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Web Gumbo provides a great picture of his unit mascot. You might wonder what a Marine mascot does. Deliver pep talks? Rally the fans? Please.

Agent Orange, our mutated alligator, says that “it’s not surprising that they turned to an alligator when they needed someone to scare and bond with Marines. Here you can see the gator playing Marco Polo with a Marine that is obviously enjoying the gator’s friendly and sociable company.”

Lash retorts retorts that “if the guy’s actually enjoying anything, it’s probably the thought that he will soon not be dangling over a watery grave.”

Captain Carnage: The assassins have bugged your car with a tracking device. Driving it could be highly dangerous, particularly if you believe really strongly in that whole no-killing thing.

Lash: …

Lash: What do you have in mind?

Carnage: If you lend me your keys for the day, I have someone in mind whose skills will discourage anyone from tailing you ever again.

Lash nervously hands over his BMW keys.

The next morning, a smoking and sooty Agent Orange approaches Lash.

Lash: Dear God. You were the driver? Do you even have a license?

Agent Orange: I have good news, bad news and worse news. Which would you like first?

Lash: … there’s bad news besides learning you were the driver?

Lash: …

Agent Orange: You definitely won’t save a bunch on your car insurance.

Lash: The worse news?

Agent Orange: It won’t be an open-casket funeral.

Lash: …

Lash: Dare I ask what the good news is?

Agent Orange: Captain Carnage bet that open-road road tests are so easy that even I could pass one. I sure showed him! Hah. He didn’t even know that alligators are green-red colorblind!

Later, Lash confronts Captain Carnage.

Lash: You handed my BMW over to a goddamn lizard.

Carnage: It proved surprisingly easy to determine who was attempting to follow his… unorthodox driving style. We made four arrests. So his skills proved quite effective.

Lash: Which “skills?” I’ve definitely ruled out anything driving-related.

Carnage: Limb-regeneration and gullibility.

Lash: Gullibility?

Carnage: Did you know license tests occur on country roads in the middle of the night and are graded by SWAT officers in helicopters?

Lash: …

Lash: I hate you.

The Kind of, Not Really Ending of Superhero Nation

Note: this is not canonical. I’m experimenting with possible endings to the novel and this is one of them.

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Captain Carnage: That’s dumb as asking a hog to hootenanny.

Lash: One, we know you aren’t really Texan. Two, no one has a clue what the hell you’re saying.

Captain Carnage, translating: “That’s as dumb as getting advice on napalm from Joann Fabric.”

Agent Orange: Can you hotwire that car?

Lash: No, jackass. I’m a Harvard MBA. And there is no way you would ask a white…

Agent Orange: You went to Harvard, boohoohoo. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re devoid of useful knowledge. Excuse me for hoping otherwise.

Doctor Savant: “Do you know what the difference between you and I is?”

Lash: “I make this look good?”

Doctor Savant: “A Ph. D and 200 I.Q. points.”

The Refrigerator of DOOM

Doctor Savant: “Before we open my refrigerator, you better take this.”

Lash: “What the hell, a flame thrower?”

Doctor Savant: “Just in case.”

Lash: “Just in case of what?”

Doctor Savant: “Exactly.”

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