90: A Hardy Boys and Tom Swift Ultra Thriller #1: Time Bomb Franklin W. Dixon

Brendan

What an erudite memory this thug has.

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Why is Fenton not the main character?

Brendan

Black Dragon is Cobra Commander.

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

I'd remember a master crafted burn like that too

gellaho

"How dare you not do a better job of killing me, you idiot!"

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Oh man, lecturing your own would be assassin is such a power move

gellaho

Fenton threatening this man with The Bubonic Plague

Brendan

I will violate the Geneva Convention if you don't talk and I am answerable to no man. -- Fenton

Ozzie

They sent this goon back to the '30s to invent the Nuremberg Defense ahead of the holocaust?

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

You ever get the feeling a series is about the wrong protagonist?

FancyShark

Yes because we read PsyMan

Brendan

I had a couple protagonists take over a story in my time.

"Oh, I guess this is the main character."

gellaho

Really want to make your evil lair in a highly trafficked historical tourist attraction

FancyShark

I hope the evil gift shop is nice

gellaho

Hardys out here planning on taking out The Black Dragon

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

So this underground fort from Revolutionary War times lasted two hundred years of sediment buildup and urban sprawl?

gellaho

While Tom is fucking around with the corpse of Steve

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

ATTACK THROUGH TIIIIIIIIIIME

gellaho

Welcome to the piss room

gellaho

Leaving the goon in the piss room

FancyShark

Mattress makes a terrible guard

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

"Oh god dad you need to clean your bathroom."

"Bathroom? I sleep here."

"The bathroom is over there." points at rusty bucket

Fenton.......you are assaulting the lair of a high tech villain and you are HOPING you wont need a gun?

gellaho

I think they've got this

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Okay but for just one second, I would like to show appreciation for the ghost writer, he used horde correctly and people tend to not do that anymore.

gellaho

The soft flesh of the neck

FancyShark

"Stay back or I'll write more satire!"

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

TIIIIIME BUUUUUUG wait there's no way that would work

gellaho

Uh oh

Ozzie

How the fuck do you threaten someone with an already exploded building?

FancyShark

See, THAT is how to Time Terrorist

Ozzie

If you send it back in time, it will have already happened.

gellaho

Where my own empire will be destroyed by me... wait

FancyShark

"1900...hotdog"

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Just one million dollars' worth of gold? That's not even enough to run a city.

Ozzie

Is it a million in 1900s money or 1990s money?

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Waste management costs alone are going to fucking ruin you, my guy.

gellaho

Nah, that'll never work

bɒW ɘlditƨɘestible Wad

You know. After going through shit like this I don't know how the Hardys could go back to solving cases where someone just gets robbed or killed

gellaho

They've already stopped several international terrorist schemes at this point

FancyShark

They did stop a volcano bomb from annihilating the world

gellaho

At least one hydrogen bomb in Indonesia

Ozzie

The smart play with a time machine and a million dollars of gold in 1900 is to just put it in a swiss bank and then travel back to the present when you're the richest human in history thanks to interest.

gellaho

Anyway, Tom uses chickens and mud to defeat a dinosaur

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

I still love that the volcano annihilation bomb was just a fucking footnote in Dead of Night.

bɒW ɘlditƨɘestible Wad

The writers for Supernatural learned how to consistently escalate the stakes from Hardy Boys books

gellaho

Now that I think about it, that might be 1993

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Chickens, leaves and mud can also make a nice way to cook a meal.

FancyShark

And how to keep going long past the point where they should have stopped

gellaho

It was a trilogy like right before it. Never forget that all of Dead of Night is about the trial following that case

gellaho

They should have never stopped writing these

There should be 800

FancyShark

Okay, yeah

But I stand by my criticism of Supernatural

bɒW ɘlditƨɘestible Wad

Can't they farm them out to the same writing sweatshops that produce YA vampire novels,

gellaho

What a mysterious comma

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

We have ai for that now anyway

gellaho

Anyway, the robot's fighting the dinosaur

bɒW ɘlditƨɘestible Wad

Stick an unassuming White person on the inside flap as the "author" and have the books written by undergraduates making less than minimum wage and Creative Writing credits

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Fuck yeah I got my Robot vs Dinosaur.

gellaho

The guy who came up with the Hardy Boys basically invented that

A hundred years ago

bɒW ɘlditƨɘestible Wad

Really? I thought Sandra Brown did

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

And if you think that's bad, just wait til you hear what else they've been using underpaid young people to make

maaaaan

gellaho

They didn't invent metal until the 19th century

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

there was a puzzlement

is the thing

gellaho

Ah, the Barbarian Brothers approach

gellaho

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

GIF

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

No it will probably just go right back to hunting, Rob.

