He is Genis, son of the legendary intergalactic hero Marv-Vell! Linked by destiny to professional superhero sidekick Rick Jones. Through the atom-exchanging nega-bands, he is driven by cosmic awareness to seek out and eliminate those forces which threatened the Universe! STAN LEE PRESENTS: CAPTAIN MARVEL! "YO! This is my book too! I’m tired of HIM taking all the credit. It’s been going on for too long." STAN LEE PRESENTS: RICK JONES: INTERGALACTIC HERO OF WORLDS!

There is a small burst of light in the alleyway and Rick Jones finds himself lying in a pile of garbage bags. He moans while opening his eyes, he looks around. "Look, I’m back where I left off. That means the destiny war is over! Maybe…" Rick looks down as his arm, "Ok...one arm doesn’t mean I am still with him."

He looks at his wrist, then to his belt, "DAMN! I still got these damned nega-bands. God damnit, Rick, how could you be so freaking stupid! I warned you not to do that." With a quick sigh, Rick stands up wandering out of the alley.

"Well only two ways out. Suicide, or get drunk off my ass. Hmm, I wonder which way to that theater that allows alcohol," Rick turns a corner, rubbing his chin, "I’ll go see Marlo’s new movie."

Rick reaches into his pocket and pulls out 12 dollars. He walks up to the ticket window and slides the money through the slot in the glass, "one ticket for Ghøstbusters 16," Rick says. He takes the tickets and walks inside the theater.

After buying a couple of beers at the concession stand, he walks into the theater and sits down looking at the screen and pops open a beer. He watches as Marlo walks down the road and is suddenly attacked by some sort of ghost, and the Ghøstbusters theme plays.

Rick turns to the guy next to him, "you know, I was gonna play Marlo’s boyfriend in Ghøstbusters 12, but I lost my arm," he sighs. When was the last time he saw Marlo? Oh right, he remembers now, it was at the Christmas part last year. God he misses her.

1 hour 67 minutes, and about 7 beers later, Rick stumbles out of the theater drunk as Warbird was a couple years ago at Captain America’s 81^st birthday party. A little voice rests in the back of Rick’s head, telling Rick, "Rick! Slam the negabands together and I’ll fly us home."

"Oh shutup Cappy. I can get us home just fine," Rick says as he stumbles over a few trashcans, wobbling into the street and collapses in the middle of the road, with a pick up truck heading straight for him.

BEEEEEEEEP the deep sounding horn sounds as it sees Rick in the middle of the road. The truck slams on its breaks and tries to stop, but there is no chance it will in time. And the truck is just about to his Rick when…

He is suddenly covered in a pink bubble and is thrust out of the way, landing on the sidewalk. Songbird lands on the ground next to Rick, helping him to his feet. "Rick are you all right?"

"Uh…Melissa?? Hi I uhm," Rick continues his drunken ramblings. Making absolutely no sense whatsoever. He wraps an arm around Songbird and she helps him walk down the sidewalk, keeping him standing.

"Rick, please slam the negabands together. You can’t stay like this. Let it wear off," Songbird pleads with Rick, she places a hand on her shoulder to comfort him.

"NO! Why? So you can make out with Genis?!" Rick screams loud enough for everyone to here.

Songbird looks hurt and takes her hand away, "Rick…?"

"I’m sorry Melissa, I’ve just been under a lot of stress lately. Must have been blowing my second chance because I was young an naïve," Rick replies sadly, "let’s just go back to the mansion."

Songbird nods, "ok."

"Are you feeling better now Rick?" Songbird offers him a glass of water and he takes it nodding at her and smiling.

"Yeah I think the beer has worn off, enough. I don’t know what I was thinking! I just want to be the hero for once. I mean, Genis always gets the BEST ‘roles’," Rick takes a sip of his water and sighs.

"Oh come on Rick. No matter what you’ve still been around longer than Genis. You’re his mentor you know," she comforts him.

"Yeah…maybe, but he’s still the hero and I’m the sidekick! It’s just not fair. I am just as much as a hero as he is! But I’m just as much of a hero that he is! I was CAPTAIN AMERICA’S Sidekick. Hell, I even helped form the Avengers," Rick complains.

"Yak yak, yak, complain, complain, complain,Rick just accept it and maybe we can finally be a team. Like you and my dad," Marvel’s voice rattles off inside Rick’s head. But he’s learned to ignore it.

"Well you know what Rick? I believe in your and I know you’ll always be a hero! And you could stop any villain if you tried. You’re still a silver-aged hero in my book," Songbird gives Rick a hug.

