ULTIMATE MAN

Oculor’s lair (hastily rebuilt, of course) was nestled amid the black, twisted and jagged buildings comprising Huge City’s Evil Section.  Within the confines of this hellish headquarters, demonic servants lurched about, moaning, snarling, clawing at the walls…and moving rather swiftly out of the way as their master crashed through one of the large round windows, tumbling around for a good six seconds before slamming into a suit of armor.        

One of Oculor’s diminutive, Quasimodo-like minions slithered over to his crumpled frame.  “Master,” it said, a puddle of drool forming on the floor beneath its crooked mouth.  “Are you all right?”

“Oh sure,” Oculor said, still in a fetal ball.  “I was just tired of coming in through the front door, is all.”

Another fiendish henchman, lankier than the first, ambled over to his fallen superior.  “Did he bow before your wondrous might, Master?”

Oculor took some time to get up, adjust his suit, dust himself off.  Then he made one grand sweeping gesture and slapped both grunts in the face, knocking them off their feet.  “He BEAT THE CRAP OUT OF ME, YOU IDIOTS!  What does it look like?  Do you really think I just would just come flying in through a closed window on a whim?  Do you think the feeling of jagged shards of glass getting into every crevice of my armor is therapeutic in some way?  He tossed me halfway across tow—and WHAT ARE YOU ALL DOING?”

The lanky minion looked around, confused.  “I don’t understand, Master,” he said.  “What do you mean?”

“You’re all…crawling over the walls and…moaning and snarling and stuff,” Oculor replied, waving his hands around.  “I didn’t ask you to do that, and it’s about the farthest thing from a productive activity I can think of, besides maybe being dead.  I mean, seriously…why would anyone do that?”

The short henchman hobbled closer to Oculor.  “These are snarling beasts, Master,” he said softly, as if protecting a secret.  “They…they snarl and look beastly.  That’s just what they do.”

“And…when did I decide to hire them?  Was I, in any way, chemically enlightened at the time?”

“I don’t…I don’t think so, sir…you had some coffee…”

“GET DOWN FROM THERE!” Oculor ran up to the walls and yanked the various imps and fiends off, sending them scampering to more useful tasks.  “Go, go work on some super-evil death ray or something.  MAN!”  He shook his massive dome-shaped head and trudged upstairs.