This is Chapter IV of the Shoulder Saga. Please read Chapters I, II, and III.
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As I sat there talking to Joe about my research, I saw this off-white rumbling steel cube inching towards me.

Eventually I saw that it was being pushed by a petite brunette woman, 1/17^th the volume of the cube, putting all of her weight into the cube to get it to move inches per second. X-ray Chick was machined from a single block of steel, with a nurse’s uniform heat shrunk on to her. I could have bounced quarters off of any part of her person. She was probably so fit because she had to push the x-ray machine around all day, kind of like Conan the Barbarian. She wore no rings, and thus, she was a legal target.

Clearly, I had to bed this woman. I would be a crime not too.

“Hey, I’m here to take a few x-rays, it won’t be long,” she tells me.

“Yay! High-energy photons!” I cheer. She smiled. Being a physicist and nuclear engineer, I occasionally with x-rays, so I know exactly what they do. Still, I hadn’t got my hormesis in a while, so it wasn’t that bad.

Apparently, the doctors didn’t think I could make to the x-ray room, partially because I was a shoutin’ shirtless karate ape-man on drugs. Instead, they brought the x-ray room to me.

At the speed of thought, X-Ray Chick threw some levers and the cube deployed into a complete x-ray lab, like something from Command & Conquer. It seemed familiar to me, for some reason.

She came back with a leaden washcloth to cover my penis and testicles.

“Thanks, I need that,” I told her.

She smiled and threw some switches. A small box lit up, except for the black crosshair-pattern on the front. As she aims the shadow of the crosshairs on my shoulder, I remember where I’ve seen this machine:

“Dude! It’s like 70’s Hulk!” I shout to Joe.

I know how radiation works, but deep down, even though its foolish,  and irrational, there will always live a little part of me that thinks this:

…and says. “Yes. Hell yes. This.”

Because of this simple joy, the first x-ray went off without a hitch. The second, not so much.

“Now, I know you’re going to hate me for this…” said X-Ray Chick.

“Why’s that?”

“I need for you to go like this…” she told me, as she performed the communist solidarity fist gesture, “…and then rest your elbow on this sponge.”

“Yeah, ok,” I tell her. I moved my arm to the desired position very slowly, because I did not have a functioning skeleton at the time. It was fairly excruciating; but I knew I had to play it cool to be able to score a slice of this righteous meow.

“Hey Coons! You’re sponge-worthy!” shouts Joe and she inserts the sponge to support my arm.

X-Ray Chick looks up in horror and disgust, for the jig, much like my girthy schlong, was up. To add insult to my injury, Joe used his camera phone to preserve this moment for all time:

Ever have a raging hard-on while wearing your athletic cup? Don’t. Just don’t.

So after dislocating my shoulder, putting a damper on my birthday and vacation, as well as having me pay to get stabbed, Joe fuckin’ cockblocks me. Amazing.

She was mostly silent after that, but managed to produce some wicked-grotundous images:

It was New Year’s Day, 1986. Penn State was in the Orange Bowl, my dad was in his Penn State shirt (a story in itself) and I was four years old.

My dad almost never drank, and there was rarely any beer in the house, but there was that day, because Penn State was doing well. It wasn’t my dad’s collegiate standard, Rolling Rock. This was beneath that. It was worse than Natty, or Keystone, or even Herman the German. It was Beer Beer — as in generic beer.

“Oh, Beer-30,” you say.

No, Generic Beer is a step below Beer-30. I’ve seen Beer-30 before and it at least comes in a colorful package.

See, back in the day, there were no store brands, or stuff like Grand Union, Sam’s Choice, or Food Club. There was one, universal store brand called “Generic,” which was situated on an isle isolated from the rest of the store that was completely devoted to this line of products. They all came in white packages with the name of the contents in black capital letters, and nothing else. There weren’t even any nutritional labels, because Congress wouldn’t pass the Nutritional Labeling and Education Act for another four years.

For example, rather than having, Ruffles, Lay’s or Troyer Farms potato chips, there was another option across the store called “ONE POUND POTATO CHIPS.” If you wanted pop, there was Coca-Cola Classic, Pepsi, RC, and “COLA.” Thus, by induction, in addition to Rolling Rock, Natty, Keystone, and Herman the German, there was also a beer called “BEER.”

“What’s that?” I ask my dad, unfamiliar with the can.

“This son, is beer,” said my dad.

“Beer?” I said quizzically. “What’s that like?”

He looks left, he looks right. Then, my dad said the magic words:

“Don’t tell your mother.”

I nodded in agreement. He handed me the can, and I took my first drink.

It tasted like homeless people boiled in dumpster swill.

I didn’t drink for nearly twenty years.

(This story is Part 3 in the Tramp-Amp-Oline Saga. The other parts will follow.)

One spring evening, after karate, we went to Mike’s house because it was Kung-Fu-Friday, but since days were longer now, we figured we could play on the tramp-amp-oline for a while. So Joe, Mike, me and Amanda ran crazily across the field towards Tramp-amp-oline, flailing our limbs madly shouting nonsense.

“Tramp-amp-oline!” I shouted.

“Tramp-bop-oline!” said Joe.

“Zamp-bop-o-zeen!” said Mike.

Upon climbing onto Tramp-amp-oline, we played our favorite game, Flop-Like-A-Fish, where one person sat in the middle, and two others bounced around the parameter, while the person in the middle flopped and bounced erratically, and randomly spouted crazy talk and laughter, just like how the instructions that come with the trampoline explicitly tell you not too do.

This was wall great and fun and good times, but still we thought we could one-up it somehow.

“How can we make better?” we collectively asked.

“Three people bouncing!” we all said at once.

