The Journal of Dr. Daniel Garret - ARCHIVE @dangarretjournal - Tumblr Blog

The Scarab Won.

It’s been months now since Fantomah waged war on the Earth. For 48 hours, the world was in a panic, fearing her name for the first time in centuries... and the Scarab came along. Not Daniel Garret, and indeed not any particular incarnation of the Scarab, but an amalgam of all our collective beliefs about him. After that, Fantomah fell. She holds no physical power over our world anymore, but nevertheless, she has left a permanent scar on our world.

Jade obelisks litter Oregon. Due to the locust swarms, crops have died, and the nation is now experiencing a food shortage. Perhaps even more devastating is the effects she's had on the water supply: blood filled the waters during the calamity, some say even replacing it. There is an ongoing effort to separate the blood from the water using the usual filtration process, but blood can still be found in the water supply months later in lower-income areas.

Several countries and islands are submerged beneath the waters, and tens of millions are dead… such a high number is difficult for the mind to grapple with. Artist Arturo Cruz did a devastating exhibit about it for the Miracellium (Dr. Maxwell Miracle's Museum). You go into a dark room and all you can hear are voices casually going about their day. There are so many that it becomes deafening… but then you notice some of them go away. Minutes pass, and you’re still in darkness, and the voices keep vanishing, one by one, then ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred, a thousand, ten-thousand at a time, fifty-thousand, and they scream and scream, but they’re so much quieter now, a million… none. It’s all silence. Eventually, an attendant walks you out of the room. Jenny rated it very highly.

I suppose the change most specific to this journal is that our heroes seem to be gone for good. Most of Judicial Supreme was slain by the shadow of the Magician from Mars, and there has been no attempt at recruiting new members. Dr. Maxwell Miracle seems to have given up crimefighting, even though several communities affected by flooding require protection. Attempts to ask him about this have been declined by Maxwell, stating he'd prefer to be alone to collect his thoughts.

Nobody knows how the Scarab won. Not even me. Of course, that hasn’t stopped people from emailing me due to my proximity to Dr. Miracle… inspired by his response, I’ve just decided to block keywords related to this event. Believe it or not, if I don’t give an answer to the Daily Oculus, then I don’t have one. My memory starts with me waking up and seeing Maxwell typing on my laptop, and it ends with the Scarab coming back to life. Apparently, I fainted and didn't wake up until the Scarab had won. Maxwell just let me fall on the floor, and I got to spend the week nervous that I might have some sort of brain injury.

I did of course try to investigate what happened, but it seems I wasn’t the only one with a fractured memory of it all. Ask anyone you know and they might tell you about the deaths of most of the members of Judicial Supreme, they might tell you about the rallies at the capitol building, they might tell you about the plagues or the locusts or the obelisks, they might mention the Mermazons sinking England, they might tell you about the Magician from Mars killing President Gardner, but no matter how much detail you get from them, they mostly stop or start to stop after the Scarab returns. Occasionally you can squeeze some information like the Scarab turning the Magician's shadow good again, or the Magician killing the Spirit of ‘76's shadow (I’ve seen this event described both before and after the Magician teams up with the Scarab). One testimony mentioned him stealing a submarine to defeat the Mermazons… but that’s. Memory only resumes as normal once the calamity ends, and no one can tell you how it ended. It just did.

For those asking me if I’ll retreat further into my Grandfather’s past, the answer is no. The journal is gone. I burned it. Every fragment of my grandfather’s life he imbued into the pages, all the parts I had seen and so much more I had yet to learn… all burned as soon as the calamity was over. Sometimes, in the days since then, I think of that moment. Standing there, the flames refracting in my broken glasses, Maxwell standing over my shoulder. “You did the right thing,” he said over and over again, like a hypnotic chant, and I didn’t quite process it. In my mind, the crackle of flame drowned him out. I think about this moment, and every time I've done so I’ve tried to make myself feel bad about it… but instead, I just feel free.

Truly I knew I didn’t want to report on this anymore, but, as a journalist, sometimes you just learn to act against how your heart feels. In this case, I emailed Dr. Miracle like so many other journalists have tried, asking for an interview... though I didn't mention that I really wanted to ask him about the Calamity. Despite being conscious throughout the whole event and likely knowing what happened, he has not given an official statement about it. When I asked him about it directly after I burned the journal, he immediately teleported out of my house. To my surprise, he said yes to my email, and asked me to meet him at the Miracellium after closing time.

Standing outside the imposing image of a museum bathed in purple light that emanated from vault lights in the pavement, I couldn’t quite get it out of my head that he might not come. Then, as the hour struck, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“Hello, Gale,” he said, hovering in front of me. Literally, his feet were inches off the floor.

He had started to show signs of ageing for the first time in years. His dark-brown pompadour was littered with specks of white, and his face looked more stretched, with crevices lining his cheeks. His lips were thinner and I think he was wearing lip gloss of some kind. It was hard to tell in the dark. What wasn't difficult to sense was the thick and ghastly perfume he seemed to have drenched his blue suit in.

He continued to speak, “We can’t go in through the front door, unfortunately. Follow me, I can get you in through the back.”

I followed him through the parts of the exterior they’d prefer you didn’t see, leading to an ugly dark-green door that Maxwell quickly unlocked. Unexpectedly for someone as antiquated as Maxwell, he walked in first, preferring to lead me around the cold museum.

As we walked, he started talking again, “So, Gale, I assume you want to ask me how I’m here right now?”

That was not what I was here for. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, earlier I claimed that I was replaced atom-by-atom by Fantomah… and yet, I’m still here after Fantomah and most of her constructs disappeared from our reality.”

“I suppose that’s confusing, yes.”

He smiled, “It is, isn’t it?”

“Well, why are you still here then?”

Maxwell feigned offence, “Oh you wound me, Gale, you wound me!”. After my lack of response, he composed himself, “Well, in truth… I don’t know either. I’m just here now. I have my powers still, but they’re fading. Maybe I should change my name back to Maxwell Grant.”

I shrugged, “It doesn’t matter to me.” in hindsight, that might’ve been rude of me, but talking with Maxwell for too long does tend to grind away any politeness you might have.

Eventually, we reached our destination. A recently erected exhibit called “Capers of the 20th Century”, mainly consisting of replicas of famous superhero costumes. Among them was a replica of Daniel Garret’s costume, and I couldn’t help but notice the irony of it all. My grandfather made his costume using botched museum replicas, but now all the same parts can be considered a successful one. Part of me wondered if we might get a new Scarab using a botched replica of this very costume.

“It’s perfect, isn’t it?” Maxwell asked.

“I wouldn’t know, I never saw that costume,” I responded.

“No, I suppose you didn’t… but you had the journal. Did it look like how you imagined?”

I paused for a bit to look at the costume. For some reason, I always got the impression that the chainmail my grandfather wore was more clearly blue, maybe even a darker shade… but here it was more close to a silvery-green colour.

“Not really,” I said after a moment.

Maxwell tilted his head in mock-confusion, “How come? It’s an entirely perfect replica, after all. I would know, I had all the original parts.”

“Well, my grandfather said it was… blue.”

“We got into lots of arguments about this, Dan and I… and yet, he always gets to win in his own diary. If he says it's blue, then it's blue.”

At first, I thought this was his usual academic pettiness seeping through again, as it did in his commentary for the section my grandfather wrote about him, so I brushed it off. It was getting late, and I knew we needed to get to the point one way or another.

I set my phone to record. “Maxwell, I'd like to ask you a few questions–” I started.

“Yes,” he interrupted, “we’ve been over this in the emails. Go on. What is it you really want to know?”

And I asked him exactly that. I wanted to know what happened after the Scarab returned.

Maxwell’s face was twitching in and out of stiffness, like he felt strongly about this, but didn’t want to show. “It’s a rather complicated question, isn’t it?”

“Not really,” I stated, by now rather tired of this whole affair.

“I suppose you think I remember it well and will recount it to you perfectly?”

I nodded.

He chuckled, “You do have a strange amount of trust, Gale.”

I shrugged off his comment, “As far as I know, you’re literally the only person on Earth who remembers.”

He nodded, “True, true… but how do you know my memory is accurate?”

“Well, that’s for me to decide. Answer the question.”

“Ah, you get to decide who is being accurate… and you’ve done such a good job so far, haven’t you? What with your little blog series about Danny boy.”

“Will you please just–”

“I’ll give you credit, Gale, you’re good at writing things down. Very very good… deciding on accuracy? I don’t know about that. Danny’s statements about the Second World War seem a bit suspect to me. I mean… I’ve seen the original Spirit of ‘76… he was just a kid. Like, sixteen at most. And I don’t think I saw him kill anyone… so how could he have been so integral? Some historians have even argued it would've been shorter if he wasn't there.”

“Well, I’m just here to transcribe here, my opinion isn’t needed all the time.”

“Sure, it’s not needed in a professional context but… didn’t you think of anything? Did anything strike you as peculiar?”

“What are you getting at–”

“350 pages. His diary. He can write about anything in there, and he writes about his past, he writes about Fantomah… yet he never mentions his wife or daughter by name.”

“Well,” I said, feeling slightly uncomfortable, “they weren’t the focus, it’s…”

“Focus? His academic essays, his memoir, and his letters to space women, all in the same book. You call that focus?”

“That's not what I mean–”

“He was engrossed in his past, Gale, the remnants of his own golden age; the war heroes who galavanted across the battlefields and were a nuisance to both sides, the woman with a submarine who claimed she found an underwater city and probably drowned, the Angel from Mars who we never deserved… and me, I suppose. And, for every spot of rust in that Golden Age, he finds a reason to exonerate himself. Oh, he only beat up those Capers because they were in the wrong, oh he struck me out of self-defence… he saw my friend die, and he talks about how it made him glad he stopped being a hero… perhaps if he was a hero, Peter wouldn’t have died in the first place.”

In hindsight, I had many problems with many of the things he said (mainly regarding how he functioned as a vigilante) but I was tired and the only question I could manage was “I thought you liked my grandfather…”

“I didn’t like him, Gale, I loved him, and when you love someone you notice everything wrong they do.”