"Thank you Melissa," he takes a deep breath getting ready to ask her for a favor, "next problem that turns up, can you and me go stop it by ourselves. Without Genis and the other Avengers."

Songbird thinks for a moment, "Uh I guess. Yes, it’s a deal. We’ll do it!"

"Thanks Melissa!" Rick throws his arm around her and gives her a slight squeeze. Just as the phone rings. Rick looks towards the videophone, "Melissa that’s the Avengers emergency phone!"

Songbird nods, reaching over and pushes her finger down on the red button right on the front of the phone. The screen warms up, and on the other end is General Thunderbolt Ross, commander of the Moon-base Apollo.

"Avengers! We’ve got a situation here!" Ross gruffs, the cigar in his mouth bouncing up and down as he talks, "there are two giant robots attacking the this freaking moon-base! DO SOMETHING!"

Jones smiles, "hey ol’ Thunderbolt. How’s it going?" Rick says calmly, as if nothing was wrong.

"Oh hello Mr. Jones," Thunderbolt Ross says coldly, "just don’t sit there on your rump and get the Avengers up here! This thing wants the Supreme Intelligence, and we don’t even got it! So it just gonna tear this place t’ pieces."

Songbird shakes his head slowly, "The Avengers are away on a mission, General Ross, but we’re here and we’ll be there right away!"

"What!!#@!@# You and Jones? What the hell can you two do? We might as well call up the X-Men t’ fight this!"

"Calm down Thunderbolt. We’ll handle it," Rick says as he reaches over with his only hand and pushes the "end signal" button on the videophone.

"Are you sure you’re up to this?" Songbird asks Rick.

"I sure am!" Rick replies.

"Then let’s go to the space-adapted Quin-jet!" Songbird jumps up and walks towards the door with Rick Jones.

Minutes Later inside the Quin Jet heading towards The Moon-base

Rick, using his only arm, helps Songbird guide the Quin Jet to the dark side of the moon. He turns to Songbird, "so, how many robots are there?"

"Shhh I’m contacting Ross at this moment to find out," Songbird looks up at the screen above the front window of the jet. He presses a button and types a few things into the controls and General Thunderbolt Ross shows up on the screen.

"Yeah what in th’ hell do you want! I’m trying to work here!" Thunderbolt Ross snaps at Songbird.

"Ross, our ETA is 15 minutes. Start evacuating the base, what’s left of it," Songbird warns.

"Err – Right fine. The base will be abandoned by th’ time you get here. Ross over and out," a few words are mumbled by Ross about having to follow orders of some dumb girl in a costume. Then the screen turns off.

"Well he’s cheerful," Songbird groans as she slowly eases the Quin-Jet into the right position to land.

"Trust me," Rick says, "I’ve known him for a long time, he’s always been like that. I just wonder how he went from being a Hulkbuster to running a whole base on the dark side of the moon!"

Suddenly alarms flash throughout the ship and the floor rumbles and shakes. Rick looks over to the computer screen, "Melissa, we’ve been hit! Our rear thrusters are damaged. We’re gonna crash!"

"Maybe I can…soften…our fall!" Songbird created a pink force field around the ship as it hits the moon’s surface and skids along it. Dust is thrown up into the air and the ship stops skidding when it bumps into a rather large robot. They look very similar to the robots in Star Wars Episode II (Sorry folks -- this story takes place in the future, you haven't seen the movie yet!).

Moments later, the Avengers, Rick and Songbird, leaps out of the Quin-Jet wearing their Avenger’s space suits. There, they are met by three large robots, each of them are holding their palms out towards them.

The first of the three robots speaks, "in the name of Thanos, we demand you hand over the Supreme Intelligence! Or be destroyed" The robots palm glistens as it charged up ready to fire an energy bolt.

"Sorry, Robo-jerk. But last I heard Supremor was carried out of the time stream waaaaay back in the Destiny War," Rick holds up his pulsar rifle, ready to fire at the robot.

"Answer does not compute," the 2^nd robot says and it’s palm glows and fires. But suddenly the blast is reflected back by a pink energy field. The robot stumbles back and gets ready to fire again. But this time, a pink bubble forms around the hand and the bolt never even leaves the barrel. And its arm explodes.

"Thanks Melissa!" Rick leaps to the side, as the 1^st robot fires at Rick. Rick sends to bolts form his pulsar blaster at the robot, doing very little damage. He hides behind a large moon boulder, and keeps firing at the robot from behind it.

