Nightmask Issue Guide #2

Issue 4:
Midnight Approaches!

After she was recruited by Doctor Kleinmann to once again do his dirty work, the enigmatic paranormal known as Midnight finally arrived in Washington D.C. As she began to track down Keith Remsen in order to feed upon his dreaming mind, we flash over to the lair of the evil Doctor Kleinmann himself, who has finally seen the cybernetic monstrosity that his minions have made him.

Raving on about the horrible existence that his backfired scheme has inflicted upon himself, the evil Doctor then gloated to his sinister minions about the fate that he has delivered to the young Remsen, a fate disguised as a beautiful foreign princess. With that, we then flash back to the present, while Keith helps yet another person deal with their mental problems via their dreams.

This time, Keith found himself in the dream of one Mr. Steel, a man who couldn't bring himself to face his over-controlling nature, a quirk that eventually drove his wife to leave him. Finally sorting out these issues inside the man's head, Keith got himself pulled out by his sister, Teddy, and watched as Doctor Ballad helped to set the man on the road to mental recovery.

After Mr. Steel was sent on his way, Doctor Ballad told Keith that he'd found out, through professional contacts, that Doctor Kleinmann was indeed still alive, and rebuilding his laboratory. Angry about this, Keith decided to try and figure out just how to get even with the man, once and for all, for killing his parents and otherwise destroying his life.

Failing at this, Keith decided to go out for the night, when he finally encountered Midnight, who'd been tracking him down all day. As she planned her assault on the dreamwalker, Midnight was monitored from afar by Doctor Kleinmann and his minions, who were doing so via several cybernetic implants that they'd used to... enhance Midnight and her powers.

Leading Keith off, Midnight almost managed to get her hooks on him, when his sister Teddy interrupted their almost-kiss. Of course, Keith (not knowing any better) got rid of his sister so he could hook up with this attractive woman that'd shown obvious interest in him, and when they were alone, she attacked him with her bizarre, vampiric kiss.

With that, the two paranormals' perceptions shifted into the mental realm, where Midnight had the upper hand in their fight until Keith simply let go, allowing Midnight access to all of his various dream images at once. Collected from various minds while he tried to help them, the mental imagery was simply too much, too fast, and Midnight fell before Keith's crafty tricks, fleeing into the night.

While monitoring Midnight, Doctor Kleinmann discovered that she'd failed, and he couldn't single Keith's dreaming pattern out of the various images he'd assaulted her mind with. Of course, he revealed that he did manage to get a hold of Teddy Remsen's dream patterns, thanks to a fleeting contact between her and Midnight earlier, and as such, had access to her subconscious mind.

And that was an access that he could use to get at Nightmask from afar...

Untold Tales of the New Universe: Nightmask
Kingdom of the Gnome

In the Ballad Dream Clinic, deep within Georgetown, Virginia, we find Keith Remsen preparing to enter the dreams of a very special patient. For three days now, his own sister Teddy has been seemingly comatose, though the machines on location showed she was in a normal dreaming state at the same time - a neurological impossibility. Suspecting foul play, Keith was going enter Teddy's dream to get to the bottom of this.

Though he pretty much knew who was behind the problem: Dr. Horst Kleinmann! Though Dr. Ballad had misgivings about it, Keith went to sleep and, donning his Nightmask, sent his mind into his sister's dream. Before he knew it, Keith was reawakened - by Dr. Kleinmann! Appearing before Nightmask in his guise as the Gnome, Kleinmann claimed the dream world as his own, and opened a deep chasm beneath the Nightmask!

Recovering from his 'death' upon falling on a discarded spear in that chasm thanks to the efforts of Dr. Ballad and Lita Mercado, Nightmask realized that he was in some form of lucid dream, the world itself at the beck and call of Kleinmann and his bizarre technologies. While Nightmask recovered from his near-death, Kleinmann took the opportunity to gloat about how he set this all up, thanks to his minion, Mistress Midnight.

When Kleinmann vowed to kill Nightmask over and over again, Nightmask decided to turn the table on him by demonstrating his own control over dreams. Pummeling Kleinmann with boulders that the villain intended for him, Keith caused Kleinmann to suffer a near-fatal heart attack just as he himself had endured mere moments ago, though Kleinmann recovered thanks to the assistance of his minions, Udo and Gian.

Once the two felt each other's defenses out, Nightmask and the Gnome went at it whole hog, pummeling each other with swords and maces and rocks and pretend minions and just about everything they had. Realizing that he could not easily defeat his hated foe, Kleinmann then declared he was going to leave, thanks to a special doorway prepared in advance, which would return him to the waking world... but leave Nightmask there.

Forever.

