Insane Jane

John Garavaglia

Description

Take youthful energy. Add in some over-active imagination. Mix in some powdered donuts. Sprinkle it with delusional disorder and you get...Insane Jane! The kookiest action hero of the 21st century. Will Jane save the day? Will Jane destroy the world? Will she remember to take her medication?

Sujets

• Adventure
• Fiction
• Action

Informations

• Publié par: Markosia Enterprises Ltd
• Date de parution: 03 avril 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781912700493
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

INSANE JANE
A novel by John Garavaglia
Adapted from the graphic novel series created by
Darren G. Davis and written by Zachary Hunchar
Insane Jane © 2019 Darren G. Davis & Markosia Enterprises, Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction of any part of this work by any means without the written permission of the publisher is expressly forbidden. All names, characters and events in this publication are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. Published by Markosia Enterprises, PO BOX 3477, Barnet, Hertfordshire, EN5 9HN.
FIRST PRINTING, March 2019.
Harry Markos, Director.
Paperback: ISBN 978-1-912700-48-6
eBook: ISBN 978-1-912700-49-3
Book design by: Ian Sharman
Cover by: Hal Laren
Back cover model: Miracle Laurie Back cover photographer: David Zaugh
www.markosia.com
First Edition
Dreams save us. Dreams lift us up and transform us.
And on my soul, I swear until my dream of a world where
dignity, honor and justice becomes the reality we all share.
I’ll never stop fighting. Ever.
—Superman, Action Comics #775 (2001)
ALSO BY JOHN GARAVAGLIA
AND PUBLISHED BY
MARKOSIA
DORIAN GRAY
SINBAD: ROGUE OF MARS
ALSO PUBLISHED BY
MARKOSIA
THE THRONE ETERNAL
ZAK RAVEN: CODE ALPHA
SWANSONG
WORDS ON A WALL
STORIES FROM THE CHICKEN SHED HOUSE
PROLOGUE
It was just another ordinary day for Jane Travers. She was on her way to work at the Beauty Today salon, where she had a ton of clients lined up at her chair. She was definitely looking forward to her lunch date with Pete Young, the handsome clerk who worked in the pet shop next to the salon. Nothing could ruin her day.
The world began to slow around her in a sensation that she knew all too well.
Her Calamity Sense was trying to warn her of something. Imminent danger, but from where?
And suddenly her vision felt as if it was everywhere at once, taking in people and objects all around and bounding off them with supernatural certainly, one by one, determining that his one posed no threat, that one posed any threat.
Jane jerked her head around, heard gasps of fright and astonishment from the people around them.
“What the…?” She stared, her mouth hanging open. From the steps of the bank across the street, a single figure had suddenly emerged—not the sort of person one normally saw on the streets of this fair city every day. There were some crazies here, but this one looked like he must have escaped from the nuthouse, or maybe a costume party.
He cursed at the SWAT team that was now pounding down the steps behind him in full riot gear. Whatever had happened in the bank, the man with the green cape had earned the sincere displeasure of law enforcement.
As the SWAT team members shouted warnings, they finally opened fire.
The costumed man suddenly jumped from the steps as if he meant to sprout wings and fly—it would hardly have been a surprise, considering what he’d done so far—but he did not fly. Instead, he sailed clear across the street, landing neatly in a crouch on the sidewalk, not far in front of Jane. The people in the nearest vicinity prompting scattered, though more surged up behind the cab, eager to catch sight of the commotion’s source.
Jane recognized the man as the Exploding Ghost. A super-villain thought dead after his battle with the heroine the Avenging Star. His powers overloaded and caused an explosion at an abandoned warehouse on Canal Street. So it appeared that the rumors of his demise were greatly exaggerated. He’d probably used whatever energy he had to reconstitute himself, and had been keeping a low profile until now.
Most of the SWAT team ran across the street slowing up as they approached him, a handful of street cops now frantically setting up partitions to herd people away from the scene, and the man shot out some green, radiating energy from his palm. His hand erupted in a flash of neon green, so bright and searing that it irradiated the officer. Jane was nearly flash blinded. And she caught a quick impression of the officer being literally turned into an X-ray image of himself. Then Jane could no longer see him (or whatever was left of him), for the crowd was pressing around him. A beat later, she saw Dynamite Diana leap atop the shoulders of another officer, her knees flanking his head, and as she gave an abrupt twist, he, too, collapsed to the ground where Jane could no longer see what was happening.