“Look,” I said, once again desperately trying to get back on track, “what’s–”

“The point? The point is… I suppose sometimes the best version of the past is what we say to make ourselves happy, rather than the blunt truth of it all. We have control over fiction… we can’t control reality.” I think he could sense that I was getting ready to leave, because he started again without response, “Now, do you want to know how one man, strong but cosmically insignificant, managed to stop three horrors of the collective subconscious and ultimately defeat Fantomah?”

“Yes.”

He looked at me sheepishly, “Well… I don’t entirely know, is the thing.”

“What?”

“A lot happened! I spent so long transcribing that I didn’t pay much attention to what I was writing…” his thin lips etched out a wry smile, “Heh, I’m a lot like you in a way!”

I just wanted an answer, “Come on, you must know something..”

“Okay… you want the gist? No extraneous details? No descriptive flare? No dialogue? Well, I suppose what happened is this: despite all that was going against him, the Scarab defeated Fantomah and saved the day.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes… well, it’s the best we could do. Sometimes I wonder if there could have been another way… but Fantomah’s problems were foundational and could only be fixed with foundational change… we’re not ready to do that yet. So, until we’re able or ready, we all need to believe in the Scarab. Believe that he won and that Fantomah is no more.”

After that, he walked me out of the museum, waved goodbye to a security guard, and we both walked separate ways. As far as I know, Maxwell stopped existing as soon as our meeting ended. He was reported missing soon after, and I was left with the very sparse version of events that he gave to me.

The Scarab won. Fantomah is dead. That is all we need to know, and it is what we need to tell ourselves.

End?

The barriers between reality and dreaming are shattered. By now, so many people have read the work of Fantomah that belief in her reality has become irrelevant. Fantomah is real, and many spectres imagined by humanity have followed her.

The first thing I noticed in the world was a missile strike originating from the sea and wiping out the UK. Later, a radio signal was broadcast.

“Greetings. I am The Empress of the Mermazons… though you may know me better as Meghan Lockhart. I claim responsibility for this missile strike… and be warned, I will strike again.”

***

[Play “Oculus News Network” intro]

[Cut to Newsroom]

Mark: Hello, America, I’m Mark Casim

Louisa: And I’m Louisa Hunt

Mark: Today the people of America looked at the sky in awe as a mysterious shape started floating above Manhatten.

[Cut to interview]

Witness: I just thought it was a bird at first… but then I didn’t notice any flapping, so I thought it was a plane… and then it got closer and it was clearly neither.

Klouse: What was it?

Witness: Well… it was the Magician.

Klouse: The Magician from Mars?

Witness: Yes, them!

[Cut to newsroom]

Mark: You heard that right, the Magician from Mars has returned after a nearly 60-year hiatus from crime-fighting!

Louisa: Here’s to hoping she does something about those Mermazons!

Mark: Well, we have yet to hear about her doing anything, is the thing. She’s been seen, and that’s it.

Louisa: Interesting. In other news…

***

[FlagChan Logs - 9:31 8/10/2022]

Spirit_’76: The scion of Columbia has returned.

Puppet33r: Are you fr?

Spirit_’76: I am “for real”. The Spirit of ‘76 haunts again.

Captain_Battle_41: Yeah, we know, but it’s not you doing the haunting, bro, it’s some lib chick coasting off your name.

Puppet33r: Not even your name, she’s calling herself “Red Spectre”, like fr? Have the libs gotten so triggered by our country that even the idea of bashing the British 200 years ago is too non-PC for them?

Spirit_’76: Ah yes, my great-granddaughter… quite disappointing really, what she did with all my hard work… Though I'm glad she didn't take my name.

Flag_Man: Wait, you saying you’re the original one?

Captain_Battle_41: I thought that guy died in, like, the 70s.

Spirit_’76: A hoax of course. The Deep State saw my work in inspiring the American public to carry on my righteous work, and they got scared, so they kidnapped me and announced my death a few years later. Black Hood was a spy, a plant by the Deep State to make the public more Liberal.

Bl4ck_H00D: Wait, shit he was?

Flag_Man: Any proof of that?

Spirit_’76: There will be a demonstration near the Capitol building at 13:00. There you will see the return of the real Spirit of ‘76. If you are a true patriot then you will be there.

Flag_Man: Bullshit.

Puppet33r: Could you maybe start at half past?

Captain_Battle_41: Alright, I’ll bite. You better be there, bro.

***

When I woke up, Maxwell was still in my house, watching the news as though he hadn’t choked me out hours earlier… he didn’t look happy. I needed a weapon, but the nearest thing I could find was one of my vintage cameras. I approached him and readied myself to bludgeon my attacker, but he lifted his hand, and the camera went flying out of my hand as if compelled by an invisible force.

He looked at me with a sullen face that I didn’t expect from a rich spokesperson. He said to me in a soft voice, “It’s too late now. You can’t do anything to stop Fantomah’s reign of terror. All we can do now is document the end of the world.”

On the news, the plastic-faced reporters were talking about a possible war with “Merzonia”... I guess it did exist after all. Then they went to the weather.

***

[Cut to weatherman]

Tom: Lots of unexpected weather changes today, with reports of a thunderstorm over in Oregon, and possibly a flash flood. Citizens are advised to seek shelter before the storm, uh–

Cameraman: We need to move on a bit, could you maybe summarise?

Tom: Uh… look, we have a website, just look on there.

[Cut to Newsroom]

Louisa: Thank you Tom, uh, sorry for cutting your section short, but we are getting some new reports on the movements of the Magician from Mars.

[Cut to Klouse, crouched behind a half-destroyed wall]

Klouse: Well, uh, she seems to be causing quite the traffic interference in Washington… uh, I don’t know if the cameraman can see it, but she’s currently, picking up cars with her super-strength and… well, throwing them.

[Cut to Newsroom]

Louisa: Is this for any reason?

[Cut to Klouse]

Klouse: It’s hard to–

[Signal stops. Before the interference, a green car is seen flying toward Klouse and the camera crew]

[Cut to Newsroom]

Louisa:...

Mark:...

***

[FlagChan Logs - 12:37 8/10/2022]

Captain_Battle_41: Is anyone else actually here, or is the park just full of normies?

Puppet33r: I’m here

Captain_Battle_41: I thought you wanted to start at half past 1?

Flag_Man: I’m trying to get here, but traffic’s hell, Starbitch keeps throwing cars around

Puppet33r: Starbitch?

Captain_Battle_41: He means the fuckin Magician.

Flag_Man: Oh my god puppeteer, are you a normie?

Puppet33r: Can you just walk here?

Puppet33r: IM NOT A FUCKING NORMIE

Bl4ck_H00D: You’re such a fucking normie

Flag_Man: But what if I get out and the cars start moving again?

Puppet33r: Says the man who wants to make out with the Black Hood

Captain_Battle_41: Just get out of the car and walk here, people will understand.

Bl4ck_H00D: SHUT UP, I’VE ALREADY ASKED TO CHANGE MY USERNAME IT JUST TAKES 24 HOURS OK

Puppet33r: What to

Captain_Battle_41: Could you two argue somewhere else pls?

Bl4ck_H00D: SC4RAB

Puppet33r: Fuck off

Puppet33r: You know the Scarab is lib shit, right?

Bl4ck_H00D: I’m reclaiming it from the libs

Captain_Battle_41: That’s like trying to reclaim Robin Hood from the libs, it won’t work

Puppet33r: Every Scarab has been a lib, hoodie

Bl4ck_H00D: Well I’m gonna be the first non-lib Scarab then

[Bl4ck_H00D has been kicked by Spirit_’76]

Spirit_’76: I hope this has been a teaching moment for you. Meet me by the fountain.

***

[Cut to weatherman]

Tom: As expected, Oregon is currently experiencing a devastating flood. Officials say to stay indoors and wait for emergency assistance… which may take a while due to the situation with the Magician from Mars. Moving on to Idaho, there are reports of frog… sorry, there must be a typo or something, you mean– are they sure? It’s Frog, not… fog… just lots of frogs? What is this, the Bible? Why is this in the weather section? SORRY THE FU–

[Cut to Newsroom]

Mark: Yes, Tom, they’re coming from the clouds.

***

I looked over Maxwell’s shoulder… he was typing away using my laptop. It was a nonsensical string of events, news reports, a thread on FlagChan and… me. He was typing out narration for me.

“Why are you doing that?” I asked.

He looked up again. “I am an aspect of Fantomah… I see the chaos she sews from the fictions we’ve created. Meg Lockhart really did find Merzonia, the Magician from Mars is the sociopath people were always scared she’d be, and the Spirit of ‘76 is a FlagChan sociopath who will do anything to protect his country from the Other.”

“Yeah, but why are you narrating from my perspective?” I asked.

“Anything other than my own mind is preferable to me.”

There was a long silence as I tried to think of anything to say, my head switching between topics until finally settling on “Can’t you do anything about this? Don’t you have a superhero team? Judicial Supreme?”

***

[Cut to split-screen of Klouse (now hiding inside a car. The camera quality has worsened, he’s possibly using a phone) and the Newsroom]

Mark: Glad to see you’re alright, we at the studio were all worried about you–

Klouse: Judicial Supreme was here earlier. Most of them, Dr. Miracle was absent… but there was Red Spectre, Golden Knight, Alice of the Winged People and Juaguar-Man.

Louisa: What happened to them?

Klouse: They didn’t stand a chance! There was this big… beam, red, glowing, it was, like, coming out of her eyes and… and… it cut right through them like it was nothing! They’re dead! They’re all dead!

***

Maxwell’s eyes were glazed over, focused entirely on the laptop screen. “They didn’t stand a chance, really… how could they? The problem with Judicial Supreme was that they were real… and nothing that’s real can triumph over imagination. The unreal is always so much more powerful in scope.”

***

[Cut to Newsroom]

Mark: We’re now receiving work of a mass gathering outside of the Capitol, headed by… there’s been a mistake, we just heard that the Spirit of ‘76 died.

Cameraman: That was Red Spectre. Look at the footage.

Mark: Oh shit…

Louisa: He looks like he came right out of a propaganda poster.

[Cut to footage of the Capitol. The Spirit of ‘76 stands above a crowd of mostly white male onlookers holding or wearing a variety of American flags]

Spirit of ‘76: America was at its strongest before the War… I am of course talking about the War the Liberals and Communists have waged on American Values!

[Crowd cheers]

Spirit of ‘76: Well, I say it’s about time we show these commies who really deserves to run the show. Surrounding me is an army greater than the number of people who can stop us. President Gardner has one hour to leave before we go in and… well, I can’t guarantee my boys will show him mercy after that.

