Megaton Comics Proudly Presents: Cap and Mia, Episode One: “Captain Comeback Saves the Day!”

When heroes and villains meet, sparks will fly … and today’s multimedia extravaganza from the creative duo of C.S.E Cooney and Carlos Hernandez is no exception! ~ Fran Wilde, Sept 25, 2022.

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Megaton Comics Proudly Presents:
Cap and Mia, Episode One:“Captain Comeback Saves the Day!”

by C.S.E. Cooney and Carlos Hernandez

The radio was playing in the garage again. The radio was always playing these days.

         If it wasn’t Sam Spade, it was The Shadow. If it wasn’t The Shadow, it was Red Ryder or (gods help her) Terry and the Pirates. And when the radio wasn’t playing, Cap related all the latest episodes to her in relentless detail.

         Even as she prepared dinner in the kitchen, her cat and dog rubbing against her legs—they could feel her need for comfort—she could hear the indefatigable voices of heroes and villains blaring in the garage. They were cacophonous, insistent, and utterly uninterruptible.

         She missed the days of cuddling on the couch with Cap, listening to the news at a much lower decibel, and discussing, afterward, what a strange and marvelous century this was. In January, they’d heard how mathematician Dr. Walter S. McAfee helped bounce a radio signal off the moon. This had sent Mia into a dreamy, pleasantly meditative state for days. She couldn’t stop talking about it: what it meant for humanity to reach out and touch the untouchable moon.

         Cap, in love with his wife’s wonder, proposed a road trip to Fort Monmouth to see the Project Diana radio antenna. He arranged everything. His status as the Hero of Burbylon, defeater of the evil demigod Pharaoh, won him all the special access he needed for a behind-the-scenes tour inside the army base. While on-site, Mia was invited to hold an actual homing pigeon in her hands!

         It had been more fun than their honeymoon.

         Alas. That was also the trip where Cap saw the advertisement in the latest issue of Nebraska Farmer for “Startling War Surplus Bargains.”

         They returned home with flamethrowers, rocket launchers, diesel tank engines, and who knew what else. He’d been tinkering in the garage ever since.

         That was February.

         It was now July. Time to reclaim her marriage.

         She put on her best pearls, a new pair of nylons, a new dress—the blue one with a pattern that looked like delicate white flowers but, under a microscope, would reveal themselves to be Naegleria fowleri, a bacteria that would eat your brain if you swam in the wrong lake when the weather was hot. She went out to the garage with Cap’s favorite meal—beef Stroganoff—on a tray.

         “Cap,” Mia called softly. She added a little something to the word to make sure her voice landed in his head. It undercut the blaring radio and chimed delicately in the small bones of his ear.

         It still took him several minutes to roll out from underneath the powder-blue Chrysler Thunderbolt.

         Mia held out the tray like an oblation. “It’s dinnertime.”

         “Just set it down, my love.” Cap’s coveralls were smeared in grease, his brown hair matted in sweat. His face was concentrated, fretful. “I need to focus. This atomic reconzogilator can’t fix itself.”