Steve Gerber's head games


Break Out the Mad Scientists Helmets!
While Chondu-the-Mystic-Trapped-in-a-Fawn plots his escape and revenge, Dr. Jerry (melty-face) Morgan whiningly questions cagey Dr. Arthur (human head on ape body) Nagan to explain the sinister hair-dryer sets they attach to their unconscious foes: Valkyrie, the Hulk, and Dr. Strange.
“They’re encephalo-transmogrifiers, Jerry,” he says, perhaps a touch exasperated.
“What?” “---designed to perform a subtle alteration on our subjects’ thought-patterns. When the process is completed, they’ll simply see things---more OUR way.”
“Uh, and THEN what? What’ll you do with them, I mean?” asks Nighthawk...who Nagan and Morgan believe is Chondu, remember? But you and I know it’s Jack Norriss, residing in the transplanted brain of Chondu, in the body of Kyle (Nighthawk) Richmond.
“Then we let them go, of course---with you to accompany them! What possible use could they be to us otherwise?” says Nagan.
“Right...stupid of me, wasn’t it?” Jack/Nighthawk says. “Lord, I can’t just stand by and let this happen...but I can’t make a move to stop it without revealing who I’m not! Can’t panic...gotta think...!
C’mon, Jack Norriss...what are you going to do?”

I couldn’t help re-presenting Steve’s dialog. It’s an emotionally-invested way of keeping up with a complicated situation, as consequences are weighted, and danger and weirdness build. I couldn’t improve it in a paraphrase!


As soon as the fawn breaks out the window, a lizard-fish like Lubderdite is there to carry the angry mis-embodied villain away.

What are these things? Tell you next time.

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