[Cut to Newsroom]

Mark: What’s going on… can I leave? I need to see my family.

Louisa: I’ll take over.

[Mark exits]

Cameraman: The producers are telling us to cut to our reporters at the White House.

[Cut to Room, President Gardner stands on a podium]

Gardner: A lot has happened in the past twelve hours; threats of war, flooding, riot, the Magician from Mars returning with vengeance… and I know you all want me to act quickly, but–

[Suddenly, the sound of bricks shattering can be heard. The Camera looks to the side, showing that the Magician from Mars has decided to create her own entrance. Unlike how she dressed in the 60s, the Magician’s costume is now entirely black. She rushes over to the President, faster than a gunshot and more powerful than a freight train.]

Gardner: Uh, hello, Magician... uh, why are you looking at me like–

[The Magician suddenly punches the president square in the chest, causing him to keel over, and revealing that her hand had penetrated to the other side of his torso. She removes her hand and lets the President wail on the floor.]

Magician: Greetings America... I believe Kennedy once said that I'd make a better president than him... I was impartial to that comment at the time, but I've come to accept this. I've also accepted the numerous apologies you've sent me... and so, in return, I will make an apology gesture for one of my transgressions. I will help you with your war against the Mermazons.

Assistant: Uh, ma’am, we’re not officially at war–

[The Magician’s eyes glow red, and the assistant stops talking instantly]

Magician: They are an insurmountable foe with technology far beyond your capabilities… it will be tough, maybe even impossible to defeat them. Impossible, even. That’s why I suggest we appease them by dropping a Nuclear Bomb in the exact centre of the United States of America. Citizens will have 24 hours to evacuate, but if you choose not to do so, then you are doing a great service to your country.

***

[FlagChan Logs - 13:12 8/10/2022]

Spirit_’76: Change of plan, Starbitch just killed the President.

Puppet33r: So she’s on our side?

Captain_Battle_41: Are you out of your goddamn mind, she’s trying to nuke the country!

Flag_Man: That’s, like, the least patriotic thing a man can do, let alone a woman

Spirit_’76: When I shoot my gun into the air, we storm in, head straight for Starbitch, hopefully we can overwhelm her

Puppet33r: I’m not doing this shit, she’s going to fucking kill me, it’s not worth it bro

Captain_Battle_41: Pussy

Flag_Man: Cuck

***

Tomorrow, the country would be nuked. I was exasperated at this point, “Why can’t you just do something? Delete the blog or something, I don’t know!”

Maxwell looked up to me. “Once an idea persists in the minds of everyone, it’s difficult to remove… maybe the country being nuked would be the best solution–”

“No it’s not!” I yelled.

“Well, it’s the only solution I can think of… do you have anything better? Go on, tell me how you defeat an idea?”

“I don’t know, you create another one?” I suggested.

“Create? Bah, you’d need something that’s existed for decades to defeat Fantomah, and so far all of those ideas have either been actively trying to kill us or are planning to riot... and Fantomah isn't entirely at fault. We've corrupted them. Once objective reality is gone, we change all ideas for the worse, and Fantomah knows this... what idea can we even use against her?”

“What about the Scarab? He's not killing us, is he?” I suggested, not really thinking about my response.

Maxwell’s eyes went wide. “Yes, that’s it… that’s it! We bring the Scarab back! Oh, you’re brilliant, Gale, of course, we use the Scarab, yes,”

“Are you being sarcastic?” I asked.

“No, no, not at all, no… because the Scarab has been inside the minds of everyone ever since they first went out Capering… he wasn’t just any vigilante, he was the one that had the might to stand up to the others! Yes, and he stood up for the underprivileged against powers beyond control and… why do you think Daniel picked a Scarab Beetle all those years ago?”

“Because the scarab pendant was laying around?” I responded.

“No, no no no no, I mean, yes, that’s why he used it… but he could’ve easily abandoned it. He wanted to strike fear into the superstitious criminal mind, why would he be alright with being named after an insect?”

***

While I must admit, being associated with an insect wasn’t the best choice I made… I still think it was the best I could. In Ancient Egypt, the Scarab Beetle was seen as sacred, and they’d often be engraved on medallions like the one I wore on my belt… they were revered. Despite how small and pathetic they looked, they possessed strength greater than you’d expect, able to lift roughly 1150x their own weight. And that’s how I can stand up to Fantomah… despite how she filled my mind and ripped me away from my world, she doesn’t know my strength... she never thought I could escape from the Primordial.

I materialised in the middle of the road. Wrecked cars surrounded me, medics tending to victims of the evil Magician’s rampage. The few eyes that weren't focused on tending to the chaos were focused on me. I took in a long breath… it had been a while since I’d been able to breathe. I looked down… I was wearing a costume. It was clearly based on my original improvised costume, but it had been improved somewhat. The Scarab insignia now rests over my heart, protecting it almost. Instead of chainmail, I was now wearing a more modern set of body armor, though it was still the same familiar shade of blue. It clung tight to my body, which seemed to be once again in its prime. My face was now entirely covered in a breathable yet protective mesh, my eyes peering out of a pair of amber goggles. No weapons, just a pair of fists and my mind.

The Capitol building was there in the distance. Gunshots and alarum could be heard for miles. I started to run towards it, every step making me feel lighter, as though I was starting to float, and then, during one didn't connect to the pavement at all... I was flying! At this point, I became acutely aware of a fluttering sound behind me… wings! This costume has wings! At this point, all eyes were on me, indicating immense awe. I am the Scarab, and I’m here to save the day.

I stretched my left arm forward and flew towards the Capitol building.

***

[Cut to Newsroom]

Cameraman: Oh my…

Louisa: What is it now?

Cameraman: The Scarab is back!

[Cut to Klouse, pointing the phone camera at the sky. A blue blur can be seen gliding over to the Capitol]

Klouse: He’s back!

THE SCARAB LIVES! TO BE CONCLUDED...

Visions Often Come in Dreams

Hello! This is Dr. Maxwell Miracle again. Unfortunately, Gale Porter is under the weather today, so I've elected to do today's transcript for her. Happy reading!

If you are still able to read this... then I have failed. I tried my best to destroy this document, washing away the ink with a glass of water on my desk, but it clearly hasn't worked... I hope I don't need to plead for your attention. You've already read my confession to being the original Scarab... if you truly care about me and the world you live in, you will burn this book right now.

Now, I will write what I am required, hoping that the words I write here won't bring on the end of days.

In my dream, I was in a harsh void of sharp angles and blinding darkness. In the midst of this, encased in a web of angles, was Fantomah, large, a black gown flowing seamlessly into the background. Her skin was blue and thin, barely covering the thick and rigid bones underneath. Her hair was yellow and fading, seemingly trapped in the angles like wheat caught in the inner workings of an immense clock.

Her voice was raspy. “Greetings, subject.” Despite me being able to see her, I got the distinct impression that her voice originated from somewhere behind me.

I tried to move, but my limbs were caught in the grinding, endlessly shifting angles that surrounded us. So, this is what it was like to be in the space beyond space. I couldn’t respond, my mind felt numb being here. As time went on and neither of us spoke, I noticed a whining noise reverberating through the space, through my body, making me feel entirely numb.

Her gargantuan head leaned closer to me. “Nothing to say? I’ve filled your mind for years on end. I’ve taken people away from your world… and now you’re in mine, and you’re just silent?” she sneered.

“What are you?” I murmured, trying my best to move my numb face.

Fantomah cackled, “What am I? I thought you understood me!”

“Do I?” I asked. “First I thought you weren’t real… but I changed my mind a while ago. Then I used to think you weren’t a Goddess, but how can that be true? How can someone with your immense powers be anything other than a deity?”

I thought I saw a bit of mirth in her empty eyes. “You were right though. I’m not a deity… and I’m not exactly real either.”

That statement made me rather confused… how could she not be real? What about the Robin’s Nest Plague, the Haunting of Robespierre, the Robin’s Nest Plague, whatever the Hell Maxwell did, those were all variably linked to Fantomah…

She cackled again at my confusion, “Need help? I'll walk you through it all... you'd like that, wouldn't you? To learn the real origins of Fantomah."

I did as she said without even thinking really. As I closed my eyes, an image formed before them. A garden, wide, open, endless, filled with various animals and wildlife. In the midst of this was a solitary man, as bare as the day he was born.

Fantomah continued to speak, “What you see here… isn’t accurate to reality either. But, if I’m not real, then I should be able to filter my reality through a lens you understand. You knew of Christianity... let's call this reality Eden then. An endless garden… and yet, Adam was sick of it. Every animal had its pair... and Adam just had himself.”

At this point, what I thought was the sun moved closer and closer to Adam… it wasn’t actually a sun at all, but a giant flaming eyeball. The eyeball studied Adam, its iris expanding. Fantomah went on, “The Father of Man noticed his sadness and examined him... what Adam wanted wasn't someone made from the same clay as him. He wanted something made from the Father.” Suddenly, a flame like the ones encircling the eye (the Father I suppose) rose from the ground, becoming a neat pillar roughly the same height as Adam. As the flames receded back into the ground, they left behind the shape of a bare woman, dazed and confused. “And there I was. Forged from an aspect of the Father, in a shape resembling man.”

Despite my eyes being open already, they opened again, and I was back in the angled void. I was still numb, so I only managed to ask a two-word question, “You’re Eve?”.

Fantomah shook her head, “Not Eve, no... I'd say I was closer to Lilith in this scenario. Not exactly, but close enough. I was born into the world with immense power... but I was shackled to Adam, and Adam was more... narrow than I was. I could see into infinity, he could see 30 feet in front of him. Every time I tried to elevate him to my level, he made it clear that he'd rather be above me, above the Father... When he looked at me, he didn't see the Father, he saw the one who'd give him children.” she snarled slightly, which then turned into a wretched smile. “So... I set the order right. He was my subject, and he should act like it.”

An image formed in front of me again. Eden was dark, and Adam was prone on the grass. Meanwhile, Lilith crouched over him. Fantomah’s giant form loomed over it all, her gruesome smile revealing jagged teeth. Lillith laid a hand delicately on his side, tracing a finger up to his blank stomach… no belly button. With one sudden and viscous movement, she plunged her finger into his stomach, causing dark blood to spill on the field. Adam awoke screaming in immense agony. Lilith’s face was stone cold as her hand plunged in deeper and deeper… and then retracted. Lilith walked away from Adam, who was still in pain.