Jane had somehow already stripped to her blue and white costume, and was just now placing her cowl over her head. “Time to go to work.”
She took a flying leap toward the action, and suddenly, the crowd’s attention was diverted away from the business with the SWAT team and the villains focused solely on Jane.
“Look!” Shrieked a little girl who stood nearby with her parents. She was blonde with her hair in two soft pigtails. “It’s The Avenging Star !” The girl pointed eagerly up to another fire escape where the superhero was now perched, unwrapping a grappling hook from her side.
The crowd erupted into cheers and hollers of approval, though where it was because they recognized her from the news footage where she foiled that bombing at City Hall and brought Troublemakers, Incorporated to justice
The grappling hook struck out and neatly wrapped itself around the ankles of the Exploding Ghost, who began howling and clawing like a caged animal. The Avenging Star jerked the cable, hard, stringing the flaying psychopath upside down from the bottom rung of the fire escape. The Exploding Ghost contorted his body, bending at the waist so he could reach for the Avenging Star, slashing with glowing green hands. She drew back, still holding the grappling cable taut like a thick calf-roper, wiping blood from her cheek in a sudden, lightning-quick movement, she hauled off and socked Exploding Ghost right in the face, silencing his obscenities.
“Avenging Star!” The crowd was yelling, the people having picked up on what the little blonde girl had said. The same girl was still cheering for her hero, jumping up and down and clapping, pink ribbons bobbing in her hair.
“Hooray for the Avenging Star!” The crowd screamed, the shouts excited and many-voiced, “Go, Avenging Star!”
The Avenging Star stretched her lips into a crazed grin. Blood streamed out of her mouth like a grisly waterfall. “You’re going to have to try harder than that, you fiend,” she taunted, waving him over. “And here I thought the Exploding Ghost was the most lethal member of Team Boom-Boom.”
The Exploding Ghost snarled at her, raising his fists in the air. “You’ll beg for my mercy once you’re bombarded with the concussive force of 28 Hiroshimas!”
The Avenging Star snorted, trying to keep a straight face. “Mister…you can’t even blow up a balloon.”
Like a lioness on the hunt, the Avenging Star pounced toward the over the overzealous super-villain and delivered a devastating haymaker in the face. Exploding Ghost didn’t only see the super heroine’s giant star on her uniform, but several others twinkling all around him. He doubled over and landed on the floor with a thud loud and hard enough to shake the room.
Out like a light.
The Avenging Star stood over her fallen enemy, triumphant. She was quite pleased with her work. But her smirk was replaced with a grimace. She inspected her fist and groaned.
“I think I chipped a nail.” Then she turned her attention back to the unconscious body of the Exploding Ghost. “Maybe you’ll stay dead this time, Ghost!”
Dynamite Diana didn’t even stand a chance against the Avenging Star. She went down after a swift kick across the chin of the heroine’s steel-toed boot. Diana could feel her teeth shattering upon impact. The Avenging Star just made her foe’s dentist a very rich man.
“You need some churchin’, Dynamite Diana,” the Avenging Star quipped. “This is the only sole you’ve got!”
Man, I should start writing these down!
Diana spat out a red mist of blood, followed by a hailstorm of broken teeth. Each of them clattered onto the ground, scattering about like candy being thrown at a parade. She slovenly engaged into a defensive fighting stance. Before she could even raise her fists, the Avenging Star surprised her with a sucker-punch. She felt the sweet crack of bone on bone. Dynamite Diana found herself drifting amongst the stars and being sucked into a black hole.
“I see some rehab in your future,” the Avenging Star said to her knocked-out adversary. “You’re looking a little…punch-drunk.”
Then she frowned.
“Are you even listening to me?” She asked, feeling annoyed by the villain’s silent treatment. “I’m giving you gold and you’re just being rude.”
“Actually puns are just lazy writing, Avenging Star,” said a voice behind her. She turned around to discover it was the Dictator—the leader of Team Boom-Boom. His eyes turned into a yellowish hue and grew brighter with radioactive energy. “Your continued meddling in our affairs impedes my ascendance to malignant ruler of the world.”
“Whoa, slow down, Dictator,” said the Avenging Star. “You’re confusing Ghost.”
The Exploding Ghost groggily woke up from his stupor. He noticed the