[Within the colorful confines of the Space/Time Continuum, Piett and Herve suddenly appear, after yet another thrilling cosmic adventure.]
Herve: Gods, I love free comic books day.
Piett: For the last time, that was not Free Comic Book Day. You just robbed 18 comic book stores of.....18 things?
Herve: First off, I didn't capitalize the day in my original statement. Hell, I specifically said "books", which should've explained I wasn't associating this romp with the first weekend of May extravaganza. Second, I didn't steal much because I don't want to put those people out of business. Let the rest of their shitty economics do that.
Piett: But.....[examines Herve's loot] a random issue of Azrael: Agent of the Bat? A GI Joe figure with only one arm and what appears to be a He-Man sword? 21 Jump Street on Blu-Ray?!
Herve: I'm helping weed out the crap. Slowly. But surely.
Piett: Good grief, it's crap like this that makes me wish I was back in the Imperial wait where are we anyway??
[Piett and Herve look around. They find themselves in a semi-large glass bubble, traversing through the Space/Time Continuum. Several feet beside them they sense the presence of 2 more people.]
Rip Hunter: Are you going to do something about them already, Booster?!
Booster Gold: I'm just appreciating their banter. [pause, then sniffs] Darn, I miss Ted.
Herve: Booster? Booster Rocket?!
Booster Gold: Who?
Rip Hunter [brings time bubble to a stop]: Oh no, not these guys.
Booster Gold: These guys?
Rip Hunter: Yeah. THESE guys.
Booster Gold: These these these JUST GET ON WITH IT!
Rip Hunter: We're time travelers serving the masters of Space and Time.
Piett and Herve: WHAT?!
Piett: Cosmos and Chronos have another duo?
Booster Gold: Who?
Piett: The masters of space and time.
Herve: Respectively.
Rip Hunter: Respectively? Sounds...oh no, THOSE GUYS.
Booster Gold: Those guys?
Rip Hunter: Yeah, those--
Piett, Herve and Booster Gold: Those those those SHUT UP!!!
Herve: We should hug when we say the same thing in unison.
Piett: We're never on the same level about much of anything at all ever.
Herve: Someday we'll hug. Hell, maybe in the timestream we already have. And it'll be wonderful.
Booster Gold: No, Booster, we don't wanna hug you. [sighs] Ted would.
Rip Hunter: Booster, the beings at Vanishing Point have warned us about those guys. And these guys.
Booster Gold: Good job avoiding them completely, then.
Rip Hunter: It was gonna happen eventually, Booster.
Piett: Vanishing Point?
Booster Gold: It's like a giant mansion floating on a giant rock in the middle of the Space/Time Continuum or something.
Piett: You sure we're not talking about the same people here?
Herve: Hang on. Are your guys gay?
Booster Gold: Gay? Cool.
Rip Hunter: Very progressive, Booster.
Booster Gold: Thanks.
Rip Hunter: No. I don't think our guys are gay.
Booster Gold: They're very 90'sish, though. Big cyborg dude, flying gold guy whose head is on fire.
Rip Hunter: The cyborg guy is me.
Booster Gold: Was me. [short pause] Wait, WHAT?!
Rip Hunter: It was me and is me.
Booster Gold: Again, I yell "WHAT?!"
Rip Hunter: Yeah. The '90s.
Booster Gold: And now you're...
Rip Hunter: 60'sish. Retro is in again.
Booster Gold: But you're still also that big cyborg guy back at Vanishing Point.
Rip Hunter: Yes.
Booster Gold: At the same time you're this, too.
Rip Hunter: Yes.
Booster Gold: Time travel. [pshaws] What a mindfuck. You know what I mean?
Herve: TOTALLY.
Piett: I will rape you people with a spork if you don't get on with explaining all this.
Rip Hunter: Whoa!!
Booster Gold: We're time travelers. I'm Booster Gold, the greatest hero you've never heard of. This is Rip Hunter, my....
Rip Hunter: Cohort and time companion.
Herve: Gay?
Booster Gold: What? No.
Rip Hunter: Maybe.
Booster Gold? Me?! Or you?