It's an animal, it does that almost nonstop.

gellaho

Pay dirt on the test hole

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Tom will never realize he could probably have just sent Rob to do this.

gellaho

Tom Swift apparently forgot witnessing Steve getting shred to bits

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

And kicked back with a cup of cocoa with meth in it.

FancyShark

Steve With The Wind

gellaho

Enough to do what now

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

"As Tom is my witness, I will never go hungry again!"

"Tom........what the fuck are you talking about?"

gellaho

Scientists are going to be real confused when they find the Steve Bones

FancyShark

"We have found evidence of Steves as far back as the Cretaceous period"

gellaho

Could it have anything to do with all the time travel we and those assassins have been doing?

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

They're gonna be even more confused when they find the Steve Rifle

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

It will just be chalked up to dinosaurs, they had guns.

gellaho

Well, I guess getting all that iridium was pointless

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Dinosaurs for Hire is science fact. Deal with it, liberals.

FancyShark

Dammit, Swift

FancyShark

Thunderlizards Rule!

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Well where the fuck else would it be, the US has only two important cities and they're both on the eastern seaboard

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

I mean from Maces point of view timesploding New York makes good sense, and tbh I can see why you'd wanna glass New York.

The endemic rudeness for example.

FancyShark

But the food!

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

My cousin!

gellaho

Look at Mr Osama Bin Laden here

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Spider-Man!

gellaho

Speaking of

FancyShark

And save the zoo!

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

None of those things will have existed when New York is timesploded.

It stopes existing both in the future AND the past.

FancyShark

And Brendan and Schmitty and Dennard!

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

So you wont miss them.

I'm sure the Time Police will evacuate the really important people like Brendan, Schmitty, and Dennard.

gellaho

Suddenly: TIME BLENDER

LyraV

Fuck yeah!!!

FancyShark

oh shiiiiiii

LyraV

Twist suddenly Michael Dorn twist suddenly Nancy drew

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Chubby Checker is a Time Lord!!

gellaho

Some trippy shit for the kids

gellaho

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Fuck yeah, maybe Tom will use a contained time\gravity anomaly to squash a dude.

Kids love trippy shit.

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

It's why Dr. Strange is literally the only other thing Steve Ditko is remembered for

FancyShark

Tom gets passed by a magic school bus

gellaho

The fuck is happening

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

It's a

TIIIIIIIME BOOOOOMB

gellaho

What do I care about time?

gellaho

Black Dragon going somewhere without time, apparently

FancyShark

And he's eaten by a langolier

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

GIF

gellaho

RIP Fenton

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

He's going to his ranch in the back hills of Montana, where time isnt naturally occurring. You have to ship time in by train.

FancyShark

oh shit

gellaho

RIP Frank

LyraV

Things went sideways quick

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

FRANKS LOVE FOR FENTON IS LIKE A TRUCK!

FancyShark

Oh shit!

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Good crossovers mean the characters I don't like all die, right

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Hahahah the Black Dragon kind of rules.

gellaho

Of course, Joe the Immortal cannot die

gellaho

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Too bad his nemesis is fucking Tom Swift, Dipshit Genius.

FancyShark

I mean, Tom's obviously going to undo this, but still

Hardcore

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

"My future awaits me in the past"

FancyShark

This is some Infinity War shit

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Hahahah why did you put off going to your time stronghold in the past you nerd?

gellaho

I don't like that the Hardy Boys died and now I'm stuck with Tom Swift

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

He had all the time in the world, until he didn't

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Oh fuck is he gonna do an Eliminators?!

gellaho

The Giant Simile is back

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Oooooh is Tom going to come before the throne of Azathoth and be subsumed into its formless nuclear chaos?!

