DocTachyon

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

Incidentally, if anyone really wanted to play Johnny Blaze in a non-Ridery way, I can retcon him out of that post and just pick someone else to have been a past Ghost Rider. Same goes for El Diablo and, uh, Grak.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

Oh and also, said it before, but I'm not a huge fan of the Punisher and honestly most of what I see makes me cringe in embarrassment because most writers seem to just think he's cool because he kills people. Coming from a person who's never written Punisher before this RP, in my own humble opinion, what makes him interesting is the psychological pain that causes that violence. He's not just supposed to be some EBIC balls-to-the-walls action hero (I say despite my Frank being a balls-to-the-walls action hero), he's a damaged man thrashing out at those who've wronged both him and countless other people.

@Simple Unicycle

Yeah, a lot of Punisher stories bug me and that's the reason I'm not the biggest fan of the character. Even a lot of the ones commonly hailed as 'the best' are just about the writer trying their best to fellate Frank while he kills hordes of people.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

When MB reads what Andy has said:

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

Bit of a rushed post up, but I'm going on vacation in about a week's time and I want to get my crossover with SU going before that happens.

Also, another character that bugs me. The Flash. He works great as a supporting/secondary character. Loved him on JLU. Like him in League comics. I just don't think the guy can hold a story on his own so great. He's so damn fast that either his villains have to be speedsters to make things interesting, or it's wholly unrealistic that he hasn't solved crime the world over.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

”The Ranchero of Miracle Mesa” - Riders on the Storm: Part One

“The Cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage.”

-Anonymous

---

New York City, New York --- The Offices of Ramon J. Solomano; Last Night

---

“FUCK! Fucky fucking fuckity fu-u-u-u-ck!” Roman J. Solomano threw himself back into his chair, screaming bloody murder and clutching his scarred hand. The door at the opposite end of the room exploded open. Big Caesar burst in, gun at the ready.

“Boss? What’s going on?”

“My goddamn hand you imbecile!” Solomano’s right hand grabbed where his left pinky should have been, where there was a bloody stump instead. Tears flowed down the mob boss’s face.

“What happened?” Big Caesar took a step back, hastily holstering his weapon.

“Fuck if I know…” Solomano muttered through gritted teeth. He grabbed a handkerchief from his suit coat and wrapped it around his missing digit.

The blood dripping from the suddenly missing finger began to dance on Solomano’s desk. Revolving around and around and forming itself into a neat little circle. The circle drew itself up, into a six inch representation of a humanoid creature. The horns that curled from its head dripped blood. Solomano looked on in horror. The impling smiled and reached inside of itself, producing Solomano’s missing digit. The tut-tut-tut noise that came from its mouth reverberated throughout the room.

”You have failed me once, Roman J. Solomano.” The six inch figure seemed to grow and distort, reaching up into the sky and towering over Solomano, dripping blood onto his forehead.

Solomano stared up into the maw of the monster, clutching his hand and fighting back the sobs.

”Your agent has been defeated. Four more little fingers on that hand of yours...” The demon’s claws reached down, plucking up Solomano’s hand from his side. It pressed the removed pinky into its stump, only to watch the philange turn to dust and fade away.
”Make them count.” And like that, it was done. All at once the mass of blood lost animation and dropped in a wave, drenching Solomano and Big Caesar.

Solomano took long, shaky breaths, staring at his missing finger. Rage boiled in his eyes.

“Bring me… As many men as you can round up. Tell them I’ll give them fuckin superpowers.” Solomano grunted. His hands struggled with his desk drawer, trying to wrench it open as Big Caesar nodded and hurried out of the room.

There was the snap of wood as Solomano ripped the drawer off its rollers, scattering its contents across the blood slick floor. He groped among the objects, searching for his tome. He produced the leathery, black volume from the pile of viscera and slammed into onto the desk. He threw it open to the table of contents and began wordlessly searching for what he needed.

“Page six hundred thirty four… Induced possession...”

Warpath, Texas; Today

---

Greg Saunders didn’t much remember going to sleep. There was a haze over his mind… The voices had quieted, contented with the chaos that they had wrought. He remembered a horde of people. Not people, things. Things that used to be the people he loved.

