THE GAME: Every 24 hours, our hapless hero Mike Murdock will face off against a different Daredevil villain. If he wins, he lives to fight another day. If he loses, the game ends and his poor brother Matt will (probably?) cry about it. This will continue for as long as Mike lasts, until he beats all of the bad guys, or until I decide to pull the plug.
Round 1: Mike Murdock vs. The Matador
WINNER: Mike Murdock
Round 2:
THE COMBATANTS:
Michael Matthew "Badboy" Murdock: The Murdock family pussycat! The black sheep! Occupation: criminal! Style icon! Home-wrecker! Smarmy rascal! Certified Real Boy(TM)! The only person on the planet who would choose to alter the fabric of reality in order to make themselves related to Matt Murdock.
Abilities: Punching, gun stuff, existential crises, style
The Ani-Men: There was a dream. A dream to bring together a team of guys in animal-themed costumes to commit crimes. And thus were born the Ani-Men! While normal (though skilled) human criminals, Cat-Man, Ape-Man, Bird-Man, and Frog-Man (NOT Leap-Frog, this is a different guy) wear suits that mechanically give them the attributes of their namesake animals.
Abilities: The general abilities of, respectively, a cat, an ape, a bird, and a frog, the magic of teamwork
There's a level of Hell that Constantine loves and hates in equal measure.
The Level of Lust and Debauchery.
He loves it for what it is, but he also really, really hates it. The beings in it are unhinged at best, completely insane at worst. Stronger than Demons, but weaker than Gods-it's always more stressful than fun dealing with them.
So needing to summon the King of that level is...well. John can already feel the exhaustion.
But instead of exhaustion, he feel rage. Disgust.
The King that shimmers into existence is a fucking child.
And John honestly loses some time after that.
He comes back from ranting with the tiny King forcefully yanking him to a stop.
"Wait, you thought the Infinite Realms were what?"
Turns out, that wasn't the Level of Lust and Debauchery at all. Turns out, the Infinite Realms has a Red Light District.
Turns out, that is a very, very small part of the Infinite Realms, and this tiny child King had no idea it was there, and now he has to explain what a Red Light District is to an increasingly mortified Royal Teenager.
All around, it's not a fun time for anyone present.
qFit: Mans is built like a brick shithouse—he can totally balance Phil’s additional weight. The first attempt is a bit shaky, sure, but nowadays Phil swoops down or hops up onto Fit’s shoulder and all Fit really has to do is jut out his elbow to give his friend a little more space for his talons to work with. Bam, he’s perched. Works out about 9.9 times out of 10, though Phil delights in trying to catch him off guard.
qEtoiles: He doesn’t have Fit’s bulk on his side, so he’s not as sturdy, but he is strong. The landing is usually a little rough since Etoiles has to work a bit harder to counterbalance the additional weight, but he always finds that center of gravity in no time flat. Phil usually perches with one talon on each of Etoiles’ shoulders since he’s not as w i d e, just so Phil can have a little extra grip. At some point, Etoiles tries fighting a mob while Phil is perched on him, and that goes exactly as well as you would expect.
qForever: Honestly, with all of the hard labor Forever does for his big builds, Phil was expecting him to do better, but the first (several) attempts end up with Forever stumbling over and knocking Phil off of him from his wild arm-pinwheeling. They eventually figure out it’s more doable if Forever himself has something to lean on (a wall, a chair, the butt of his pickaxe) and Phil puts one talon evenly spaced on each shoulder. Phil learns some new swears in Portuguese in the process.
qMissa: Flattened. Full-on face in the floor, mouth full of grass, wind knocked out of his lungs at Mach 5 the first time Phil tries. Phil apologizes profusely, but Missa—once he can breathe again—just rolls over onto his back and asks Phil if they can give it another try. It takes a long, LONG time, but they figure out that if Phil plants his talons on Missa’s shoulder pads and leans forward while Missa leans back, they have a small little window of time where they achieve balance. The best part? Phil gets a perfect view of Missa’s goofy little grin every single time.
the trees witness everything, victoria chang // batman: dark victory (1999) #13 // robin: year one (2000) #1 // light, sleeping at last // jla (1997) #69 // batman (2016) #130 // light, sleeping at last // batman (2016) #54 // moony moonless sky, fatima aamer bilal // jla (1997) #73 // batman (1940) #416 // robin (1993) #13 // checkmate (2006) #14 // the two times i loved you the most in a car, dorothea grossman // batman: gotham knights (2000) #21 // outsiders (2003) #49 // robin 80th anniversary 100-page super spectacular (2020) // robin in a cage, george ralston wyllie // poetry, richard siken