Mortimer Graye had once been the face of justice—or rather, the mask. In the 1940s, he’d soared across silver screens as THATMAN, the shadowy avenger of crime in a series of B-grade serials that promised twelve cliffhangers and delivered precisely twelve resolutions, all involving Mortimer's square jaw, a cascade of punches, and a signature line: “Justice always bats last!”
But now it was the mid-1960s, and Mortimer was a man adrift. At sixty-two, his once-chiseled features had softened into a face more suited to selling cigars than delivering justice. Hollywood had moved on, leaving him to pick at the remnants of a once-bright career. His mornings began with cold coffee and silent arguments with his reflection. His evenings ended with too many glasses of sherry and the faint hum of static from his forgotten television set.
Then came the call from Heyboy Mansion.
A Resurrection of Irony
Heyboy Mansion had become a haven for the cool crowd—a place where irony and self-awareness mixed as freely as martinis. Every Thursday night, Hugh Heyboy himself hosted screenings of old serials for an audience of hip, detached twenty-somethings in bell-bottoms and sunglasses. THATMAN, it turned out, had become a cult sensation. The serials’ creaky dialogue, overwrought drama, and unintentional absurdity made it perfect fodder for the postmodern set.
Mortimer was invited to attend one such screening. Against his better judgment (and because he needed the fifty-dollar appearance fee), he accepted.
That night, as the crowd guffawed at every melodramatic punch and stilted delivery, Mortimer sat frozen in his chair. Was this what his legacy had become? A joke? He watched himself in grainy black-and-white—a younger man in a cape and cowl, barking lines with absolute sincerity. It was as if he were watching a ghost perform.
“Man, you were so bad you were brilliant,” a woman in a psychedelic kaftan told him afterward, holding out a cigarette she’d already lit for him.
Mortimer took it. He wasn’t sure if it was meant as a compliment.
Enter the Network
A week later, Mortimer’s agent called with news: a television network wanted to adapt THATMAN into a series. “It’ll be campy,” the agent explained. “They’re going for bright colors, pop art, lots of ‘Bam! Pow!’ on the screen. It’s the hip new thing.”
Mortimer wasn’t sure what campy meant, but he knew it wasn’t good. Worse still, they didn’t want him as the lead. “Too old,” they said. Instead, they’d cast a younger, handsomer man with a lantern jaw and zero sense of irony. Mortimer was offered a recurring role as Commissioner Hampstead, a bumbling bureaucrat who always called THATMAN for help.
Mortimer accepted—partly for the money, but mostly because he couldn’t look away from the slow-motion car crash of his dignity.
A Studio in Technicolor
On set, Mortimer watched the new THATMAN cavort in a ludicrously bright costume. The scripts were deliberately silly, filled with puns and exaggerated scenarios: THATMAN foiling a bank robbery carried out by the Polka-Dot Gang or escaping a giant cupcake trap set by a villainess named Confectionery Kate.
The audience loved it. The network was thrilled. Mortimer, meanwhile, felt his soul shrinking with every “Holy guacamole, THATMAN!” uttered by the sidekick.
One night, after filming a particularly humiliating scene in which he’d been pelted with rubber fish, Mortimer sat alone in his trailer. He stared at his old THATMAN mask, now faded and cracked with age. He’d once worn it with pride, believing he was part of something meaningful. Now it was a relic of a bygone era, reduced to a punchline.
“Justice always bats last,” he muttered to himself, the words hollow.
Epilogue: The Many Faces of THATMAN
The campy THATMAN television series became a sensation, launching a franchise that outgrew Mortimer entirely. In the decades that followed, THATMAN was reimagined in countless ways. The 1980s brought a gritty reboot, complete with brooding monologues and a dark synth score. The 1990s introduced a blockbuster film franchise that leaned heavily on CGI and explosions. By the 2000s, THATMAN had become a cultural juggernaut, with billion-dollar box office returns and solemn explorations of justice, morality, and trauma.
Mortimer Graye lived to see it all. In his twilight years, he was occasionally invited to conventions, where die-hard fans would approach him with reverence. They spoke of THATMAN as if it were a sacred text, oblivious to the absurdity that had birthed it.
Mortimer would smile politely, sign autographs, and tell the stories they wanted to hear. But in quiet moments, he would remember the laughter from Heyboy Mansion, the rubber fish, and his younger self—earnest, foolish, and utterly unaware of the strange immortality awaiting him.
Justice always bats last, indeed.
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