He looked at them now, a loose collection of the citizenry of Warpath. A proud Texas town reduced to a pile of wooden dummies. They stared into the sun with blank eyes, content to let the elements weather them. For long hours he sat, pondering them. Trying to recollect the exact details of what had happened. He remembered… Throwing them. FIghting them. Why? The one thing he really remembered was the corpse.

The lifeless body of The Dummy hung off The Crossroads Saloon, swaying with the subtle changes in the wind. He hadn’t hung long. He died quick, like his body was trying its best to shake of its mortal coil. As soon as he did the wood drained from his skin like it wasn’t there in the first place. But the people still remained obstinately wooden. If he were still alive, maybe he could’ve brought them back. But maybe it was permanent, and The Dummy was content to let Greg and the rest suffer in their prisons. Until Greg got out.

He still wasn’t sure what to call that… Thing that had sprung forth from his body. The creature that had tortured his dreams and leapt out of his body to kill a man. Greg had a vague recollection of it as “The Spirit”, or “Vengeance”. Whatever the Hell it was, he was content to let it lie tied up in his mind. Thanks to it, The Dummy was dead, and he had nothing to question. To figure out if Warpath was still alive. Piece together what the hell that “Trident” was. To find out who hired him. If more were coming.

He shook off the possibility. At this point, all that was left to do was put out the call for the rest of the Soldiers to come back, see what they had found. If it would help the town. Or take down the bastards that did it.

---

His dreams that night were stranger than what had come before. Somehow it seemed all the more real. The senseless place around him was gone, replaced with a dim recreation of Warpath. Phantom citizens milled about, content with their day to day tasks. Williams and Billy Gunn played cards with what of a City Watch they’d assembled. Jonah Hex spoke with the local horse breeder. Jed Thompsen and Claire Morten walked hand in hand down the main thoroughfare. Good, clean, Texas living. No threats of Demons hung over their heads, the air seemed fresh and clean. The only problem was the one man he’d never seen before, the one thing that seemed really solid among the ghosts.

He wore a leather biker jacket, adorned with spikes that seemed to have been broken off and glued back on a dozen times. His blue jeans were worn, with that color bleed around the lower leg that came from holding ‘em close to a motorcycle engine too long. His mop of blonde hair just rubbed the tops of his shoulders, and he had a rough beard, the kind that long haul truckers grew. He stood about a gaggle of people, leaned up against a wicked cherry red motorcycle. His eyes caught on Greg’s. His baby blues twinkled in recognition. He waved the crowd away and began to make his way to Greg.

“Greg Saunders? My name is Johnny Blaze, and I believe you’re in great danger.” He extended a hand.

Greg tried to lift himself out of his seat and shake, but it was like his body wasn’t there. He fumbled awkwardly around the armrests, trying to push himself up. It felt like being underwater. Johnny rested a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s okay. The, uh, dreams take a while to get used to. To control, that is.” Johnny pulled up a chair from across the porch, dragging it to sit across from Greg. He leaned into the chair, wringing his hands together.

“Look, I know this is kind of fucking nuts. That’s what I thought too, when it was me.” He said. He ran a hand through his blonde locks.

“I… What…?” It was a struggle to force the words out. It was like learning to talk again.

“Look, this is going to be a lot to take in, so I’m going to give you the CliffsNotes version. I used to be host to that thing giving your heard the runaround, Mephisto is after something called The Trident of Lucifer, and another gang of guys is gearing up to take it from you right now.” Johnny rubbed his temples. “Worst part is I don’t think you’re really ready to deal with what’s coming.”

“I-I don’t have…?” The words seemed to fall out of his mouth in a jumble.

“Yeah, that’s what I can’t put my finger on. Far as I know, last person to have that thing was Astaroth, and nobody knows where the Hell he is.” Johnny looked up into Greg’s eyes. Glazed over, uncomprehending. “Uh… Here. Maybe this will help.” Johnny put his hands on Greg’s head and his world exploded into color.

---

This place wasn’t entirely unlike what Greg had experienced when he was inside the thing. It seemed smaller, focused. He stood on some kind of dias, and a small collection of seats rose up and away from him in a semicircle. It was populated with all sorts of people, as the rows went on and on. Victorian gentleman, pirates, ninjas, and Greg was fairly certain he saw a caveman towards the back. Johnny Blaze sat in the seat closest to him, kicking his feet up upon the divider, looking down at Greg.