Fantomah’s ghastly head resumed her explanation, “Don't look so horrified. All I did was touch one of his ribs! I even rewarded him for the pain of it all... after a few days, a fully formed woman sprouted from that rib. Eve, I suppose." Her smile went away, leaving a neutral expression, "Unfortunately, the Father didn't like my solution to things, and he cast me out of Eden."

The lingering spectre of Adam faded away. In its place was Earth: clean, free of humans… it was admittedly rather beautiful to see, especially as it moved closer to us.

Fantomah looked at Earth wistfully, “This was the best possible outcome. Much like Lucifer before me, my transgressions gifted me a world of my own. This was my domain to do whatever I pleased… and I built so much too. I formed your land, I created your plants, I filled this place with beasts and creatures I’d seen in Eden. It was all so perfect…” she paused, and her snarl came back with a vengeance, “And then you showed up again.”. The Earth vanished, and all that was left was the angular darkness and the ghastly visage of Fantomah. “Adam and Eve transgressed against the Father, so he banished them to my realm… but he didn’t want me harming them, so he banished me to here… the Primordial. The remains of what there was before the Father created existence as we know it. There is no existence here... anything that dwells here is not real. And because I'm not real, Adam's imagined version of me became my reality... he got what he wanted in the end; my subjugation. He got to decide that I was in the wrong, I was an abomination, I was... wicked. Of course, since he remembered me, I did have some influence over the realm that was once mine, but it was weak... I was not a God, ruling the land as I pleased, I was a ghost, haunting it. By then, they stopped calling me Lilith... they preferred Fantomah."

I was used to the numbness by now and could speak more comfortably… unfortunately, now that I had been told all this, there was one thing I could ask. “Why are you telling me this?”

She moved closer and closer to me, her blue face enveloping my range of vision. “People like you are the Gods of me. You control how other people think of me. Tell the people I caused a plague, and suddenly... that's real. Tell the people I curse colonisers, then I do. Tell the people I'm real, then there I will be. In your world. Free to reclaim my home from the children of Adam."

Fantomah is real... I'm incapable of saying anything else. She's real. She's real. She's real. She's real. I'm sorry, but she's real... and if you've read this, and you believe every word, then you've doomed us all. She's real, and she's here.

I'm sorry, Daniel... I wish I could say I was the Dr. Maxwell Grant that you knew, but I've never been sure... and I suppose now is the confirmation that I'm not. In the Primordial, where I had been trapped for years, she rebuilt me atom by atom... I was made in her image and, despite my best attempts, I was made to fulfil her wishes.

Believe me, my dear Daniel, I didn't want this. If I had a will of my own, I would've let your granddaughter burn the journal, but, as it stands, Fantomah has free reign over my soul and your granddaughter is still passed out. I was just lucky that I didn't need to fulfil her wishes for so long; oh how my heart leapt when I got that message from the CIA saying how I needed to remove all mentions of Fantomah, or when they made sure that my books from the 70's were long out of print... but their eyes just didn't look here for some reason. Maybe they too have been compromised.

LONG LIVE FANTOMAH

The Miraculous Maxwell Grant

I would like to thank Maxwell Miracle for helping me with this particular transcript. This particular series of entries talks about Dr. Garret’s relationship with him. He has also kindly provided his perspective on some of the events described here. All comments from him have been written in bold.

It’s official. One year has passed since Maxwell went missing. I do wonder if there was anything I could’ve done to stop all this, but it’s hard to think of anything… I’ll probably be wondering for the rest of my life. Despite all he's said and done, he's still one of the most important men in my life.

I still remember our first meeting fondly; it was the First Battle of Berlin and I, unfortunately, had a pretty serious wound that needed to be patched up. Maxwell’s bed was right next to mine… it was funny how, even in a war setting, he didn’t look real. He was more like a 1920s magazine cover come to life than a human; young male opulence wrapped up in a charming smile. In the time it took for the both of us to heal, we ended up talking about a lot of things just to pass the time. We both had an interest in History, specifically archaeology, but I never got the chance to study… and then he offered to give me that chance. It was a lovely offer, but I declined but I had other things to take care of (I still wasn’t sure if I’d have a home once this war was done). When I said that, he just offered to let me live in his house while I got my education. He called it a "house", it'd be more accurate to call it a mansion.

Even someone like me needs to display some modesty from time to time, I think I was too embarrassed to admit I lived in a mansion back then. On another note, since Dan was so generous in his complimenting of me, I shall say he was also a rather handsome man in my opinion; he had a very warm smile. Not sure what a nice man was doing in a horrid war like that.

My friendship with him was perfect for a few years, or at least that’s how I remember it. Lots of reading mixed with attending parties, and of course we did get up to some minor archaeology back then... but I think we mostly just lounged about that house of his.

I think the first signs of decline came after Peter Thor died. They were close friends ever since they attended the same posh school together so Maxwell was devastated by his death (possibly even more than Peter’s fiance). That's when he started going out at night alone. Now, he was a capable man (he was rather vicious back in WW2), so I wasn't scared of his safety until, one day, I noticed there were bruises on his knuckles.

One night I decided to follow him. I chose to wear my Scarab costume more for my safety than to protect my identity since Maxwell knew it was me. Turns out, he was doing some Capering, though not in the way I hoped he would. He hunched over, skulking through the streets wearing a red cape over his usual dark-blue suit. It was amazing to me how a change in posture changed the image of him in my mind; a once pleasant man was now more like Jack the Ripper to me.

A man stumbled out of a bar, making a nuisance of himself. That’s when Maxwell pounced, pushing him into an alleyway somewhere and clearly planning to strike him violently with his cane; that’s when I climbed down the roof to intervene and hold him back. We both went home after that, and he promised to have a heart-to-heart with me once we got back. Not sure if that ever happened to be honest. We probably ended up drinking wine and dozing off on the couch.

Obviously, my Capering methods have… changed ever since I returned. I’m nearly 100 (even if I don’t look it), I’m not grieving losses like Peter anymore, and I’m definitely not doing it in such a violent way. I’m ashamed of my past actions, but I believe I’ve changed for the better (see my work leading the superhero team “Judicial Supreme”). Dan is talking about a different man here.

At some point, though, I did tell him to get a better handle on grief… and that’s when he started getting obsessed with his studies, honing in on archaic religions, old occult texts, and artefacts. He used to just make replicas of the artefacts, but it started to not be enough for him. One day he took home an odd green necklace. He said he was going to make a replica of it, but that day never came. I kept asking him about it, but he said he was still studying it… and then one day, I noticed he was wearing it. I never saw him or any of his workers send the necklace back, so I doubt it was a replica. Even if it was a replica, then it belonged in a museum, not around his neck, surely.

Then he started taking more and more until eventually every excavation of a tomb or ancient religious site became akin to furniture shopping for him… I disagreed then, but regrettably, I never spoke out much against it. I didn’t want to lose him, especially after Meg vanished. In the midst of this, I finally bought my own home and moved in with my fiance at the time, so I at least only had to face this issue once a month when we went out for dinner together.

He’s right in that he should’ve spoken up if he had so much of a problem with my collecting habits. One time, when I was placing an urn dedicated to some old forgotten God, I asked him what he thought. His response was, “Looks great!” and then we went out for a party or something and it never came up again. How was I to know he secretly detested it all?

I think his fixation on Fantomah was what ruined him in the end. When he was just telling me about her during our monthly visit, I thought nothing of it. It was interesting, sure, and it lead me to some interesting areas in terms of scholarship, but it was just fiction to me at the time… if only he also dismissed it as such. He knew she was real, and that realisation ruined his perceptions.

His artefact collection turned into hoarding. He believed there was a power deep within the artefacts that he could use somehow, and he was obsessed with unlocking it. He wanted that power. Around this time, he started dating Jane Gem. I didn’t expect that from him, but I was largely fine with it because it gave him something to focus on other than Fantomah… I later learned from him that he only took interest in her because he mistakenly saw the two as linked. Apparently one night he yelled at her about it, causing her to leave him… I couldn’t tell you how frustrated I was with him at that point. I thought he was getting better, but all this time it was just to aid this obsession. This was made worse when I saw Jane leave Earth for good, a frustrating ordeal in its own right. I’m not proud of my response to it all. I drove to his house and… well… I yelled at him. I yelled at him a lot. I said some things that I wish I could take back… and then I left, knowing that I had just caused a rift between us that would never go away.

I do regret my actions, especially what I said to Jane. I would’ve written an apology to her during the “Message the Magician” campaign, but I was a bit busy being missing (presumed dead) at that time, I’m sure Jane understands.

After some time passed (a couple of years I think) I did try to keep some tabs on him. Sure, I held a lot of scorn for him and his actions but… well, you get older, and you start to get a bit softer about these things. Besides, we had a few mutual friends, so I figured it would be easier if we just got along again… and I did hope he was alright. He started publishing all these books about or relating to Fantomah. The Miller Diary was fine, some suspected he added details but I think that, at best, he just embellished some details and made it more dramatic. Then there was Fantomah Untold, a defining piece of literature regarding Fantomah, well-researched for the time, a good base level piece of Fantomah literature… then there was the Book of Fantomah. Alleged teachings he claimed Fantomah sent to him in his dreams. At that point, I was concerned he may be trying to start a cult of some kind.

The Book of Fantomah was a work of lucid fiction, nothing more. A man should be able to write down his dreams without drawing the ire of bosom friends from times gone by, surely!

It’s possible my grandfather reacted this way because, at the time, the book wasn’t marketed as a work of fiction. Sure, it was usually relegated to the occult section of most bookstores, alongside other questionable works like “Chariot of the Gods”, but it was still marketed as legitimate, with the cover reading “The Divine Word of Fantomah Finally Revealed!”. It’s likely that this book is what sparked the misconception of Fantomah being a Goddess, thus prompting a response to that in my grandfather’s work “Introduction to Fantomah”.

I tried to get in contact with him, but I just couldn’t. He wouldn’t let me talk to him. I later made some attempts to court his interest, I cited some of his work, but he didn’t budge… until one night, in 1979. It was really late, nearly midnight, and I get this call from Maxwell telling me to see him at his place. To the annoyance of both myself and my wife, I went.

