The Amazing Adventures of the Sensational Squirrelman

The Amazing Conclusion! Issue Twelve!

I am called… the Sentinel! For fifty years I alone have watched and witnessed all that is, all that was, and all that might be as it played out around me! I saw the destruction of our universe and the shattering of the alterniverse, were it not for the actions of one-time mild mannered accountant Matthew Mattheson as he was trapped in the vaguely familiar body of the Sensational Squirrelman in an entirely unfamiliar world, as he sought answers and carried on his predecessor’s fight against crime and for justice! But the one answer he seeks still eludes him, and he seeks it still… he seeks…

The Secrets of Squirrelman’s Success!

It was a few days later.

Doc Sterling piloted his flying platform through the early morning skies into an older part of the city, which had once been the heart of the city before new materials had allowed the gleaming spires and glittering towers of Uptown to reach for the heavens. He reached the building her sought and landed on the roof, going to the only entrance and punching in a code on the keypad beside the steel door.

He rode the elevator down fifty storeys to the subbasement where he knew he was expected. At the bottom level the leader of the Sterling Squad disembarked, punching in yet another code into yet another keypad next to another set of steel doors. The huge chamber beyond the last steel door was filled with ancient equipment and one large black glassy globe. Reed walked up to the globe and pressed a button.

“Hello Jon,” Doc Sterling said to the room.

“Reed,” came a man’s voice, made emotionless by the computer speaker. “Is this then, now?”

“Yes, Jon,” Reed smiled as the face of his old friend appeared on the glassy globe’s surface. He knew it was only a computer projected hologram, but it pleased him nevertheless. He looked up at the face. “It’s now.”

“You’ve said that before…”

“No Jon… not today at least.”

“I see…”

Reed looked at the holographic projection of his old friend’s face.

Jon Jordan had been a test pilot in the late forties. He’d been abducted by aliens and experimented upon. They gave him senses and powers no human had possessed. He’d used those senses in the pursuit of justice and the fight against crime… and especially against alien invaders. He’d taken the name Sentinel because he stood guard, always alert, watching for invasion. He was the one who’d alerted Captain Action to the incoming alien ship that had almost destroyed the entire city. Jordan was a real hero, who’d fought the good fight for over forty years. In the late eighties he’d retired quietly from active crimefighting and drifted just as quietly into relative obscurity.

Only Reed Sterling knew the truth – that Jon Jordan, the Sentinel, had contracted a particularly virulent form of the metavolution virus. The virus only affected humans with powers, increasing and mutating their powers into strange and often unviable forms. Most metavolution victims died. Jon Jordan had not. Not died in the medical sense of the term. But the one time hero had changed.

“It took me almost six hours, Jon,” Doc Sterling said, looking away from the holographic projection of his friend’s face. “Six hours of constant thought. No empirical evidence to speak of, of course. All theories, logically followed to the reasonable conclusion. All of them led… to you.”

“Yes,” the Sentinel answered emotionlessly.

Doc Sterling had sought a cure for the metavolution virus but had never perfected it… each victim suffered a different fate, as though the virus was different for each victim. Jon Jordan had had his alien senses expanded to such a point that he no longer was connected to any one point in time or space. He knew all that was, all that is, and all that could be… all at once.

“The only thing I couldn’t figure out was, why?” Doc Sterling turned and faced the holographic projection of his friend. “Why did you do it, Jon? I knew it had to be someone with absolute mastery over sensory systems… since that was, essentially, what had happened to Matt and Matthew. But… why?”

“I alone see all that is, was, and might be, Reed… I saw a world destroyed, the Keys shattered, the multiverse ended. I saw that the simple switching of two alterselves could avert that… would you have done any different?”

“I can’t say that I would have done differently, Jon. But… why Squirrelman?”

“Squirrelman, if he remained as he was, would never have run from his foes… he was bitter, angry, frustrated with his place in the world and his perceived lack of success in his chosen calling. Rather than hunt down his foes he would have investigated the Kane Sanitarium instead, and they would have tracked him down and fought him… he would have fought to the last breath… and he would have been defeated… and killed. So he never would have fled through Weirdsville, never been directed by Blue Ghost to seek you out, never been flung through time by the Kirby Gauntlet… never learned to fulfill his potential… never saved you all… Never made contacts in the world you inhabit, never joined Team Title, never fathered the Saviour of Saturn…”

“Jon, you’ve passed me,” Doc Sterling reminded his friend of his place in time.

“Of course, Reed,” Sentinel replied amicably. “I apologize… I saw the need for a different Squirrelman… one who would not be afraid to run from a fight at first… one not too proud to accept the help of the people around him… one who would be willing to work as part of a team…”

“Squirrelman really made that much of a difference, then,” Doc Sterling said.

“You didn’t think to use the Thomas Tuner, did you?” Sentinel asked.

“No… no I didn’t,” the leader of the Sterling Squad admitted. “And if he hadn’t come to the Lab, neither would the twins have thought of it… I guess it’s amazing what a difference one person can make, isn’t it…”

No answer came to him. Doc Sterling looked to his friend. The hologram was as still as a photograph. Doc Sterling knew his friend was once again disconnected from this moment in time and space, his attention fixated elsewhere, elsewhen.

“Jon…”

“Hello Reed,” came the emotionless reply. “Is this then, now?”

“Yes Jon,” Reed smiled sadly. “It’s now.”

“You’ll say that again,” Sentinel said.

“Very likely, old friend,” Reed said. “very likely.”

Epilogue of Explanation

I… am the Sentinel! For fifty years I have watched all that is, all that was, and all that will be as it unfolded around me. I alone have been witness to all the myriad possibilities the multiverse… I have seen the various futures as they played out. I used two men, changing their places in the multiverse, controlling their sensory input and giving them the lives they wanted in the process. I took them from the worlds they knew and placed them in unfamiliar worlds that would fill them with wonder and happiness… and a sense of purpose. I changed two lives and saved the multiple universes that make up the glittering sparkling gem that is all of reality. Who can say if it was for the best? The multiverse continues on… and my watch is unending. I continue to see all that is, all that was, all that will be. One day, after I have passed from this plane, Reed Sterling will tell Squirrelman what occurred, what I did, and why I did it. Matt Mattheson, by then a husband and father, having saved the world many times, will accuse me of self-preservation… and perhaps that is why I did what I did. And perhaps I had perfectly altruistic motives… after all, I saved the entirety of the multiverse, and received no acclaims, no parades, no accolades. No one knew, but Reed, until after my death. Squirrelman has a wing for me built in the Team Title Citadel, and filled it with as much memorabilia of mine as he could… but after my death my Watchtower is being demolished and a new tower built in its place… the new tower is home to a new group of heroic youths… costumed crimefighters who follow in the footsteps of those who paved the way for them, who set the standards and gave them idols to model themselves after… models like Captain Action and Survivor… Reed Sterling and his team… Majestic, Lady Majestic, their daughter Princess… Carmine the Forerunner and Curt, the Man of Living Lightning… and yes, like Ragdoll and her one day husband, Squirrelman. Costumed Crimefighters, some call them… I choose to use an older word, considered corny in the modern, worldly world… but one I consider more accurate, more succinct.

I call them heroes.

NOT THE END.

SQUIRRELMAN WILL RETURN