“What in Sam--” Greg paused for a moment, startled by his own voice. He shook his head. ”What in Sam Hill is this place?”

“This,” Johnny made a sweeping gesture with his hands, to the collection of men and women before him, “is the Council of Riders.” Johnny grinned. “Er, at least, that’s what I’ve been calling it.”

“The Council of-? Aw, heck, I’ve seen stranger darn things.” Greg realized his hands had been resting on the handles of his guns. He moved them into his pockets. “Look, fellers, I don’t much know who any of y’all are, or what you want from me. But I...” Greg looked down at the ground. He swallowed. ”I could use some help.”

“We’ll try our best, mi amigo.” A spanish accent rose out of the collection of people. A man in a red mask and black outfit spoke up. There was a whip at his hip, and revolvers in his holsters.

“Thanks, Diablo.” Johnny said to the man, further up the forum. He shot him a thumbs up. The spaniard rolled his eyes. Johnny turned back to Greg. “Look, all of us were inhabited by this… Thing. The thing that’s giving you trouble right now. It’s gone by a lot of names. When I had it, it was The Ghost Rider. When El Diablo up there had it, it was, well, also El Diablo. Grak way in the back just called it ‘Anger’.” Johnny waved to the caveman in the back, who idly scraped at the divider separating him from the lower rows. He snorted in response. “Ever since it got us, we’ve been kept inside it. Damned to advise the next inheritor of the thing for all eternity.”

”I’d like you help y’all out of your predicament, but I got my hands a little full, and I ain’t really seein’ how this is helpin’, all due respect.” Vig offered his hands, palm up. ”I just need to fix things. An’ give Mephisto what’s coming to him.” The caveman in the back whooped. There was a smattering of applause. Johnny raised a hand to silence them.

“Yeah, we all tried our best to get back at that cocksucker. But before you get your crack at it, well… We think something’s coming. A group of somethings.” Johnny Blaze rubbed the back of his neck. “And we think it might be more than you can handle. Especially since you don’t have a handle on The Rider.”

Vig shook his head. ”I can handle myself just fine without that thing. Sheriff Saunders didn’t raise no slouch, no sir.” Greg crossed his arms defiantly.

Johnny sighed. “It’s The Bounty Hunters. A collection of lost and damned souls who owe debt to Mephisto, crammed into human bodies and baying for the blood of The Rider, or anyone else that Mephisto fingers for death.” Johnny rested his chin on his hands. “There are dozens of them. Seems like there’s more every go around.”

”I’ve handled worse.” Greg said. ”Figure I can make them fix the, uh… Dummification situation?”

“That’s something else we don’t know about. Near as we can tell, they’re not dead. At least, not yet. We would’ve felt something, their spirits crying out for vengeance, some indication that they were trying to pass on. They’re still alive, but we don’t really know how to bring them out of it. You’d need an occultist, or something.” Blaze shrugged. “Tell you the truth, most of us were wanderers. We never really had to deal with mystic stuff on this order, before. It’s mostly been straight shooting.”

Greg nodded. ”So there’s a chance.” Greg looked Blaze in the eyes. The man nodded. Greg smiled. He felt a peculiar sensation, starting by his toes and traveling up his body to his spine. He looked down. Bit by bit he was melting away, motes of flesh being whisked away and fading into the light. ”I -- what’s happenin’?”

Blaze swore to himself. “You’re waking up. Look, here’s the need to know. The Dummy, and these Bounty Hunters, they reek of Mephisto. But there’s something else, we can’t identify it. There’s another player, find out who the hell he is! And why he thinks you have the tri--”

And he was awake.

---

It was gruelling work, setting up the town. All Vig could do now was hope it was worth it. All the dummy-people, sequestered away, hidden under sands, in outhouses, all kindsa spots. All sorts of traps and armaments too -- every bottle he could scrounge from the Saloon had become a molotov cocktail. Hell, turned out even in dummification, Billy Gunn was helping. Vig found a note on his desk that morning, gone unnoticed from the day The Dummy came to town:

“Greg;
Posted an ad on ‘vigilante.net’. Supposed to be some kind of network for wandering heroes and the like. Don’t figure it’d be much, but maybe someone can find the time to come out and help us.
-Gunn”

The body of The Dummy lay outside in warning. Vig stood in town square, leaning up against a post. He had as many revolvers as he could find; four on the front and back of his hips, two in shoulder holsters, and another two strapped to his chest. He rested his pump shotgun against his shoulder.

