When we last left the Republican Superfriends, our heroes were desperately fighting to defend their VP nominee from the unfair "questions" and "reporting" of the all-powerful East-Coast Media, by valiantly stoking the Smoke Machine of Outrage. Since then, the menace of the Liberal Legion has only grown stronger! What ever will they do now???

"Newtman, I have terrible news!" said faithful poll-boy Frank Luntz, appearing in the doorway of Newtman's office high atop the shimmering Evangel Tower.

Newtman, characteristically clad in his tight, lime-green leotard, lowered his newspaper and peered over his reading glasses at Boy Luntz. "What is it, Luntz?" he said professorially.

Boy Luntz disappeared back into the hall, then frantically emerged with a presentation poster and stand. He pulled a retractable pointer from his pocket, extended it in a smart snap, and pointed it at the map of the United States on the poster.



"As you can see, the dreaded Blue Plague is encroaching into even our previously secure, quarantined zones," Boy Luntz explained. "It now threatens to swallow massive portions of the country, Newtman!"

Newtman got up from his chair, his naked thighs peeling audibly from its leather surface. He rubbed his soft chin and took a closer look at the offending map. "This is the current reach of the Plague according to our scientists in the field?"

"I'm afraid so, Newtman," Boy Luntz replied. "The yellow areas are the quarantined zones that have not yet been fully infected, but which threaten to fall to the Plague if our Super-Defenses don't hold. Sir."

Newtman concealed his panic from the young acolyte and sat back down behind his desk, the cushions of his chair sighing under the sudden weight. "Alert the Presidential Squad immediately. Tell them everything you told me, but don't incite a panic," he said, picking his newspaper back up off the desk and attempting to look calm and in control. "You are dismissed."

"Yes, sir!"

* * *

Hundreds of miles away, somewhere deep in the panhandle of Florida, McMaverick, the Republican Superfriends' only hope of preventing the complete takeover of America by the Blue Plague and the wicked Dr. Baracko, was in the middle of a fevered rally in a high school gymnasium.

McMaverick stood proudly behind the podium, his VP sidekick Sarah Spectacle smirking and winking supportively behind him. All around them, tightly filling the hall, a thousand of the most devoted Superfriend supporters intently leaned forward with bent knees, as if each and every one was preparing to pounce on an escaped animal.

"My friends," McMaverick declared, then grinned tightly. The audience erupted into angry cheers at this statement, like the fans of an underdog boxer who had just landed an uppercut punch on the champ. "My friends," McMaverick added, this time in a disappointed tone, and the cheers abruptly turned into lusty, resentful boos and jeers.

McMaverick's face again stretched into a strange, smile-like grimace. "Mehhehehhhh," he continued, Sarah Spectacle nodding somberly behind him, the thick symphony of boos washing over the stage like frothy ocean waves. Somewhere - despite the fact that no pets were allowed in the gymnasium - a raspy, barking sound.

"Terrorists!" shrieked a voice from the back of the gymnasium, sharply punctuating the wall of disapproving noise. "Socialists!" bellowed a hefty, red-faced man in the front. "Soccer fans!" screamed a reedy woman with an 80s haircut. McMaverick registered these cries with a slight raising of the eyebrows and a stiff double thumbs-up to no one in particular. As he continued his speech, Superfriend campaign staff wove their way through the mob, handing out white "Freedom Hoods," "Star-Spangled Neck Ropes," and commemorative "Sarah Spectacle Lotion-and-Kleenex Sets." The audience members snatched the prizes up without looking, their infuriated, fleshy eyes fixed fiercely on the stage.

Then, in the middle of another "My friends," campaign manager Rick Davis snuck up next to McMaverick and whispered something into his ear. Without another word, McMaverick backed away from the podium and wandered aimlessly off the stage.

The crowd noise died down to a confused murmur. A middle-aged man holding a hand-scrawled "Obama = Osama" sign let his exhausted eyes drift back to Sarah Palin's legs. Rick Davis approached the microphone, tapped it awkwardly, and said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, please remain calm."

Rick Davis cleared his throat, sending the sound system into an ear-shattering four seconds of feedback. "I need - I need you all to remain calm." Bewildered shouts and general sounds of discontent arose from the shiftless crowd. Security guards slowly and quietly began locking and chaining the gymnasium doors. Rick Davis continued, "We have just been informed that the dreaded Blue Plague has reached the edges of this gymnasium and threatens to infect all in-"

Complete, lawless pandemonium of unthinkable dimensions erupted. Brother was set against brother, mother against son, and toddlers fended for themselves as the room shook and thundered with chairs smashing into skulls, campaign signs breaking over necks, guttural Viking screams filling the air, nail files slitting throats, and feral eyes glaring murderously through the fingers of clawing hands.

Finally, after an eternity of savagery unseen since Europe's collapse into the Dark Ages, the hulking man who earlier shouted "Socialists!" heaved himself onto the stage, his flannel shirt in tatters and soaked with blood, his face, somehow, covered in tribal war paint. He kicked the podium over with a steel-toed boot and seized the microphone.

"Shut up and sit down!" he bellowed into the tangled scene of murder and mayhem. Everyone froze and fell silent, still clutching each others' throats and hair. "I said sit down!" the man repeated, even more forcefully. Everyone obediently sat down on the floor.

"We can't keep fighting each other like this. We have to survive. Remember what that guy said, the Blue Plague is out there." The man looked around the gymnasium for Rick Davis, but Rick Davis was already dead, having been wrapped like shredded bamboo around the bleacher supports by a marauding band of pro-life housewives.

"What are we going to do?" shouted a mid-20s man in the back, apparently no longer noticing that his arm had been torn off at the shoulder by the young family of five sitting quietly next to him.

"The only way we're going to survive the Blue Plague is if we hunker down here in this hall," said the man in warpaint. "Nobody goes outside. We may have to wait here for at least four years - or until something else happens."

"What are we going to eat?" cried a pregnant woman with fistfuls of her neighbor's hair.

The man in warpaint scanned the room. Off in the far corner, the campaign press corps huddled in terror, pathetically shielding themselves with their cameras and boom microphones. The mob noticed them all at once, then took a deep, bloodthirsty breath. Eyes filled with tears of confusion and rage. A hundred, mind-racing utterances of "liberals," "elitists," and "queers" trickled into the air in cursing whispers.

"There's a plump one!" an old man wheezed, pointing with a gnarled finger at one side of the mass of reporters. Dana Milbank of the Washington Post frantically looked from one unyielding face to the next. He raised his trembling hands, "Whoah whoah whoah!" he pleaded, "But I like you guys!"

The crowd descended on him like a ravenous school of piranhas. He was torn asunder and devoured completely in three seconds flat. The rest of the press corps broke down into uncontrollable weeping. One attempted to call his family on his cell phone, but a 10-year-old freckled boy in a baseball jersey mercilessly slapped the phone from his hand.

"But wait!" shouted a balding pastor, "There's only so many of them. What will we eat once the last of the East-Coast Media here are gone?"

The man in warpaint sighed heavily. He again scanned the room with his hard, beady eyes. There, at the base of the stage, stood McMaverick, seemingly unaware of what was going on.

A slight grin appeared on the big man's face. "We're just going to have to start with the oldest."