His place was a veritable labyrinth of books, pots, occult artefacts, etc. The only lighting to be found was candles, which had to be a safety hazard with all the books laying around. There was a foul stench in the air, something rotting. Despite the abundance of candles, the air was cold, and I shivered as I stumbled through the winding path through his clutter.

Eventually, I did find him, ready to greet me. He still had that charm about him, even at that age… he aged well, I think. He was the tidiest thing there. He took me by the arm as though we were still friends and not strangers, not saying a word until we got to the living room. Rather oddly, instead of filling his fireplace with firewood, he placed several candles inside of it and lit them. It didn’t really create the same effect as a roaring fireplace, I must admit.

What a poor sport! I try to create a lovely scene and he mocks me privately! Well, in response, I suppose I must steal some of his dignity too: On that picture plastered on this internet blog, am I the only person to notice that the left and right lenses on his glasses are different sizes? I can tell you why; the poor old man kept breaking his glasses, and the pair he wore in that photo were constructed out of reused scraps! Both of his lenses are from a different pair of glasses!

He insisted I include this comment, apologies.

He poured me and himself a bottle of room-temperature wine and, finally, after years of silence, he spoke to me as though we had just met last week. “How have you been lately?”

I don’t think I ever said how I was doing. I just said “I don’t know if you’re well… I’ve been scared about you lately. I’ve been scared about you for a while.”

His smile dropped slightly, “Why? I thought we were close!”

I placed my glass on the carpet, “We were close decades ago. Before all this hoarding and this obsession with Fantomah–”

He chuckled, “It’s not obsession. It’s actually what I’m here to talk to you about…” he then stood up and walked to the fireplace. “Fantomah is real!”

At the time all I could do was rest my head in my hands and groan. “She’s not real…” I said.

He seemed infuriated about this. I thought back to that night when he was intent on beating that drunk to near death. I started looking around for a weapon.

He didn’t notice, “She is real, my friend. She can hear us, see us, feel us… she spoke to me!” I was just stunned, not sure what to do. He kept on going, he was manic, “She told me there was a way to see her… yes yes, I’d see her. I’d cross into the world she was banished to where I’d learn her secrets!”

“What does this have to do with me?” I asked, picking up one of his canes.

At that point, he kneeled up to me, grabbing one of my hands delicately, as though I had bone china under my flesh instead of regular bones, “I want you to join me… I’ve seen your work. You care about Fantomah as much as I do.

I sat still, “I am interested in Fantomah. It’s a passing interest. You’re obsessed.”

He laughed, “I know you, Dan. You go wherever I go. If I sneak out at night, you follow. I publish a book, and you read it. I call for you tonight and you come to me. You will go where I go. If it’s not today, then it’s tomorrow. Now come, let's start this ritual and go to her world!”

At this point, I rather regrettably hit him with the cane and ran out… That’s the last time I’ll ever see him. I want to see him again of course, but he went missing. At first, his friends couldn’t get into contact with him… then days turned to weeks, and one of his friends went to visit him. He wasn’t there. All that remained were two glasses of wine and a weird chalk pattern on the floor. I tried to get a hold of his writings so that I could learn what exactly he etched on the floor, but they were all seized by Miskatonic University.

A rational mind says that he must’ve killed himself or something, and we haven’t found the body… but I do think he went somewhere. He found the key to Fantomah’s world… and I will follow him. I will bring him back.

He was being a tad melodramatic with his recounting of events here. I said those things, sure, but I wasn’t… manic, or crazy… I was excited... but, I can't be too critical. He did what I did best: take the facts and interpret them through his own artistic lens.

What happened after my argument with Dan? Well, you can read about it in my book, "An Adventure through Angled Reality" but, in short, the ritual worked! I stepped into an indescribable reality (recreated artistically in my novel), and, when I got out, I was here, in 2019, looking just like I did back in 1945… my best days if you ask me. I also possessed great powers, like flight, strength and… well, I’ll find out the rest soon enough!

One more thing though. If Dan returns one day and finds all of this... I just want to say that I understand why you saw me this way, and I'm sorry. If you have it in your heart to forgive me, then there will always be space in my heart to accommodate you, Dan. I have always loved you, after all.

Note: Once again, thank you to Dr. Maxwell Miracle for providing his useful commentary on these confusing events… I must admit, I’m feeling rather nervous. There aren’t many fully legible pages left, and I’m concerned I won’t get any answers. Still, if they’re not in those pages, then they may be in others, or in the files handed to me by the Miskatonic University.

Magician from Mars: The Lost Caper

The following is an excerpt from the journal of Dr. Daniel Garret. Given the change in format to a normal diary entry, I believe this may have been an early draft of a letter written for the “Message the Magician” campaign in 1980 (he is prone to writing early drafts in his journal, as seen with the Robin's Nest Plague entry). People all across America were asked to write messages for Jane Gem (otherwise known as the Magician from Mars) and send them to the National Caper Society so that they could launch those messages into space (not specifically in the direction of Mars since we knew by then that she wasn’t literally from Mars like she said in the radio interviews). They did this hoping that, maybe, Jane would return to Earth after reading them.

I think one of the best things to come out of my Capering career was meeting you, Jane. Sure, there were many Capers I respected, I’ve even befriended one or two, but you always struck me as the nicest one… which was great because you were definitely the most powerful one. Give a man a gun, tell him to fire it forward, I bet you could outpace the bullet. If a car charged your way, the Car would probably be the only thing that was injured. And you could fly! Most of the Capers were just men in tights and capes, sometimes punching people, sometimes using guns… one guy used a boomerang I think, remember him? That guy who just skulked around in this weird half-red-half-black getup thinking he was above everyone else, going on those wackadoo rants about, I dunno, probably Ayn Rand? Turns out his name was Bart Hill! Poor guy had to spend his whole life with that name, no wonder he wore a mask. I saw him at a book store once, looking just as miserable as I assumed he’d be.

Anyway, you were powerful, so so powerful, maybe more so than anyone should be… but it was fine when you had that power. You loved everyone on Earth. I don’t know how you did it, there are some pretty awful people out there, but you saw the best in everyone, and I think you tried to elevate all of us to your level. It’s a shame that none of us could reach your height when you were here. But look, thousands of people are writing you letters, I think we’re ready to learn from you now.

Later (possibly months later), Dr. Daniel Garret wrote a piece in his journal that seems to be in response to an article from December 19th, 1980 by the Daily Oculus. The headline was “A Weak America Begs for the Magician’s Return”. In contrast to the Daily Oculus’ modern mission statement, back then the paper was decidedly more conservative and so took a negative perspective on things like her refusal to participate in the Vietnam war, and also hones in on her regrettable response to a group of people crowding her in 1965 (otherwise known as the Halford incident).

I imagine Jane must feel a bit like Coriolanus, faced with a public who will change their opinions on her on a dime. One minute they beg for her to lead them, the next they’re all but ready to throw her out of Rome just because of one very loud person. And none of it's her fault. Despite all the people around her have done, she doesn’t hate anyone.

People go on and on and on about how she was cowardly, or she didn’t go far enough, or how she came off as patronising, and how her leaving was proof of some sort of hypocrisy on her end. Do you want to know why she left? I was there, I can tell you what happened.

We were at a cafe. She needed to talk to me. Apparently, she had broken up with Maxwell, and I think that was for the best. I didn’t think it was odd for her to fall for him, most people fall for a Maxwell once in their lives, but I did always think it was odd that Maxwell was interested in her… but then again, he was a rather odd man at that point. Apparently, the final straw was that he kept accusing her of being Fantomah; I can see the parallels (they’re both blonde and have powers beyond comprehension) but Jane actually cared about people, and I always got the impression she only had a set number of powers, whereas Fantomah could conceivably end the world if she wanted to.

Unfortunately, despite the thick glasses she was wearing, she did get recognised… I always thought she should’ve worn a mask when Capering. People started crowding around her, even more so once she left the Cafe. They started off by just asking pleasant questions, and she stayed around for a bit. More people gathered. She clearly wanted to leave, but she never could make herself a burden to others. It went on for a bit. A very warm day that day. Sweltering. Eventually, one person asked her about the Vietnam war again. People had been pestering her about it ever since she started Capering, but they got really incessant once the US got involved. She said her usual response of war not really being her area, then some lughead burst in, big bravado, going on and on about how there were people dying in Vietnam and how she could easily fix it.

She said she knew this, but before she could finish her sentence the lughead pounced on it by saying she knew people were dying and was doing nothing about it. She was really uncomfortable now, trying to walk away. A couple of people in the crowd grew angry, but most of all was the lughead, who was basically trying to fight her. She could fly, but I think she didn’t want to risk more people seeing that Jane was actually the Magician from Mars. Part of the crowd parted to let her go, but others started to follow her… she just wanted to walk away, she was offering the people there a chance to avoid conflict… but then that lughead had to grab her shoulder. It was a hot day, she had a stressful week breaking up with a man who was a handful at the best of times, and now was in a stressful situation, all the while being angrily asked the complex and frustrating question of whether or not to take part in a war… so she pushed the man’s hand away.

She has to actively think about holding back her strength. She told me that once, but I never appreciated it until I saw the day she was too stressed to think about it. It was just a quick flick, something that wouldn't even hurt him if a regular human did it... but Jane wasn't that. I'm not even sure she was human, to be honest. The man let out a horrifying scream as bones crunched inside his skin. I remember Jane’s eyes going wide, tears filling them as she saw what she had done. “I’m sorry…” she whimpered before flying up into the sky. Later, she called a radio station to announce that she was leaving the Earth forever… she also reiterated that she was sorry, and said that she forgave that lughead. “He didn’t know what he was doing. Neither do I apparently… I can’t be on your planet anymore if that’s the case.”. Those words haunt me and they should haunt the rest of you. She was the best Caper, one of the few that kept doing it after the 50s. Despite not being from here, she was more human than the rest of us... and now she's gone.

Note: The views of Dr. Daniel Garret on both the Magician from Mars and the behaviour of Maxwell Miracle at the time do not necessarily reflect my own. The same goes for my grandfather's opinion on Mike Halford (or the "lughead" as he repeatedly refers to him as).