”Yippie ki-yay, motherfuckers. Your move.”

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

I could never get behind Martian Manhunter. He just seems like Superman will all of the problems about Superman's character turned up to 11.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

Business as usual at UOU.

@Inkarnate

Did you ever hear the tragedy of MB the wise? I thought not. It's not a story Mahz would tell you.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

<Snipped quote by Star Lord>

Hello there!

@Superboy

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

”The Ranchero of Miracle Mesa” - Strings: Part Five; Finale

“The Cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage.”

-Anonymous

---

Warpath, Texas

---

Greg Saunders felt at the edge of his own consciousness. It was a struggle to piece his thoughts together, words drifted away from his grasp and ideas seemed to disappear in puffs of smoke. It was just about all he could do to snatch what he could and hope everything wound its way back to normal.

It wasn’t so much like being a passenger in his own head, and it wasn't an out of body experience, either. It was more like watching a bad picture show, with a black screen held for an uncomfortable amount of time. Except the theater was an arena of hellfire, with demons and lost souls cheering from the sidelines.

Greg would've been baffled by the enormity of the place if he could think straight. It was like the one time his Pap had taken him to the Superbowl; the seats seemed to stretch out and beyond into infinity. Each row of chairs had seas of people up and down them; there wasn’t an empty seat for miles. Occasionally the sea of deadened faces was broken up by the visage of a demon, a deep red face screwed up into a perverse smile. Usually they had their claws wrapped around the headrest of the seat in front of them, squeezing and cracking the brimstone when the black color on the screen before them seemed to shift. But the people around them were hollow. Black and white phantoms, representing what they might have been, once.

The woman sat next to him was a young thing, but her cheeks festered a green color out of the monochrome. She rubbed the bump in her tummy and stared half lidded at the screen. Something seemed wrong with her. Something wrong with all the people here. The woman turned to face Greg and her head lolled at an unnatural angle. There was a groove on the opposite side of her face, where a bullet had blown out her eye and ear.

“You have to kill that man for us, Mr. Saunders.” Her voice crawled from her throat like a slug, the words seemed to slop out in a puddle of mucus.

Greg pushed himself backwards into the fabric of his seat and averted his gaze. His eyes locked on the screen. Something was changing -- the blackness was beginning to crack…

---

The body of Greg Saunders trembled. The doll began to steam in the Texas heat, wisps of smoke pushing through minute cracks in the wood facade. The tremble grew into a shudder, kicking up millions of sand particles. As soon as they settled onto Greg’s body they flash-burned into glass, tinkling off the side of his chest. Boiling red spiderweb cracks leaped across the surface of the laquer, up and down every inch of his form.

“DUUUUMMMMYYYYYY!” Greg Saunder’s body detonated like a homemade grenda, wood shrapnel speeding away at a thousand miles an hour from the only thing that remained; the Spirit of Vengeance.

Fire spilled from every hole and seam in what was left of Vigilante’s clothing, up to the inferno that surrounded a stark white skull. The creature pulled itself to his knees, not so much standing up as being levitated to its feet. It was a skeleton in what was left of Greg’s body. Motes of flesh still floated away and disintegrated into ash as a bony hand ripped Vigilante’s lariat from it’s hip.

The lariat cracked in the monster’s hand and curled around the top car of the barrier. The monster jerked its shoulder and the junker sailed into the depths of the desert, landing with a sickening crunch.

The Spirit jumped into the air in a plume of smoke and ash, easily vaulting what was left of the wall and coming down like a nuclear bomb. A corona of fire swept out from its point of impact, licking building facades and boiling away paintjobs.

The Dummy stood at the far end of the road, surrounding by statues of townsfolk. Their limbs were splayed out at unnatural angles, controlled by invisible marionette strings. The man himself sat astride Billy Gunn’s truck, his hand covering his eyes from the glow.

”We-ull hoe-lee shee-it! They did-uh nawt te-ull me tha-ut yew war a gosh-dang met-uh-hoo-man!” The Dummy said. He hacked out a cough. “That accent is fucking murder on the throat, by the way.”

