Titans of Justice Unlimited Chapter 14 – “Guest List Part 2”
Written by: Power Guy
Various Artists: Stranger, Christophe, Argos and Marcus Mebes
Edited by: Green Lantern



Professor Ivo’s Secret Lair…

After over an hour, the machines connected to the tubes housing the captive Titans of Justice finally shut down.

“Ugh...I feel like I just swam across the Atlantic Ocean twice,” sighed Whirlpool in exhaustion.

“I feel like I’ve circled the globe about seven times,” the Flash said, leaning against the side of her tube.

Sonic Boom looked over at Green Lantern who was holding his head. “Lantern? Are you having one of your headaches?”

“Yes,” answered the green guardian. “I haven’t had one like this since we were in the Universe of Evil. I can barely focus.”

“Whatever that creep, Ivo did to us seems to have left all of us drained,” observed Sonic Boom. “Even Power Guy and Wonder Man look like they’re ready to pass out.”

Then to everyone’s surprise, all of the tubes containing the Titans mysteriously opened.

Though barely able to run at the speed of sound, the Flash raced around the room and pulled her teammates out of the former prisons. After the last Titan was rescued, she commented, “I’m not sure if this is Ivo’s idea of a joke or maybe the tubes malfunctioned once the machines stopped running. Either way, I’m not about to let this golden opportunity slip by.”

Sonic Boom approached Green Lantern, “Lantern, I have some Tylenol for you. Can you focus enough to make a glass of water?”

“Yes,” sighed Green Lantern as he clenched his fist and honored Sonic Boom’s request. He downed the medication without haste. “Thank you,” he smiled.

Power Guy approached Sargona, “Forgive me Sargona, but you look like a wreck. How are you doing?”

“Well let’s see, I’ve been captured by a super-villain, drained to the point of exhaustion, and I just found out that my mother, whom I thought was dead, has been keeping her identity a secret from me for years,” complained the daughter of Sargon. “Needless to say, I’m just wonderful right now,” she sarcastically spat. After a few seconds of awkward silence, Sargona realized how rudely she was acting. “I’m sorry, PG, I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. I’m just a bit upset right now.”

Power Guy put his arm around the raven-haired beauty, “Don’t worry about it, Sar. Once we take care of Ivo, we’ll get to the bottom of this mess with Zatanna.”

Dark Arrow then walked over to the conversing duo, “Hey Power Guy, any chance you could get your hands off of my date?” he smirked.

Power Guy quickly removed his arm and looked at both Sargona and Dark Arrow confused, “You two are a couple?”

“Well, he’s supposed to take me out for Italian when we both have a night off,” replied Sargona, “We’ll see how he behaves…” teased the spunky mage.

“Guys, I don’t mean to be pushy,” interrupted Nucleus, “but I suggest we get out of here while we still can. If my hunch is right, Ivo has created some sort of Amazo 2.0.”

Suddenly, the door to the room opened revealing Professor Ivo standing with an arrogant look on his face.

“Don’t be dashing off so quickly. I want you to see the results of our combined efforts,” he said as he entered the room, followed by a tall, buff android.

“Nucleus was right!” exclaimed Wonder Man, “That thing has a duplicate of my lasso!”

“Any my ruby!” shouted Sargona.

“Plus GL’s power-ring, the Hawk’s mace, and I’m guessing all of our various skills and abilities,” assumed Nucleus, pointing at Ivo’s latest creation.

“Not to worry, I’m just about back up to full-strength,” revealed Power Guy, “I’ll take that thing out before he even realizes what he can do!” he said, flying at the android. Before he could reach him, he bounced off a green force field.

“Idiot,” snickered Professor Ivo, “Fantasto here is no simpleton. I programmed him with more than enough intelligence to comprehend his vast abilities. Just as most of you are the children of the original Justice League, he is the son of their greatest adversary. Destroy them!!!!!” he ordered the android.

“Uh uh, shows over before it gets started,” countered Powerstorm as he created six-inch thick chains that wrapped themselves around Fantasto.

Green Lantern quickly followed suit by encasing the evil android in one of his famous power-spheres.

A burst of fire like energy emerged from Fantasto’s hands, morphing his chains into toilet paper. He then tore them off effortlessly.