Songbird takes to the air, with bright pink wings and flies at the 1-armed robot. She dodged the swinging hand of the robot, "If I can find some place to get inside the robot," Songbird leaps behind the robot and notices a compartment.

The robot tries to swing at Songbird, but cannot hit her. Two more cannons appear on his shoulders. It turns around and blasts 2 missiles at Songbird. Songbird starts flying away, but the missiles keep tracking her.

"RICK! HELP!" She screams as the missiles are chasing her. She does a loop de loop attempting to dodge the tracking missiles to no avail. To make it worse, the other robot attacking Rick, goes after her.

"Melissa!" Rick holds p his pulsar rifle and fires 2 shots. Each of them misses the missiles just sailing off into outer space. He grunts, and he tries to be more organized, and waits for the missiles to get right where he wants them.

Rick yells out, "Melissa! Fly circles around the other robot's head! And try not to gain the attention of the 3^rd robot. No need to make this fight even more difficult!" Rick takes better aim this time.

Melissa nods and starts flying circles around the robot’s head, the missiles following her close behind. Suddenly, the other robot fires 3 more missiles at her, and now she has five missiles on her tail.

"Perfect," Rick grins, and fires one blast of the pulsar rifle. The blast sails through the dark sky and hits one of the missiles causing it to explodes in a fury of flames. Setting off a chain reaction of all the other missiles blowing up around the robot’s head.

"Gah! Thanks for warning me Rick!" Songbird instinctively had already placed a bubble around her to protect her from any sort of harm. She is blown back by the explosions but is not harmed by them.

But the robot wasn’t so lucky. The blasts had severed its head from its body and it falls to the floor. The body goes limp and crashes down onto its knees first, then its torso topples over crashing into the moon’s soil.

Songbird uses her artificial abilities given to her by her carapace to create a wedge and slams it into the back of the 1^st robot. It breaks open the compartment on the back of the robot. Then she created a orb on the inside of the robot and starts to expand the orb, until the robot bursts from the inside out.

Now that his companions are destroyed, the third robot suddenly joins in the fight, walking toward the power-less Rick Jones. Rick looks down at his boots, trying to think of how to take down the giant ‘bot.

"These boots create a magnetic force reacting with the iron found in the moons crust giving me standard Earth gravity. I think this would be one of those times to ignore the "laws of physics" and believe I can fly!"

It sure seems like Rick has run out of snappy remarks at his old age, but he hasn’t run out of ideas. He switches off the boots and leaps into the air, going flying off the surface of the moon towards the robot.

"Now, by activating my boots again, and in reverse, I should be able to use the force to throw the robot backwards," foolishly Rick Jones reactivates his boots. But instead of the robot being tossed back, he is thrown through the sky and propelled away from the moon.

Struck with a bit of fear, Rick stops blocking out Genis’ words and hears him scream inside his mind, "Rick you fool! Don’t you know physics? He had more mass than you did, hence YOU were the one thrown back, not him! Slam the bands together before you’re sucked into space forever!"

"NEVER GENIS! I CAN DO THIS MYSELF!" Rick yells. As he kicks his legs trying to "swim" back to the moon. With no such luck he continues to fly into space.

"RICK! I’ll help you!" Songbird creates a giant wrecking ball, and sends it swings at the robot. It whirls around and slams into it again. She keeps on doing this, slamming the wrecking ball into the robot over and over. And finally, the robot is totally crushed and unable to attack.

Suddenly, Rick is grabbed by a huge pink hand and pulled back down on the moon’s surface. He is placed down softly and the hand disappears, and Songbird walks over to him.

"We won, right?" Rick asks, as he turns his boots back on. And he walks around, making sure they’re operational.

"Yes. The robots are destroyed, but so is our ride," she pointed at the wrecked Quin-Jet, sitting in the crater they made on their way in.

"Do not believe you have won so prematurely, mortals," the voice seems to echo from no where. The Mad Titan, Thanos, descends from the heavens on a floating platform. When the platform touches the ground, Thanos steps off it.

"THANOS!" Both the Avengers reply when seeing their foe. Rick and Songbird separate for the time beings, knowing he probably can’t destroy both them at once if they’re separated.

"Thanos! We should have known you were behind all of this. But what did you want here?!" Rick shouts, holding up his pulsar rifle.

"Heh heh heh heh," Thanos chuckles under his breath. "You poor human, do I ever truly need a reason to do something?"

