Saturday, June 13, 2020

Week 2 Playoffs: The Striders of Rohan Vs. Two Hungry Dino-Mites with Bubble Fightin Fun Down Tight

The Striders of Rohan are Visas Marr, Magneto, Wolverine (w/ a red lantern ring), Yondu in a TIE Silencer, Kraglin in Leia's Stealth X-Wing, E2 Batman, E2 Catwoman, Ragnarok, Ancalagon the Black, Gothmog the Barlrog, Batwing, Scorpion, Scorpion, Azula, Rage, The Leader, Nazgul #2 on Fell Beast, Gandalf the White (w/ The White Lantern Ring), Samwise Gamgee (w/ a blue lantern ring), The Gladiator, Mr. Incredible, Dash, Jack-Jack, Fro-Zone, Legolas of the Woodland Realm, Spoiler, Baron Mordo, Brother Blood, Liu Kang, The Comedian, The Blob, IG Bounty Hunter in a X-Wing, & Baron Zemo.

Two Hungry Dino-Mites with Bubble Fightin Fun Down Tight are Darkseid, Dark Supergirl, Wonder Woman (w/ the Sword of Light), Wonder Girl, Aquaman, The Deputy Lanterns: Green Lantern Ganthet, Blue Lantern Flash, Orange Lantern Lex Luthor, Red Lantern Mera, Yellow Lantern Scarecrow, Indigo Lantern Ray Palmer, & Star Sapphire Wonder Woman, The Capt. Marvel Family: Shazam, Mary Marvel, Capt. Marvel Jr., Eugene Choi, Pedro Pena, Darla Dudley, & C.C. Batson, The Injustice League: Ultraman, Superwoman, Owl Man w/ Talon in a 1980 Mustang GT, Johnny Quick, & Power Ring, Emperor Joker, Capt. America (w/ a blue lantern ring), Axe Cop w/ Wexler, Ranx the Sentient City, General Zod, Ursa, Non, Honored Matre #1, & Giant Hammer Bros. #1 & 2.


On Day One of the long siege of this epic battle, The Hungry Dino-Mites received word that Ragnarok was coming. Emperor Joker, not realizing that Ragnarok was just the name of this dude dressed like Thor, became jealous and destroyed the majority of the Playoff Planet before anyone else could. What is left of the Playoff Planet is comparable to the aftermath of a #BLM Protest; but not the sugar-coated Livonia type, the kind that the news doesn't want to show you. That scorched remnant of the once great city is where this battle takes place.

Hell bent on the domination and destruction of the Playoff Planet, Emperor Joker caused the Planet to begin folding in on itself. Shrinking and shrinking until it will eventually only be big enough for him. Mix this with the gravitational pull of the shrinking planet sucking Ranx the Sentient City ever closer to the surface. Disaster is sure to take place. One of these teams desperately needs to win this match before both of them are destroyed along with the planet. For a short time the teams even considered working together to undo the work of the Joker. The Leader began to develop a plan; but all of the sudden developed a pair of demented smiley faces on his corpse. One on his mouth and one on his large brain. This eventually led to Darkseid murdering his own teammate Emperor Joker in an attempt to stop the madness from destroying their own team as well; but the damage could not be undone.

Owl Man and Talon are ripping up the already ripped up streets in their souped up 1980 Mustang when it comes to an abrupt halt. The Super Villains see a man with a red helmet standing before then who is effortlessly overriding the horsepower pumping through the car's motor. They reach for their utility belts; but before they can, Magneto uses his powers to lift the car into the air and crush Owlman and Talon inside.

The Blob stands strong as Ursa flies in fast and hits him with a building leveling punch. The Kryptonian seems shocked to see the seemingly out of shape mutant take a hit from her. She tries a few more times but is unsuccessful. Ursa then takes back to the air and sends as much heat vision as she can muster directly into the blob. When the flash of light subsides, only a burnt form remains where the Blob once was. As dead as the mutant is, at least he didn't move.

The Comedian was about to say something really funny, but before he could; General Zod smashed in his face.

