Marvel: 2011-03-08 - Captain at the Comic Shop

It's a slow day at Atomic Planet Comics. Not much left to do now that the day is winding down. With no customers in the store at the moment, one of it's employees is restocking a shelf of action figures. Ethan Webb, dressed in civvies and wearing the employee badge around his neck, chuckles slightly as he puts some more of the Avengers action figures on the shelf. "I will never not be weirded out when I see these..." he mutters as he takes more figures from the crate they were shipped in.

Through the doors steps Steve Rogers. He's dressed in a navy blue T-shirt with a stylized silver sheriffs badge in the center of the shirt and a silver stripe to each side. He looks around for a moment taking the sun glasses off to let his eyes readjust. "I've heard of such place. " He mumbles, "What happened to the news stands?"

Glancing up as he hears the door chime, Ethan blinks in surprise at the sight of Steve. Not someone he ever thought he'd see at work. "There are still news stands, just not as many. And the comic companies ship more stuff to stores like this than the news stands that don't have as much room to display it with all the rest of what they sell, sir," he answers with a smile.

Steve nods his head slowly, "Somebody mentioned that your working down here. I thought I'd stick my head in and see what one of these place look like. Since, I'd been doing some art work free lance on next months Iron Man issue. I can't believe Stark has a comic book of his body guard that he has licensed. "

Ethan smiles as he breaks down the now empty crate. "Well, thanks for coming down," he replies. "Been a quiet day but tomorrow is when it's going to be busy," he says. "You didn't hear about how that same company wants to do a whole Avengers comic? Including solo titles for the individual members? They're still working out a deal to propose from what I heard."

Steve laughs, "Well they have a Iron man book and a Captain America book. They hired me to do fill in for an artist on the Ironman book. It was a good time, even after Stark caught me working on a couple of pages. He had to express his artist ideas. I put in a treatment with the competition. I'm not comfortable doing real super heroes." He looks down at the action figures, "They still make those?"

"Really?" Ethan takes a moment to toss the broken down crate into the room behind the counter and then turns back to Steve. "Which book did you put in a treatment for?" he asks. The young man nods about the figures. "Yeah. Surprised me too. Seems like there was a resurgance in popularity when the team got back together."

Steve looks around for a moment, "Green Lantern." He says with a smirk, "I can't believe that." He stops looking at the replica Captain America shield. Then he stops turning his head at the Kinetic statue next to it. He looks at Ethan for a moment.

"Green Lantern? Wow! That's one of my favorite books. I hope they like it and let ya be the artist for awhile," Ethan grinned, showing off the GL-symbol on his t-shirt that's been hidden by his employee badge. When the statue is noticed, Ethan blushes a bit. "It still weirds me out to see stuff like that. I mean...the day I first put on that uniform, I never even imagined statues and action figures..."

Steve nods, "I hope so too. It's nice to do something creative. " He looks at the symbol, "That's Hal Jordan's symbol." Steve shrugs and looks around to make sure there is no little kids or fanboys in earshot. He did not need a 30 year old man child that smells of Cheesy puffs and basements telling him how Captain America's shield works. "I'm less comfortable with it now. But Its been part of the program."

Ethan blinks then smiles. "Yeah. I've got a couple. Employee discount," he jerks a thumb back at the back of the store where there's a couple superhero themed t-shirts and other clothing for sale. "You're a fan of the books too?" he asks curiously. Noticing the older man looking around, Ethan waves a hand slightly. "No need to worry. You're the first person to come in in hours. No one's here but us," he says. "Yeah. Can't say what I'm more thankful for...that the mask keeps the bad guys away from downtime...or keeps the fans away too."

Steve shrugs his shoulders, "I had a couple of Superman and Batman when I was young. But they were hard to come by. I got in a fight over an issue of Action comics when I was little. Soldiers traded em and read 'em during the war. Green Lantern was a different guy back then." He laughs at the statement about fans, "She-Hulk is a good distraction or deterrent."

"You did? What was that fight about? If Superman could beat Batman?" Ethan asked with an amused smile. "Alan Scott, right? He was the first Green Lantern they published," he says with a nod. "He's still around, ya know. Over in the Justice Society Books," he picks one up off the shelf. "She is. According to the people that come in here...out of all the women to ever join the team, She-Hulk's still the most popular."

Steve frowns, "If the bull down the block was going to take away my comic book or not that I had just bought." He grins, "Let me guess you got in the Superman vs. Batman fight." He laughs for a moment, "You have any Batman vs. Superman fights?"

Ethan blinks. "Well. Bullies in every time period," he says. "Only once. We determined that eventually the rest of the Justice League would just make them stop fighting," he says. "Actually..." he moves over to one of the racks for the DC comics. He looks through the comics before coming back with the 'who would win?' issue of Superman/Batman. "This just got released recently," he says, handing the comic over to Steve.

Steve shrugs, "I don't know." He says picking up the issue and flipping through, "Who ever is the writer I guess. I never figured out why they always faught. Though it might be one of the most accurate thing in those books."

"Superheroes shouldn't be spending so much time fighting each other," Ethan remarks. "They're supposed to be fighting the bad guys," he adds. "I mean, why waste time fighting each other when there are people to help?"

Steve thinks for a moment. "It's that there is a secrecy in our nature. Then throw in the fact that the Thunderbolts doing one of worse fears. Well, I think there are some misunderstandings. That and not all heroes are nice guys. Namor is really a jerk."

Ethan looks down a moment at the mention of the Thunderbolts. That whole episode still makes him feel bad. "Yeah, you're right," he nods. He then chuckles slightly. "Namor is kind of a jerk. Atlantis is pretty cool though."

Steve turns his head to the side for a moment, "You been to Atlantis? I haven't been to Atlantis." He says crossing his arms, "So how is it working here?"

"It wasn't a vacation or anything. One of my old New Warriors team mates, Namorita...she's Atlantean. Had to help her out down there when there was some trouble. Fighting underwater is tough," he says. "It's been pretty good here," he replies. "Work's not too hard, coworkers are fun, not hard to get away if there's an emergency. Pretty glad I got the job."

Steve slips his hand in his pockets, "I've done it a few times. It changes everything with the shield." He says solemnly, "I'm glad to hear that though. It seems like it would be a good place. Hey put me back an issue of Iron man when it comes out next month. I've got to go Ethan. I'm glad to see you're doing alright out of costume. " With that he extends his hand out in a wave before heading for the door.