The Villainy of Helmut Stern
At the Mountain's graduation yesterday, one of the recipients of an honoary doctorate was an elderly gentleman named Helmut Stern. The now Dr. Stern received the honorary degree Doctor of Laws. From the program for the commencement exercises, "Helmut Stern is an extraordinary industrialist, entrepeneur, art collector, supporter of the arts and sciences, philanthropist, counselor, and humanitarian. He has long been a remarkable friend and supporter of the University of Michigan, extremely generous with his time, energy, advice, and financial contributions." The program also tells us Mr Stern was the co-founder and president for forty years of a company named Industrial Tectonics, and today is the president of Arcanum Corporation. May God have mercy on us all.

Don't you see? Industrial Tectonics. This can only mean one thing: Helmut Stern founded and then for forty years ran a company dedicated to the secret invention and manufacture of an earthquake machine. An earthquake machine! People, there are no innocent applications for a machine that can cause earthquakes and direct them with pinpoint accuracy. This is a purely nefarious device. And now, Helmut Stern is in charge of the Arcanum Corporation. Come on, people, Arcanum. If that isn't the name of an international cabal of industrialists and deposed European princes bent on world domination, I don't know what is. And it is only a matter of time before Arcanum puts the fruits of Industrial Tectonics's research to use, no doubt as the means to achieve some diabolical end. Unless Helmut Stern is stopped, he will soon hold the entire world hostage. His "Sterntroopers" will spread out through the capitals of the earth. It will be the end of democracy as we know it. Centuries of toil and sacrifice will come to naught, crushed beneath the mad ambitions of Helmut Stern and his terrible earthquake machine.

But there is yet one slim hope, one man who may yet deliver us from the fearsome clutches of Helmut Stern. That man is Brick Malloy. Funded by a mysterious benefactor and aided by a ragtag team of weird assistants, Brick Malloy is the world's greatest adventurer... and our only hope. Can Brick locate Stern's secret island fortress in time to thwart the madman's latest plan? For the sake of all human freedom, let us hope so. Godspeed, Brick Malloy!

I'm sure Mr. Stern is a kind and decent man, but with items like Industrial Tectonics and Arcanum Corporation on his c.v., I couldn't resist. But Brick Malloy is real.

H-A-D
Have a radiating day.