The first story arc of Atop the Fourth Wall. Before Linkara fought the being whose heart was steel, his main enemy was Doctor Insano. As such, there were a few early episodes that featured Linkara go up against the mad doctor.
Our story begins with Linkara going up against a copy of Star Trek #1 that (After using the tricorder function of his Nintendo DS) he discovered was alive and draining the life of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. After a brief melee tussle with the comic, Linkara whipped out his signature weapon, the Magic Gun, to effectively shoot it. After a shocked response from the comic and Linkara simply saying "It's magic, I don't have to explain it!", he destroys the comic.
Three weeks later, after reviewing Neutro #1, Doctor Insano arrived on the scene with his "latest acquisition": the robot Neutro. To combat this, Linkara used a Magic Coin from his review of Godzilla VS Barkley to make himself grow and thwart him...for the moment.
Two months later, Linkara, after a review of the video game Wolverine: Adamantium Rage, found himself frustrated by the game's insanely poor quality, and suspected that it was so insane that it had to be created by Doctor Insano. After Linkara (perhaps on purpose) guesses that Doctor Insano is really Bennet the Sage and That Chick With the Goggles, the two fight, with Linkara emerging victorious once again. Insano wasn't done yet though, and whipped out a device and activated it. Immediately, space and time warped, resulting in various multiverse Doctor Insanos forcing various multiverse Linkaras to review the anti-comic equation: Warrior #1. In the end though, Linkara (With the help of other Channel Awesome contributors) gives Insano a royal beating.
The effects of this tampering with "Hypertime" though were lasting. Six weeks since his fight with Insano, Linkara, before reviewing Superman VS The Terminator #1, was thrust into the future by this tampering to meet his future self reviewing DC's Final Crisis. Linkara is dismayed to find that his future self lost his trademark hat and still lives in his parents house, and a vow to fix everything before abruptly being sent back only resulted in Future Linkara getting back his hat.
Meanwhile, Insano attempted to contact Linkara after completing his latest scheme...only to discover that the one on the the other end looked like Linkara, but had a robot voice and a metallic right hand. The robotic duplicate later attempted to disrupt Linkara's review of Countdown to Final Crisis by shutting off the lights, but it instead made Linkara happy as he didn't have to keep reviewing for the moment. At the end of his second part of the Countdown review, Insano taunted Linkara with the warning that the robotic duplicate was coming to get him, and that he was mean and forced Insano to cut his own hair.
When Insano wasn't harassing Linkara, he was harassing fellow reviewer Spoony instead. When Spoony finally reached the end of his review of Final Fantasy VIII, Insano revealed that he hired Squall to kill Spoony. Squall succeeds, but Spoony's robot Burton counted down to self-destruct, and Spoony's house was destroyed in the process. Linkara later found Spoony's remains and tried and failed to bring him back to life. At the suggestion of his own robot Pollo (Introduced in the review of Amazon's Attack), Linkara instead created a clone of Spoony that took over Spoony's old show. At one point the original Spoony managed to come back to life via Black Lantern Ring, but Linkara used a Phoenix Down to resurrect him. After the two reviewed a couple bad video games, Spoony left to regain his show from his clone, taking the Black Lantern Ring with him.
Linkara had other incidents. He encountered the X-Men character Cable, who wanted to kill Linkara for making fun of his comic. Using a magnet, he forced Cable to teleport away and managed to procure Cable's BFG for himself. Linkara's Continuity Alarm AI later exploded with an ominous warning during his review of Zero Patrol #1, and after reviewing Silent Hill: Dying Inside #5, he managed to capture a Pyramid Head in a Pokeball, and destroy another Pyramid Head with his recently-acquired Chain Gun. In his review of Doom #1, he temporarily misplaced the Magic Gun, and had run-ins with various Ghosts of Christmas during his review of Extreme Super Christmas Special #1.
The robotic clone remained in the background during these events. Prior to Linkara's listing of the Top 15 Worst Moments of Countdown, the robotic clone made all of Linkara's copies of Countdown come to life, but Linkara was motivated by his crush on Harley Quinn to thwart it using his Dragon Dagger. The robotic clone later attacked (and seemingly killed) Cable, seemingly destroyed the Continuity Alarm, almost obtained the temporarily-misplaced Magic Gun, and disguised himself as the Ghost of Christmas Future. The robotic clone also killed Spoony and made him a Black Lantern again.
Pollo throughout all this started behaving oddly, saying ominous poems about a being whose heart was steel & welcoming Linkara to hell, and also saying that the day of reckoning was at hand.
