Capeworld Comics

Simon Wheeler, Clubhouse

 

“Man, look…do you do anything? I’m not trying to break your balls here, but you can’t just…not do anything. It’s going to make you so miserable you’ll make yourself sick. A man has to do something or he’ll go crazy.”

 

–Matthew Roy, AKA The Coat

 

“I have food, I have games, I have money. Boy, do I have money! People pay me to do nothing but let them walk through the place I live. Why would I do anything? I make less money doing anything!”

 

–Simon Wheeler, AKA Clubhouse

 

Name: 

 

Simon Wheeler

 

Supername: 

 

Clubhouse

 

Simon took his supername after the thing in his life he’s most proud of, unfortunately.

 

Average Grade: 

 

D-

 

Simon has to be dragged by the nose through his studies. He often gives up on assignments. Only the threat of having to do group projects motivates him to occasional action. He has a low opinion of education. He already has a job and a purpose in the world–to hold the door to his clubhouse open for ARGO. 

 

Emergency Response Class: 

 

1

 

Simon’s view on his responsibilities during an emergency are simple.

 

There’s an emergency? Hide in his clubhouse, call ARGO.

 

There’s a supervillain? Hide in his clubhouse, call ARGO.

 

Someone is in trouble? Hide in his clubhouse, call ARGO.

 

His teachers at Martin’s push him to be more proactive and force him through simulations of crises he might one day encounter–a supervillain suddenly teleports into his clubhouse, he finds himself suddenly and mysteriously ejected from his clubhouse and left in an alien universe, he finds an interdimensional traveler confused as to how he arrived in his clubhouse, etc.

 

He doesn’t take these simulations seriously at all. He has full faith that in real life, all he’ll ever need to do is hide in his clubhouse and call ARGO.

 

Personalized Curriculum: 

 

Interreality Studies

 

Interreality Studies is for kids that intend to work with ARGO as explorers, with the Weft Authority as diplomats, or the Warp Authority as cosmologists. It deals with how the different universes fit together both physically and politically. 

 

Being that his hyperstasis is an ARGO base, one might think that SImon would enjoy Interreality Studies. But no. He thinks it’s a complete waste of time.

 

When he was enrolled in Interreality, Simon laughed. “You can’t be serious! I’m not going to interact with anyone! I’m not going to leave my clubhouse! ARGO does that!”

 

Thus, we had to think creatively when it came to his lessons.

 

I believe we’re on the right track with Dr. Jefferson’s idea. The details will of course need to be smoothed out, but we’re on the right track nonetheless. Her idea is to force Simon into a responsibility that is uniquely his (so he can’t say “But ARGO can do it!”), uniquely beneficial to himself (so he’ll be motivated and come to understand that there are ways he can use his power separate from renting room to ARGO), and provides immediate feedback (so he won’t disengage from failing).

 

Basically, we’re going to force him to play hotel keeper for his classmates. It’s a spin on “multiverse camp” where kids spend a week or two inside a worldsplinter or aeternum, a worldtunnel stabilized into a worldsplinter aeons ago by the Elder Sapiens, to get the feel of how it is for ARGO explorers out on the furthest reaches of existence without a back-door to our reality.

 

NOTE FROM DR. JEFFERSON: Be sure to explain what an aeternum is.

 

NOTE FROM DR. HWANG: Seriously? 

 

NOTE FROM DR. JEFFERSON: Yes seriously. It’s technically tier 3 vocabulary. We have to define it.

 

NOTE FROM DR. HWANG: Done. I can’t believe it…don’t they learn about aeternums in middle school these days?

 

Instead of putting our kids in a generic ARGO installation, we’ll put them in Simon’s clubhouse. He likes to brag about how self-sufficient and neat his clubhouse is, so now he gets the chance to put up or shut up. And he can’t just hide in the back room. That’s not a good host. His classmates can and will (Especially Matthew Roy) call him out if he tries to let the clubhouse play host for him. That is why the plan is promising. Simon doesn’t care what adults think. Deep down inside he truly believes that eventually adults will cater to his every whim because that’s what they’ve always done, be they ARGO or his parents. But he does care what his peers think because kids don’t have to be polite to other kids. If I call Simon a lazy waste of flesh, I’m out of a job. If Matthew Roy calls Simon a lazy waste of flesh, Simon just has to deal with it.

 

Simon will have to meet the needs and wants of a diverse group of students. He will have to do work and consider others before himself. 

 

NOTE FROM DR. JEFFERSON: “If he manages to pass, we might be able to say he actually has empathy.”

 

NOTE FROM DR. HWANG: Too honest?

