Sesame, DC: The Superman at the End of This Story

[The Count]

So... Did you see the premiere this past Monday night? Got questions about the Knights of Vengeance... But I'll wait to hear from you and whenever you start up this story.

 

[muppetwriter]

Okay. Here's the moment you all have been waiting for...The first chapter!!

Chapter One​

Mac was very bright for a square-headed, precocious, eight-year-old boy that lived in the great city of Metropolis. He had been lately involved in the world of astronomy, taking occasional visits to an old observatory outside of the city and seeing a fellow by the name of Nigel, who used to be the conductor for a popular orchestra. On one night, when there were lots of stars surrounding the big moon in the sky, Mac visited Nigel as he was looking through his telescope at a particular spot in the sky.

“Hey, Nigel.” Mac said, as he entered the observatory. “How’s it going?”

“Mac,” Nigel said, “I’ve got a question for ya.”

“Uh, okay. Shoot.”

“It’s almost been three years since Superman left our world and had gone out somewhere in the vast blackness that we call ‘outer space’. Where do you think the Man of Steel went off to, Mac?” Mac thought carefully; he had been a huge fan of the Daily Planet newspaper and read (and collected) every issue printed. He remembered one issue that estimated that Superman had gone to save other planets from more destructive forces of evil.

“Superman’s just a busy guy, Nigel.” Mac replied. “His job not just requires protecting us but other worlds as well.”

“So you believe Superman might’ve fled to another planet? Mars, perhaps?” Nigel queried.

“Well, I wouldn’t say it was Mars that he might’ve gone to.” Mac told Nigel.

“So you believe that Superman could’ve possibly discovered a planet not like our own, realized there were people there that needed saving, and decided to be the protector of that world, since there’s no destructive force threatening ours.” Nigel remarked, and Mac became a little suspicious.

“Where are you getting at with this, Nigel?” Mac asked, and Nigel looked away from the telescope, jumped out of his chair, and approached Mac.

“I believe that I had discovered a new planet.” He said, and Mac had gone from being suspicious to interested.

“A new planet?!” Mac exclaimed. “In our solar system?!?!”

“Hard to believe, isn’t it?” Nigel said, as he gulped down a cup of coffee.

“You do realize that if you tell the world about this, then you’ll be branded as ‘The World’s Greatest Astronomer’, right?” Mac said. “Guinness would be on your doorstep in a heartbeat, man!!”

“I won’t be the one to tell them, Mac,” Nigel said, “You will tell them.”

“Me?!” Mac yelled. “But…But all I did was walk in and say ‘How’s it going?’.”

“Mac, you’ve been coming to this observatory long before I even decided to become an astronomer.” Nigel said. “It wouldn’t be fair if I were to hog all of the glory over something that I’d discovered only three months after I started working here.”

“And it wouldn’t be fair if I went around telling everyone about something that I didn’t even know about ‘til this very moment.” Mac contradicted. “You’ve spent three months sitting in that chair and looking up in the sky for cosmic phenomenon to tell the whole world about, while all I have been doing is avoiding wedgies from my brother, Terrance.”

“Well, if you tell the world about your latest discovery, even Terrance will learn to respect you.” Nigel assumed.

“Or criticize me in a fit of jealousy.” Mac uttered, just before he walked over to the large telescope and looked through it for a brief moment, seeing an image of the “new world” that Nigel had discovered. The planet’s appearance was strangely similar to Earth’s; the only difference was in the color—Earth contained a mixture of green and blue, while the new planet was mixed with olive and brass. “Where did it come from?”

“My guess is that it’s been there since the dawn of time.” Nigel said, and Mac seemed very puzzled.

“If it’s been there for that long, then how come no one has noticed it until now?” Mac inquired, and Nigel shrugged his shoulders in reply. “Well, let’s say if Superman did leave our planet for that one and we told everyone about it, the reaction would be anything but amazed, Nigel.” Nigel didn’t consider that possibility; but the grin on his face didn’t disappear.

“At least everyone will know where he has gone.” Nigel remarked, and Mac just shook his head.