In his review of Ultimates 3 #5, Linkara (wearing black gloves after burning his hands with a hot plate) ended it by insulting his fanbase. His tirade however was interrupted by the entrance of another Linkara, and it's revealed that the one sitting on the couch was the robotic clone. Linkara however wasted no time pacified it with the Magic Gun before reviewing Youngblood #2. The clone quickly recovered by the end of the review, and before knocking Linkara unconscious, it revealed its name: Pollo.
Linkara later awoke tied up and his jacket removed. The clone was scanning it to find his Magic Gun, and it revealed its story. The clone is indeed Pollo, but from another universe. In that universe, the robots rebelled against the humans, killed most of them, and took over. The clone's murdering of the alternate universe's Linkara led it to make a suit of its flesh, taking on his appearance. This led our Linkara to off-handedly dub the clone "Mechakara".
The human resistance of Mechakara's universe utilized magic to continue their efforts. As such Mechakara attempted to find a way to counter it. Doctor Insano's meddling with Hypertime gave him that opportunity, and he intended to get Linkara's Magic Gun. He also revealed that his background meddling was because he wanted Linkara to suffer; His universe's Linkara was killed too quickly. The reason he took on Linkara's appearance is because he studied that magic items tend to respond to their owner. However, he reveals that he wasn't the one who destroyed the Continuity Alarm. To pass the time while he was tied up, Linkara reviewed Marvel's Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers #1.
Mechakara obtained the Magic Gun just as Linkara managed to cut himself free with his Dragon Dagger. The two fight, but Linkara is quickly overpowered when Mechakara adapts to his weaponry. He also encounters Black Lantern Spoony, but Linkara again managed to restore him to life. For his efforts, Linkara is rewarded by a punch from a departing Spoony. Linkara's various friends introduced in the show, 90's Kid, Ninja Style Dancer, and Harvey Finevoice later came to his aid, but quickly fled after being unable to do much damage. Linkara is beaten to near-death by Mechakara, but managed to get his second wind by obtaining his Power Morpher from his jacket and morphing, healing his injuries and donning his full attire. Still, he proved no match for Mechakara.
The one ultimately to cause Mechakara's undoing is his other self: Our Pollo. After promises from Linkara that he will be treated much better from now on, Pollo hacks into Mechakara's systems and lower his defenses, as they are similar. With one shot from the BFG, Linkara seemingly vaporizes Mechakara, and Pollo takes the opportunity to temporarily take over the show after (falsely) threatening to turn evil.
Mechakara however was not destroyed. In the explosion, he was teleported away by Doctor Insano. Rather than helping him though, the doctor proceeded to electrocute him instead in revenge for the loss of his hair. And so the story ends as Doctor Insano happily proclaimed "I'm back, baby!"
Tropes
- BFG: Linkara steals Cable's BFG at the end of his Cable #1 review after disabling him with a refrigerator magnet. This ends up becoming a literal Chekhov's Gun, as Linkara uses it to seemingly destroy Mechakara during the final battle.
- Big Damn Heroes: Linkara's friends — for a while anyway. Then, ultimately, Pollo.
- Brief Accent Imitation: Upon waking up after being knocked unconscious by Mechakara, Linkara greets him in an imitation of Tommy Wiseau's accent.Oh hai, robot version of me!
- Continuity Nod: When Linkara wakes up bound to a chair because of Mechakara, he wonders what Bennett found this time. This refers to an episode of Bennett's Masterpiece Fanfic Theatre where Sage tied up Linkara after discovering an old fanfiction he wrote as a teenager and made him listen as it was reread.
- Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: After beating a Pyramid Head unconscious by banging on its helmet with a staff, Linkara tries to do the same thing with the second one. However, he quickly realizes the second Pyramid Head's helmet is more reinforced and is forced to flee for his life when it doesn't react to his bludgeoning or his Magic Gun.Linkara: Important safety tip: do not mock Pyramid Head!
- Early-Installment Weirdness: As this was still during his early years, various things are brought up but never mentioned again or rarely applied anymore:
- Linkara's crush on Harley Quinn. In real life, Lewis by this point had gotten together with Elizabeth Skochil, who would later play supporting character Iron Liz. As such, the crush was never brought up again after this.
- Crossing over with Spoony's show, The Spoony Experiment. Crossing over with other shows for the storyline would happen again in the next immediate sagas, but it's long since stopped, not counting the Channel Awesome anniversary specials.
- Linkara's friends seem a lot more cowardly in this arc ditching Linkara in his fight with Mechakara after the villain tanks their hits. In every future appearance they are a lot more willing to fight against seemingly hopeless odds with him.
- Failed a Spot Check: In the Adamantium Rage review, Linkara somehow fails to realize that Spoony is Dr. Insano.
- