Killing Off the Bad Guy

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

Killing Off the Bad Guy

By Plot Roach

“Hello?”

“Sorry to call so early, Jessie. But we have some bad news to tell you.”

Jessie pulled himself up in bed, and turned on the light beside his bed. He spoke softly, trying not to wake his wife. “What happened?”

“Alexander Deman just killed off Ripper-Man.”

Ripper-Man was the enemy of Adam Valiant in the comic books published by Seedy Underbelly Press. They made small graphic novels as well, but they had not caught on with the fans as of yet. Maybe this is Deman’s way of sparking that interest, Jessie thought. Kill off the bad guy and then bring him back in a graphic novel that you would have to read in order to get what was happening in the comic books. Jessie hoped that he would get some of the action, since he was hired to clean up the art on Deman’s graphics. The artist was getting old and his hands were not as steady as they had once been. The fact that he had the ability to create an issue of the comic on his own was a miracle.  “What’s new? The Ripper has been dead half a dozen times before, and we’ve always found a way to bring him back.”
“He’s gone this time -for good.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because Deman locked himself away after the latest issue hit the stands. In the storyline, he kills the bad guy off completely.”

“And Cooper agreed to this?”

“Cooper didn’t know. It seems that Deman bypassed everyone and got it to the printer before anyone caught wind of it. We only found out about it when the police called.”

“How were the police involved? Wait -let me guess. Deman was having one of his ‘fits’ again, right?”

“It seems he killed himself over it, Jessie.”

“He can always take a break-”

“No, Jessie. He actually killed himself after killing of Ripper-Man. Ripper was his creation and he had drawn the guy for forty years. He said in the note that he got tired of ‘being the bad guy’ and that he had to end it once and for all.”

“Do we know if the note is real? Did someone kill him and stage it?”

“It’s real, alright. There’s a miniature sketch of Ripper-Man in the corner of the paper he used. And the creepy thing is that he pulled it from the Bible in the dresser drawer of the motel room.”

“Wow.” Jessie said, a wave of nausea overwhelmed him. If Deman was gone, chances were that his job was on the line. “I guess they won’t need me then, huh?”

“Not unless you can bring back the Ripper.”

“Well, hey. We’ve done it before. How hard can it be?”

“He really killed him, Jessie. Like really DEAD. Like Valiant decapitated him, cut the body into pieces, burned the pieces separately, nuked the ashes from orbit, put those ashes in holy water and buried them in opposite poles of the Earth.”

“It was all a dream?”

“No good, Valiant pinched himself at the end to make sure that he was awake.”

“Voodoo resurrection?”

“Nope. The holy water and scattered ashes took care of that.”

“Cloning?”

"Too easy. In the last section, where Valiant is giving his soliloquy on his rival, he says that Ripper-Man is from an alien race and that his genetics can’t be cloned.”

“An alien race, you say?”

“You have an idea?”

“If it will save Ripper-Man and my job.”

“Buddy, I hope you can pull it off. The fans are ripping us a new one on the website for letting this happen. And if Valiant has no one to fight what good is he? They’ll cut the entire staff loose over this.”

A week later the next installment of Valiant vs. Ripper was out on the market. It debuted a very tired looking Valiant, who had walked away from the world he knew in order to contemplate his existence without his arch enemy. Alone on a mountaintop, the hero’s slumber was interrupted by the sound of a rocket crashing down to earth. He gasped and stood wide eyed as the dead villain dashed from the craft and lunged at him. As soon as he dispatched the evil doer, another took his place. It seemed that there was not just one Ripper-Man, there was a whole planet full of them. And all of them were coming to Earth to battle Adam Valiant. Jessie and the rest of the artist team that brought the comic to life would have their imaginations full for a long time as they sought new and interesting was of