Fiction Foundry 18

As his mental fog lifted, Mike's became aware of a swarm of people.  He was in some sort of medical facility.  The staff were throwing around a lot of big words Mike didn't understand and couldn't have pronounced to save his life. However, one big scary one came through loud and clear: coma.

At that moment, his mother appeared in the doorway. Her swollen eyes looked like they were about to burst. "Michael!  Oh son!" she rushed forward and threw herself across his torso. "My sweet boy! I knew you were still in there. I knew it!" A moment later, Jeanine was joined by Big Mike--strong, steady, Stoic...and trembling.
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At last the medical personnel decided Mike was stable enough to be allowed some time uninterrupted by poking, prodding, or scanning. He would finally get the chance to find out what happened and how wound up in a hospital bed.

Pulling the uncomfortable hospital furniture right up to their son's bedside, Big Mike and Jeanine related how an unprecedented earthquake had rocked the city of Atherton...four months earlier! Because nothing like it had ever happened in the region, there were no contingency plans. 

Don Alejandro de la Vega for Governor of CA

Regular readers of the Spring Road Superhero Review may not recognize the author's political leanings.  Given the excessive political browbeating routinely administered to comic book fans by modern Marvel and DC editors, I generally try to keep my own political rhetoric tamped down on this blog. 

However, sometimes I run across comic book gold that I just have to share.  Today's little treasure emerges from a February 1958 Zorro comic book, profiled over at the Major Spoilers.com site.  Oh for the days of comic books where the heroes said stuff like Don Alejandro:

Fiction Foundry 17

(From the sounds of their retching, it must've had the same effect on Mary and Desmond.)
When his eyes finally cleared, Mike kinda wished they hadn't. All around there nothing but the terrifying sight of buildings and pipes swaying like trees in a tornado.

"C'mon!" he yelled. Mike tried to help Mary to her feet, but the undulating ground made it all but impossible to maintain his own footing.  A second tremor knocked the kids down, tossing Mike several feet away from his companions.  He looked on in frozen horror as a large metal plate broke loose and plummeted directly toward Mary!

And then...

everything went black.

Chapter Two
Mike's next memory was of squinting his eyes against an intensely bright light.  At first, he wondered if this might not be the End of Time--a prospect Mike realized was far scarier to him than it ought to have been.

As it turned out, he wouldn't have to wrestle with that particular existential problem today.  An ambient rhythmic beeping was Mike's first indication that this was not quite the Final Judgment.  The unfamiliar voice confirmed it.

"Oh my God.  I can't believe it."

An instant later the voice was shouting.

"I need assistance in Room 302!  Patient's waking up!"