Rip Hunter: Possibly me. Never really thought about it.
Piett: Well, we're--
Rip Hunter: We know who you are, Piett and Herve.
Booster Gold: Wow, those are pronounced a lot different than I'd thought.
Herve: We've been at this time travel quantum adventuring thing for a while, so why the scrub treatment?
Rip Hunter: We're a bit more established.
Piett: How's that now?
Booster Gold: I've been published.
Piett: So have we.
Booster Gold: Legitimately.
Herve: Hey, the HP Walsh printed us on that one time was a properly licensed and distributed multi-functional device.
Piett: So.....where are you time traveling to?
Rip Hunter: We shouldn't really be--
Booster Gold: Come on, Rip. We could use the company.
Rip Hunter:
Booster Gold: I can go whining again about how my best friend in the whole multiverse was unjustly murdered and you won't let me go back to either prevent his death or at least pluck him out of the timestream and go adventuring with him until we inevitably have to place him back at the moment of his death.
Piett [horrified, grabs Herve by the shoulder]: Is that gonna happen to me????
Herve: Wanna hug?
Piett: God yes. [hugs]
Rip Hunter: Oh alright fine, Booster. They can come along. [to Piett and Herve] We're on our way to fight with wizards and sorcerers in the late Cretaceous Period.
Piett: Dinosaurs? Wizards? Sorcerers?
Herve: Guh. Pass.
Booster Gold: Pass?! Dudes, DINOSAURS!
Rip Hunter: And wizards!
Booster Gold: Focus on the dinosaurs, not so much the sword and sorcery crap.
Piett: Exactly. Sword and sorcery crap. We avoid that at all costs.
Rip Hunter: Well, we don't.
Booster Gold: Yeah, [sarcastically] *we* don't.
Herve: If someone isn't using them as Dino-Riders, then we have no interest in helping.
Rip Hunter: They might be, actually.
Herve: Like you know what Dino-Riders are.
Rip Hunter: Brain boxes, Krulos, Valorians, the Step Crystal...
Herve [to Piett]: This motherfucker is good.
Piett: Ok, we'll go.
Booster Gold: Sweet!
Piett: So why are we fighting dinosaurs?
Rip Hunter: Because someone's using them to obtain an ancient orb embedded in a meteor that hit the Earth recently. That orb will allow the user to take over the world.
Herve: It's a world of dinosaurs. Who cares. They'll be dead anyway in a few years or something.
Booster Gold: You mean you don't know?
Piett: Know what?
Booster Gold: How the dinosaurs all died?
Herve: It was a meteor. Duh.
Rip Hunter: Um, no. Definitely not a meteor.
Booster Gold: In fact, this meteor in question is "what killed the dinosaurs."
Herve: DUH!
Rip Hunter: The reality is much.....more worse.
Piett [extends his hand]: SHOW US!!!
Herve: Really.
Piett: A bit much?
Herve: Yeah. A bit.
[The time bubble travels through the ethers of space and time and swiftly emerges in the late Cretaceous Period, circa 65.6 million years B.C. On a plot of land which will one day be the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, the time bubble lands comfortably on a rocky ground. Its inhabitants all exit, and in the considerable distance see a most disturbing yet awe-inspiring sight.]
Herve: That's.............no, no, that can't be.
Piett: Say it. Because I think it really is.
Herve: Is.....is that Al Gore wreaking havoc on a population of dinosaurs and sword-wielding wizards?
Rip Hunter: Yes. That is former President Al Gore.
Booster Gold: And his Weather Domination machine.
Piett: You mean "former presidential candidate Al Gore."
Booster Gold: No. 2020, bro.
Piett: Really?
Booster Gold: Straight up.
Herve: Shit, that sucks.
Piett: So why's he here?
Rip Hunter: He's, in his mind, saving the Earth. Utilizing his 21st Century environmental genius, Gore is using the power of his technology and this ancient orb located with the meteor that humanity believes killed the dinosaurs, he is trying to create an Ice Age several million years before the Ice Age we all know of from those annoying CGI animated movies.
