InsaneJournal

And that time has come for Professor Aristotle "Tot" Rodor.
Question v1 #9, October '87 (approx 9 of 27 pages)

After a rough night punching people, Vic is feeling weird about things. He's having a minor identity crisis, really, so he decide to talk to Tot about it.


Two rude dudes pop through the window, making a grab for Tot. Vic tries to take 'em, but he's got a third enemy: Carbon Dioxide.


Vic takes the case to the station, gets the word out. Gets butterflies in stomach from cute assistant?

Yeah, Myra, you might like to know you're not the only one having long, lonely nights.

And once Vic's head gets past the girl, a very strange and unfortunate truth dawns on him...

Yeah, someone's feeling like a bad friend. To compensate, Vic digs in, follows every lead he can turn up and tears this case wide open. He's eventually lead to a house in the suburbs, but something interesting happens on the way there.

Remember this, it's Important.
He reaches the house and takes care of the electric fence, but his senses are still bugging him.

The two guys who grabbed Tot attack him again. Vic takes one with a flying kick, but he can't breathe through his mask. He takes it off as Mr. Jeet Kune Do runs in to get his second win on our hero in as many days, and things're jut getting weirder on Vic's end.

The way Tot's lines blend perfectly in with Vic's there is some really fun wordplay. Good on you, Denny.

As Vic continues to fight off Mr. JKD, a giant chasm opens up between them and Tot's tree, like a wound in the earth bleeding green all over.

It's the best strawberry he's ever eaten, tastes a little like an orange.
He falls.
Oblivion.



Question v1 #10, November '87 (9 of 27 pages)

As the nature of Vic's current trouble becomes more clear to him, he has a flashback from his college years when, if it is at all possible, his hair actually looked worse than it does here (also, man if he wasn't hella whiny).


Yeah, he wakes up to find he was just hallucinating. After that hugely dramatic falling bit, Vic now feels like the biggest asshole in the room, and considering he's outside, there's a lot of people in that room-that-isn't-really-a-room-but-shut-up.

Between the flight schedule and the memory of the dude, Mary Basin, Vic punched in college, he decides Washington D.C. is the place to go. There he meets up with Basin, who was so inspired by being one-punched he went USMC and eventually wound up in the DEA. He'd trained for a long time just to get a chance to beat the shit out of Vic, but the training changed the direction of his life so drastically, it's almost like Vic inadvertantly saved his sorry life.

See, that's interesting now. When Tot said he had a Ph.D, given his interests I thought he was literally talking about being a Doctor of Philosophy, but I find it hard to imagine a guy doing his thesis on what I'd imagine to be more appropriate for Chemistry instead of some kind of dissertation on John Locke or whatever. Though apparently a Ph.D is required for professor in most fields, so maybe I'm just ignorant to the connotations of the course?

Also, considering Tot had done all that by the time he was my age (and sure, i graduated high school at sixteen, but next to him i really look like a chump), his mention in #8 that he'd played the lead in a high school production of the Mikado means he was either 12-15 at the time, or he took an HS Theater class on the side while he was studying his Master's.

But moving on...

Given what we learn about the Pseudoderm project in the second annual, this doesn't say very good things for Tot's track record.
Basin's comment here is funny, though. He can't plant a hit on Vic, so it's obviously not because he's no good at throwing punches, but that Vic's no good at taking them. Ego will really warp your perspective.
Vic obliges, let's Basin feel better about himself.

But a guy can only take so much, and once Vic has the info he needs...

...Basin's bubble bursts.

Hahaha, oh Vic, you rascal!
As he's checking into customs, the woman at the desk ha a Hubbie joke for him! "It is said in Hub City that you do not walk for your health. You run." Vic's not really amused, but maybe Myra's just better at telling jokes.

So he gets to Santa Prisca and runs around, gets a feel for the power structure and fortification of the guys in charge. He finds that he's pretty much running around in a third-world Hub City, only with a better tourist trade, so he's pretty much right at home.
Santa Prisca, debuting here, ends up being a pretty significant little shithole when Denny becomes group editor on the Batbooks. Especially notable as the birthplace of Bane, it also made a strong showing in Birds of Prey: Revolution.

But enough about Vic (seriously, for like the rest of the post), let's see what Tot's doing! He's come face-to-face with his captors, lead by a fellow named Hector Gomez. Here's everything you need to know about this guy.

He puts the poor guy through some heavy torture, which doesn't last long as they guy has the nerve to die.




Question v1 #11, December '87 (9 of 27 pages)

So, Tot's chatting with Mr. Monster, you know, just small-talk.


"Look at the illustration" always get me for some reason. It makes me feel like Gomez is showing this to Tot like it's a family album. This is entirely interpretation rather than intention, especially since Gomez is showing Tot the illustration for a reason, but dammit, I just can't get past it!

Yeah, alright. Okay. Totally gotcha. Gomez is completely fucking insane. Good times.
In other news, Vic has an idea! That's precious, Vic, now you go run off and play in that ridiculous turtle neck. The grown-ups are talking.

This is a really bizarre situation to be in. On the one hand, Gomez is such a shitty person that you really wouldn't want to help him, but on the other helping him could rid the world of the monster he is. It carries resonance with what Tot said of Spaulding that the saints weren't models of mental health, but also brings some weird moral issues up. Yes, Gomez needs his soul purified, if not for his sake then everyone else's, but does he deserve it, really? Is it really so easy as giving a monster a get-out-of-hell-free card? And even then, does that even matter?
And in this one moment, you can see all of these bizarre facets of the situation occurring to Tot.

But when the lives of both yourself and others are on the line, especially having your best friend, conked out while he was running around, thrown under the same threat, the choice is simplified. There is no choice, or at least it's a Hobson's Choice, where the two-sides are so unbalanced that there might as well only be one.

And the process is underway.






Vic finds it in his heart somewhere to be useful (well, pertinent rather) and wakes up to the room empty except for himself and Tot, who is still standing in the same spot, completely unresponsive. He gets them back to Hub City, where the doctors tell him nothing is physically wrong with Tot, only that he's in some sort of shock. He may snap out of it any second...or he may never snap out of it. Vic tells him the story of St. Prisca, who was little more than an urban legend, never a real person. "Of course, that doesn't mean she was a bad person..."
Months pass.


He is so lonely. :(

And there you have it.

I was talking about doing a Myra-centric post next, but some things are coming down to hold that post off for a bit. I've got something brewing for the next week here at scans_daily, so keep your eyes open! All I'll say now is it'll set me up perfectly for our next chapter, The '88 Fables Crossover! Watch for it!