“What the heck???” exclaimed Powerstorm in disbelief.

“Fool! He has all of your powers!” cackled Ivo.

“He can’t transmute my power-bubble, Ivo!” Green Lantern said sternly.

“He won’t need to,” countered the disfigured villain.

Suddenly, Fantasto opened his mouth and let out his version of Sonic Boom’s “Canary Cry”. The piercing sound shot through Green Lantern’s skull, further irritating his headache and causing his power-bubble to dissipate.

“Lantern!” screamed Sonic Boom, as she caught the falling green guardian.

“The special earplugs we all wear to protect ourselves from your cry didn’t work against his,” revealed the son of Hal Jordan.

“Yeah, we noticed,” Dark Arrow agreed, rubbing his ears. “Needless to say, let’s light him up team!” he said, firing three arrows at the villainous “son” of Amazo.

The rest of the team followed suit. Huntress threw an exploding Batarang, Powerstorm let loose an atomic blast, Green Lantern shot an emerald beam from his power-ring, while Power Guy fired his heat-vision. What came next surprised everyone in the room. The female Martian released a blasé of flames from her hands and directed them at the android.

“A Martian with fire powers?” Nucleus wondered aloud, “That’s simply amazing.”

The various forms of attack all struck around the same place, causing a minor explosion. Once the smoke had cleared, Fantasto was nowhere to be seen.

“What happened?” asked Whirlpool.

Then without notice, powerful blows struck several of the Titans, seemingly out of nowhere.

“Guys!” shouted the Flash, “It’s Fantasto. He’s racing around the room at super-speed so you can’t see him.”

“Nark!” accused Fantasto as he got in the Flash’s face,

“Psycho!” shouted a defiant Flash as she began to pummel Fantasto relentlessly. The speed of the blows struck Fantasto hard. While he had the Flash’s speed, he did not have her functionality with it quite yet.

Taking advantage of the villain’s distraction, Wonder Man threw his magic-lasso around him. “It’s over Fantasto. I’m going to keep pulling until you snap in half!” threatened the male Amazon.

As the pressure started to overwhelm the android, he called on the stretching powers he gained from Offspring and slithered his way out of the silvery rope he was bound in. He then stretched out his arms and grabbed both Wonder Man and the Flash and slammed their bodies together, knocking them both into a state of unconsciousness.

Whirlpool was feeling a bit ineffective out of water but then he noticed some pipes above. “I think I see my ace card up,” he said as he leaped up and grabbed a pipe. With his Atlantean might he broke one of the pipes open, releasing the flow of water inside. With a wry smile on his face he directed the powerful stream at Fantasto in an effort to flood his circuits.

Professor Ivo’s latest creation soon found himself completely surrounded by the water and no matter how hard he tried to pull free, Whirlpool’s control over the water kept him trapped.

Whirlpool kept straining his abilities, trying to push the water through Fantasto’s protective shell. Just when he thought he was going to break through, Fantasto used Powerstorm’s matter transmutation powers and all of the water vanished into the form of oxygen.

“Whelp!” growled Fanstato as he fired a beam of heat-vision at Whirlpool with the intention of burning his skin.

Fortunately for Whirlpool, Atmosphere came to his rescue and blasted Fantasto with a whirlwind. “You want to play with air, pimp-daddy, here you go!” The powerful cyclone slammed Fantasto face-first into a wall.

“We’ve got to come up with a plan to defeat him,” stressed Nucleus.

“Huntress and I will buy you some time!” advised Sonic Boom as she and the Huntress confronted the recovering Fantasto and used a series of martial arts moves to keep him distracted and disoriented.

“The Birds of Prey are doing a great job keeping him busy but we’ve got to come up with something or we’re all toast,” Nucleus said in frustration.

“Well, there’s always being direct,” Hawkgirl growled as she and Strato Hawk threw their maces at Fantasto.

“Huntress! Sonic Boom! Duck!” ordered Strato Hawk.

The two Nth Metal maces struck the sinister android in the head. The brunt of their blows was so fierce that it tore away some of his fake skin, revealing his robotic nature.