“I don’t know, Nigel.” He said. “I don’t think the world’s ready for something this big.”

“Then don’t tell anyone.” Nigel said. “But sooner or later, people are going to start wondering again, and they’re going to ask that infamous question: ‘Where has he gone?’.” Mac sighed, feeling a little disappointed with himself for not helping Nigel. He wished there was a way to make the both of them satisfied, but there seemed to have been no possibly way to do that; unless…

“Nigel, you remember my friend Frankie Foster, right?” Mac asked, and Nigel reminded himself of who she was.

“The co-owner of that home for imaginary friends at the corner of Sesame Street?” Nigel replied, as Mac moved away from the telescope.

“Well, as of late, she’s been applying for a job at the Daily Planet, where Bob Johnson—a resident of Sesame Street—has been working for almost forty years now.” Mac mentioned. “If I were to tell Frankie about our discovery, then I’d be giving the Planet an excellent reason for hiring her.”

“Then wouldn’t she be getting all of the credit?” Nigel asked.

“Hey, if she does, then she deserves it, considering all of the work that she’ll be putting at both Foster’s and the Planet.” Mac said, and Nigel nodded, with a smile.

“You are a very bright young man, Mac.” Nigel said. “It’s just too bad that I won’t be around any longer to see how far your intelligence will take you.”

“What do you mean?” Mac said, a little concerned.

“The city’s going to be tearing down this observatory in a week,” Nigel said, “And they’re expecting me to leave within that timeframe.” Mac couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“They can’t do that!” He exclaimed, angrily. “Do they even realize what this place means to everyone?!”

“This place means a lot to you, Mac.” Nigel said. “The city would care less about how long it has stood and what it means to science.”

“I’m going to start a petition!” Mac declared. “Metropolis is not going to get away with such an unruly act!” Nigel just smiled at the furious eight-year-old, as he came up to him and put his hands on his shoulders, calming Mac down.

“Don’t try and become a superman yourself, Mac.” Nigel advised. “You read the Daily Planet, and you know how the world feels about such a character.”

“Yeah, I know.” Mac said, sadly. “‘Metropolis and the rest of the world no longer needs a savior, now that our hero has left’—Lois Lane, in a issue of the Planet that was printed in 2004.”

“You were only six when you read that issue.” Nigel indicated.

“And I cried when my favorite reporter on the team, Clark Kent, had gone back to his hometown of Smallville and left the staff for an unknown period of time.” Mac said. “There are people in the world that are upset that Superman has vanished, wondering where he went off to; but I’m probably the only person that’s concerned where Mr. Kent has gone. I mean, who just leaves the biggest metropolitan newspaper in the world, without telling anyone where he’s going or how long he’ll be there?”

“Clark Kent’s just a busy guy, Mac.” Nigel said. “He’s probably got more going on outside the paper than he does inside.”

“Superman is a busy guy, and it’s obvious enough that Clark Kent’s no Superman,” Mac contradicted, “So there’s no reason for a great reporter like him, who’s still in his prime, to just retire from journalism like that.”

“Have you asked Bob Johnson where he could’ve gone?” Nigel queried.

“He was too concerned about Superman’s disappearance to worry about Mr. Kent’s.” Mac replied. “I begged Frankie several times if she could investigate his disappearance, as soon as she got hired; but even she felt that her future job was more important than some mild-mannered reporter.”

“She’ll agree to the investigation, now that you have plausible information on Superman’s whereabouts.” Nigel said.

“Now that I know what this city’s gonna be doing to this observatory, I’m going to keep the information about the new planet to myself.” Mac stated, with a great deal of hatred in him. “The people of the city are already up to their necks with confidence, since they’ve learned to accept a world without Superman. Telling them that we have a secret world in our solar system will only make them more power-crazed than Lex Luthor himself.” And with that being said, Mac followed it with a small grin on his face. “Besides, who’ll believe an eight-year-old anyway?”