So, we all climb on the tramp-amp-oline, just like how the instructions explicitly told us not to do, and I was one of the ones bouncing around the perimeter. The tramp-amp-oline really wasn’t that big, so with three people you had to pick your shots, so to speak. It wasn’t obvious where you would land, and you had to think about that and adjust yourself accordingly.  On one jump, when I had reached my zenith, I realized that there was no was that I was going to land on the tramp-amp-oline. I somersault, then spin in the air, because I needed a good ukemi now more than ever.

I hit the ground hard, about ten feet away from the tramp-amp-oline. Then I skipped like a stone, and landed three feet away from the point of initial impact.

I saw stars, and the Technicolor ring. The ring didn’t last, but the stars did.

I was looking up at the tramp-amp-oline, as my chin was still tucked. Everyone stopped. Joe looked over and shouted:

“Oh my God! Cooooooooooooons issssssssss deaaaaaaaaaaaaad!”

Joe, Mike, and Amanda climb off the tramp-amp-oline and run over to me, their arms flailing wildly.

“Can you get up?” asked Amanda.

“Yeah,” I told them. “But I don’t want too…I think that I’m going to lay here for a while…take it…easy…”

They all walk to leave me be, as per my request. Mike stops, points, and laughs.

“Come here! Come here!” he shouts.

It had rained earlier, and the ground was still kind of soft., which caused my initial impact to leave a Coons-shaped crater in Mike’s lawn.

“It’s like the cartoons!” we shouted, as we inspected the hole.

We all looked at each other.

“I think we should go inside,” said Amanda. This is the only useful thing Amanda has ever said in any point of her life.

Then we went inside, and I lived to see another day.

I first walked into the main floor at WizardWorld with joy and wonder. Then Mike stopped us.

“Dude,” he snapped. “Liefeld’s here.”

We all sprung into crisis mode.

“What do you mean?” said a surprised August. Liefeld was not on the list of guests, but about three booths to the right of the door was “Liefeld” in that sketchy, completely linear Rob Liefeld font.

“Oh shit!” said August. He still has a soul, so he worries about other people and their feelings. I, on the other hand, have nothing but my dreams, and apparent they came true. I knew what to do. We were joking about this on the car ride over, what to say if Liefeld were to magically show up. I knew what to do.

I walked up to him and spake: “Hi, my name is Ryan Coons…”

“Hey!” said Rob Liefeld. He didn’t even look up at me; he just kept sketching away at yet another blocky, disproportionate, and overly-linear picture of one of my beloved childhood heroes. This time, it was Wolverine, in a mirrored swipe of Jim Lee’s cover for X-Men #11.

“…I am a huge Captain America fan…” I tell him with jazz hands and a huge fanboy gleam. “…and as such, I demand an apology for Heroes Reborn.”

Rob stops. He gives me an action hero sneer and said, “Hey, it was nice to meet you,” and followed it up with a fuck-off get lost nod. You know, the upward one. I walk off and hyperventalate for a while, because I can only process a set amount of awesome at one time. That’s why it took me four hours to watch 300 the first time.

Rummaging through the boxes when I came across a copy of Lee & Buscema’s seminal text How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way. We were in awe.

“Coons! You need to buy that!” shouted Mike. I was thinking about it, because I’ve wanted a copy of that for some time now.  “You need to give it to him!”

“You’re right! Rob needs it more than anyone!” I said.

“That’s why we’re here Coons,” said Mike. “The planets have aligned.”

“What’s this?” asked Javier, the dude who was working the booth we were at.

“We’re going to by a copy of How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way, then he’s going to give it to Rob Liefeld,” said Mike.

Javier was awestruck.

“How much is this?” I ask.

“All trades are five dollars, but if you’re giving that to Rob Liefeld, then I…I…well, I can chip in,” said Javier, digging through his wallet. “Here’s two bucks.”

I give the man three.

“I’ll be back,” I tell Javier.

I waited for a bit, I wanted him to forget about me, I wanted him to think he was in the clear and have him let his guard down. Also, I fully expected to get thrown out for these shenanigans, and I wanted Mark Millar to sign my copy of Superman: Red Son, and that wouldn’t be for another few hours.

In the mean time, I took the time to personalize his gift.

On the blank front page, I wrote:

Rob,

I know you aren’t willing to apologize right now. This manual will help you in you future endeavors. Please study it carefully, and consult it before rebooting another comic title. If you still wish to apologize for “Heroes Reborn,” you can do so by emailing me at YellowHatGuy@gmail.com.

Let’s make things right.

Sincerely,

Ryan Coons

Then, I slipped my business card in between the pages, to make sure that Liefeld knew my name, website, email address, and cell phone number. Then I put his gift in a nice bag…

…and I was ready.

“So, you’re going through with this?”

“I have too. It needs to be done,” I said.

“What are you going to say to him?” asked August.

“I’m not going to say anything,” I told him. “I’m just going to set it in front of him, and then walk away.”

“…and then what?” asked August.

“I don’t care,” I sad. “I don’t care what happens. You can watch if you like.”

I started sweating pretty bad, and started to hyperventilate. “You okay Coons? You gonna make it?” said August.

Immediately, I regain my composure.

“No, I have to do this. I’ve waited thirteen years for this,” I tell August.

So I walked over to Rob Liefeld, who was busy ignoring everyone in the entire convention center. I set the package in front of him, and patted it a few times, and the walked away. According to Mike, the following ensued:

“Rob didn’t look up, but the bald guy did, and pulled it out and showed it Liefeld. He shook his head and got all pissed off. Then the bald dude opened it up and red the inscription, and busted out laughing, and laughed for like, five minutes straight, and Liefeld’s face just tightened up and he just got more and more pissed off.”

I’m not a bad guy. All I want is an apology.