Bug
Real Name: Unknown
Identity/Class: Extra-dimensional being
Occupation: Illuminatum agent
Affiliations: Stump (partner)
Enemies: Killeye, Illuminatum, SIP, Bewley Brothers
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: Patient 666/xy34
Base of Operations: Active across the multiverse
First Appearance: Lot's Wife (Monash University Student Paper); Bug and Stump #0 (Aaargh! Comics, May 1993)
Powers/Abilities: Unknown.
History: Patient 666/xy34 was an inmate of an asylum for the criminally disorganised on Planet 32A-28/delta-1 in Universe of Order 3, imprisoned because he wouldn't adhere to his species strict, by the book, laws. Like the rest of his race he had four-arms, green skin, and pupil-less eyes.
Managing to escape, he hid in a room containing floating doors with talking handles - portals to other Universes. One of the doors invited him to enter it, promising excitement! Adventure! Fun! , and in order to get away he takes up the offer. He is transported through to the Universe of Summation (a.k.a. Universe 7, a.k.a. our universe). But he has committed a terrible crime through this unauthorised interuniversal travel, and has potentially upset the balance of matter throughout the multiverse - he is "a mistake, a cock-up, a glitch, an unplanned for and unwelcome event"... a Bug.
He arrives in our reality outside a pub in Melbourne, accidentally preventing another traveller, Stump, from using the portal. A partnership based on mutual...hate...began. Each needed the other in order to continue to evade the Space Integrity Patrol and Illuminatum, as well as the Bewley Brothers' agents of Chaos (such as Killeye), who get in on the act after the head of Illuminatum sics them on our heroes.
Along the way the two misfits have encountered Self Aware Man (S.A.M., also known as God), Sergeant Masakrr, Stump's antisocial brother, and Aaron, better known as Elvis, the one and only King of Rock, who has spent the last few decades being kidnapped nightly by aliens who make him play concerts in outer space.
Comments: Created by Mark Sexton and John Petropoulos. The last issue was published in the summer of 1996.
In Bug and Stump there are 37 universes arranged in six spokes containing six universes each, with the centre of all the spokes being the Universe of Summation, Universe 7, our universe. The spokes form spectrums between polar opposites, respectively Order to Chaos, Technology to Mysticism (aka Mundane to Magik), and Energy to Entropy.
Until issue six of the series Stump displayed a large ponytail lock of hair, which was his people's symbol of manhood. When Masakrr captured him, the vicious brother cut off the lock to humiliate Stump. Bug returned the favour by overloading the Sergeant's mind, releasing an excessive number of drones that Masakrr's mind was linked with and driving him insane.
The Bewley Brothers, natives of Universe of Chaos 2 and major enemies of the pair, can create their agents by transforming normal people into monsters under their control.
In the final, unpublished issue of Bug and Stump, it would have been revealed that Bug was an Illuminatum agent, conditioned to make Stumps mission as difficult as possible whilst make everything look incidental, and as such unaware of what he really was. Full details of the plan for the final issue can be found here. Thanks to Kim Murray for this information.
CLARIFICATIONS: Not to be confused with
Bug, a member of Marvel Comics' Micronauts
Any Additions/Corrections? Please let me know.
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