“You got me there, Mac.” Nigel said, as he picked up a brown suitcase and started making his way towards the exit. “Well, the next time you’ll hear from me, I’ll be orchestrating one of the finest symphonies since John Williams’s London Symphony Orchestra.” Mac noticed how Nigel was leaving before him and couldn’t help but to feel a little uncertain.

“Aren’t you going to wait ‘til I’m done scouting the stars?” He asked Nigel.

“No one cares to break into an old, beat-up observatory, Mac.” Nigel said. “Just leave the door open when you’re finished.” As Nigel left the building, Mac just shook his head in despair; he really wished there was something he could do to change the way Metropolis felt about the observatory. But little Mac knew that doing that would’ve been more impossible than talking Superman into coming back to Earth.

When it was close to ten o’clock, Mac started to leave the observatory for the last time ever, but stopped once he had discovered that one of the drawers in a nearby desk had been left open. Curious, he looked in the drawer and found some folders that contained documents that were as old as the observatory itself was. Looking through each of them, Mac had discovered notes that had been taken many years ago, involving the mysterious planet that he and Nigel came across that night. It suddenly hit Mac that there was a possibility that they weren’t the first people to find out about it.

Mac wondered if Nigel discovered those documents or not, as he quickly flipped through them. He noticed how detailed the documents were, going into things like whether the planet orbits around the sun, moon, Earth, or any other planets in the system and how long had it been there. But then Mac scanned through the very last folder and read some documents that just had puzzling questions, instead of heavy details. There was only one statement that Mac found in the whole document, explaining some bizarre occurrence that the planet had gone through. The statement read, “It was like some kind of strange eclipse, as the planet was covered by a huge shadow.” That statement was followed by the last question that had been written into the document, and it read, “Why has the planet suddenly reappeared after twenty years?”

Mac looked at the date that the last question was written on and realized that it was written only a year before Nigel took over the observatory, which meant that there was no possible way he could’ve taken those notes. What really made the notes so mysterious to Mac was that some of them were written at a time when he was visiting the observatory, yet he never met the person that worked there. The eight-year-old could only determine that the observatory worker that he never met was the one that wrote the notes. And before he placed all of the folders into his backpack, he wrote a question underneath the last one in the final document that had read, “Who documented all of this?”

END OF CHAPTER ONE​

 

[muppetwriter]

So... Did you see the premiere this past Monday night? Got questions about the Knights of Vengeance... But I'll wait to hear from you and whenever you start up this story.

Yeah, I saw it (and I recorded it, too). It was pretty awesome.

A lot of great ideas popped in my head as I watched the episode, and it's funny how much Nerissa (the new villain of Season 2) reminded me so much of General Zod, freeing the most wicked characters in Meridian for some type of rebellion against the Guardians. It's going to be almost impossible to connect this story with the show's new season, unless I just change the continuity around.

And I got questions about the Knights of Vengeance (who were named the "Knights of Revenge" in the comics) myself. If the group is as dangerous as the Skeksis from The Dark Crystal, then be ready for a chilling side-story to Superman Returns in this fanfic.

But for now, I've set up an intriguing mystery that will lead Mac to an adventure bigger than what Bloo could offer in the "Big Fat Awesome House Party".

 

[The Count]

Ah... So you've been playing their summer online game then. Frankly, I prefered last year's summer preview. And maybe you can save that WITCH story for a possible Sesame/Superman sequel? Just some friendly suggestions.

Liked this chapter, what with Mac meeting Nigel, the Orchestra Conductor from TMS.
In future chapters, you might want to refer to Bob either as just "Bob" or by his full name "Bob McGrath".
And it looks like you've got an intriguing lead-in to the next chapter.

 

[muppetwriter]

Ah... So you've been playing their summer online game then. Frankly, I prefered last year's summer preview. And maybe you can save that WITCH story for a possible Sesame/Superman sequel? Just some friendly suggestions.

Liked this chapter, what with Mac meeting Nigel, the Orchestra Conductor from TMS.
In future chapters, you might want to refer to Bob either as just "Bob" or by his full name "Bob McGrath".
And it looks like you've got an intriguing lead-in to the next chapter.