Update: Miskatonic has agreed to send me Dr. Daniel Garret’s files! A special thank you to Maxwell Miracle, who took time out of running Judicial Supreme to help me with this project. The files will be here within 3-5 working days. Stay tuned!

Meg

Before we start this excerpt, I think it’s best we provide some context. Based on the list of contacts in the back of the journal, “Meg” is probably Meghan Lockhart. She was a nurse during WW2, and that’s likely how she met my grandfather. You likely know her as the famous submarine pilot who went missing on a submarine journey in 1953.

The following is an entry from the journal of Dr. Daniel Garret. While he fails to provide any specific dates, do keep in mind that the journal itself was created in 1975.

Odd phone call today. Meg. She told me to bring my old Scarab costume and meet her by the docks at midnight. I tried to call her back, but all I could hear was static on the other end. I'm surprised I still have that costume laying around, to be honest, I thought I gave it back to Maxwell.

We’re breaking order slightly now. The following entry is sourced from an incomplete entry earlier in the journal. Square brackets are used for words we had to assume.

[Meg] was one of my few allies back when I was a caper, and I think the only one that I considered a friend (though I might be a bit biased since I met her during the war. I’m sure if I knew Magician from Mars or even the Puppeteer before I too[k] up [Capering], I’d be strong friends with them too). Of course, I didn’t call her “Meg” on the streets, I called her by her Caper name: Re[d Torpedo]. She was very useful in helping me lay low; most people hunting me expected me to be in the alleys or on roofs, and none of them could dream that I was inside of a bright red submarine.

We soon developed this great pattern where I’d meet up with her, get into the submarine, and we’d spend all night listening to radio signals for crimes to bust… and usually those sessions weren’t very fruitful. Instead of fighting crime, we just ended up talking most of the time. While I was rather [genuine with] my responses, I was never sure how serious Meg was. I remember distinctly how, one time, she asked me what my dream was. I, of course, said it was to [get my doctor]ate in Archaeology, and then I asked her the same question. She [smirked?], chuckled slightly, and said “I really want to find Atlan[tis] one of these days.”. This prompted a rather long argument between us. I kept pointing out how we have ships and submarines passing through every inch of the ocean, so it was unlikely that we could somehow miss an entire underwater city… and then she’d laugh and tell me I was thinking too much. Thankfully, we picked up some police transmission, and we ended up apprehending the Ma[d] [Hatte]r again.

The description of her submarine as red strengthens the link between Red Torpedo and Meghan Lockhart. Meghan had spent a large portion of her childhood helping her father mend experimental military submarines, and eventually, she ended up working on a project to repair a scrapped model from WW1. This would end up being the red submarine in question, “The Megalodon”. In this submarine, she became the first female submariner to cross the Atlantic in 1948. Many fringe Caper Historians have speculated that she was the vigilante known as Red Torpedo, while others have floated the more likely explanation of it being part of a military cover-up… but I guess Meghan might be a correct answer.

The next entry was written directly after the entry where my grandfather received the phone call.

It felt so silly, standing outside, dressed like an outdated rendition of the Scarab. I was shocked I still fit in that thing, the chainmail must’ve been looser than I remembered. I sat by the dock for a while, occasionally looking over my shoulder to make sure there wasn’t anyone who wanted to bother me that night. I nearly turned back, feeling like a big great fool, when suddenly I heard the sounds of cascading water. It was Meg. She stepped out onto the docks, still in the same slightly goofy helmet and red jumpsuit. It was completely miraculous - I had long accepted that she died somehow, but here she was, in the flesh… and seemingly unchanged? In the quarter-century since I had last seen her, she did not display any sign of ageing, and her costume was as bright and intact as ever.

She walked up to me, and I couldn’t help but feel nostalgic. “Hello,” I said, unable to convey the great relief that washed over me.

She smiled, “Hope I didn’t take too long.”

We both laughed for a bit before standing in silence. It was just like the old days; no tragic deaths, just me and Meg by the sea. So. I asked her where she had been for over 25 years, and I don’t really know what to make of her response… but I will copy it down as accurately as I can manage.

According to her, she was idly wading through the ocean when, suddenly, her submarine got shot down. I wasn’t too surprised to hear that, it always seemed like a risk with driving your own private submarine around the sea with no notice to hostile nations and such, but when I said that, she said it wasn’t a hostile nation that shot her down. I asked what it was, and she just told me to be patient. She then went on to tell a story I might have called ludicrous decades ago, but now, having done all this research into Fantomah and the like, I have no choice but to accept it as equally possible, if not equally real.

She claimed she was saved by an underwater city. Not Atlantis, she was very insistent that this wasn’t Atlantis, but it was a vast underwater city named Merzonia. Once she was shot down, she was taken into the city and apparently met a group of people living there called Mermazons… not Mermaids or Mermen, Mermazons. And that’s where she’s been for all these years: living in this city, waiting and waiting for her submarine to be repaired enough for her to leave.

There was more to it… I really wish I had recorded it. My memory feels like a sieve lately, or at least annoyingly selective. Can’t remember when my daughter’s doing a recital, but I can remember the precise pages in the Miller Diary. Can’t find my keys, can find specific files on Fantomah without even thinking, or the Scarab costume that I hadn't thought about in decades.

After she explained all of this, she then told me she was leaving. I tried to get her to stay, but she said she had a duty to the Mermazons, to protect them in return for them protecting her. Besides, she had been presumed dead for a couple of decades, Magician from Mars was gone, Maxwell was now… well, I’ve gone over this already… the only one left was me. She wanted to say goodbye to me. We hugged. She got into her submarine and it took her into the sea and off into nowhere like some sort of mechanical Cheron. I hope Merzonia is real. I hope Meg was real. It all happened so fast that I'm still questioning it now.

Note: Further underwater exploration has shown no evidence for cities such as Atlantis or Mermazonia existing.

Update: Maxwell Miracle is currently contacting Miskatonic University. Hopefully, we can obtain some of the files they seem so intent on withholding.

The Spirit of '76 - The Man Who Won WW2

The Following excerpt seems to be in response to the infamous “Good Mourning, America” incident in 1980. For those who don't know, this was an incident where a broadcast of Good Morning America was interrupted by an unknown source. Instead of a morning talk show, viewers were greeted by the Caper known only as “Black Hood” staring solemnly through the tv (though, since that Caper was never unmasked, it’s possible it wasn’t the same vigilante who terrorised the streets decades prior). He said “The Spirit of ‘76, the original Caper, is dead. He’s been dead for years… I only waited so long to announce this for the safety of his family. Goodbye, America.” before the transmission ended.

I know that, as life goes on, you get lonelier and lonelier… but I didn’t think it’d happen so soon. I haven't seen Meg in decades, Maxwell still won't talk to me (and I'm not sure I want to talk to him either, to be honest), and I'm a bit worried that my family will be the next to move away. Ever since I started my research into Fantomah, I've been drifting away from my wife and, consequently, my daughter. It's not their fault, it's Fantomah. Once you learn about her, you can't stop thinking of her. Lately, I've been blankly watching the TV just to distract myself, but even that's not working.

Today I turned on the TV and learned that the Spirit of '76 is dead. One of the few true heroes, I say. He was an inspiration to everyone; me, Meg, Maxwell... and the rest. I do wonder how he did it so well when others just failed. I think he was lightning in a bottle, in a way. Somehow, everything just went right for him.

It was October 12th, 1944. Four days earlier, we had successfully captured Crucifix Hill, and now the Germans were trying to reclaim it. We tried to fight them off of course, but no matter how many bullets we fired, they just kept getting closer and closer. What made it worse was that we weren't operating at full capacity; many of our men were still injured from the days prior, including Captain B.E. Brown. As the situation became direr, Lieutenant G. Gardner told us we ought to evacuate.

But then the Germans started screaming. We looked up and we couldn’t believe our eyes - in the town-turned-battlefield was this one guy dressed like he was right out of the revolutionary war, and he was making mincemeat of the Germans! This was the Spirit of ‘76, and he changed the tide of the war for the better. Thanks to his distraction, we were able to push back the Germans without any further casualties. The Captain was very curious about this stranger, so he had his Lieutenant ask him a few questions about who he was.

“I am merely a citizen wanting to fight the good fight,” he said in an unplaceable accent (Somewhere between French and… Greek? I think that was how I described it, it’s been 30-odd years since I heard him).

“Why didn’t you enlist then?” asked the Lieutenant.

The man looked to the floor, holding his tri-corn hat to his head, “I tried, but they didn’t let me… and I hope you see now that that was a mistake.” I think at this point he wiped his cutlass on his coat, and the blood almost blended in with the red fabric.

The Lieutenant agreed, and they took him to the Captain to further discuss his place in our army. Meanwhile, my fellow soldiers were in awe of him. This collective excitement lasted for the rest of the war; every time there was a battle, the Spirit of ‘76 would be on top of it, leading the charge, eventually becoming Captain when our last one took a bullet to the head. He garnered quite a bit of respect over the years, with many of the men going through outrageous lengths just to impress him on the battlefield. These never worked of course, but he never showed too much scorn when he noticed it. I don’t remember trying to impress him, but it’s likely I did try, I was like that back in the war. This all came to a head in the First Battle of Berlin, where a few key soldiers were so focused on either upstaging or impressing the new Captain that they were rendered ineffective on the battlefield (a few of them even died). A lot of men learned their lessons then.

Eventually, WW2 ended. The Spirit of ‘76 had racked up quite a few medals, but he never showed up to receive them… he definitely deserved them though. Without him, it’s likely WW2 would’ve lasted into the 50’s instead of ending in 1948. And, of course, once he put out the idea of playing dress-up and fighting for what’s right, others followed… through the Spirit of ‘76 never engaged in vigilantism or any war outside of WW2… I do hope we learn who he was one day. The TV said he has a family, so maybe one day they’ll be able to tell us about him, but it’s also likely they’ll just keep the secret within the family.

Note: This transcript seems well-timed since the super-group "Judicial Supreme" has recently announced a new member who claims to be a descendant of the Spirit of '76. Despite wearing the same costume, she has chosen to go by the alias "Red Spectre" instead.

Announcement: As you’ve likely heard by now, Maxwell Miracle has recently confirmed the identity of the Scarab in an interview for the Daily Oculus. I would like to thank my colleague Jenny Everest for writing the article and thank you to Maxwell for helping us solve this mystery. The Daily Oculus is now engaging in dialogue with Miskatonic University so that at least I can see the documents mentioned by my grandfather.

