Megafantastic Man stood in front of the full-length mirror and gave himself the old once over. He adjusted the little curl in front of his hair so it sat at just the right angle and then flexed his pectoral muscles in just such a way that they appeared to bounce up and down of their own accord.

"You still got it, ace," he said aloud to himself and flashed his famous smile with his blindingly white and perfectly straight teeth.

Except...

"What the heck? Is that a piece of lettuce stuck between my incisors?" He worked at it with his super-powered tongue, but it was stuck firmly in place. "Lester! Where are you? I need you here immediately!"

"I'm standing right behind you, sir," his assistant said as he covered his ears. "There's really no need to use your extra loud super voice."

"Are we forgetting who's in charge here, Lester? Never tell me what to do. Don't forget I could snap your spine in half with the merest flicker of my pinky finger. Luckily for you, I'm one of the good guys. Noble and honorable as the day is long. But you're distracting me from the point at hand. Why didn't you tell me there were some remnants of that nicoise salad I had for lunch stuck in my teeth? Are you trying to make me look like some kind of fool?"

"No, sir," Lester said. "I'm afraid I didn't notice. You've been standing in front of that mirror for the last forty-five minutes and pretty much blatantly ignoring me."

"Well maybe if you weren't such a bland little unmemorable nothing of a human being I wouldn't forget you were in the room with me all the time. I swear I don't know why I keep you on the payroll. Make a note, Lester. I'm going to need you to go online later and look for suitable candidates to replace you. Try to get a young hot chick if possible, but only if they seem like they're not too litigious."

"Yes, sir."

"Oh, and Lester, I'm going to need you to bring me some floss immediately. This damn lettuce is really wedged in there."

"Right away, sir. And if I might be so bold as to also recommend a tic-tac? You've got some serious tuna breath from that salad."

"Er, yes, of course," Megafantastic Man darted his eyes back and forth. "And make sure my cape is ironed, while you're at it. The red one, not the blue one. It pops better on T.V."

"Yes, sir," Lester said as he backed out of the room obsequiously.

"I swear you can't find good help anywhere these days," Megafantastic Man said as he turned his gaze back to the mirror so he could appreciate his finely chiseled features. "My my, that's one heck of a jawline you got there if I do say so myself. And those baby blues? Yowza! Is it getting hot in here, or is it just me?"

"Sir?" Lester called out from behind him.

"Back already? That was fast. Maybe I won't need to fire you after all."

"You have a collect call from the Northern California Detention Center for Supervillains and the Criminally Insane."

"Who the heck would be calling me from there?" Megafantastic Man scratched his head.

"It's your brother, Marvin."

"Marvin? What did that idiot do this time? Doesn't he know I'm about to accept a Medal of Honor from the President of the United States on national television? Tell him to call me back later."

"He says it's urgent, sir."

Megafantastic Man let out a sigh as he rubbed his forehead with his palms. "All right. Give me the phone."

Lester handed him the mobile device, which was made with super-reinforced steel, since Megafantastic Man had a habit of accidentally crushing phones.

"What do you want, Marvin?"

"Hey bro! It's me, Marvin."

"I know that already, idiot. What do you want?"

"Listen, I got myself into a little bit of a situation here. Totally not my fault by the way. The police are a bunch of power abusing jerk offs and they like to pick on me for no reason. Anyway, they threw me in the slammer and I can't get Dad on the phone. So I'm really going to need you to come and bail me out."

"What did you do, Marvin?"

"I believe you mean what did I 'allegedly' do? Because this is a bunch of B.S., man."

"Fine," Megafantastic Man sighed. "What did you allegedly do?"

"All right, so I was chilling at the local dive bar. Just totally minding my own business. I was playing darts with some of the townies and I only used my super vision a little bit. You know, just so I wouldn't lose any money on all the bets I was placing. Anyway one of the guys I was playing against got all angry and confrontational with me because I took his last twenty bucks. Long story short, I ended up punching him through the wall."

"Marvin, how many times do I have to tell you, you've got to be careful with your super powers? So what's the deal, you got a minor assault charge or something?"

"Yeah, well that's not exactly where it ends, see. So this guy's friend took issue with the fact that I knocked out his buddy, so he hit me over the head with a pool cue. So as you can see I really had no choice but to toss him through the ceiling."

Megafantastic Man could feel a headache coming on. "Okay. Please tell me that's the end of this little misadventure."

"I wish I could, bro, but you see these two girls came up to me and said I'd just beat up their boyfriends. They seemed kind of mad and at first I thought I was going to have to put the beatdown on them, too. Strictly in self-defense, you understand. But you know me, I'm a lover, not a fighter. I sweet talked them for a little bit and smoothed things over. I ended up buying them a couple of drinks. Really nice gals. We had a lot of laughs and talked about some really deep stuff. You know like the meaning of life and if U.F.O.'s exist and where to get the best manicure."

"I'm kind of on a tight schedule here, Marvin. What happened?"