Ultraman and Superwoman enter the scene with an arrogance that they have never had a problem backing up against their opponents. Superwoman takes flight at the sight of Gothmog; but fails to evade the sting of his fiery whip. He uses it to grab a hold of the evil version of Wonder Woman, who is unable to break free. He then uses his massive black axe to obliterate her. Ultraman starts flying around all ultra-like when Azula jumps in and starts firebending like cray-cray. And then some other stuff happened and Azula won the fight VERY EASILY. Now, I hope you are all paying attention, because Josh just had a Kryptonian lose to an Avatar character. So don't hate on my Anime knowledge.

Rage looked a lot tougher back when his head was still attached to his body, Axe Cop fixed that for him though.

Ragnarok's hammer may not be a true Asgardian fixture; but it did seem to work for caving in the skull of Wonder Girl.

There isn't much water left on the self-destructing Playoff Planet; so after Aquaman came to shore he met with Greta Thunberg to see what they could do about fixing the Changing Climate. “HOW DARE YOU EMPEROR JOKER” they proclaimed in unison. Greta spoke first to the teary eyed crowd; but when Aquaman took the stage, he was shot in the neck by an arrow from Legolas. As Legolas left to join the fight, the Social Justice Warriors took to Twitter to demand he be CANCELLED immediately. Luckily Elves don't have smart phones.

Speaking of woke culture, Batman and Catwoman of Earth 2 team up with Batwing; but Batwing and Catwoman all of the sudden decide that they can't handle taking orders from a white man. Batman goes off and disappears into obscurity a victim of his own depression and anxiety, while Catwoman and Batwing go get a house in the city and begin urban farming for an LGBTQ+ Collective Commune. They are unfortunately both killed later in a home invasion after the police were defunded.

Baron Mordo should have an edge over Non, due to the Kryptonian susceptibility to magic; but before we can see that play out, Non delivers a flying face kick to Baron Mordo that sends him back to Transylvania.

The Incredibles have certainly lost their friendly and playful edge after the atrocities they have witnessed during this last FFL Season. With the women folk from their team dead, Mr. Incredible and his team are Hellbent on having revenge and have taken to a fierce training regiment to insure it. As the Capt. Marvel family gets together to formulate a plan, they are hit by a sneak attack from the remaining Incredibles. Fro-Zone, Dash, and Jack-Jack savagely light up the room of Shazam sidekicks while even Shazam finds himself overpowered and strangled my Mr. Incredible.

Capt. America doesn't believe in using deadly force; but he makes an exception when he sees his old buddy Baron Zemo out of the corner of his eye. The only good Nazi is a dead Nazi Cap says to himself as he sends a well placed shield into the neck of Zemo.

Liu Kang has a good sparring match with the Honored Matre; but makes fairly short work of her. The two Scorpions (Marvel and Mortal Kombat) team up and deliver quite a sting to the much larger Giant Hammer Bros.

Wonder Woman and Wolverine are locked in an epic melee battle and have been for some time. We shall return to that later.

Magneto is one of my favorite characters of all time, and I really wanted him to blow up in this match; but I don't see any metal characters anywhere. So, instead he got his head punched off by Dark Supergirl.

Power Ring and Johnny Quick are the last two members of the Injustice League, but they too meet their demise at the hands of The Striders. Power Ring is taken off guard by the Force Powers of the blind; but very powerful Visas Marr, while Johnny Quick wasn't quite fast enough to get away from the large maw of Nazgul #2's Fell Beast.

The Striders may have taken out quite a few of the Dino-Mites heavy hitters already; but they know that they haven't really began a push if they can't take out Ranx: The Sentient City. The plan they had formulated to take out the planet moving towards the Playoff Planet involved Brother Blood, Azula, and Ragnarok doing what they could to weaken the most powerful of all the Yellow Lanterns while their space vehicles did the rest; but Ranx easily absorbed the attacks of the trio, sending that power back tenfold killing Blood, Ragnarok, and Azula with ease. Yondu now knows that this mission has been dropped upon him..... Yondu flies in the lead in his TIE Silencer with Kraglin and IG Bounty Hunter flanking him in standard attack pattern in their X-Wings. Their strafing runs are doing next to no damage; so they begin to execute one last ditch effort to give their team the chance they need to take it all the way to The Universe Bowl. IGBH locks on to the strongest power source within Ranx and takes one for the team by crashing his X-Wing into the exact location after arming all 4 advanced missiles and both Proton Torpedoes. Once the crash hit, IGBH activated his self-destruct mechanism for an extra bang. With this damaging diversion, Yondu and Kraglin fire everything their ships have and lock onto the source of Yondu's arrow which the blue pirate directs with his whistling into the heart of Ranx blowing him up from the inside.

