Bratso the Eight Armed Ocean Demon

Some years ago I wrote a graphic novel script about an astronaut who returned to earth after centuries of traveling only to find it unrecognizable. A disaster of some kind (we weren’t supposed to find out what it was until at least the second trade) essentially reset the earth back to a prehistoric period with only the echoes of our modern civilization remaining. And by echoes I specifically mean the stories of the superheroes of today were past down over and over again until they became the gods the prehistoric society our protagonist astronaut finds. But they have changed over time to better reflect what their looks would represent to a prehistoric people. Example: Spiderman is the god of fishermen because he is the god of casting nets. Swamp Thing and Poison Ivy are the god and goddess of spring, with Sinestro being the lord of autumn (because he is gold, like the changing leaves). I enjoyed writing it, and really enjoyed doing what I call “story math”, as well as borrowing famous superheroes and other characters from pop culture to create this new pantheon for my story. If anyone from a comics publisher is interested, hit me up.

Note: who am I kidding, no one reads this blog.

I must have been in that mythology building mindset when I wrote this next exercise. I must also have recently watched the Neil DeGrasse Tyson documentary series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, otherwise I would never have started with that part about how life on earth had been nearly been exterminated and returned back to the cellular level.

Writing Exercise May 13^th 2020

Bratso the Ocean Demon

Prompt line:

“That’s why, in other words, the world has lasted so long, and why we are still here.“

10 minutes, hand written

The planet earth, our world, has been destroyed catastrophically on multiple occasions, including one where all advanced life was exterminated and life itself was pushed back down to the cellular level. From this beginning life grew again, humans developed, societies formed and gods came into being.

Zeus, all powerful god of gods knew of our plight, poor earth was in the way of many a planet killing asteroid so to prevent this he assembled the gods and asked for ideas to stop the earth from ever being destroyed by an asteroid again. Apollo wanted to burn them with the sun, Aeolus wanted to blow them away with powerful winds but his winds were too weak. Poseidon had the solution, he would send Bratso the eight armed demon to live on the dark side of the moon and when an asteroid came near he would reach out with his ultra long arms and snatch the asteroid out of the way. That’s why, in other words, the world has lasted so long, and why we are still here.

Notes from afterwards:

Bratso grabs the asteroids and slams them into the moon, hence the craters, and fuses them into a big ball. Or possibly that is how the moon was created. The moon is the collection of all the asteroids that Bratso collected and turned into a big ball.

Bratso has been banished to space for pissing off Poseidon or possibly someone did something and was turned into Bratso and his punishment is to protect the planet for eternity (a cosmic Atlas). Maybe he nearly destroyed the planet through his own selfishness, greed, or stupidity and his punishment is to be required to protect the planet for eternity.

See how much fun it is to create mythology?

Mega Cosmic Octopus by ComicSoulWeb. Aren’t you glad Bratso is looking out for us?