“Your soul...” The Spirit took slow steps towards the crowd, a path of glass being burned in its wake.

“Is stained with the blood of innocents...” Its voice was powerful, booming with the power of thousands of anguished souls joined as one. It began to make slow circles with the lariat as it walked.

“Feel their pain.” The whip cracked and shot through the air for Dummy’s neck. Before it could make contact, a hand shout out of the crowd. The burning lariat wrapped itself up and down Billy Gunn’s arm in a vice grip. The Dummy cackled.

”Oh, I’m quaking in my fucking boots. Lose the Halloween costume and the melodrama and maybe I’d take you seriously.” The Dummy levelled his tommy gun.
”You want to tell me where the trident is? Or are you interested in seeing these fine folks filled with holes?” The collective mass of dummies turned to face The Spirit, their heads hanging and awkward angles from their bodies.

The Spirit snarled and the lariat untangled itself and snaked back to him.

“I will show you where.” It croaked. It’s hand moved slow and open-palmed down its leg, moving past the holster and down to a side pocket. Skeletal fingers wrestled with the button of the pocket. The Dummy looked on, eyes locked on the Spirit’s hands. It was a regular stand-off. Two gunmen locked on one another. Waiting to see who’d shoot first. The Dummy’s finger sat inside of his trigger guard. The Spirit’s opposite hand lay on the oaken handle of his pistol, slowly boiling away in the lollicking flames.

The Spirit’s hand closed around a folded sheet of paper. The Dummy looked on down his nose. The thing pulled out the paper gingerly, thumb and forefinger pressed against it. The flames seemed to recede from the paper, avoiding it at all costs. A dry wooden tongue tried to lick The Dummy’s parted lips.

The Spirit brought the paper to waist level. He flicked it out to full size. The Dummy kept his eyes on the blank side of the parchment. A skeletal finger crept around to the marked side of the paper, gingerly turning it around.

It was an Ad for Red Buffalo Dog Foods. The last remnant of the newspaper Vig had on him when he was dragged to hell. The Dummy’s finger started to press against the trigger, it was too late. A bullet fired through the paper, wreated in hellfire, blasting through the Dummy’s shooting hand.

”Sonofabitch!” The tommy gun dropped from the stump of The Dummy’s hand and he dropped to his knees, cradling the wound as a cascade of splinters still dropped from it. ”Kill him!”

---

Greg Saunders still wasn’t quite sure what he was looking at. There seemed to be an ocean of wooden bodies throwing themselves at the screen, being battered and thrown away by the pair of skeletal hands that dominated the POV shot.

He defeated them mercilessly, but nonlethally. After Hell, Greg could tell when someone was fighting to kill, and the creature wasn’t. He just pushed his way through the throng of bodies, sweeping some aside with the forms of another, the oak of their bodies suffering nary a crack.

Greg found himself transfixed by it. There was a kind of rhythm to the violence, a beating heart and a drive to it. It was like he could feel the creature’s drive in his soul. Kill The Dummy. It was like it flowed through the theater, every set of eyes, demon and human alike, paid rapt attention to the screen. Watching, waiting for The Dummy to appear out of the random chaos. Or to start shooting.

But something felt wrong to Greg. His stomach turned and grumbled, and he felt a little pressure behind his eyes. As if someone very small and very helpless was inside of Greg and trying to make themselves known. A tiny voice was whispering in the back of his head: “No.”

Should he feel bad…? The thoughts were running from him faster than he could collect them. He was dimly aware of rage of the edge of his mind. That someone would come and take what he had, but a mortal man. Not one of Mephisto’s forces. There was regret, too, sadness. To kill a man. But that all seemed ephemeral now. The creature was all there was, and all that ever would be. Vengeance must be done.

---

The Spirit grabbed a dummy's neck and hurled it back into the depths of the crowd. There were so many of them. For every puppet he dropped another rose and took its place, unconcerned with its injuries. It would be wrong to kill them, if they could die in that state. This was all about Him.

Dull images flashed in The Spirit’s mind. A frail boy bathing in the blood of bully, bowie knife clenched in hand. A disfigured young man, kicking open a door and unleashing a clip on women. Children. The same small man pouring gasoline over a Chinatown eatery. There was glee on his face.