"Yes," is Rick’s response.

"Then indeed, you are correct. And at this time, I will humor your human thirst for knowledge by telling you my personal stake in this. I had hoped to get the Supreme Intelligence, and kill him as a anniversary gift for my beloved Death."

Rick smiles, "awww…ain’t it great. You two are back together again. Yuck."

With a grumble, Thanos raises his fist into the air gathering cosmic energy through his body, "Now…bow to the might of…

THANOS!"

The world seems to slow down as a huge blast of pure, explosive, cosmic energy flows through the atmosphere-less air, heading straight towards the helpless Rick. Songbird tries to block by creating a sonic barrier around Rick, but no luck.

The blast crashes right through the barrier breaking the solid pink structure created by Songbird’s voice. It’s inevitable now, the blast hits Rick dead on. The ground is thrown up in a blast of debris, as if a nuclear warhead has just hit that spot.

Songbird screams, "RICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" but another name can be heard whispered under her breath, "Genis…," she can barely keep a straight head as her emotions tie her up inside.

"Did someone say my name?" the familiar voice comes from the giant crater in the moon’s surface. Rising from the hole, is CAPTAIN MARVEL , his face covered in stars, as if a window to space itself. And he sparkles brightly with glowing cosmic energy flowing through his body.

Each expression is different. Thanos gasps, "it’s not POSSIBLE!"

Songbird smiles, "…Genis you’re alive!"

All Captain Marvel does is wave to both of them. Then he holds out his fists and fires a blast of cosmic energy at Thanos. Thanos staggers back a bit, but still not major affect that can change the outcome of the battle.

The two of them exchange punches. Their fists charged with the Universe’s cosmic energy. As powerful as his hits are, Captain Marvel’s punches aren’t even doing half as much as Thanos’ punches.

"Ok Thanos," Genis says, "I believe that you had wanted the Supreme Intelligence as a gift for Death, I can’t imagine why, but why not do the dirty work yourself?" Genis whacks Thanos with a punch to the jaw.

"Ugh!—Simple you mixed-bred fool! Because if I had killed all these pitiful solder’s lives myself, then Death would know, and the surprise would be ruined," Thanos said, while catching Marvel’s hand and whips him into the ground.

"Oh, of course. Why didn’t I think of that! Oh and you do know the Supreme Intelligence isn’t even in the time stream anymore* he was taken to li—OOF!" Marvel says as he is slammed into the ground.

(*See Conclusion to the Skree War – Oh wait you can’t, it hasn’t been written yet!)

"I just can’t stand here without helping Genis," songbird says to herself, as she flies over the crater, looking down into it. "It looks like the blast uncovered a alien hanger bay under the moon! Maybe one of those ships has weapons or something in it," Songbird flies down into the crater and down into the hanger bay.

Captain Marvel and Thanos are locked in combat, and there is absolutely no doubt that Marvel is losing. No matter how much will power Marvel has, he can’t beat Thanos. He’s just too powerful.

However, events are about to change as huge starship lifts up from the crater, and fires and proton blast sailing at Thanos. Thanos is blown back and crashes into the surface of the moon, almost like a meteorite.

Captain Marvel turns his head, looking up at the starship, "who…what?" The under-hatch on the bottom of the ship opens. Captain Marvel listens to the signals cosmic awareness gives him, "Melissa! You’re in there!" Captain Marvel flies into the hatch and towards the control deck of the ship.

"Genis!" Songbird opens her arms and grabs Captain Marvel in a hug and places a powerful kiss filled with emotion on his lips.

Genis loved the feel of her lips on his, but he knows they have a problem that takes priority. "Melissa, we’ve got to handle Thanos," Genis walks over to the ships control systems, then looks through the view window.

Genis says, "Thanos is getting up," he looks down at the controls. "Look, even though these controls are in an alien language, my cosmic awareness is helping me to figure out what they mean."

"Or…you can read the manual. It’s in english," Songbird pushes the disk into the computer and the control’s design plans appear on the screen in english.

"Oh…that too. Anyway. Look at this, there’s an organic tractor beam and we can transfer Thanos to a 10inch thick titanium cell. It won’t hold him for long, but just long enough to put my plan into effect."

Thanos climbs to his feet growling angrily, and leaps towards the starship filled with fury. About halfway there, he is hit with a green beam of energy and hovers in the air, being carried by it. He is almost paralyzed, as he is pulled into a holding cell unable to move.