Herve: Logically. Who doesn't hate all those asshole animals?
Rip Hunter: Gore believes an even more powerful and potent Ice Age created by him will keep the Earth better intact and be able to fight off the negative effects of global warming in future eras of the Earth's history.
Herve: How insidously........noble.
Rip Hunter: What he doesn't know, though, is this...
[Suddenly the time bubble flashes back into the Space/Time Continuum. It reemerges in Pennsylvania in the year 1776, where the four time travelers spot 2 armies of men riding polar bears and dogsleds and utilizing other ridiculous snow-based equipment. Herve recognizes the leader of one of the armies and points in shock at him from afar.]
Herve: Is that.....George Washington?
Rip Hunter: Yes. Because Al Gore's Ice Age was too successful, it managed to freeze much of what human history would be and alter the very nature of man as a result. The ancient Greeks were much more bitter and frost-stricken and thus their philosophy was skewed towards pessimism and angst....although they *were* a lot less gay because they were wearing lots of clothes all the time. The age of the Egyptian pyramids never came to pass, because no one wanted to build shit in the snow if it wasn't an igloo. The Renaissance consisted of Italians building ice sculptures and do-hickeys that kept them warm, instead of the great inventions and architectural structures that propelled mankind into a new age of ingenuity and wisdom. However, the rise of America still came to pass, when a noble band of Pilgrims and Protestants ventured to The New World in the early 17th century. However, rather than landing in boats across the Atlantic Ocean, they crossed by foot over the Atlantic Big-Ass Ice Patch. And they only just got here a few months ago, where they promptly got into a war with the Native American populace.
Booster Gold: A Native American populace that rides polar bears and dogsleds.
Herve: So much more awesome than all the other Native Americans I can think of.
[Without any hint or warning, the time bubble flashes out of this time period for another.]
Herve: Oh dammit, we were watching Indians fight George Washington on polar bears!!
Rip Hunter: Not worth the effort. You see, because these Native Americans were never shamed into subservience by an awful series of explorers, they possessed far too much pride and became quite egotistical. So they would lose this war against the huddled masses of immigrants. And America would be born, although with a series of considerable changes.
Booster Gold: No conflicts with the British or Mexicans, no slavery, no Civil War...
Rip Hunter: And because those series of events that challenged the resolve and morality of America never occurred.....this happened.
[They shunt out of the Continuum and swiftly into the year 1890. Over the skies of Berlin, Germany, The foursome look on at sheer madness and annihilation below. Herve rubs his eyes as he recognizes yet another American presidential icon.]
Herve: Is that Benjamin Harrison?!?
Rip Hunter: Yes. Former President Benjamin Harrison.
Piett [to self]: How the fuck did he recognize Benjamin Fucking Harrison?
Herve: Wait, despite all the changes in human history, Benjamin Harrison still somehow became the President of the United States at the same time as he would've have before Al Gore's meddling?!?
Rip Hunter: It would seem so, yes.
Herve: I'm impressed.
Piett: And Benjamin Harrison is doing....what now?
Booster Gold: He's using the energies and powers from deep within the Earth's core, along with flashy steampunk technology, to destroy the German people.
Herve: So the world and mankind managed to shake off Al Gore's Ice Age.
Rip Hunter: Oh no. Gore's Ice Age actually managed to fuck up the Earth more than global warming and climate change and global cooling and weather domination .
Herve: In the course of 100 years.
Rip Hunter: In the course of 100 years.
Booster Gold: I could've told them global warming was a hoax. I'm from the future after all.
Piett: But who'd have believed you? You're kind of an idiot.
Booster Gold: Just because it's true doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.
Herve: Wow. So somehow, the fouled up Ice Age causes Benjamin Harrison to destroy Germany?
Rip Hunter: Evidently.
Piett: Wow, how......ironically and hilariously genocidal of him.
Booster Gold: Really?
Piett: Yeah. I mean, he's destroying what will become Nazi Germany in the process, yes? Giant steampunk robot men pouring acid and lava all over Berlin and Munich and everywhere else they can. That kinda puts a hamper on all that stuff Hitler was doing.