"Okay, okay, man. I'm getting to it. Jeez. So we ended up hanging out for several hours and I just want to clarify that at no point during the evening did they tell me they were both underage. We were all pretty sloshed by the end of the night and being the gentleman and aspiring superhero that I am, I offered to make sure they got home safe. After all, their boyfriends were both out of the picture and they were in no shape to drive. I figured with my super metabolism and the fact that I outweighed them by a good hundred and fifty pounds, I was surely the least plastered out of all of us. So, in an effort to do a good deed, I offered to drive them home."

"Is there any way I can get the condensed version of this story, Marvin? Come on! My adoring public is waiting for me!"

"Yeah, yeah. It's just important that I set up all the details so you can ascertain all the facts, man. So we go outside and there's this sweet yellow lamborghini parked out front. The girls didn't have the car keys because I guess it was in one of those dude's pockets. I assured them it was no problem. I've hotwired a few cars in my day, and besides I figured it was all on the up and up since they told me it was their car and they were just letting their boyfriends drive it. Well, funny story, they were so inebriated that they mistook someone else's car for theirs, so we kind of made off with the wrong car. I didn't realize that at the time though, you see, so as far as I knew we were all good. Plus, I mean, it was a totally innocent mistake that anyone could make."

"So you stole an expensive car," Megafantastic Man rubbed at his aching temples.

"Hey, aren't you paying attention? I didn't 'steal' it. At worst I borrowed it. Anyway, I got out on the open road and it occurred to me it would be irresponsible of me not to find out what this baby could do, so I floored the gas pedal until I maxed out the speedometer. You ever driven a lambo, bro? That is one sick ride."

"No, I haven't," Megafantastic Man said. "I generally find I can get places much faster just flying under my own power."

"Right, right. Well some of us aren't lucky enough to have flight powers like you. I can jump pretty high, but that's about it. But anyway, it was like four am and the roads were pretty much empty, so really if you think about it, I was being careful. Then one of the girls, I think her name was Missy, asked me if I wanted to take a hit off of her marijuana pipe. Mom raised us to have good manners, so I couldn't in good conscience refuse, even though I probably was already about as high as I could get since my buddy Steve offered me a big old bong rip in the bar's bathroom right before I left."

"Oh yes," Megafantastic Man said. "I remember Steve."

"Right. Good dude. I meant to ask him if he wanted to hang with us, but I was really stoned and I forgot. I think he might still be in the bathroom at the bar. But anyway, I took my eyes off the road for just a second to hit the pipe and then I must have hit a pothole or something because the next thing I knew the car was rolling over and somehow we went off the side of a bridge and I kind of got submerged in a small lake. The girls were only slightly concussed and I managed to pull them out before anyone inhaled too much water, but unfortunately it turns out one of their fathers is some sort of hot-shot high powered attorney and the other one's dad is like a CEO of some multi-billion dollar company or something. I think I passed out for a while or something, because I'm not sure how those dudes got there, but the next thing I knew they were screaming in my face and threatening to sue me for all I'm worth and I was just like, damn, you bros need to chill. And then I think I blacked out again because I don't remember what happened next until I came to in the back of a cop car with my hands cuffed and they took me to this place for, like, supervillains or something, which is a total joke because I'm one of the good guys. My big bro is Megafantastic Man, you know? And like, where's my due process and all of that junk?"

"Marvin, this is like the second time this exact same thing has happened this month. You're never going to learn anything if I keep bailing you out. I'm sorry, but I really don't see how this concerns me."

"Oh yeah, that's the other thing. I didn't have my ID on me, so I kind of told the cops I was you."

"You did what?"

"Yeah. I thought maybe they'd go easy on me if they thought I was a famous superhero. We look enough alike that I can kind of pass as you. I mean, hell, it's not like this is the first time. You know how many credit cards I've taken out in your name, maxed out, and never paid off? Speaking of which, you're not planning on buying a house or anything anytime soon, are you? I have a feeling your credit score might not be so great, if you know what I mean."

"Sir?" Lester butted in. "I don't mean to interrupt your conversation, but they're talking about you on the television right now."

"What? Switch it on!"

Lester fumbled with the remote until he found a station with an anchor sitting at a desk. "And in breaking news, the world renowned superhero Megafantastic Man has just been arrested in Northern California. Charges include kidnapping, grand theft auto, and attempted murder. We'll have more on this story as details emerge."

"Marvin! I'm about to be honored by the President of the goddamn United States and you're besmirching my reputation literally minutes ahead of time? You're just going to have to hang tight while I get this straightened out. Obviously I can't be under arrest in Northern California while I'm also at the White House at the same time. I'm not Photocopy Man, after all. Speaking of which, that jerk owes me fifty bucks. Lester! Make a note to get Photocopy Man's people on the line and see when he's going to pay me that money he owes me!"

"Yes, sir!" Lester said.

"And as for you, Marvin. I'm coming for you. And I don't think you're going to like it when I get there."

"Sure, bro. Just don't forget to bring the bail money."