FancyShark

I like that Joe took Mace down with him

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

A hero to the end

gellaho

Time Storm: Time Blender Part 2

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

TIIIIME STORRRM

gellaho

Tom uses the energy from Joe's final words to bravely tell a robot what to do

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Me ordering pizza through my smart home speaker when I get home at the end of the week

gellaho

Jesus Fucking Christ

FancyShark

Fuck!

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

"WHY DO YOU WEEP, CHILDREN"

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

hahahaha this got hardcore all of a sudden again.

The good ghostwriter wrestled the typewriter away from the bad one.

FancyShark

"GAZE INTO THE HOWLING VOID THAT WAITS FOR US ALL, CHILDREN"

LyraV

This book goes a lot harder than I was expecting

gellaho

Hi, Ernst

FancyShark

I might actually buy copies of these

Ozzie

Kill him with a rock now before he invents time travel!

FancyShark

And Dead of Night

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Hahaha does he just murder Ernst?!

FancyShark

And Steele

Brendan

What'd I miss?

gellaho

Oh, yeah, my robot

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

I genuinely don't know where to begin with the recap

gellaho

Cosmic horror

FancyShark

TIMEPOCALPSE

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

I actually laughed out loud

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Also I suggested that maybe destroying New York with a timesplosion wouldnt be the worst thing ever.

FancyShark

Black Dragon killed the Hardys and Fenton

gellaho

Ah, right, the things my robot can do

FancyShark

Tom has to stop the collapse of time itself

This is some seasons finale Doctor Who stakes

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

I was really worried about that protuberance until its position on the robot was specified

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

"Rob.........did my jack off camera save the day?!"

gellaho

"The same horrors I, the ghostwriter, described for children. I don't know why I'm not allowed to see my kids anymore."

Ozzie

"Don't take my word for it, experience the horror yourself"

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Just fucking sitting there like Werner Herzog listening to the Tim Treadwell tape

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

"Its probably because of my ex wife, she poisoned the kids against me."

FancyShark

"Time is like alternate weekends only. It's not enough"

gellaho

Such irony in the destruction of the universe

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Okay, professor, you only destroyed yourself and everyone in New York. Its hardly the WHOLE world.

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Just fucking burn your notes, dude! Easy fix

gellaho

"Ask your parents about why a blackout might cause births, children"

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Storks are blinded by light pollution, duh.

gellaho

Oh, no, the time storm is destroying everything throughout time. But Tom was still fucking around showing an old man his tapes

Mrs. Rachel Jorgam

man fuck time

what did it ever do for us?

LyraV

Sounds about right

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Oh well then, nevermind. Feel bad I guess, old man.

Brendan

Ernst, I'm begging you to invent the time machine so my parents fuck into existence a me.

gellaho

Is it?

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

I misinterpreted this badly.

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

YOU CAN JUST BURN THE PAPERS ON THE GROUND

YOU CAN JUST SMASH THE MACHINE ON THE GROUND

WHAT

Brendan

Mis, or alternately?

gellaho

An important lesson in the importance of punctuation

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

THEY WILL FALL AS A METEOR!

Mrs. Rachel Jorgam

Stein's Gate is more boring than I remember

Ozzie

They're gonna do the math to make sure it doesn't go off course and destroy NYC anyway?

gellaho

Boring is not the word I would use

Brendan

Yeah but the machine has to make the trip so they might as well make the trip destroy it.

Oh shit Tom Swift and Ernst killed the dinosaurs.

gellaho

Not existing? Whatever man, I'm Gen X dude

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

There's no way that's not the twist

Holy shit, that's why there was the iridium sidequest earlier

Mrs. Rachel Jorgam

Yeah that's a win/win for Tom

gellaho

Whee

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

I mean it seems like it would just maroon Tom Swift in a new timeline, since his is dead but whatever.

FancyShark

dangit, I need to sign off. Catch the rest of this later. Thank you, @gellaho ! Take care everyone!