 

NOTE FROM DR. JEFFERSON: Reign it in, David. I know Simon can be frustrating, but reign it in.

 

NOTE FROM DR. HWANG: I’ll delete it.

 

Recent events have made the plan even better. Morgan McGraw, who finally picked out his supername “Dream Warden,” is all for participating in multiverse camp. That means Simon has competition. All the people he wants to be his friends are going to hang out in Morgan’s dreamworld unless Simon makes it worth their while to come to his clubhouse.

 

Contact Education: 

 

ARGO, The Fishermen.

 

No surprise here. ARGO is extremely invested in Simon. It’s just awful that their investment takes the form of appeasing him so that he’ll be a good boy and open and close doors when asked to.

 

I suppose we shouldn’t be so hard on ARGO. It’s their job to explore the multiverse. It’s not their job to raise children. It’s our job.

 

But boy, did ARGO go and make our job harder than it needed to be…

 

NOTE FROM DR. HWANG: Can we say the contact education with ARGO is poor? Am I allowed to write that?

 

NOTE FROM DR. JEFFERSON: Yes you are, but please try and remember diplomacy.

 

NOTE FROM DR. HWANG: Then I shall leave out all the adjectives.

 

We can’t take him out of ARGO. It defeats the purpose of the contact education program. ARGO is his job. ARGO is going to be his job when he graduates. As much of a negative effect ARGO has on him, by the standards of the program it’s exactly where he needs to be. 

 

NOTE FROM DR. JEFFERSON: Please change “if he graduates” to “when he graduates.” We have optimism at Martin’s. We want and expect our kids to succeed.

 

NOTE FROM DR. HWANG: Done.

 

But what we can do is give him another contact–one that won’t hold his hand.

 

Simon knows of the Fishermen multiverse security service from ARGO. He knows that the Thule employed by the Fishermen use their telekinetic “eyes” to serve as bodyguards for worldtunnel explorers. In an emergency, they can combine their eyes to force a worldtunnel to open or close. What he doesn’t know is that they hate clients that make their job harder than it needs to be. 

 

Simon isn’t up on his worldtunnel safety protocol. He’s not even aware there’s worldtunnel safety protocols. Having him work with the Fishermen directly should give Simon a clue or two about how much work goes on behind the scenes to make sure he doesn’t wake up to find crysaloids in his bedroom. It also helps that many of his classmates are Thule kids training to join the Fishermen. We’ll have Chris and Henry and their parents train him in basic worldtunnel protocol and he’ll stick with it because Chris and Henry are there. I think the Fishermen will appreciate Simon taking some of the burden off their shoulders.

 

NOTE FROM DR. JEFFERSON: Kelly Adams actually isn’t planning on joining the Fishermen.

 

NOTE FROM DR. HWANG: We don’t need to be technical here. Everyone knows that, Pearl Adams notwithstanding, boys join the Fishermen proper and girls join the Fishermen auxiliary. It’s understood what’s meant by “Fishermen.”

 

NOTE FROM DR. JEFFERSON: No, I mean she’s not planning on joining the Fishermen at all.

 

NOTE FROM DR. HWANG: Really? An Adams girl not joining the Fishermen? I’ll have to look into this. But anyway, I’ve changed it.

 

Hyperstasis: 

 

Universe Creation and Control

 

Simon has access to a little world-between-worlds in which he’s God. He first learned about his power back in elementary school. Simon’s universe is subject to his every whim. Because he thought tree forts were the neatest thing as a child, his universe appeared as a treefort filled with plates of junk food that never spoiled, board games whose pieces never went missing, and bird songs that never ended. He shared this power with his friends Matthew Roy, AKA The Coat, though he went by the adorable name of Blanket Boy back then, and Will Blake, AKA Burning Bright, though he called himself Kid Kitten back then. They were the Joyous Harbor Detective Club, and they looked all over for mysteries helping people with errands whenever they could. Matthew’s mother wrote about them in The Mysteries of Blanket Boy. It’s a movie series now and source of perpetual embarrassment to Matthew.

 

Simon made their clubhouse, and so he called himself Clubhouse. The name stuck.

 

Naturally, ARGO was interested in his powers. They sent scientists into his clubhouse and found that it was a natural aeternum. It was a safe harbor within the roiling seas of worldtunnels. With their tools, they could open up a worldtunnel within Simon’s clubhouse to nearly anywhere in the multiverse and have a safe, air-conditioned universe to retreat to if anything went wrong.

 

All Simon had to do was share his clubhouse and one of the most resourceful organizations in the multiverse would see to his every need.