Do they use Bob's real name on the show? I thought I read on the "Muppet Wikia" site that his character name is "Bob Johnson".

I have been playing Cartoon Network's summer game online, and it is really fun. It's kind of annoying that you have to do all of the chores and favors to gain Citizenship and Popularity points to open minigames and go on adventures with Bloo. But it's really fun to interact with characters like Wilt, Frankie, Eduardo, Mac, or Mr. Herriman.

As far as the W.I.T.C.H. story goes, I might have to wait and watch a few more of the episodes of Season 2 before I start connecting them with this story or future ones. So, I guess I'll go back to putting Scooby-Doo characters into the story and having Velma Dinkley be Mac's cousin. This might be an interesting concept, seeing as how Grey Delisle (the voice of Frankie Foster) also voices Daphne Blake from What's New, Scooby-Doo? and a handful of SD movies.

 

[The Count]

Ah... You might want to mention that V/A to Xerus. Frankly, my problem with current Scooby-Doo is that you can hardly tell which voice is Daphne and which is Velma. Coincidentally, her name in Spanish is constantly bungled.
Oh, and you should check out the Creatus Maximus forum, Ken just posted a thread in the POOP section about Muppet Legends you might like.

 

[muppetwriter]

Oh, and you should check out the Creatus Maximus forum, Ken just posted a thread in the POOP section about Muppet Legends you might like.

Pepe as The Punisher?!?! Now there's an interesting idea.

I love all of the ideas that was posted in that thread, especially the "Kermit the Frog as Spiderman" one, because most of the Muppets in my "MARVELOUS Muppets" series play the role of counterparts to the Marvel Heroes. The way Ken connected the two characters by their personalities was brilliant.

I'd always thought of Sam the Eagle being a Muppet version of Captain America (and vice versa), and Gonzo would be a perfect Daredevil, not just because he's a professional one but he looks like the type that could go into law. And I came real close to having Animal be an X-Muppet in the recent X-Men/Muppets story, playing as a counterpart to Wolverine.

And, BTW, "Statler as Magneto" isn't a bad idea, seeing as how Erik Lehnsherr is a very cranky old man himself.

 

[muppetwriter]

I'm sorry if I'm delaying in getting another chapter in, but a lot of ideas have been running through my mind. One thing that I've changed my mind on is the W.I.T.C.H. story; I'm going back to it, but still leaving the Scooby characters in.

I've been watching the Disney Channel a lot lately and noticed how they've got something called the "DC Games" that's happening over the summer. I even told my brother that this seems like trademark infringement on Disney's behalf, using Detective Comics' initials in an illegal way, until I realized that those are actually the network's initials also.

Little did I know that it would give me an idea for this story (or possibly this entire series that I'm setting up). It may be a little wacky, but I'm sure that I can make it work.

Also, I know the title of the series is "Sesame, DC", but I think it's only fair to still give all of the original Muppets (and not just Kermit) some roles in the series.

 

[The Count]

Yeah... Disney's known as TDC, though I rully don't watch it that much these days... Stickin' to Toon Disney instead.
BTW: It's best to refer to Bob from SS as just Bob or by his full actor name, Bob McGrath. Bryan (Bear) had a thread up with the full character names of SS human castmates, and Bob and Linda's were the same as their actor names.
Hope this helps and sorry I didn't answer that sooner.

 

[muppetwriter]

Yeah... Disney's known as TDC, though I rully don't watch it that much these days... Stickin' to Toon Disney instead.
BTW: It's best to refer to Bob from SS as just Bob or by his full actor name, Bob McGrath. Bryan (Bear) had a thread up with the full character names of SS human castmates, and Bob and Linda's were the same as their actor names.
Hope this helps and sorry I didn't answer that sooner.

Thanks, Count. And it's okay that you didn't answer sooner. We both have been really busy lately.

And as for the Disney Channel, I don't know what's up with the "DC Games", but I believe this is the perfect opportunity to familiar myself with a number of Disney characters, before I restart that "Muppets of the Caribbean" series I'm doing after this story.