Darkseid, despite all of his wisdom and power is beginning to grow nervous by the push of The Striders. He thought his opponent's team was weakened, he thought they were on their last leg. Little did he know that that last leg was so sturdy. As leader of the Dino-Mites, Darkseid has been trying to get the Deputy Lanterns to lead the charge against The Striders; but they refuse to work as a team and are not as impressive today as he had hoped. With these thoughts going through his head, Darkseid witnesses Gandalf: Empowered by his unified lantern power in the White Ring strike down Yellow Lantern Scarecrow. As the ring leaves the body of Scarecrow and begins to search out its next wielder, Darkseid snatches the ring out of the air and puts it on his own finger. Darkseid uses the ring to communicate to the other Lanterns telling them he has come up with an excellent plan to unify their powers and win the battle. The Lanterns all meet with him in a safe position in what was once the desert and await the plan. Darkseid walks up slowly and peacefully, with his hench(wo)man Dark Supergirl at his side. He then apologizes for their own inability to unite and for he, finding out how easy it was via Emperor Joker to kill his own teammates when they got in the way. With these final words, Darkseid hits the Deputy Lanterns with a continuous stream of Omega Beam killing them all. Darkseid and Dark Supergirl then quickly collect the rings before they can fly away and Darkseid greedily puts them all on his right hand forming a giant glove of pure energy (kind of like a Gauntlet.... (What?!!? (I just thought DC should copy off Marvel for once))).

General Zod, unaware of Darkseid's plan is wondering what is becoming of his team. But this does not stop he and Ursa from flying in fast and taking Yondu and Kraglin out of the sky by rocketing through their respective ships after they reentered the Playoff Planet atmosphere fresh off their victory over Ranx. From their the two Kryptonians attempt to aid Wonder Woman who has had her pitched battle against Wolverine disrupted by Visas Marr who has recently joined the fight on Wolverine's side. Ursa first has her heat vision blocked by the lightsaber of Visas, but is then destroyed by the freeze breath of Zod. Wolverine is then triple teamed by three extremely strong fighters in Wonder Woman, Ursa, and Zod but they find themselves amazed at how difficult he is to kill. Wolverine's berserker rage is fueled by his red ring as he sticks his left claws into the chest of Ursa and is able to use the right to slice through her neck despite the hardened Kryptonian skin. Ursa falls; but Zod and Wonder Woman find a way to get past his healing factor as they manage to each grab a hold of Wolverine and pull until he is ripped in half at the torso. They then throw his pieces to opposite sides of the continent.

Nazgul #2 is flying through the air atop his Fell Beast when they are surprise attacked by a flying T-Rex and a lunatic on top of it. Axe Cop leaps off the top of Wexler and chops the head off of the Fell Beast, while Wexler bites the Nazgul in half. Wexler then catches Axe Cop before he hits the ground.

Cap and The Gladiator square off in an incredible battle of melee combat, but the Gladiator is never able to land a sword blow on Cap. The Gladiator, thinking that Cap had thrown away his only defense had his sword knocked from his hand when Cap's shield made the return trip to its owner's hand. Cap was then able to knock him to the ground and put a leglock on his neck to finish him off. Cap stands up to see a frightened Samwise Gamgee ready to fight with his dagger in one hand and cast iron pot in the other. The two blue lanterns nod as they begin to do battle. “You are noble indeed little one; but I do not think you have the skill to defeat me”.

Sam retorts: “I never thought I could beat you Cap. I was just hoping I could”....

With those words, the two blue rings send a light so bright that it blinds Cap for a fraction of a second. When Cap regains his vision he sees Sam's dagger enter his chest.