Not about to let him escape, Keith repeatedly stymied Kleinmann as he reached for the door, at least until the fiend threatened to kill Teddy rather than spend an eternity trapped with his hated enemy. Offering Nightmask an alternative, the Gnome projected a fantasy life that Keith could live out there, instead of fighting him in the 'real' world, and he almost drew Nightmask into it... until his own paranoia ruined the scheme.

Seeing through the illusion, Keith throttled Kleinmann anew, until the threw his Spear of Destiny at Teddy's sleeping mind, thinking to kill her - and the two combatants along with her. Diving into the way, Keith blocked that Spear, which gave Kleinmann the opening he needed to escape Teddy's dream. He went to step through, only to realize that Keith had apparently sabotaged the door earlier.

Instead of leading upwards, into the conscious world, Kleinmann's door descended deeper, down into the collective unconscious of humanity! Unable to resist the pull, the Gnome fell into it, his mind consigned to a fate worse than death, lost in the collective Zeitgeist. Nightmask almost fell into the door as well, but was saved at the last minute by his sister, Teddy, who had woken up a few moments ago herself.

As the two siblings returned to the real world, Udo and Gian learned the fate of their master. Seeing that he'd gone completely, irrevocably insane, his mouth issuing forth one gibbering pop reference after another, they fled his lair in order to save themselves. Keith and Teddy recovered from their ordeal however, quickly forgetting about Kleinmann and his villainy now that he'd been dealt with for good.

Of course, that wasn't readily apparent by looking at the world around them. You see, with his mind occupying a place in the collective unconsciousness, the world had seemingly become obsessed with gnomes, the things becoming a crazy fad. At the mall, Keith and Teddy even saw a Gnome Hut available, selling all kinds of gnome dolls and action figures, including one that looked just like the Gnome himself...!

Issue 5:
Dreamkill

Peter Barron was an accountant. Well, more correctly, a mob accountant. When he decided to testify against his employers in exchange for immunity from prosecution himself, Barron agreed, tired of living under the shadow of criminal minds. Once he agreed to do so, he and his family were placed in the Witness Protection Program, but this wasn't enough to spare him.

You see, the mobsters he'd turned in found out where he was headed, and they put a bomb in the car that the Witness Protection people were using to ship him to safety. While en route to a witness safe house, Barron stopped the car on the behest of his daughter, who'd spotted a wounded dog on the roadside. While he and an agent went to check it out, the bomb detonated, wiping out his family.

Though his family was gone, Barron continued on, headed to another safe house. Unfortunately, the mob found this one as well, and placed yet another bomb in the place, powerful enough to totally demolish the house. Barron escaped again, this time through a secret trap door leading into a sub-basement tunnel. Of course, this time, Barron didn't escape unscathed.

Rubble from the explosion hit Barron on the head, dropping him into a coma. Unable to revive him with standard medical care, and needing Barron to testify in that mob trial, the government turned to exceptional means. They turned to the Ballad Dream Institute, believing that their so-called revolutionary dream therapies might be able to bring Barron around when other techniques had failed.

Entering the comatose Barron's mind, Keith discovered that the man was living in a total state of denial, believing that his family was still alive and living on in a bizarre, medieval realm with him. This touched a chord with Keith's own situation, having lost his family to a bomb as well, and he totally freaked out, and bugged out on helping Barron out of his coma.

Totally messed up about all this, Keith wandered off to mellow out for a time, coming back to deal with everybody in the Clinic trying to convince him to help Barron. For the greater good, mind you. As such, thinking about it for a little while, Keith agreed to re-enter Barron's dreams, emerging on the road next to the Barron family's super-tacky golden limousine.

He arrived just in time to help Barron defend his family against a gaggle of rogues bent on slaying them, rogues that looked remarkably like the mobsters he'd agreed to testify against. Studying what was happening, Keith decided that he had to play along with the bizarre, medieval aspects of the dream until he could figure out how to snap Barron out of this.

As such, his Nightmask persona rode along in the tacky royalty-mobile (complete with a big ol' crown on top) to the Barron family palace. Once he got there, Keith decided that he had to see that Barron couldn't save his dream family when these hit-men attacked next, so he could face the fact that they were gone and get on with his life - a life in the real world.

So, when he spotted these thugs scaling the walls of Castle Barron, Nightmask did nothing, allowing them to get the drop on Barron himself. When his family was in danger, Barron also found himself pinned down by Nightmask, and his dreaming family was blown up by the mobster rogues. This, of course, was exceptionally hard for Keith to do, and hard for Barron to deal with.

However, Barron finally did emerge from his apparently self-induced coma, and angry at those who slew his family, he readily testified about their shady dealings in order to put them away for a very, very long time. While this occurred, however, Keith began to come to terms with his own inner demons, and finally managed to begin dealing with his parents' fate.

Nightmask issue guides:

Return to the Nightmask main page!