Posted by CrazySugarFreakBoy! has finally regained his internet access for good, or at least until something goes wrong again. :) on March 31, 2001 at 10:26:22:
In Reply to: #67: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion World Tour: The Curse of the Blathervilles, or One of the People Gathered Here… is a Murderer. posted by HH raises the ghost of Agatha Christie in this tale of mystery and mayhem in a lonely English country house, where sudden death lurks in the cellars and an unknown beast prowls the moors on March 30, 2001 at 15:08:50:
According to Mrs. Random, the Beast of the Blathervilles was defeated by Sir Nigel of Wonkham, who somehow used the Blessed Bung to finish off the beast for good ... or, at least, until the damned thing came back to life just recently, but then again, in the Parodyverse, as in the Marvel universe, death is about as permanent as one of Hank Pym's periods of mental and emotional stability.
For those who read Untold Tales of the Lair Legion #55 and 1/2, in which Goldeneyed and the GlitchedGadgetRiotgrrlRobot! (CrazySugarFreakBoy's! successor from the future) witnessed the history of the entire CrazySugarSuperHero! line unfold before their very eyes, the last name "Wonkham" should be familiar.
After all, it was Sir William of Wonkham (yes, yes - as in "Willy Wonka", because I, as a writer, always go for the easiest gag) who was the BawdyBardJesterJouster!, CrazySugarFreakBoy's! predecessor during the Middle Ages, roughly around or after the time of the Crusades.
Since Mrs. Random places the Beast's first appearances as being roughly within the same era that the BawdyBardJesterJouster! was active in adventuring, this opens up the playing field to a couple of interesting possibilities.
Sir Nigel could somehow have been related to Sir William, either as a father, a son, a brother, a cousin, or what have you, which would have made sense, since knighthood and beast-slaying and such are things that tended to run in the family during the Middle Ages, as they did in the days of Camelot (which Ian will correctly tell you was not really a part of the Middle Ages at all, but that's a whole different discussion, which I don't have anywhere near the attention span to carry on at this point).
Another option that's certainly available is the probability that Sir Nigel actually IS Sir William, since the records from that era are bound to be embellished or incomplete in places (especially if Sir William's bard songs were a source of information for such records, since Sir William WAS a CrazySugarSuperHero!, after all, and as such, he was not above occasionally playing fast and loose with the facts, much like Stan Lee did with the minor details during Marvel's early years of continuity).
If that were the case, the legends of the townsfolk who lived in and around the Blathervilles' estate might know of the BawdyBardJesterJouster! as Sir Nigel of Wonkham, whereas those villagers who had grown up in neighboring regions might, instead, have known that the BadyBardJesterJouster's! true name was Sir William of Wonkham.
Now, as to how Sir Nigel actually killed the Beast of the Blathervilles, with nothing more than a bung ...
Okay, this is just my theory, but if I'm right, then you're a really sick bastard, Ian; and, conversely, if I'm wrong, then I'M the sick bastard for having thought it up, but that's pretty much established by now anyway, I'd imagine. :)
Although you might have something different in mind, the naming of the Beast (with its obvious allusions to the Hound of the Baskervilles) makes me think of this animal as being somewhat canine.
And while it's rare, even within Medieval legend, to encounter a fire-breathing dog (even the demon dogs from Ghostbusters just growled and had glowing red eyes, pretty much), there IS something that even real-life dogs can do which is terribly foul and unpleasant.
Yes, that's right; I'm referring to when a dog starts passing gas, which I've been unfortunate enough to be within smelling distance of on more than one occasion (my uncle in Idaho has never owned less than three Black Labrador Retrievers, at any given time, and while they are friendly family pets, you do NOT want to feed them the wrong time of food, or else you'll get a replay of the Seinfeld episode in which Kramer fed the horse Beefaroni).
So, assuming my theory is correct, we've got this evil fucking hound from the depths of of the Devil's realm, farting thermonuclear Hellfire wherever he goes, which naturally not only stinks the countryside up pretty badly, but could also probably discourage any plant life from growing back in those spots where our canine friend has been cutting the cheese.
Given that, how would Sir Nigel manage to extinguish the evil of such a beast, once and for all?
Well, if it was ME, and *I* had a bung for a weapon, I think I'd just use the bung to plug up the damnable beast's afterburner (much like Eddie Murphy, stuffing banana after banana into the tailpipe of the squad car that was attempting to pursue him, in the first Bevery Hills Cop movie), and then, I'd simply scuttle myself off to a safe distance, lie back, and wait for the devil dog to be done in by the buildup of its own noxious gasses, until the stinky motherfucker exploded, just like the lardass in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, after he ate that last after-dinner mint.
Yeah, it wouldn't smell like roses, and you'd have the minor problem of about eighty baskrillion bits of charred, bloody, smelling-like-asshole-from-Hell dog carcass lying around, occupying a blast radius extending roughly between the epicenter of the explosion to continental Europe, but the Beast itself would be fucking toast.
So ... am I even close?
And do I win a No-Prize for my explanation of Sir Nigel and Sir William? :)