12, 20, 33, 35, and 42."

Page Four

Top panel, interior of the Gammacar.
– Sydekiq: "Signal bearing right."
GammaGirl, turning the wheel:
– GammaGirl: "Bearing right...whoops!"

Centre panel, full page wide: Gammacar with the brake lights on. The road ends in a yawning chasm.

Panel, tight on GammaGirl:
– GammaGirl: "That's...unexpected."

Adjacent panel shows her rotating the Gammabelt on her hips, swapping a purple power focus crystal in front of her navel, in place of the red one that powered the laser beam focus.

Panel, Gammacar lifting off on purple waves of antigravity thrust (VOOSH!).

Panel, tight on Sydekiq:
– Sydekiq: "Signal bearing..."

Page Five

Top panel, full page wide: Gammacar seen from above, descending into the chasm.
– Sydekiq: "...straight down."
Inset panel, interior of the Gammacar.
– Sydekiq: "Since when does Kansas have canyons?"
– GammaGirl: "Sy, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

( Lower half of page five is an ad for Sea Monkeys. )

Page Six

Top 3/4 page: The Gammacar has descended into a large cavern. A roughly cylindrical 3-storey headquarters building with a balcony on the upper floor occupies one side. A burnt-out helicopter with the Team Jet-Poop logo just visible lies on a helipad on the other. Two menacing energy cannons, crackling with power, track the Gammacar as it descends.

Bottom 1/4 page: The Gammacar (exterior) as it is enveloped in ropes of crackling energy.
Inset panel
– Sydekiq: "Here we go again."

Page Seven

Closeup: GammaGirl's finger pressing an eject button. (Artist's note: See Issue 41, page 7)
– GammaGirl (voiceover): "Sy, execute Sigma Six!"

Adjacent panel: GammaGirl flipping away acrobatically from the doomed Gammacar as it falls. Perhaps a diagonal swoop trail from the burning Gammacar in this panel to GammaGirl twisting in the air in the next panel?

Next panel: GammaGirl lands on the headquarters building's front walk in the classic "hard land" superhero pose: One leg forward, bent at the knee; second leg back, knee down; fist clenched at sides; head up. Interlocking brick below her is a bit crushed by the impact.

Next panel: The Gammacar augers in hard near the Poop-copter, obviously a total loss.

Next panel: A figure in a white suit and a red fez has appeared at the upstairs balcony. In one hand, he holds a partially eaten breakfast bagel sandwich.

Next panel: GammaGirl, glowing with energy and looking up, as seen from the balcony:
– GammaGirl: "You!"

Next panel: thefez, closeup, smiling.

Page Eight

Next panel
– thefez: "GammaGirl, old friend. We meet again. But this time I have the upper hand."

Next panel: GammaGirl, closeup:
– GammaGirl: "Bah. It looks to me like all you have is the bagel hand. You know that your energy weapons can't hurt me. Give me the plutonium."

Next panel: thefez contemptuously flings the bagel sandwich down at GammaGirl.
– thefez: "Hardly. The cannons are for the likes of Team Jet-Poop."

Next panel: thefez's hand (bagel discarded) pushing an icon on his iFez:
– thefez: "For you, I have something entirely different."

( Lower third of the page is an ad for various mail order items, including a secret decoder ring, invisible itching powder, and a bag of 500 'highly detailed' plastic green army men. )

Page Nine

Inset, upper left corner, thefez:
– thefez: "Behold my cybernetic badgers! They're running 'Jaunty Jackalope' -- we just upgraded."
Full-page panel: GammaGirl, in combat pose, as fierce looking cybadgers burst from the ground all around her.
Inset, lower right corner, thefez:
– thefez: "Subdue her, my pets!"

Page Ten

Panel: GammaGirl's P.o.V.: A cybadger leaps at her face.

Panel: While GammaGirl fends off the attack, two other badgers leap up and bite through her belt on each side.

Panel: GammaGirl's power belt falls to the ground in two parts.

Panel, thefez leering
– thefez: "I have you now!"