Becoming highly irritated Fantasto declared, “I’m growing tired of this game. It’s time to end it!” Then he slammed his fists together and used Powerstorm’s abilities to create a massive explosion directed at the Titans.

Power Guy and Green Lantern raced to the front of the team, knowing they could stand more of the blast than the rest of their teammates but even they were not powerful enough to remain unscathed. Within seconds, the entire team was down and out.

“Gather them up!” ordered Ivo. “We’re going to kill them execution style.”

“But why, master?” asked Fantasto, confused.

“Because we’re going to have the whole world watching!” Ivo grinned sinisterly. “I will pay back these Titans for killing your ‘father’ and after many long years, I will finally have my revenge on the damnable Justice League of America for disfiguring me!!! Hahahahaha!!!!!!!”

Before Ivo could continue to revel in his sick plan, a Boom Tube opened with several other Titans pouring out: Nightvision, Argos (along with Sturmer), Black Vulcan, the White Wraith, Totem, Starman, and the Arachnid.

“Looks like you’re going to have to wait a little longer to have your revenge, Ivo,” shouted Nightvision as he threw a Bat-rope around the hideous villain, binding him tight. “I must say you made a smart move in disabling all of the Titans signal devices so we couldn’t track them here but the Bat-family always has a back-up.” He said this in reference to the special locater chip inside one of the Huntress’ teeth. “It didn’t take me too long to figure out where your hideout was and thanks to Argos’ Boom Tube, the trip took mere seconds.”

Just then the new arrivals noticed Fantasto.

“What the heck is that thing?” the Arachnid wondered aloud.

Professor Ivo smiled and delighted in answering the question, “That, my boy, is my greatest creation to date and the key to your demise. Fantasto, destroy these fools!”

Fantasto flew towards the Titans with amazing speed. Argos decided to meet the android head-on. The two powerhouses collided with an impact that shook the room.

“This bag of bolts is no match for the son of Orion!” Argos said, savagely pummeling the android.

Fantasto counter-attacked with the strength of Power Guy and the speed of the Flash. Between the use of these two powers, Argos barely knew what was hitting him. Before he even saw it coming, he received a powerful blow to the face that knocked him halfway across the room. Strumer quickly became enraged by the harm done to his master and he jumped on Fantasto like he was a raw piece of meat.

“Kill Sturmer, KILL!” Argos shouted from the other side of the room.

The hound was prepared to follow his master’s orders and wrapped his immense mouth around the android’s head. Biting down with his sharp teeth, he ripped its head off, chewed on it for a bit, and then spit it across the room.

The Arachnid soiled himself at the site. He then whispered to Starman, “Uhh…Spaceman, remind me to NEVER go near that dog again.”

Just when it seemed that Sturmer was about to be declared victor over the son of Amazo, the android’s head seemingly grew back right before everyone’s eyes.

With a miserable scowl on his face, Fantasto furiously fired a beam of heat-vision at the large hound, burning his chest.

Sturmer fell off of Fantasto and curled up in a fetal-like position, whimpering and trying to lick his searing wound.

“We’ve already wasted enough time here,” advised Nightvision. “Titans! Take him down fast and hard!”

The Arachnid came up from behind Fantasto and slammed him in the back with all of his might while Starman stood in front of him and blasted him with his Cosmic Rod at full force.

Black Vulcan and Totem joined in. Black Vulcan’s hands lit up as she discharged a crackling lightning bolt, which hit Fantasto head-on. “How do you like having your circuits fried, you walking erector-set?”

Once Black Vulcan was done, Totem called on the strength of a gorilla and body-slammed Fantasto into the ground. She then harnessed the weight of a hippopotamus in hopes of keeping him down. Fantasto threw her off with ease and arose with the intent to kill all in the room, save Ivo.

The White Wraith faced Fantasto courageously. He used his telekinesis to summon various objects in the room and launched them at the latest creation of Professor Ivo. The various objects hit Fantasto with the fierceness of a machine gun, yet it was not enough to stop his rampage. He flew directly towards the White Wraith, ready to claim his first casualty. But the White Wraith saw Fantasto coming and dematerialized himself in the nick of time, sending Fantasto crashing into the wall.

