TIME: IMMEMORIAL

22.2 Invaders from Another Dimension (1943)

*** Weekend Write-In for 11 Jan 2019 ***

"right": In 500 words, tell what happens when it is right

MIGHT IS RIGHT

One moment I'm standing there, guarding the door - bear in mind, nobody told ol FT what the hell is inside - the next the doors blow outwards and I'm crashing against the wall.

My vision's blurry ... body's aching like hell. Remember, I ain't got no healing abilities at this point, but I've always been a tough sunnava bitch. I'm down, the blamed metal door's on top a me, but I ain't out.

I look up an I see em ... they look familiar. What the hell are these guys doing here. The patriot in red, white n blue with his kid sidekick, the two firebugs, shimmering brightly and the sea king with his trident.

And then it hits me - Namor don't carry no trident an he's always bare chested - an Torch and his buddy burn red, not yellow ... that's a haze, not fire. An as fer the Cap'n, since when did he wear a cape?

'I don't like this,' the guy in yellow, standing next to the identically dressed gal in yellow, is saying. 'These are Americans we're going up against.'

The guy I thought was Namor - American accent, sure as hell ain't the Atlantean, replies. 'Cool it Flame. They're not OUR Americans.'

The Flame guy looks unhappy. 'Even so, Navy. I ... let's just get this done.'

'Hey guys, the guard's still conscious. Eagle, you want that I should ...?'

The caped patriot (they all have capes ceptin' this Navy guy) answers his sidekick. 'Gently kid. This soldier's only doing his job. I wonder why he's wearing a mask though?'

The kid, whose costume matches Eagle's exactly, crouches over me. 'Who cares? He's just some grunt.' And the last thing I saw was the kid's fist, before it went black.

*

'He's coming to.'

Red, white and blue swam back into my vision - for a moment I thought those rip off creeps were back ta finish the job, but then ...'

'Easy soldier.'

It was the real deal. And beside him, the real Invaders plus Miss America.

'Corporal Scott, we need you to tell us exactly what you saw and what you heard when the containment facility was breached.'

I looked up at the Cap'n and the others, my head still swimming. I was in a white room, laying on a bed - they'd taken off my boots, helmet and jacket, but as per SUES protocol, my face mask was still in place.

Cap had used my real name, but only in front of his team; I'd met some of them before of course - the Cap'n and Buck had been part of our training and occasionally led us on missions, an I'd seen the others from afar - never this close.

'They were ... like you. Not the same ... guy and gal in yellow, had a red cowl n cape, red gloves n boots ... not like torches but some kinda fire thing going on.' I gave a full description, describing costumes, insignia and every word I'd heard spoken.

The Cap'n looked over at his crew. 'That gels with our information. And it confirms the suspicion we had, that there's another infiltrator feeding back information through the dimensional rift somehow.'

The Torch mused. 'But they still needed to come through the device, even though we have it.'

'Yes, and obviously none of the second group had super strength - they must have figured it'd be easy to secure or they'd come back later. Either that or they weren't expecting us to bolt it in place.'

I had no idea what Captain A was talking about, and before I could ask him, the Atlantean had let out a large 'Bah!' and gone on a rant about how insulted he was that this Navy ... Jones guy had been sent as a 'pale imitation' of 'the avenging son of Atlantis.'

When he'd calmed down, Miss America pointed out that as they'd been hit by a second group, they must have a second device.

'Guys ...'

They stopped mid debate and turned towards me.

'Can someone explain what in the Sam Hill is going on? Who were those guys ... they said they were Americans like us, but not the same!'

Miss A was the one to answer. 'From what we've been able to gather, the superheroes you saw were called The Eagle and Buddy, Flame and Flame Girl and Navy Jones. They are just a small sub set of America's masked heroes ... but their America is not our own. They come from a parallel universe that they dub Earth F.'

'Ah ok ... that makes ... sense!' My sarcasm wasn't lost on any of them.

The Cap'n placed a glove on my shoulder. 'Get plenty of rest Larry. You've just joined a small circle of people who know this secret and that means ...'

I nodded miserably. 'Yeah yeah ... I get the picture Cap. I just got drafted inta some kinda secret war between the superheroes of alternate earths!'

Next Time on the Thrilling Adventures of Father Time (A CBS Radio production spectacular for 1943! Tune in before a very special performance of Irving Berlin's 'God Bless America' as rendered by Miss Kate Smith) - find out more about THE OTHER AMERICA! 

Afterword - As public domain characters, some of these have been used by various companies, which is why I was able to find a nice pic of Flame and Flame Girl by Alex Ross. He also did Eagle and Buddy but as part of a group shot, so I used a 1941 image. All four have decent costumes - Navy Jones however, along with other Fox Comics characters definitely needs a re-design!

You can imagine that by late 1943 Navy was wearing something a lot slicker, though based on the original - I envisage a gold armour breast plate, black trousers with belt, maybe gold warrior like bracelets and his helm would look more fearsome - also a trident to carry to give a graeco-roman warrior feel to his look, while still hinting at an alternate Atlantis.