Rip Hunter: Heh. You'd like to think that. But look what happens because there's no Nazi Germany.
Herve: There'd still be a Nazi Germany after all this crap we've just seen?! Jebus!
Piett: Wh--
[Once again, the time bubble leaps into the Continuum, and nanoseconds later they roughly 150 years in the future, hovering over Mount Rushmore, where they once again see a rather familiar presidential site.]
Herve: Is that.............wait, who is that?
Rip Hunter: President Cicimitten Jolson Flopunkin.
Herve: I don't know him.
Rip Hunter: Her. 84th President of the United States.
Piett: Jeez, at this rate we must be in the year....
Booster Gold: 2024.
Herve: 2024? That's a lotta presidents in a short amount of time.
Booster Gold: Super Sniper had a good career.
Rip Hunter: Oh Super Sniper, what a fun one he was.
Herve: Super Sniper? Cute. I'd like to encounter him in an adventure.
Booster Gold: Don't bother. That was his only gig. Killing like 50 presidents in a row.
Rip Hunter: Helluva gig though. He died of AIDS a few days later.
Piett: That's awful.
Herve: Any back story?
Booster Gold: No, just some dude.
Herve: Great recap.
Piett: And this President Cicimitten Jolson Flopunkin is......I'm sorry, but that's the most adorable name I've ever heard. Did a Hello Kitty become President?
Herve: Focus, man!
Piett: What is this person doing now?
Rip Hunter: She is carving her face into Mt. Rushmore.
Piett: For....?
Rip Hunter: She just is. I presume she's done a good job.
Herve: That's not really maniacal at all.
Piett: And I can't see how Hitler being offed, along with all of Germany 40 years before his rise to power, could've prevented.....a rather ok administration.
Booster Gold: Well, she has maintained a remarkably sound budget for several years and lowered the unemployment rate quite a bit.
Rip Hunter: And she's a Chitauri.
Herve: A fucking Reptilian?!?! GNUGHHHHH!!!!!!
Booster Gold: You racist!
Piett: He does this.
[Herve grabs Piett's ray gun from his holster, opens up the time bubble, and fires a shot right at President Cicimitten Jolson Flopunkin
Piett: Ok, he doesn't usually do this.
Rip Hunter: What have you done?!?
Herve: I don't know, what have I done?
[Rip Hunter swears under his breath and activates the time bubble once more. Mere micro-nanoseconds later, they arrive a few weeks in the future, in the midst of a great air war. Giant zepplins and spacecraft battle flocks of heavenly angels. They descend And atop a skyscraper rather close nearby, they eye The Boss, sitting in a lounge chair and sipping a cool mint julep as he lazily yet happily surveys the unholy carnage around him.]
Rip Hunter: What the HELL did you do?!
Herve: There's no evidence that I was the cause of this. Perhaps this was all according to the plan.
Piett: The plan?
Herve: Like the Battlestar Galactica Plan, but with a better ending.
Piett: I thought that ending was just fine. You're just repeating the picky people who didn't like it.
[Rip Hunter whispers something to Booster Gold and he flies off.]
Piett: Wait, he can fly.
Rip Hunter: Yes.
Piett: And I presume has weapons.
Rip Hunter: Yes.
Piett: Then why hasn't he done anything this entire time to stop the various bits of awfulness we've encountered?!
Rip Hunter: Sometimes we cannot interfere. He is the greatest hero you've never heard of, after all.
Piett: Is that a slight against him? Being obscure or something?
Rip Hunter: He came up with it, I just try to boost his confidence by helping propagate the idea that's he's really awesome. When he's really not.
Piett: You're cruel.
[Pause]
Herve: You do realize he's your dad, right?
Rip Hunter: What?!
Piett: Yeah. Even I knew that.
Herve: You'd think you'd have journeyed to the realities where you're actually fictional characters published in comic books and read up on this shit.
Rip Hunter: I.....he.....but....
Piett: We done fucked this man up, son.
Herve: It doesn't work when you talk like that, dude.
Piett: Blast.
[Booster Gold flies back up to the time bubble.]