Through the crowd of attackers, The Spirit could just make out The Dummy. The little man tried and failed to heft his weapon with the hand he had left, the wooden stump of the other was pressed tight against his chest. The Spirit set its jaw and hissed. There was a force behind its eyes, fueling the fires that broiled in its skull. The anguish and fear and pain of hundreds, balled up and pressurized into a cascade of hellfire, swelling up and down its body, driving its skeletal limbs towards their prize.

The creature snatched another from the crowd and battered away two others with it. It pushed now, making long strides through the crowd, bowling them over and clearing a path. The Spirit discarded the battering ram and sprinted for The Dummy, who looked around in fear, for perhaps the first time in his life.

The Spirit reached Gunn’s truck and battered it aside with an open palm. A burst of hellfire smashed into the car and flung it to its side, leaving nothing but open dust between The Spirit and its target. The Spirit’s jaw unhinged and free infero began spilling from it, accentuating its trail as it took its strides towards The Dummy.

The mobster pushed himself back with both his feet, trying desperately to bring the gun to bear. The Spirit’s lariat snapped out and pitched the weapon through a shattered storefront. The Dummy lay back on his haunches. Oil dripped down The Dummy’s face in place of tears.

”Do it.” The Dummy whispered. Any confidence in his voice was gone. He resigned himself to his death. He leaned forward, keeping his head down. Oil slicked the sands.

”Just take me out of this fucking hell.” He begged.

The Spirit placed a hand under The Dummy’s chin, and the flames licked his ligneous skin. He hefted him into the air.

”Do it!” The Dummy spat. Oil spittle burned on contact with The Spirit’s face. Two hands gripped either side of The Dummy’s head. A black blaze started in The Spirit’s eye sockets, boring into The Dummy’s soul.

“Look into my eyes. This is but a glimmer of the torment that awaits you.” The inferno made slow, careful circles through the air, covering and wrapping around The Dummy’s eyes, boring their way into his very being.

He was a little boy. Smaller than the other children. Weaker. The world itself seemed unkind. Skyscrapers reached into the sky all around him, monoliths that crushed him into his place with beneath their might. Mom and Dad looked at him funny. Took him to lots of Doctors, the ones they could afford. They told them stuff ie big words he couldn’t understand. Stuff about his face being all wrong. His arms and legs didn’t fit right on his body. He’d never get to be very tall.

The kids at school didn’t let him forget it. Every day, Bobby Fuentes would come around at the same time. Calling him the “Dummy Boy”. You could set your watch by it. Eventually, enough was enough. Bobby’s blood felt good on his hands. All warm and slick. It was so nice. But something felt wrong, now. A dim awareness washed over him. This was a memory. Pain started throbbing behind his eyeballs. No. Stop.

He felt it again. Twisting the knife in the bully’s guts. He felt it in his own stomach, the knife churning the food in his stomach from lunch that day, slicing through muscle and sinew and snipping his intestines. Vomit rose in his throat. Please. Let me die.

Now he was in Mr. Chow’s Food/Deli Emporium. He almost couldn’t focus on the smell of the gasoline over the agony in his abdomen. The fire rose up around him, licking off his skin and boiling the liquid of his eyeballs. NO! NO! NO!

He felt a hand on his face, that searing, unforgivable hand. The Man With The Tattooed Hand gripped his face. The wood swept over his body, suffocating every feeling besides the pain. The pain was all that was left. Sealed from the outside world of feeling, left to stew in the fire, searing his skin off over and over again, the fragments of steel in his stomach from the knife wedging itself deeper and deeper, hundreds of gunshot wounds. Anguish over lost children he’d never had. Dead fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters. Please, God. Tears.

Warpath had fallen silent. The dummies lay in a pile on the ground, unmoving without command from their master. The Dummy’s eyes were rolled back into his head. Living through the pain of every sin he’d ever committed. Over, and over, and over again. It was too good for him, but it wouldn’t be for very long. The Spirit took its time tightening the lariat around The Dummy’s neck. Dragging him to the old Saloon, gingerly stepping between the forms of the townsfolk. Dragging him way high up into the sky…

Release.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

At this point I just assume characters with associated boob windows, stomach skylights, and etc. have at least a little bit of a death wish. Helps it make a tiny bit of sense...