Decades ago Frank Miller turned the comics world around, rejuvenating tired heroes like Daredevil and Batman with the gritty, stylistic violence he later brought to his own gritty, fictional dystopia “Sin City.” But few people know that Frank Miller was once asked to apply his magic to another once-popular institution.
EXT: NIGHT. We’re on a dark, dirty street, looking over a trench-coated shoulder at a body spilling out of an overturned trashcan. Clumps of green fur are everywhere. Lightning turns the scene into a stark, black and white nightmare.
FROG: He wasn’t much of a friend, but me and him were here from the beginning and that’s important and now he’s gone and I have to do something about it, something loud and violent and messy. No sunny days, not anymore. I’ve been a reporter, a TV show host, and a banjo-player, but now I’m vengeance.
In the alleyway nearby, a 7-foot bird sobs over a large, dark mound. Tears streak down his insane yellow face as he mutters.
BIRD: You can see him, can’t you? Everyone can see him now, so why isn’t he breathing? Snuffy? You can see him, right? Right?
FROG: I was wrong, it wasn’t murder. It was war. Or maybe muppecide. I don’t know how many are already down, but I know one thing for sure–
Lightning cuts across the sky with a loud crack.
FROG: –someone out there is keeping count.
BIRD: Who are you talking to?
INT: BASEMENT APARTMENT. The door slams open to reveal Frog in a wicked cool dramatic pose with those big black and white stripes you get from blinds, you know?
FROG: Been a while, Ern.
ERN: I guess.
FROG: Talk to me, Ern? Where is everybody? What’s happened?
Ern leans forward and puts his head in his hands. A rubber duck falls to the floor.
ERN: Dead. All dead.
FROG: What?
ERN: All of ’em. Remember Roosevelt Franklin? Just disappeared one day. Guy Smiley? Gangland shooting. Harvey Kneeslapper got compacted in the same “industrial accident” that got Sam the Robot and the talking typewriter. Don Music? Drive by. Forgetful Jones? Forgot to duck.
FROG: What about the police?
ERN: Heh. Sherlock Hemlock was on the case but he got taken out when The Amazing Mumford exploded.
FROG: What about you two? Where’s–
ERN: He went out for more oatmeal.
A scream shatters the night.
ERN: I told him not to, but he never listens to me…
EXT: NIGHT. Frog crashes through the window with a spray of glittering glass, although since it’s a basement window it’s really not that impressive. A caped figure stands there, holding a limp figure by its striped shirt. The inevitable lightning outlines his shadowed, um, outline, leaving him black but for the red sash across his stuffed chest.
COUNT: Three! Three dead victims! Ah ha ha ha ha ha!
He’s still laughing when Frog takes him down with a brutal and frankly pretty gross attack.
FROG: One of these things is not like the other, fangface. I’m the one that’s still alive. You don’t hang around Piggy for twenty years without learning something. And now I’ve got some errands to run. A loaf o’ bread, a container o’ milk, a stick o’ butter, and revenge.
INT: HOOPER’S STORE. Shelves and counters have been pushed aside to make room for a nightmarish torture chamber. There are bodies everywhere, on the floor and chained to the walls. One looks up wearily through matted blue fur.
BODY: (weakly) Heeeyyy, Kermeeee babeeeee…
FROG: The stink of melting polystyrene fills the nostrils I don’t have. There’s only one creature cruel and ambitious enough to do this, and I hope he’s in a ticklish mood.
A high-pitched voice comes from the darkness.
ELMO: Hee hee! You shouldn’tna come back, Frog. Shoulda stuck with your show and your movies and left Elmo his world. It’s Elmo’s now, you know. Ha ha ha, hee hee! No more humans and monsters and togetherness and problem-solving and skits that make you think. Just Elmo, Elmo’s goldfish, and Elmo’s merchandising empire. Oh, and Zoe, here, of course. Ha ha ha!
Out of the shadows steps a small girl wearing a tutu and a katana. She steps easily into a Chudan no Kamae stance and prepares to attack.
FROG: It’s not easy, being vengeance…
NEXT ISSUE: THE RED MENACE
Best thing I’ve ever read.