Seven panels of GammaGirl versus cybadgers: punching, kicking, slamming heads together. She does not use any superpowers, just martial arts, apparently due to the loss of her belt.

Page Eleven

Top half of page, full width: GammaGirl goes down beneath a huge pile of vicious cybadgers.
Inset: thefez, grinning with satisfaction.

( Lower half of the page is an ad for Biker Mice from Mars from Galoob. )

Page Twelve

Text overlay "Nearby..."
Large panel: A prison cell, containing Team Jet-Poop. Olivia and Todd are staring at a 6" by 12" HVAC vent. The others are engaged in a game of dice on the cell floor.
– Todd: "I cannot believe this! Who makes air vents this small? How are we going to escape?"
– Olivia: "I think that's the point, Todd."

Adjacent small panel, Todd and Olivia, turned away from the air vent. A tendril of misty energy is emerging unseen as they talk.
– Todd: "OK, plan B. We seduce the guards."
– Olivia: "Todd, they're zombie badgers. What they want, you don't got."
– Todd: "Brains, I suppose...Hey!"

Adjacent small panel, beside the first and beneath the second: The misty energy is assuming a familiar form. The members of Team Jet-Poop react in astonishment.

New row, next panel, GammaGirl has materialized, holding her power belt with the yellow dematerialization crystal locked into her navel. "GammaGirl!" cry several members of the Team.

Panel, GammaGirl looking around
– Gamamgirl: "I saw the wreck of the Poop-Copter upstairs. What are you all doing here?"

Panel, Edward and Jack:
– Edward: "thefez stole the Poop-Jet!"
– Jack: "Likely for the security clearance."
– Edward: "We followed him here in the Poop-Copter, but he gaussed us and the Poop-Copter crashed. After the crash, we got badgered."

Panel, GammaGirl, aghast
– GammaGirl: "With the Poop-Jet and the stolen weapons-grade plutonium, he'll be able to nuke any part of America at will!"

Panel, Todd and Phillip
– Todd and Phillip together: "The terrorists have already won!"

Panel, GammaGirl's belt, Sydekiq's voice balloon
– Sydekiq (voiceover): "Emergency hotsync complete!"

Panel, GammaGirl looking decisive
– GammaGirl: "We have to escape, and fast! thefez thinks he has defeated me, but he will soon discover my deception."

Page Thirteen

Panel, Jack and GammaGirl:
– Jack: "I could disable the cybadgers if I could get access to a workstation."
– GammaGirl: "The R&D lab is right below us."

Panel, GammaGirl and Todd:
– Todd: "How do you know that?"
– GammaGirl: "thefez always uses the same floor plans for his lairs; otherwise he forgets where things are."

Panel, GammaGirl and the Team:
– GammaGirl: "I can phase us all through the floor into the lab. But that will drain all my power."
– GammaGirl, connected balloon: "You'll have to secure the lab and disable thefez's defences."
– Olivia: "Let's do it!"
– GammaGirl: "Quick, gather close."

Text overlay "Meanwhile..."
Panel, thefez stands over the badger pile.
– thefez: "shoo!"

Panel, badgers leaving their victim, which as we know is Sy, not GammaGirl.

Panel, thefez holding Sy's severed head
– thefez: "Curse you, GammaGirl!"

Panel, thefez peels his bagel wrapper off Sy's head
– thefez: "Ooh, look, I won something!"

Page Fourteen

Page width panel: GammaGirl and the team phase through the cell floor and into a typical R&D cube farm. Various R&D nerds look up in alarm.

Panel: GammaGirl slumps into an office chair.

Seven panels of Team Jet-Poop versus the R&D nerds: punching, kicking, slamming heads together. Deliberate echoes of the Sydekiq / badger battle.

Panel, Todd and Phillip:
– Todd: "We kick butt!"
– Phillip: "Nerd butt."
– Todd: "Butt is butt!"

