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Mild-mannered Greg Macko discovered he had an extraordinary power. He could stand in a doorway and fill its space to become utterly impenetrable. Surely, he thought, this power could serve the public good. He donned tights and called himself... The Human Door. Utilizing his power to fight evil, crime, and sometimes evil crime, the Human Door became an overnight smash in the superhero community. "The trick was learning how to lock myself", Greg later explained.
Whenever an evildoer was indoors and needed to make a get-away through some kind of doorway, the Human Door would stand in the exit and exert his superpower, thereby blocking any escape. The villain in panic would attempt to open the Human Door... only to find him locked! Then Greg would say something like, "The only door you're going through is the one to jail". Greg soon realized this was somewhat lacking as a catchphrase. He changed it to, "Access is barred, No-gooder", which, he had to admit, was also less than ideal. The Human Door tried many different battle cries that he hoped were clever and pithy, but nothing "resonated", as he put it. He eventually resorted to sarcasm. "What's the password?", he would say snidely, or "Boo hoo hoo. Is Mr. Bad Guy locked in?". Finally, he just said nothing, letting his mute impenetrable door-ness speak for itself. Many evildoers would later admit they were completely unaware that Greg was even there. They just thought he was a normal, unassuming (albeit frustratingly locked and oddly dressed) door. There were times when the criminals escaped through tunnels in the ground or hatches in the ceiling, and the Human Door could not stop them. But this was rare, and most of the time, Greg got his man. Or rather, the police did. Greg would make sure criminals stayed in one place to give the cops time to arrive and arrest them. Things were going so well that Greg attracted a sidekick. The name she chose was Egress, and her power was she could gain access through any barrier and escape any bonds. She felt she was the perfect complement to the Human Door, and Greg agreed. Soon the Human Door and Egress were the toast of the town. "It was an open and shut case", Egress would wittily explain to reporters after a particularly successful capture of an evil criminal. Greg had to admit she had the jargon down much better. Things went sour though. People started realizing that Egress was actually far cooler than the Human Door. She could get in anywhere. No door or lock posed a challenge. And she could get out of any situation. For example, no criminal could capture her and hold her for ransom (as one was prone to do with sidekicks), because she escaped in 15 minutes and was already opening the back door of the hideout for Greg to come in and do his blocking thing. Why exactly was she the sidekick and not the other way around? Take a look at what the superhero handbook has to say about the Human Door: "The Human Door has to be near a doorway to use his power and then he just stands there, not moving, and waits for the police - and often this can take hours. And if there are other exits nearby, he's kind of screwed because the criminal just goes that way instead and makes his get-away. Or if they have a knife or a gun that's pretty much the end of that. Greg does not participate in crime-fighting when a knife or gun are involved and makes this quite clear up front to law enforcement. He could be hurt! Plus his catchphrases leave a lot to be desired, and the whole silence thing is a total cop-out." But Egress! The superhero handbook has a whole section devoted to her. She is sexy and sleek and fast. No access is barred to her! No binds will thwart her! She can sneak into any enemy compound and take out all the big bosses. Did I mention she knows martial arts? She is not afraid of knives or guns or chimpanzees. She can build you a snow-mobile... from scratch! So all of this finally dawned on Egress, and she decided to break out on her own. She changed her name to... The Skeleton Key, and began saving the day left, right, and center. People started exclusively requesting her to stop their criminals. Greg the Human Door was left standing in her dust... in a doorway, immobile, mumbling, and forgotten. Hugely successful now, she felt bad and offered him the chance to become her sidekick. There's always room for an impenetrable door, she told him. Greg could tell she was just trying to be nice. He declined and applied to work as a security guard, but that particular job market was tough as no one liked his 'no guns/no knives' clause. Bitter, angry, and confused - it occured to him that he could always just switch sides. His power could be used for evil just as easily as it could for good. With the turn of a knob, the Human Door became a supervillain! His new career was off to a bad start. He teamed up with a ruffian named Rude Eddy to rob a bank. Before the heist, they brainstormed for a while on their game plan. It was finally decided the only way they could use Greg's power effectively was to have him block the bank vault door from the police while Eddy nabbed all the money. Greg agreed to go through with it and hoped the police wouldn't have guns or knives. At first, all went according to plan - the police arrived and started banging on Greg to open up, but they found him utterly impenetrable... For who is Greg? Why, none other than the Human Door! The cops were stymied and Rude Eddy collected the cash. Whe he was done grabbing the loot, he made his get-away through a window, which left Greg in the lurch. It became obvious to Greg in that moment that they hadn't thought the whole thing through. There he was, facing an entire battalion of SWAT police. Now what? He could stop becoming the Door, turn back to mild-mannered Greg Macko... but what then? Between the Human Door and the cops, there was no "Human Door" to save him. To top it all off, he noticed the cops had guns AND knives. It was the worst day of the Human Door's life. Greg surrendered and the cops took him in. His sentence was lightened when he agreed to stand in the doorway of the jail to prevent all of the evildoers and criminals from escaping. After a few months, there was a jailbreak riot, and in the ensuing chaos, he was able to "greg" himself back to normal mobility and make his escape. At first, Greg decided to give the supervillain career another go, but after some soul-searching (and a failed car-jacking attempt), he realized that it was probably not a good idea. With the Skeleton Key out there stopping all criminal schemes, he figured he had no chance at all anymore. The Skeleton Key, after all, can go through any door, even Human ones. "She's my one weakness", Greg figured. "My Kryptonite." She was his blocked doorway to a life of crime. It was over. Time to move on. So the Human Door exited superpowered life. And became a nun somehow. The end. |