The Robin's Nest Plague

Before I present today’s transcription, I think the nature of Fantomah should be clarified, as I'm already seeing people misidentifying her as a deity. The following is an extract from the paper “Introduction to Fantomah” by Dr. Daniel Garret (1976). His introduction is admittedly slightly outdated, and doesn't entirely line up with his views when he wrote the journal (here he seems to talk about Fantomah as though she isn't real), but it helps clear up what Fantomah is exactly.

“Sure, there have been buildings and statues dedicated to her, and many stories about her cruel deeds against colonizers, robbers, and those who intrude on her land, but in truth, she is no more a Goddess than Robin Hood is a God. Fantomah was a figure dreamed up by people wanting the unaccountable to face some sort of punishment and, unlike Robin Hood, these punishments were often cruel and drastic. This is because, while Robin Hood was created by people who were at best impartial to systemic change, Fantomah was created by people who did want that change, and knew that the only way to impart that change was through cruel and drastic actions. This is why there tends to be an increase in depictions of Fantomah in times of political strife, such as the numerous paintings made of her leading up to the French Revolution.”

Garret, D. (1976), Introduction to Fantomah, https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.1974.7-497a

The following is an excerpt from the journal of Dr. Daniel Garret.

I need to write this theory down before I forget all the important details, since I am likely to do. Part of this theory is based on what is written in the “Miller Diary”, which has been questioned ever since its publication in 1967 but never fully debunked. I believe it is authentic, with maybe some extra flare added by Maxwell Grant, but he wasn't the sort to fabricate segments entirely. Fortunately, this isn't my only piece of evidence, since there are verified accounts of what happened after the Miller diary.

In 1846, a group of twelve settlers including Beaufort Miller and his family joined the many to go along the Oregon trail in hopes of finding a new home for themselves. The most noteworthy thing about this is that the group was well-prepared, and the Miller Diary doesn’t note anyone being sick on the journey. This lines up with testimonies given by other Wagons who passed Miller’s lot. The first controversial claim in the Miller Diary is an alleged encounter with a Tiger on their way to Oregon. Hopefully, I shouldn’t have to say that Tigers aren’t exactly native to America, let alone Oregon. Miller even says as much:

“It was impossible, and yet it was right there in front of us. A tiger in America! Even more strange was how it didn’t do anything. It stared at us for a couple of seconds before leaping into the forest and… well, we couldn’t find it again. Me and Johan stayed up all night, looking out for that Tiger, but it has yet to come back…”

Note: In the original journal, Dr. Garret didn't write down these quotes, but rather he noted down the page and line number of the quotes he wanted to use.

The Tiger is often associated with Fantomah, with some stories even claiming that she can take the form of a tiger (See FT D file in F cabinet for proper citation). Of course, many critics find it easier to dismiss claims of a Tiger in America before the continent even had Zoos.

Once they reached their area of Oregon, they set up the beginnings of a planned settlement named “Robin’s Nest”. Unfortunately, their plans were interrupted by a sudden onset sickness, later known as the Robin’s Nest plague. When the second group arrived, instead of seeing the beginnings of a settlement, they saw twelve dead bodies covered in some sort of unexplanable glowing green rash.

During the removal and subsequent burial of the twelve settlers, no one involved in that process fell victim to the plague; this, unfortunately, told the people involved in setting up Robin’s Nest that it was safe for them to try again. And so, another twelve were sent over to start up this new settlement… and they fell victim to the same green plague. When the next group went over to Robin’s Nest, they yet again saw several people dead, and some people there testified to seeing a blonde woman with a blue skull-like face and dark gown watching them in the distance. This physical description lines up with common depictions of Fantomah. It is hard to say if this claim is true, since it was never recorded anywhere, but it tends to be added to the end of this story.

This is why the Miller Diary is so controversial; This account similarly depicts a blue death-like woman in a black gown, and many have argued that Maxwell added this to his account to make it match up with the most popular account of events. Miller's description is as follows:

“There’s this idea of Columbia: the personification of us being right. She tells us to go forth and conquer, hovering over us, laying down train tracks and wheat… she’s youthful, she dresses in white, she’s an Angel, she’s America… then there’s the woman I see lingering in our camp. She’s dead, her face a rotting ugly blue thing. She wears black… she must be a demon, but I can’t think of her as such. We’ve disturbed an order by coming here, and she’s just here to correct it. She picks up the train tracks, she looms over us, and she tells others to leave lest they succumb to our fate… and that’s what I’m telling you. Leave."

The comparison to Columbia is also controversial, mainly because Miller seems to use imagery similar to the painting "American Progress" by John Gast, which was created nearly 30 years after his death. However, the imagery is generic enough to have been conceived before the painting, and the imagery isn't overly similar to the painting.

Note: Just to update you on the situation with Maxwell Miracle, I've sent an email to both him directly and to the email of Judicial Supreme (I figured there was a chance he'd see it there considering he's the leader). So far, there has been no response.

The Scarab

Excerpt from the journal of Dr. Daniel Garret. While the previous two were presented in the order I assume they were written, this entry is the second-to-last one in the journal. I’ve decided to transcribe it now because it answers a question I asked with entry 2, and I think it’s very important context to the life of Daniel Garret.

I probably don’t have much time left at this point. Everywhere I go, blue skulls linger in the corner of my vision. Every second I’m not actively thinking, she fills my mind.

I have a confession to anyone who finds this long after I’m gone. Preferably, I'd say it in person, but I fear it's too late for that: I was the Scarab. The original one. I could probably go on a big spiel about why I put on the mask and wax poetic about all I had to put up with back then… but, in truth, I think I just did it because I was unwell. WW2 was over, the world was still in awe at the Spirit of ‘76, and every overconfident soldier type was ready to dress up and brawl whoever they deemed deserving... and it was hard not to be swept up in it all, even strong-willed people like Meg had started to do it.

So, one night, I decided I would finally join in on the fun. Back when I was friends with Maxwell, he used to order replicas to be made of artefacts that he found interesting. Not too often, the replicas would end up with defects meaning they couldn’t be used, and those were often stored away somewhere to be repurposed later… that’s where I got my costume, believe it or not. Some defect in the metalwork left a set of chainmail blue, and the famous Scarab Beetle pendant was deemed too small for display by Max, so I glued that thing to my belt buckle. Just like that, I was no longer just Dan Garret, I was the Scarab!

Once I had my costume in order, I took to the streets, looking like a fool but not caring too much. I had control now and that was all that mattered. I didn't really have an agenda in mind when I started, but I guess due to my background I picked up on some crimes that other Capers didn’t bat an eye at. That’s what set me apart from a lot of other Capers; they weren’t there to stop injustice, they were there to beat up people they didn’t like, and sometimes that was criminals, but often they would be people like me.

I think I ended up beating up more Capers than anything else… I can only name a handful of them now. The Flag, Black Hood, the Mad Hatter... That last one, in particular, was a nasty one. He kept bruising up homeless people. When he wasn’t doing that, he was going on these loud rants about how the justice system is ineffective because someone stole his wallet once… I think I may have made that guy give up capering, and I'm very proud of that.

Unfortunately, most of them didn’t stop, and that became a problem. Fight one Caper consistently then you have at least five of them against you. It didn’t help that a lot of them were on the police force, so I had both Capers and Police after me a lot of the time… but I also had a lot of people on my side. Even if I didn’t reach the papers, people were talking about me... no, about the Scarab, an indomitable force of justice who took the image of something disregarded as weak and showed its hidden strength. Of course, I still saw that as them talking about me at the time, so that kept me going.

That was until one night, I noticed someone fall victim to a mugging. Of course, I dropped in and punched the mugger’s lights out, and I turned to see who I saved… it was Maxwell Grant, still dressed up as though he were a J.C. Leyendecker illustration or something. He wasn’t too aware of the whole Caper craze, but he was aware of the defective chainmail replica he ordered. And the Scarab pendant. And the jawline of his best friend at the time. Of course, he had some questions, and, even though I had just started my patrol, it basically ended right then and there.

Once I told him about the Scarab thing, he agreed to keep his lips sealed… but that wasn’t exactly a tight seal when it came to Max. Suddenly, it felt like a real risk that some Caper might discover my identity through Maxwell, and that was enough for me to not go out that night. One night turned to two, to a week’s break, a month’s break, half a year… and by that point, it was pretty clear that I wasn’t going to go out at night again. Of course, as you’ve read about, I did put on the suit again a couple of times, but those weren’t for crime fighting, and I don’t think the wider world even noticed those incidents.

Despite this, people were still talking about me. Every time a Caper or a Cop acted out of turn, people eagerly waited for the invincible Scarab to give them a slap on the wrist. Initially, this hope made me believe I might go out Capering again; the people needed the Scarab, and I was the only one with the costume… until, one day I walked through the street, and the word had changed. People were no longer waiting for his return because the Scarab was back! I was so confused because I could’ve sworn I didn’t go out that night; part of me was even paranoid that I might be sleepwalking until I heard them describe the costume and how “better” it looked… that was a bit of a kick in the stomach because I thought my costume looked alright, but it was also a relief. It told me that there was a new Scarab, ready to take up the mantle that I didn’t even realise I had left for someone else to take… the Scarab had flown away from me, and I was free to make the most out of my life.

Note: It's still hard to process all that I've learned today... my own grandfather was the Scarab! I've reached out to Maxwell Miracle in hope that he can corroborate this story, and hopefully once that's done I can get some attention my way. I'm trying not to get too excited here, but this is so far the biggest thing in my journalistic career. If this gets the publicity I think it will, then I might be able to leverage that against Miskatonic University, and if that goes well I might be able to see the Fantomah papers. Stay tuned, I suppose!

The Experiment of the Century

Excerpt from the Journal of Dr. Daniel Garret

I actually met Peter Thor once. Only once. It was a party at Maxwell Grant’s mansion. I admittedly felt rather out of place there, sticking out in a sea of beige… but I was close friends with Max at the time, so none of them dared share their worst thoughts openly. I was standing by a table, biding my time until I said hello to the host when suddenly, a tall man with shortly cropped blonde hair walked towards me. He looked as though he was stuffed into that dark blue suit of his, and he looked slightly uncomfortable himself. Reluctantly walking with him was his girlfriend, a similarly blonde woman in a dark dress… I think her name was Glenda or Glinda. One of the two. As they approached, I moved to the side so they could go past me… but they didn’t. They stopped right in front of me. I couldn’t help but tense up, worrying that he might be the first guest to “speak up” so to speak… he definitely seemed the sort to do so.