While most of the newcomers were engaged in battling Fantasto, Nightvision was busy trying to revive his fallen friends. “Nucleus is first,” he told himself. “Raw muscle doesn’t seem to be doing much good against Ivo’s latest menagerie. We need some kind of plan and if anyone is going to come up with it, it’s Jason!” he said as he pulled some smelling salt from his utility-belt.

The protégé of Ray Palmer was jolted awake, “Wha….huh,” he mumbled in shock.

“Wake up pal, we’ve got a huge problem on our hands,” Nightvision said to Nucleus.

“His name is Fantasto,” explained Nucleus, “and he hits like a truck.”

“From what I can see, the sixteen of you were no match for him and the six additional Titans I brought with me aren’t faring much better,” observed Nightvision. “We’re only delaying the inevitable at this point.”

“Fantasto has all of our powers,” revealed the tiny Titan. “Even Power Guy and Green Lantern don’t stand much of a chance against someone that strong but maybe they would if we could match him power for power….”

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” presumed Nightvision.

“I am. Help me awaken the others,” requested the man also known as Jason Hardwick. “Green Lantern needs to be first.”

Meanwhile, Argos and Sturmer were back on Fantasto. Sturmer was chewing on his right leg while Argos blasted him repeatedly with the Astro Force.

Fantasto grew quickly irritated by the searing blasts of the Astro Force and covered himself in a green energy bubble. After a few seconds, he turned his power-ring on the offensive and blasted Argos and Sturmer with a powerful blast of his own.

Black Vulcan and Totem decided on another strategy that they thought might stop Fantasto. Totem jumped on his back and called upon the attributes of the electric eel. She released a crackling stream of electricity through the androids body while Black Vulcan flew in front of him and let him have it with her own electrical powers.

“Hopefully our combined powers will be enough to short him out,” Black Vulcan said, cranking up the voltage.

Fantasto started to stagger for a minute but then quickly stood firm as he used his Martian abilities to turn his body into a walking lightning rod, sucking both Totem and Black Vulcan dry. Both ladies dropped to the ground from exhaustion. In spite of Totem and Black Vulcan’s failure the Titans didn’t give up. Starman, the Arachnid, and the White Wraith launched yet another attack on Ivo’s latest creation.

Nucleus watched in horror as Black Vulcan and Totem fell before Fantasto. He then turned his attention to Nightvision.

“They’re all awake,” confirmed Nightvision.

“Green Lantern, can you get Ivo’s machines working again with your ring?” Nucleus asked.

“Let me give it a shot,” smiled the Green Guardian as he fired his ring at Ivo’s machines. Within seconds, the machines started to hum with life.

“Stay away from my machines or I will certainly have Fantasto kill you all!!” threatened the evil professor.

“Listen beauty-pageant winner, you’re gonna have Mr. bolts and nuts kill us anyways, so who are you kidding?” the Flash asked sarcastically.

“What’s next?” asked Green Lantern.

“All of us need to go back into the tubes,” directed Nucleus.

“Are you crazy?” questioned Wonder Man. “We don’t need two of these Fantastos running around.”

“Yes we do, as long as one of them is one of us,” revealed Nucleus. “Someone get Argos over here.”

The Flash wasted no time in speeding over to Argos and dragging him over to Ivo’s machines.

“What is the meaning of this? I have no time for chatter when battle awaits,” grumbled the son of Orion.

“Argos, you’re going to be the key to stopping Fantasto but you need to work with us here,” requested Nucleus. “Here, I need to connect these tubes to your chest,” he said as he put the tubes in place. After a few more moments of tinkering Nucleus’ plan was ready to go. “Alright Nightvision, as soon as I’m in my tube, hit the switch.”

A few seconds later, Nightvision hit the switch on Ivo’s machines, causing a huge surge of energy to flow into Argos’ body. His whole body began to tingle. Even one as powerful as the Dog of War had never felt such an immense amount of energy flowing through his body. Not only did he have his own ‘new god’ powers, but now his body also housed those of the sixteen Titans of Justice connected to Ivo’s machines. Once the procedure was done, Argos ripped the tubes off of himself and primed himself for battle. Approaching Fantasto, he declared, “Your path ends here, juggernaut. Argos shall spell your defeat!”


TO BE CONTINUED...