 

He did, and now we have to deal with the result.

 

Nowadays, the clubhouse is more than a treehouse. It’s a dark and endless compound where disco lights glow without bulbs and jazz music plays without speakers. His clubhouse is a kinetic storm of sound and motion. It’s probably the way it is so Simon doesn’t feel so alone. His clubhouse is always moving, even if he’s the only one in it.

 

Simon fancies himself a collector. He makes more money than he knows what to do with and he spends it on hoarding things. He collects rare Gold Star action figures from the 1930’s, clocks from Croatoan, signalling and dance ribbons from the Nepots Ocean, etc, etc. He collects everything, anything. He has to have something to do.

 

One might think that after years of ferrying ARGO personnel throughout the multiverse that Simon’s control over his power would increase. The reverse is actually true. He’s far less capable now than when he was a child. He found that it was mildly annoying for ARGO to open and close worldtunnels inside his clubhouse. It produced a ticklish sensation. So he gradually tuned out ARGO operations and as a consequence his awareness of his clubhouse and thus his control over it has lessened. When he was a child, he knew where everything was in his clubhouse from the nails in the wooden boards to the discarded chocolate wrappers. Now he doesn’t. It’s gotten to the point where he’s accidentally made copies of rooms he’s already created.

 

ARGO isn’t concerned by the potential security risk Simon’s lack of awareness implies. They have Fishermen teams posted. Perhaps there isn’t a security risk. But there’s certainly a risk to Simon’s characters. He feels so little responsibility for his power that he doesn’t mind his control over it atrophying.

 

And if he feels so little responsibility, imagine how little satisfaction he must feel in his power being the most important thing in his life? 

 

Behavior: 

 

Critically Poor

 

You can’t blame Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler for getting excited when they learned that their young boy had a very rare and very valuable hyperstasis.

 

JEFFERSON: David! “ I think we can, however, blame them for not getting over their excitement.” What are you thinking?

 

HWANG: Am I wrong?

 

JEFFERSON: No you aren’t, but you can’t write that down in a file!

 

HWANG: I’ll change it.

 

JEFFERSON: You should know better!

 

Simon is a problem. They’ll be listing him in the child psychology books as an example of what happens when a kid with superpowers is given everything they want. The good news–they don’t become despotic warlords ruling over all they survey. Oh no. That would be too stressful. The bad news–they become this.

 

Simon eats, and sleeps, and plays video games in an environment that early cultures would have considered suitable only for the gods. And it has ruined him. He lives in an electronic Garden of Eden and it has ruined him.

 

JEFFERSON: “His parents should have locked him out of his clubhouse until he grew a spine. They didn’t, and now we have to deal with the fallout of that mistake.”

 

HWANG: You liked that line?

 

JEFFERSON: Change it.

 

HWANG: Okay.

 

He’s starting to realize that he’s not a child anymore, and that people look down on arrested adolescents. As a child, he had all of his needs met. His clubhouse was the ultimate mommy. What more does a child want? But now he’s starting to grow into a man, and a man wants to matter to those around him.

 

He’s miserable. He’ll never admit it, but he is. He sees us as his enemies. We try to make him do work and work is something strange and unfamiliar for him and so he hates us. If he ever admitted to being miserable, that would mean we would “win” and he can’t have that.

 

But he can’t lie to his old friends.

 

Simon sees Will and Matthew growing up, taking on responsibilities, preparing for the adult world–and he sees them moving to a world he cannot follow.

 

He wishes he could go back to when they were all boys looking for mysteries around town. But his friends are young men now. He’s the only one that’s still a child.

 

Little by little, Simon will realize that the path to adulthood lies through us.

 

Everyone has to grow up eventually.

 

Appearance: 

 

Simon is out-of-shape and rather fat due to hardly ever getting out of a chair. He could easily find the time to work out. He just doesn’t want to. He doesn’t even want to take the easy way out of poor fitness and pay out of pocket to rejuvenate his body with technology. Even that is too much effort for him.

 

He doesn’t talk to people. He has people talk to people for him. What motive does he have to look like anything but a pudgy waste of flesh?

 

Simon doesn’t have a supercostume. One could consider his clubhouse a kind of supercostume in that it’s an external projection of what he strives to represent and embody. In this case, Simon’s clubhouse represents and embodies loneliness, excess, and decadence.

 

NOTE FROM DR. JEFFERSON: Dave, I feel this could use a second draft. I understand the kid is giving you a headache, but your contempt for him is just dripping off the page.

 

NOTE FROM DR. HWANG: Tracey, this is my third draft.