"We got him!" Genis shouts as he maneuvers the ship, facing it towards the outreaches of the solar system, and programs the hyperdrive system so it will activate in 1 minute, "come on! We’ve got to evacuate the ship! Songbird, activate the oxygen-transfer system and seal up your suit. I’m making us a new exit!"

As Songbird does so, Marvel holds his arm up and a blast of photon energy hits the hull and blows a new exit. The vacuum pull of space causes the controls to be crushed under the pressure, or lack there of.

Captain Marvel scoops Songbird up, and flies out of the whole he made as the cabin is ripped apart by the forces of space. Captain Marvel lets go of Songbird when they’re outside the ship, and she lets her hover there next to him.

"Oh no, my cosmic awareness…this isn’t good!" Captain Marvel pushes Songbird out of the way, so she’s not harmed by what is about to happen. HE then braces himself.

"Genis what is it!?" Songbird asks just as she sees it all happen.

All of Thanos’ shoves and pulls. Every time he thrashes around and tries to break out of his cell he causes the whole ship to shake. Suddenly, the ship shifts positions and is now aimed at Earth.

The hyperdrive engine activates and roars as the ship slowly moved towards the Earth. Genis embraces it and pushes against it with all his strength. But as each second passes the hyperdrive system gets warmer and pushes against him harder.

"If…I can’t re-direct the ship," Genis looks down, "New York City is doomed! And I can’t hold the ship forever…the push is getting to me."

Suddenly, a hand comes ripping through the hull of the ship, and grabs Captain Marvel’s head and begins to squeezes, "I WILL CRUSH YOU LIKE A BUG!"

"Ugh…Thanos…!" Suddenly things have gotten a lot harder for the hero. With the crushing force on his skull, and the push of the hyperdive system, can Captain Marvel save New York City? The Answer Is: No.

But, sometimes fate just has a way of protecting people. Suddenly Thanos glows and vanishes from sight, his hand no longer grasping Marvel’s head. With Thanos gone, Marvel can gather just enough strength to shoves the ship off course, so it is sent hurtling towards the edged of the solar system.

Captain Marvel looks back and forth, "Hey Melissa…did you see that too?"

Songbird nods, "What do you think happened to him?"

"I don’t know."

Meanwhile, in the underworld Thanos appears in a flash of light and is greeted by the hug of death. Literally. Thanos looks around, "DEATH! You teleported me away?!" He asks.

"Yeah hun’. I love you, and happy anniversary," Death steps aside and reveals an army of dead soldiers. "I thought you could use this sometime. It’s like a gift certificate – but deadly."

"Hmmm," Thanos grins evilly, "Thank you my love. I just might use this." As he says that, his body fills with hate for Captain Marvel.

"So what’d you get me?" Death asks.

"I uhm. I didn’t get you anything! The Mighty Titan Thanos does not need to waste his precious time on gift-shopping," his voice gets deeper and sounds more serious.

"Fine then I wont waste anymore of your PRECIOUS time," with a wave of Death’s hand, she returns Thanos to where he was before, in a rocket heading out of the galaxy at the speed of light without controls.

"WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITCH!" Thanos screams out, but no one can hear him.

A few hours later at Avengers Mansion, Songbird and Captain Marvel walk through the hallway. "I feel bad for Rick Jones," Songbird says as she plays with her hair a bit.

"Why?" Captain Marvel asks.

"Because he wanted to be the hero this time. He wanted to be the world’s savior. But he had to turn into you and you saved the day," she replies.

"I…uh.." Captain Marvel is speechless.

"By the way Genis, how did you and Rick survive the blast?" she asks.

Genis smiles, "well, that part you have to thank Rick for. Our cosmic awareness made it feel like, time was going in slow motion, and he was able to feel what was going on around him moment by moment. And when it was about to hit him, he slapped the negabands together and it hit at the moment him and me were exchanging places in reality. So, even though the blast did hit me, it wasn’t head on like it would have been. And I can take a little hit like that."

"Wow. That’s really amazing," Songbird continues, "but I still feel bad for Rick."

"Well you don’t need to anymore, I did a little favor for him," Genis says as they come up to the front door.

"Oh yeah, what was that?" She asks.

KTANG

Rick exchanges places with Captain Marvel at the moment the bands snap together. He looks at Songbird, and all she does is shrug. Then, the doorbell rings. Rick uses his only arm, and opens the door, and on the other side is Marlo.

"Marlo!" Rick shouts.

"Hello Rick," Marlo smiles and hugs Rick, giving him a kiss on the cheek.

The End