Page Fifteen

Panel: Team Jet-Poop members accessing terminals.
– Jack: "They swapped in Jaunty Jackalope but they left a lot of VüDü behind...I think I know an exploit."
– Oscar: "I'm taking the energy cannons offline."
– Edward: "I located the Poop-Jet!"

Panel: Patrick rifling through a cabinet.
– Patrick: "I'm stealing their office supplies!"

Panel, Jack and Olivia:
– Jack: "Done! I've tweaked the kernel and am forcing an update. That should shut them down."
– Olivia: "Quick, to the Poop-Jet!"

Panel, Team Jet-Poop rushes past comatose cybadgers in a hallway, pushing GammaGirl on the office chair.

Panel, Team Jet-Poop boarding the Poop-Jet.

Panel, inside the Poop-Jet. GammaGirl gets to her feet.
– GammaGirl: "I feel better. The plutonium must be aboard! Get us airborne, I'll locate it."

Panel, Team Jet-Poop settles into the Poop-Jet cockpit and runs preflight.

Page Sixteen

Panel, The Poop-Jet takes off (on VTOL) and rises out of the canyon.

Panel, Olivia looking out the window.
– Olivia: "That was too easy. He let us escape!"

Panel, thefez looking skyward.
– thefez: "All too easy."
Inset panel, thefez's iFez: thefez punches in a code on the iFez: 1-6-3-0-7

Panel, Edward, with Poop-Jet control board lighting up red.
– Edward: "Flight control systems are going down!"

Panel, Olivia looking alarmed
– Olivia: "Restart them!"

Panel, Edward stabbing at controls
– Edward: "I can't!"

Panel, GammaGirl arrives in the cockpit.
– Gammmagirl: "More bad news, Team. There's no bomb. He's wired everything directly into the Poop-Jet itself. He's turned the Poop-Jet into..."

Panel, all shout together
– All: "A flying bomb!"

Page Seventeen

( GammaGirl's lettercol )

Dear editors,
In the time travel sequence in Issue 49, a parasaurolophus family shatters one of GammaGirl's control crystals by sounding on the crystal's resonant frequency. Bravo! This is consistent with the science which suggests they may have used high-frequency communication. But the K–T extinction event which you posit was caused by Doctor Prodnetsoo's battle with GammaGirl actually takes place much later than the Campanian period in which parasaurolophus flourished.
– Dr. Chs. Currelly

Well, it was a long fight sequence! -- Ed.


Dear strange quarks:
I greatly enjoyed Giant Size Annual #4! Your depiction of the Media Menace was awesome! When it split into SlanderFox and The Red Menace, and each had one of the wings? Killer.
– W.W. Wilson


Editors:
Re: Issue 48
Ick!
– G. Romero

Sorry -- Ed.


Dear control rods,
The Ninjagirls crossover was fantastic! I especially loved the pinup in the centre. In fact, I had to buy it again because my first copy was so well loved. Will GammaGirl ever rejoin the team?
– F. Anboi

Ick. But look for GammaGirl and the Ninjagirls to team up again in this summer's "hazardous dangerous peril" story arc! -- Ed.


Dear Editors,
In Issue 46 GammaGirl phases to allow Dem Bones' missiles to pass through her, but she's still able to lift the bar. How does that work?
– J. J.

If you look closely you can see that when she's raising the bar it's out of phase with reality as well. -- Ed.


Dear particles,
I love riverrun's work on REMFs. I'd love to see him try his hand at GammaGirl. Where do I send the bribe?
– A. Haig

Thanks A.H.! RR's pretty busy with his other mags but we'll see. Meantime keep buying GammaGirl!


That's it for this issue. Keep your own glow on and we'll see you all next month!

( Fill out page with ad space. )

Page Eighteen

Panel, GammaGirl looking decisive again
– GammaGirl: "Bail out, Team. The Poop-Jet is done for! I'll handle the bomb."

Panel, Oscar getting up from his seat:
– Oscar: "To the Poop-Chutes!"

Panel, GammaGirl runs from the cockpit while Team Jet-Poop prepares to eject.

