The Superhuman Lineage of Cody Powell, Part I

I am officially rested after a long and pleasing Christmas vacation; let the 2007 Goulashery begin! To start the year, I came up with a good idea: I will catalog my own superhuman origins.

Little do most people know, but I, Cody Powell, am not the product of two typical white people. In fact, I actually descend from a long line of wolf men, swamp creatures, dwarf mages, battle toads, cyborgs, and magical pop tarts. It is truly a crime that I have not yet piped this story onto the Blogotubes; I intend to correct this immediately!

The Superhuman Lineage of Cody Powell, Part I

GreatX5 Grandfather: Coalzilla Powell
Robert E. Lee could see where the Civil War was heading. As early as 1863, aides record him pacing around his quarters, muttering that defeat was certain unless the Confederacy could somehow gain more soldiers. The problem was, the South had no more soldiers to give; most able-bodied men were already committed to combat.

General Lee slowly began to realize this, and on November 22, 1864, he sent a desperate letter to many of the South's leading thinkers. It read:

Gentlemen, we are in a predicament. Without larger forces, we simply cannot win this struggle.

We must find soldiers from somewhere, and I turn to you for ideas. Do we send our elderly and infants into battle? Do we teach our horses to operate bayonets? Do make giant rock piles and pray that the Norse god Sklorocles animates the rock piles into vicious, bloodthirsty warriors?

I beg you gentlemen to think, and to experiment. Without a compelling answer, all hope is lost.

Sincerely,
General Robert E. Lee
aka Da Original Bootyfiend

As stated previously, he sent this to the leading minds of the South, but one also fell into the hands of a complete moron, one Maximilian Powell, failed spinach farmer and moonshine afficionado. Upon reading the letter, Maximilian screamed at his wife, "I must save our nation!" Then he grabbed her washboard and a sack of peaches, and holed up in his shed for six months.

Over the next half year, neighbors reported great billows of smoke and frequent explosions erupting from the Powell plantation. Not even his own wife spotted Powell, and eventually, she began to believe that the shed housed some sort of bilious demon who had killed her husband and taken his peaches.

Finally he emerged from his seclusion, and with him walked a great, wooden monstrosity. It was vaguely humanlike, aside from the 28 chimneys placed all around its body. From the chimneys poured a constant stream of black, acrid smoke. Powell's creation had wheels for feet, and when a lever was depressed, a panel from its chest lowered to reveal a cannon that fired immediately. Every 45 seconds, someone had to shovel a load of coal into its mouth, or else it would slowly wind down and fall over, crushing the person closest to it and accidentally discharging its cannon straight into the air. It was a crude robot, the first in human history.

Powell dubbed it the Confederate Super Soldier, and immediately booked a passage to General Lee. Little did he know that the South had already surrendered. That didn't matter, as on the Confederate Super Soldier's first stagecoach ride, the rough ride caused it to accidentally discharge its cannon, killing the driver, most of the passengers, and all of the horses. Powell, in his own defense, said he was still working out the kinks.

The authorities of Austin, TX immediately seized the Confederate Super Soldier. Unsure of the appropriate legal way to handle such a situation, the city put the robot on trial for first degree murder. The press swarmed to the trial, and dubbed the creation Coalzilla for reasons that are no longer understood. For days, the prosecution laid out its case in meticulous detail. Coalzilla acted in its own defense, never once crossexamining a witness. When the time came to mount its own case, Coalzilla accidentally discharged its cannon, killing the bailiff and sealing its own fate.

A special gallow was fashioned for Coalzilla, although most agreed that strangling it wouldn't accomplish anything. The night before Coalzilla's execution, a disturbed young woman tunneled her way into Coalzilla's cell. She proclaimed, "Coalzilla, I must have you! Let us create a race of superbabies." Coalzilla was no match for her crazy wiles.

Sadly, history does not reveal how a primitive coal-powered robot managed to impregnant a schizophrenic 16 year old. When the woman gave birth nine months later, there was no denying the father, though: the baby had 17 chimneys placed around its body, along with a tattoo of a cannon on its chest. Coalzilla was dead by then, killed when, on the 38th attempt to hang it, its noose snapped and, upon smashing into the ground, accidentally discharged its cannon into one of its 28 chimneys. The fire could be seen in Manitoba. Coalzilla was no more, but my own superhuman lineage had just begun.

Posted by Cody at January 2, 2007 09:10 PM