With a sharp, breathy hiss, the seal of the airlock broke, and Simon felt the cool Earth air blow across his face.

Well, technically he didn't feel it, but his suit's sensors recorded data on the air; its composition, pressure, and temperature.

It was the first time a human had set foot on the planet in over two centuries. The Consumption had taken total control over the planet in 2077, rendering it uninhabitable. The survivors had fled to Mars and the Jovian colonies just before the air itself had been sucked away to feed the relentless multiplying of the microscopic...

The sound reverberated through the streets. The sound regenerated through the beets. The sound remunerated above the seats.

Then, the sound transubstantiated inside William Butler Yeats, who became a poet.

The sound instantiated outside the session scope, ultimately causing a null pointer exception. The sound invigorated the soccer players and re-elasticized their cleats.

The sound was of a kitten who had received some treats.

I don't know what the hell this is. I think I'm having an off day.

With a roar of displaced air and grinding gears, the blast shields protecting the gun emplacements retracted, and the defensive batteries opened fire. A river of hot lead and explosive ordnance spewed forth at the oncoming creature.

It barely stumbled. What didn't explode harmlessly against its armored carapace whistled by as its eldritch powers deflected the bulk of the barrages.

Attack helicoptors and missile-laden jets zoomed by, but they were mere gnats to the attacker. It lumbered ever closer to the fortress.

General Davis grimaced as a swipe of its claws downed an entire Blackhawk squadron. It wouldn't be long...

Some people in masks of Guy Fawkes
Stood to protest Scientology's flocks
They wore them because
It gave them a buzz
And otherwise they'd get sued by those cocks

It was the standard method of execution in the Forest of Giants.

Machelo was chained to a large yellow box on the top of a hill. Balanced atop his head was a metal bell; should he dislodge it, it would ring.

He'd been stabbed in the chest with two metal spikes; that in itself would be a mortal wound for any normal doll, but Machelo was much more than normal. His natural resilience would be enough to recover from his wounds, but not even he could withstand what would happen if the bell were to ring; if he were to...

," chuckled Doctor Disaster. Twenty years of supervillainy was finally starting to pay off. He adjusted the dials on his cheese-ray to provide maximum transmutation output, then settled in to wait.

When the Moon was fully transformed into a large ball of cheese, the change in tidal forces would wreak havoc on the coastal cities and infrastructure of the modern world. Billions would suffer; unless, or course, they acknowledged Dr. Disaster as their overlord.

There was only one small obstacle for him to overcome.

His archnemesis, Improbable Man, would be here soon. There was no way Disaster could think of...

There once was a man in a sphere
Whose outward appearance was queer
He was hard to mistake
For the sphere was opaque
Because he had filled it with beer

In the beginning, there were no gods.

A human boy named Micah, not yet a man, was the first to make the discovery that if the Earth existed, then there must be a heaven; a divine source, a metaphysical origin of the crude, material plane that we inhabit. And so, partly by accident, and partly by perseverance, he discovered the doorway to heaven.

He went through it without a second thought. His other human peers had always mocked him for being too short, too weak, too strange. His family ignored him. He had the time to uncover the doorway because...

The man in the yellow shirt entered the elevator and pressed the lowest button, which was marked 'B3'. The light next to the word 'DOWN' lit up, and down we went.

"Down?" I exclaimed in confusion. "I don't want to go down. I want to go up. I pressed 31. Why is the elevator obeying you and not me? I was here first."

"It likes me better," said the yellow-shirted man.

"Why would it like you? You're ugly looking and your shirt is stupid."

"How do you know what an elevator thinks is ugly? Maybe it likes my shirt."

I...

, Nevada. The most nondescript town imaginable. Even the dust had dust. The air was dry, and it was hardly ever cloudy.

A convenience store with a broken sign in this dull town would prove to be the battleground. Mr. Block arrived first, slowly perusing the landscape, planning ahead, preparing for the confrontation. Satisfied, he entered the store to buy a candy bar.

Mr. Arc came next. He'd been following Block his whole life, in a chase that had ruined countless others, never gaining ground, never getting closer. Until today.

Sparks flew from his hands as he increased the voltage...