Brendan

Tom Swift: Time Christ

gellaho

Meanwhile, at the beginning of the book

Mrs. Rachel Jorgam

so what are our time travel rules? Positive feedback loops, multiverse theory, what?

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Aw goddammit, so Joe and Frank are not only alive but didnt kick Toms ass a little bit.

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Cosmic rays? They're gonna get Fantastic Four powers— wait

This is the beginning of the book

gellaho

I appreciate when people insist on how time travel would actually work as thought that's a thing that could possibly exist

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

GIF

Time isnt real anyway. Like birds.

LyraV

Time was invented by capitalists Maaaaaaaaaaaaan

Brendan

Think about it. They NEED causality so you're dependent on time to not starve

Then they make you SELL THEM YOUR TIME.

Mrs. Rachel Jorgam

my god

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

GIF

Brendan

You can travel back in time but you need the energy of an entire universe to do it.

Mrs. Rachel Jorgam

we must liberate the proletariat by destroying causality

gellaho

The repetition of the beginning of the book goes on for longer than you'd expect

Brendan

Basically you have to sacrifice a parallel universe every time you want to go back.

Mrs. Rachel Jorgam

I'd expect half a page

Brendan

BASICALLY

gellaho

Try five and a half

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Hahahah nice. I respect a time travel book that copy pastes its own beginning.

Mrs. Rachel Jorgam

Okay but what about advancedly?

gellaho

So, instead of receiving papers about time travel, he gets letters about scientific ethics

LyraV

They wanted to be Really sure you got it

gellaho

So, you know, boring

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Historians will say Erich and Otto were good friends and roommates but you and I know better

gellaho

Then Fenton shows up for some reason

Mrs. Rachel Jorgam

i like that the author thought the nuclear bomb wouldn't destroy the world. Now of course we know better

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

"Hahahaha ethics? What? I'm Tom Fucking Swift, baybee. I tested an electric karate shirt on my best friend. Ethics are for plebians!"

gellaho

The reason being that they've found unusual fossils

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

"I built a robot with a reset button in its butthole that you have to stab with an ice pick. TOM SWIFT! MOTHERFUCKER!"

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Hahahahaha they're gonna find the Steve Rifle

gellaho

STEVE!

LyraV

Did anyone ever sort out those twenty other time robots? Did I miss that?

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Wait but didnt that never happen because.........

Fuck you book.

This is Tom Swifts Judgement Day, he can never escape it.

gellaho

And we end with Tom doing something weird with his shoe and Joe saying something equally as strange

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Joe remembers.

JOE REMEMBERS.

Mrs. Rachel Jorgam

You'd think so.

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

But Joe also wasn't chased by dinosaurs?

Mrs. Rachel Jorgam

You'd think so.

gellaho

They were used to pinpoint the time of the asteroid. They came back after investigating. They did it three more times. Which is 160 time travels in total

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Joe clearly existed outside of time and space and was briefly omniscient before Tom reset everything.

gellaho

NEEEEEEEEERRRRRDDD

Mrs. Rachel Jorgam

160 dead parallel universes i guess

Brendan

Lovingly yours, Mark Zuckerberg.

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Oh fuck Total Reality Generator doesnt sound sinister at all, huh Tom?

Mrs. Rachel Jorgam

That's some Gor shit

gellaho

We have defeated A Hardy Boys and Tom Swift Ultra Thriller ™️: Time Bomb

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Hahaha what a wet fart of an ending

Brendan

Must have sucked becoming one with everything and blowing up your own girlfriend.

LyraV

I like this ghost writer, they had teeth.

gellaho

So concludes the 90th Edition of the Book Cage

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

The Crossover That Never Was

gellaho

And what a 90th

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

i got my dinosaur vs robot fight and Joe and Frank kinda did kick Toms ass, so my satisfaction is high.

Mordred Got the 'Vid 😷

LyraV

It was awesome @gellaho thank you!!!!

gellaho

May all of your Microwaves be Battled Over

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Tom Swift is somehow less likeable but more unhinged than the Hardy boys.

Mrs. Rachel Jorgam

Great job y'all i look forward to reading it all

gellaho

And may Steve be with you