The newly empowered Darkseid and Dark Supergirl finally rejoin the scene and immediately begin going on a killing spree. Many Striders start rallying to the cause thinking with a decent sized teamup they can take this duo out before they turn the tides of the match, but not quite enough Striders take up the call. In a whirlwind of energy projection and earth-shattering punches, Darkseid and Dark Supergirl finish off Mr. Incredible, Jack-Jack, Fro-Zone, and Dash before making short work of Spoiler, Liu Kang, and the two Scorpions. Even Samwise the brave enters the battle, but much to his dismay inadvertently charges Darkseid's green ring and suffers a massive energy blast from The Ruler of Apokolips.

As the teams begin to dwindle, the remnants of the two squads meet in the desert wasteland that is basically all that remains of the self-destructing Playoff Planet.

Ancalagon the Black swoops in from on high; but is met by Non who has no fear of the beast. The lobotomized Kyrptonian powers through the attacks of the dragon and stuns it with a wicked punch to the face. Then, with strength second only to Superman himself, Non rips the head of the dragon clean off and drops it to the ground.

Gandalf the White squares off against Zod and Wonder Woman, while the unlikely ally of the White Lantern Wizard Gothmog is taking on both Dark Supergirl and her hyper-powered liege Darkseid. Axe Cop attempts to enter the battle via the air; but Legolas takes out his flying steed with a perfectly placed arrow into the mouth of Wexler.

Zod flies in fast towards Gandalf to open the attack; but all stand back in awe as the Kryptonian General is knocked back by the magical powers of The White Lantern Wizard. Gandalf then unsheathes Glamdring which has taken on such a bright white hue that it resembles a white lightsaber and uses it to cut General Zod in half at the torso. The Balrog General Gothmog, who stood at equal rank of Sauron the Deceiver in the Evil Army of Morgoth fiercely takes on both Darkseid and Dark Supergirl. It takes every possible power in their large repertoire for the residents of Apokolips to finish off the builder of the Empire of Mordor.

Legolas stands behind Gandalf, ready to fight; as Darkseid, Dark Supergirl, and Non join the fight already in progress. Gandalf sends a massive blast of power towards Dark Supergirl, taking advantage of the evil she has let creep into her soul and obliterates the cousin of Kal El. Darkseid chuckles at the death of his own partner and says: “That will not work on me bearded one. I am no Kryptonian. I have no such susceptibility to magic, and like you: I also wield the power of the full spectrum”.

Gandalf looks to Darkseid and says: “You were never meant to wield that power, agent of evil. And it will not work as your ally”.

The two clash in an epic battle causing blinding blasts of light to illuminate the darkened, dwindling sky. Darkseid knocks Gandalf to the ground, sending Glamdring flying from his hands and then hits The White Lantern Wizard with a volley of multi-colored power attached to his Omega Beams. A massive blast is heard and Darkseid looks to the foreground to see a massive crater before him where Gandalf once was. As the smoke clears from the crater, Darkseid is shocked to see Gandalf still standing at the bottom of it. Gandalf is glowing in a multi-colored rainbow of brightness as he grabs hold of his staff. The colors dissipate and return to pure white causing Gandalf to say: “I did not take these powers for selfish use, these powers chose me”. A blast of White energy then rockets from the staff of Gandalf leaving nothing but dust in place of Darkseid.

Such a show of force, has left Gandalf weakened; as he turns to his left to see Wonder Woman rushing towards him. The time has finally run out for the champion of The Striders as Wonder Woman stuns the Wizard by using The Sword of Light to cast Bolt 2 and attacks with it proper to run him through.

“NOOOOOOOO” is heard from the befuddled Legolas who has just witnessed shows of power that he still cannot believe. Legolas quickly avenges his friend and hits Wonder Woman with a flurry of slices from his Elven Short Swords.

Legolas, the last remaining Strider of Rohan squares off against the sophomoric, but brutally powerful Non and speaks to the Kryptonian. “Your power may exceed my own, but I stand ready to fight you. I may not wield the magic that is required to hurt you, but it flows through my Elven blood. I stand ready vile one, let us do battle”.

With these noble words still floating in the air, Legolas begins to move towards Non in attack, when he turns to a noise from behind him. “I WILL CHOP YOUR HEAD OFF”!! Is heard by the Elf, right before Axe Cop makes this act come to fruition.