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Roberts J Roberts

Writer's Fan fiction

Fan fiction Title: The Iberian Scheme

“In Spain, the dead are more alive than the dead of any other country in the world.”

—Federico Garcia Lorca

I DREAM OF Spain.

That’s how I put myself asleep when I lie in bed and agitate about the state of things.

I shut my eyes and remember how the midday sun makes heat waves waffle off the thin ribbon of highway that snakes through Andalusia.

I think of how hard you have to negotiate to buy sombra seating at an otherwise sold-out bullring in Madrid.

I recall the fragrant aroma of the orange groves as you approach Valencia, and the strong smell of salt water and fish once you drive into the city itself.

All of these memories are safe and comfortable, and I can pull the covers up to my ears and have pleasant dreams about Spain.

Then I wake up. I roll out of my sagging mattress and hit the floor. I walk over to the lone window of my apartment and I look through the grimy glass and out onto another gray and cold day in Jersey City. There are no orange groves in Jersey City. It is depressing as hell to be here and it makes me sad and angry and frustrated. I would seriously jump out the damn window if I thought I was stuck forever in a dump like this.

But I’m not: I will be in Spain, permanently, someday.

It’s that goal that keeps me going.

MY NAME IS Herman Schulz, but you would probably know me better as the Shocker – the guy with the funny yellow-and-brown costume that looks like one of those pads movers throw over furniture when they’re loading up the truck. My big stunt is something I invented myself: a set of gauntlets that generate high-vibration blasts of air that could mash bones to jelly if necessary. Later, I added a vibrating field to cover my costume and make it almost impossible for someone to grab me. Pretty slick, huh? I’ve always loved to tinker with gadgets.

The media likes to portray me as one of Spider-Man’s foes, and not necessarily one of his top-tier ones. They’ve got me pegged as one of the few remaining criminals motivated only by stealing money, not killing or conquering or whatever it is that drives most of those bozo villains these days. Every time I get busted – ninety percent of the time, it’s by Spidey – they like to point out my failures and ignore the times I had him on the ropes. Then they tote up the number of times that I break out of prison.

“Cyclical recidivist” is how The Daily Bugle once characterized me.

All true. Guilty as charged. I’m a money-hungry crook with a corny gimmick. What gets me is that none of the bright lights in the media ever think to ask one simple question: why?

If they ever did, I’d answer that question and I’d answer it truthfully, too.

“For Spain,” I’d tell them. “I do it all for Spain.”

SO YOU’RE PROBABLY wondering why a high-school dropout like me is so hung up on Spain. Good question. You’re already five steps ahead of the New York City media.

It happened not long after I became the Shocker. I had already met and fought Spider-Man a couple of times, and this particular occasion I was behind bars (at Rikers – the judges hadn’t figured out yet that I warranted Raft Security). Rikers is a noisy hellhole that can drive you nuts if you let it. I didn’t, because I developed a big-time reading habit.

I may not have a high school diploma, but that doesn’t mean I’m a dummy. “You’re too smart for school anyways,” my dad said in support of my decision to drop out. Then Pop demanded, in a very loud voice, that now I had to join him on his crappy job of installing security systems at commercial properties. I did and I hated it, but it was good training for my later career as a powered-up thief.

Anyway, I never minded reading and it was during my jail stints that I really got into it. I went through one book every two or three days. I didn’t matter what it was – trade manual, fiction, history, biography. I devoured it.

One particular day, I grabbed a beat-up hardcover book off the cart that they strolled past the cells at Rikers. I had ignored this book before, but now that I had read everything else on the cart, I decided to try it. It was Ernest Hemingway’s Spanish Civil War novel, “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” I was impressed by Hemingway’s simple, direct style that conveyed a lot more than was on the page. But even more, I was impressed by his depiction of Spain and its people …

Writer's Full Name: Roberts J. Roberts

Member Name: N/A

Country: United States

Language: English

Gender: Male

Comic Type: Comic book

Writer's Style: Superhero fiction, supernatural fiction, science fiction, Christian faith adventure

Writer's Artist Style Preference: Marvel Style

Writer's Artist Language Preference: English

Experience: N/A

Comic Works: N/A

Website URL: N/A