Panel, GammaGirl looking at a bomb assembly with a glowing plutonium core.

Panel, GammaGirl's belt as she locks in a crystal.

Panel, GammaGirl glows blue as she reaches to extract the plutonium core from the bomb.

Panel, page width: Team Jet-Poop floating in the sky on Poop-Chutes.
– Patrick: "We've gotta get a better name for these things."

Panel, the Poop-Jet explodes!
Inset, Oscar: "My God! What have we done?"
Inset, Phillip: "Blown our annual equipment budget all in 24 hours, that's what."
Inset, Edward: "Do you think she made it?"

Panel, text: "Find out next issue!"


For The Great Gamma Ray Comic Book Script Quest, obviously.

Lightning cast unusual shadows off Gammagirl's face as she approached Lord Asmodeus' castle. Her body had been mangled by the accident that gave her her powers because that's what happens when you're put into contact with that much radioactive cobalt. But her hideousness had not prevented her from tracking Lord Asmodeus to his castle in Yugoslavia, where he hid his fabled Death Ray. She would possess that Death Ray for herself. And after years of training, she finally had the powers to do it: gamma bolts, the ability to mold the earth to her will, the ability to call gamma demons from the sky, and immortality. It would be simple, she thought, to take the Death Ray from him now. She could almost feel its incomparable power in her hands.

She blasted the doors of the castle with a flick of her wrist, and Lord Asmodeus' army poured out of the open gate. She called down gamma demons from the sky and created giant pits of fire in the midst of the confused army. She closed her eyes and listened to the battle. At first, there were the sounds of guns being fired, but finally the men saw that bullets were of no avail against the demons and consigned themselves to their fate. The gunshots turned to screams. Gammagirl sighed. The foul temper went with her horribly deformed features was temporarily assuaged.

When the last soldier had died, Gammagirl closed the pits of fire and waved the demons out of existence. She walked over the corpses of the fallen soldiers and through the gate. Lord Asmodeus suddenly darted from behind a pillar and fired a red bolt at her. She fell, and as she shook from the shot, wondering what had happened, Asmodeus cackled and said, "Ah Gammagirl, I knew you would come for me. I even knew that your powers would be too great for me to overcome by my army. I even knew that your powers would grow to the point that you became immortal. So I prepared the one thing that your powers would not protect you against."

Lord Asmodeus gestured to the gun in his hand and said, "a weapon designed to deprive you of your free will! MUAHAHAHAHAHA!" Gammagirl willed herself to stand up, but found that she could not. She couldn't even make herself blink. Asmodeus said, "yes, yes, Gammagirl, feel your helplessness. All that training, for nothing." He tilted his head back, and closed his eyes in a bellowing laugh. Gammagirl's body then rose of its own accord, turned to Lord Asmodeus, and fired three gamma bolts into his torso. Asmodeus looked at his smoking intestines and said "but I thought..." then fell to the ground. Gammagirl's body said, "I suppose the tables have turned, eh Asmodeus?" Meanwhile, Gammagirl's soul screamed silently, in impotence.

Lord Asmodeus gestured to the gun in his hand and said, "a weapon designed to deprive you of your free will! MUAHAHAHAHAHA!" Gammagirl willed herself to stand up, but found that she could not. She couldn't even make herself blink. Asmodeus said, "yes, yes, Gammagirl, feel your helplessness. All that training, for nothing." He tilted his head back, and closed his eyes in a bellowing laugh. Gammagirl felt her arms growing weak as the residual tension in her muscles faded away. Without her will to support them, they were beginning to give way. She collapsed, head first, into the mud.

Lord Asmodeus gestured to the gun in his hand and said, "a weapon designed to deprive you of your free will! MUAHAHAHAHAHA!" Gammagirl stood up with no problem whatsoever. She was so astonished at how stupid Lord Asmodeus had been that she did a few jumping jacks to be sure that she was still in complete control of her body. She was. She called down a gamma demon, and watched Lord Asmodeus wrestle against it for his life. She considered getting popcorn.

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