The man didn’t seem to notice my discomfort. “Hey, you’re Dan, right? Dan Garret?”

“Uh, yes, yes.” I sputtered.

“Good, good!” he exclaimed before reaching out his hand toward me, “I’m Peter Thor, I assume you haven’t heard of me.” he chuckled.

I shook his hand as briefly, “No, no I know you… you own that mining company, right?” I knew about it because Max occasionally contracted workers from there for excavation work.

Peter nodded, and then his girlfriend similarly introduced herself to me, but, again, I have trouble remembering her name. She was mostly silent anyway. The conversation went on for a bit after that; we both talked a bit about Max, archaeology, one annoying recent case where an oil company had found oil under a historical site and was now trying to have it demolished, etc etc.

Eventually, and after he was loosened up by a few drinks, he dropped why he was really talking to me. “So… you’re a Caper, right?”

I felt my blood run cold, “What? No, no, I’m just–”

He put his hand on his shoulder, “Relax, Max told me all about your little hobby." I tried to explain that I had recently retired that hobby, but he kept talking, "Oh stop being such a wet rag, we’re friends, you can trust me!”

I shoved his hand away, “We’re acquaintances at best.”

“But we could be friends… super friends!” he exclaimed rather loudly.

All I could muster was a confused “What?”

At this point, his girlfriend groaned in annoyance, “He wants to be a Caper. He’s been going on about this dumb idea he had about going around with a belt of grenades and calling himself ‘Dynamite Thor’... and he doesn’t even want to wear a mask or anything!”

“It’s for advertising, darling,” he slurred in response, “it’s gonna bring in all the stocks back to my company! Can't do that if no one knows it's me.” (I’m sure he would’ve phrased it better if he were sober).

I was baffled, “And you’re going to win over investors by throwing grenades at people?”

Peter shook his head and started getting louder “Not people, criminals! Evil-doers! Goddamn Nazis!”

His girlfriend quickly reached to cover his mouth because he was getting a bit loud. She apologised profusely and we parted at that point. That probably would’ve been the last I saw of him, but I saw his face again on the television. He was wearing a costume akin to an acrobat at a circus; red spandex with a yellow cape and a yellow cartoonish explosion on his chest (though obviously, they looked more gray on the television). He was on the news promoting this big event that he was calling “The Experiment of the Century”; really it was more like a trick Houdini would do.

Part of the patter was that his mining company had discovered a serum that made people immune to explosions, and Peter “Dynamite” Thor was going to be the first test subject. Of course, the most scientific way they could think to test it would be to put him in a giant box constructed out of dynamite and detonate it in the middle of Yucca Flat. In reality, his crew had built a tunnel underneath the box that Thor would crawl through, ending up far away from the site of the explosion before they even lit the fuse.

Max had gotten me and him front row tickets to the affair (which was still very far away for safety reasons). I believe there was a camera crew there, ready to show his stunt to millions across the world… it would’ve been a big boost to his company if it went well. Unfortunately, we all know what happened next; the reinforcing on the tunnel broke, causing it to collapse in a spot very close to the site of the explosion.

I think this was one of the main things that made me glad I turned away from the world of Capers when I did. I can imagine myself in his shoes; giddy and excited to have so many eyes on him, and for all those eyes to regard him as a spectacle… a hero. Sure, he wouldn’t be a proper Caper, but Clint Eastwood wasn’t a proper cowboy and people still looked up to him. He looked so genuinely happy in that commercial, and in that suit… I could tell that, even though I only knew him briefly, he wanted that life, and he spent his last moments watching that dream die in front of his eyes. I'm glad I stopped before that happened to me.

Note: While admittedly some thoughts rushed through my head when I saw the Scarab symbol on this journal, this is the first time I’ve seriously considered that my grandfather was a Caper. Before now, it just seemed like too much of a stretch, but now that I’ve properly read this part of the book, he may be. Granted, it’s possible he wasn’t a one that went anywhere, (there are lots of those: The Dart, The Puppeteer, The Flag, The Mad Hatter, etc), but still… I’ll look through the journal for further context.

Summary of Interview with Former Maxwell Grant/Miracle Employee

Excerpt from the journal of Dr. Daniel Garret.

New testimony I believe relates to the Fantomah investigation. I've agreed to keep the person's identity private, so this summary will refer to him as "John". He is one of Maxwell Grant’s men, but I’ll try not to hold it against him. Full interview transcript can be found in the file cabinet under "F".

John was one of Maxwell's men, tasked with excavating a newly discovered tomb off the coast of Egypt. According to him, this tomb had little resemblance to a typical Egyptian tomb. The bricks were similar to Jade, the walls were undecorated, and, despite being insistently referred to as a “Tomb”, there didn’t seem to be a corpse anywhere. Instead there was an ornate chest adorned with a pattern of copper leaves and suns. Inside was, predictably, money and jewels, as well as a piece of parchment with lines of what John said resembled a series of patterned squares**.

Of course, since they’re under the employment of Maxwell Grant, they took everything that wasn’t nailed down and sent it to Max so he could “study” them. However, since John found the box first, and the other members of the team were out of sight, he decided to steal a ruby brooch.

It is unclear when the curse started to take effect, but John claims to have first noticed symptoms when he got back to America. First, there was a rough cough which John claimed with an odd amount of confidence felt like he had just eaten a handful of sand. When he got to his apartment, he noticed a stiffness in his joints. He woke up, and a trail of red dust hung from his mouth. I imagine it made him look a bit vampiric.

Like most men faced with a concerning medical situation, he shrugged it off and got on with his life. He sold the brooch which seemed to accelerate his ailment. Every time he walked, he felt his joints crack, and, by the end, his left arm was nearly completely numb. He decided it'd be fine, and went to sleep.

Today he woke up to a startling discovery; his entire left arm was encased in a red crystalline formation. He couldn’t move his arm, and he claims that it feels entirely numb. He went to see a Doctor at that point. That Doctor was obviously not able to do much beyond taking an X-Ray. This has been seized by the PIU, but allegedly it showed no bone inside the crystalline formation.

After this, he was transferred to the Preternatural Injury Wing, and I was able to get an interview with him. By the time I got to him, he was mostly crystal, so I doubt they can do anything to reverse this process*. During his time in the hospital, he mentioned having dreams about a blonde woman in a black dress watching him scornfully. According to him, she looked like a normal woman whenever he looked at her, but when he turned away he swore her face transformed into a hideous blue skull, containing even more hatred for him than when it had flesh. When asked, he seemingly had no knowledge of Fantomah, and the lack of imagery in the tomb leads me to believe this is a genuine encounter with this entity. Furthermore, the description of the Tomb lines up with tombs found in examples 6, 8A, and 12 of the F section, strengthening the link between John’s predicament and Fantomah.

*He was removed from the hospital a couple of days ago. Everyone there’s legally required to keep their lips shut, but it seems to me that they didn’t cure him. The CIA is likely studying the red crystalline formation vaguely shaped like a human.

**I’ve recently managed to obtain this piece of parchment from the estate of Maxwell Grant. It confirms my suspicion. When translated assuming the last word is “Fantomah”, it leaves a coherent message in Latin that I managed to get my colleague to translate. In summary, it warns any intruders against stealing from her, lest they fall victim to a curse of her choosing. I have been unable to find if any of Maxwell’s other workers fell victim to this curse, or if she only counted John. While the former seems like it should be the case, the way Fantomah dishes out punishment is inconsistent at best.

Note: The files he refers to were seized by Miskatonic University (the place where Garret got his degree) upon his death. I tried to contact them in hopes of obtaining these files, but they declined, saying that they were currently part of “vital research.”.

Introduction

Pictured here is Dr. Daniel Garret. If you’re at all familiar with him, then it’s because of his contributions to the field of archaeology, or his rivalry with the man known as Maxwell Miracle (formerly Maxwell Grant). He went missing some time in the early ’80s, and this photo is the last one taken of him (I believe the context was he or someone else was showing off vintage camera equipment… I know it was nearly 40 years ago, but there were color photos back then). Due to his dedication to the field, he never really talked to his daughter, my mother. Consequently, she couldn’t really tell me much beyond him being an archaeologist and fighting in WW2 (which may as well be a freebie for people who were alive back then).

Recently, my mother died, meaning I inherited what could generously be referred to as clutter, some of it hers, and some of it inherited from my grandfather. Normally, I’d be the sort of person to maybe look there once and never again, but then I found something rather interesting; a paperblank diary with a blue scarab beetle engraved on the front (specifically the pattern used by the vigilante “The Scarab”, a very commonplace symbol used by people who were politically active in the 50s and 60s, unfortunately commodified by a company in the 70s who started slapping it on everything… including expensive notebooks. Based on his profession, I doubt Garret saw it as anything more than a beetle reminiscent of etchings found in Egypt).

The contents of this diary are a good argument for the use of pencils. Many of the pages were written with ink (probably from a fancy fountain pen I found in a desk) that has since smudged and spread due to water damage from the condensation in the attic. A couple of pages were written in pencil, making them the most easily legible (though not by that much; sorry grandfather, but your handwriting could use a bit of work), and contained unexpected insights into the world of what he calls “Capers” (an archaic term for vigilantes and superhumans coined by newspapers in the 40s), including many claims that are largely unknown to those who study this bizarre area of history.

Mixed in with this are incidents that Garret believes relate to a folkloric figure known as “Fantomah” that he focused his studies on later in life. Of course, some could argue that she was a very early example of a superhero, what with how most stories around her talk about protecting people from invaders, but I’d argue that her system of punishment isn’t really in line with the typical Caper.

Because of this (and, admittedly, a hope to know more about my grandfather), I’ve set about transcribing as many pages as I can. My hope is that his unique insights will garner the interest of historians who I may be able to send the journal so that the rest of the pages can be transcribed. Until then, these are pages from the journal of Dr. Garret.

Sincerely, Gale Porter

P.S. From now on, all notes from me will be italicised, and all excerpts from the journal will be normal.

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