PHANTASY PUNK (THE SHORT STORY)

Walt used to be the kind of nerd you think of when you hear the word “nerd.” A paunch, a puddle of greasy hair, lots of acne, and no social skills to speak of. By this point in the series, however, the Meta-Quakes had morphed his lines into the simple, squared-off look of a classic Jack Kirby super hero. All four colors and cleft chins. Captain America and Thor rolled into one.

When the time traveling, dimension hopping, steampunk super-villain known only as Serkan interrupts the last East Coast Comicon, most of the nerds and fanboys think it will be the end of the world. But Serkan’s tampering with the time stream rips open the collective unconscious and spills its contents across the harbor, turning imagination into reality.

Now it’s up to Ford, Walt, Jude, and the rest of their anime club to stop the villain, save the world, and put the pieces of their broken lives back together.

The Nerd World Order is coming to power, and the geek shall inherit the earth.