Most times, someone from the Legion of Light, Lords of Justice, Men of Might or Super Squad stop him. This particular night about five years ago, it was I, the amazing InfraRed, who had the misfortune to happen upon MegaloLord.

As far as evil plans go, this wasn’t Megalo’s craftiest. He was standing in the middle of Central Avenue and blowing up cars with his chest missile. He was talking, too – boy, these villains love to talk – something about taking over Centerville first, then the world. Seemed like a jump to me.

Anyway, I zapped myself to the scene and fired two eye lasers right in the big guy’s gut.

It was a beautiful sight. My lasers actually knocked this metal-encased monster on his ass!

Then he got up.

Trouble.

He hit me with one of his metal fists. Hard.

Ever get hit with a metal fist? It ain’t fun. Actually, it hurts like a son-of-a-bitch.

Mean ol’ Megalo knocked me clear out of the downtown business district. Man, I ended up in Uptown, on top of a submarine sandwich place.

I found out something that night, something very important: I don’t like to get hit.

That pretty much ended the rushing-off-to-danger phase of my superhero career. With my jaw aching, I ditched my costume in a dumpster filled with old hoagie buns, and ran home. It was the last time I ever tangled with a supervillain, the last time anyone ever saw InfraRed.

Call me a coward? I don’t care. I couldn’t chew for a week-and-a-half after that meeting with MegaloLord’s fist. I lost nine pounds. You wanna’ tangle with metal monsters from some other world? Go get your own powers. Me, I decided to follow a different path.

 Long story short, that path led me right here, to Mr. Chubby’s. Mr. Chubby joints all over the city, actually. Weiner Lou’s, too, and Burger Lords, Electronic Closets and and CompuTowns. All of ‘em. Making jerks lose their pants.

Not much valor in that? Well, as I was biting into my sandwich, the girls and the cooks were still laughing behind me. Those pantsed jerk-offs weren’t laughing at them anymore.
I caused that.

That’s worth something, right?

Things got bad after that.

Right after that.

I was daydreaming out the window when I saw Red Champion fly by.

Actually, that’s not right. He was flying, sure, but not of his own free will. He was sort of tumbling through the air, and he landed hard against the donut shop across the street, smashing through its window. A crowd of people sporting powdered-sugar mustaches poured onto the street once that happened. A few of them even left their mochas behind.

My diet Coke started shaking then. My twisty fries, too. I set my hands down on the table. It was vibrating.

Uh-oh. Red Champion tossed through a window, vibrating tables and shaking soft drinks? That could only mean one thing: Sound Wave.

Sound Wave was Red Champion’s mortal enemy, and the master of sound. He had this extremely annoying ability to turn ordinary sound waves into deadly weapons. He could point his hands at a building and knock it to the ground. He could aim a pinky at a car and instantly shut off its engine. He could aim his pointy nose at the city’s top superhero and send him flying through the window of a donut shop.

And when Sound Wave walked, the entire earth shook, something about the vibrations coming from his boots.

I grabbed for my drink, but it was too late; It toppled over, spilling soda over the rest of my curly fries.

Bad news. I hadn’t even eaten half of them yet.

Sound Wave stomped past the Mr. Chubby’s. As he did, the restaurant’s windows shattered. The staff behind me scrammed. The three other customers did the same. Some poor guy in the bathroom peeked out then slammed the door shut again.

And me? I managed to save my cheddar from my spilled drink, at least.

It’s not that I didn’t care that a supervillain was marching down the street, or that a beloved hero was still spitting glass out of his teeth. But I knew how this thing worked: Red Champion would get up, say something bold and then beat the tar out of Sound Wave. That’s just how it went. Red Champion never lost. Ever. His career record stood at something like 1 million wins against zero losses. If they had a superhero hall of fame, he’d get his own wing.