Codex Transportica

The concept of “modern medicine” in the tiny country of Ruckwartigesland (a minute principality buried deep in the so-called Eastern Bloc) was a strange combination of outre concepts coupled with the outcome of horrific experimental vivisection. Most of the population is able to trace its ancestry back to a certain Luigi Galvani, a scientist convinced that electricity could bring the recently-deceased back to life. Years of obsessive research down through the generations brought this concept ever-closer to fruition.

Is there anything more devastating than the grief of a parent who has lost an infant? It was this very thing that drove Professor Vaso Incrinato to his greatest-ever creation: the Van der Graaff Perambulator. When his newborn baby son was discovered lifeless in his cot just a few days after birth, Incrinato became consumed by the desire to reanimate the child.

The corpse was frozen, and for the next 37 years the professor became a recluse in his laboratory, working with corpses obtained from the local mortuary. The authorities soon stopped this practice, but it simply drove him underground, paying large sums to local criminals who were able to “find” suitable bodies for his continued studies.

We see a grieving professor moving the perambulator into position in anticipation of a large electrical storm. Note the huge discharge electrodes set at a 45 degree angle to the main hyper-conductive infant containment unit (ICU).

Shortly after this image was created, a massive bolt of lightning struck the ICU as planned. Unfortunately, the stroke was conducted through the entire apparatus, and Incrinato was killed immediately. His child was discovered shortly thereafter, alive and perfectly healthy.

For a time, the young Ahren Incrinato became a messianic superstar – his resurrection was considered by many to be the Second Coming. But, as he matured he developed an all consuming guilt complex; believing himself to be the cause of his father’s death.

Around the time of his 37th birthday, Ahren vanished along with the original Van der Graaff Perambulator and, coincidently, his father’s grave was also exhumed by suspected robbers – the pram was found abandoned soon after but the corpse never retrieved.