Booster Gold: Holy hell, those people are pissed.
Rip Hunter: So, did you get a newspaper.....Booster?
Piett: Wait, so in the middle of all this.....madness, you think they'd still be publishing newspapers that would be accurately detailing the origins of this holy war?!
[Booster Gold hands the newspaper to Piett.]
Piett: Well fuck my butt and call me Sally Sue.
Rip Hunter: Shut up and read, Sally Sue.
[Booster Gold and Piett look at Rip Hunter.]
Rip Hunter: I'm just calling him the girly name, calm down.
Piett: So it seems the assassination of President Cicimitten Jolson Flopunkin [aside] hey, he finally performed a legit assassination, good for him [resumes reading] caused a riotous people of Earth to declare war on Heaven. [pause] Seems they blamed the [clears throat as he quotes] "insidious blast from on high on an angry, vengeful and obviously white human God." So Earth and Chitauri allies from across the cosmos declared war on God, and God reacted by declaring war on Earth and damn near all of creation. [looks around] You'd think He would just blink it all out of existance, but instead He goes for the hordes of archangels descending on and annihilating his creations motif. I'm sure we have an old chum who would be amused by this, Herv......Herve?!
[Piett looks around and sees that Herve has leapt from the time bubble to a nearby rooftop, where Piett is rather surprised to see said old chum: the Boss. He embraces Herve and the two share a toast to the downfall of Heaven and humanity alike.]
The Boss: Another mint julep for me and my old friend here.
Graham: Yes sir.
Herve: So you actually believe me?!
The Boss: Of course. That was totally a you thing to do, Herve. [puts his arm around him proudly] I always knew I liked you the best.
[Back in the bubble, silence and a long pause before anything is said.]
Rip Hunter: We can just go back in time and avoid all this, and take out Al Gore and his crazy Ice Age plan alone.
Booster Gold: Would you believe me if I was thinking the same thing.
Rip Hunter: I actually would. Let's do this.....dad.
Piett and Booster: Wait, wha--
[With a forceful kick, Rip Hunter boots Piett in the ass and he falls from the time bubble, which instantly vanishes, leaving their former companions stranded in this war-ravaged reality. Piett falls, but is caught by a giant and fiery baseball catcher's mitt. The mitt carries him to the safety of the skyscraper where The Boss and Herve sip on their fine mint juleps.]
Piett: A giant catcher's mitt?
The Boss: It's a Green Lantern thing. Only it doesn't suck. In more ways than one.
Herve: That's a particular kind of comic book humor. See, it's abound throughout this adventure.
Piett: I know. You do realize we're all dead soon, yes?
Herve: Wha?
Piett: Hunter and Booster are going back to prevent meeting us and undoing everything that's led human history to this particular series of events, so all this will never exist and this adventure and these versions of ourselves will be erased forever.
The Boss: Or maybe this is the creation of a new aspect of the multiverse? [pause] Good grief, how do you people deal with all this nonsense?
Piett: Liquor.
The Boss: Ah.
Herve: What are they gonna do, move a few feet to the left and we emerge in the middle of the Continuum?
The Boss: They're gonna commit suicide.
Piett: Doubtful. It's probably what Herve said.
The Boss: No. I mean, they're gonna commit suicide. I can do that. [closes eyes, thinks] They're dead. See? Problem solved.
Piett: That seems cheap.
Herve: Have you been paying attention to anything we do?
Piett: Even still. Hey, can I have a mint julep?
Herve: I have a feeling you'll hold out on me, so I say no.
Graham: But I already made him one.
The Boss [sternly]: That sounds like a nice thing to do, Graham.
[Graham instantly panics and throws the mint julep in Piett's face.]
The Boss: Not bad.
[Graham panics again and kicks Piett in the dick.]
The Boss: No, I didn't mean "not bad" like....[starts laughing].....dammit, I'm giving you a raise, Graham.
Graham: Finally, a payday.
Herve: Best day. EVER. [takes out camera phone, clicks picture]
Piett: Fuck you all!!!
[Piett barfs and The Boss, Herve and even Graham share a laug--
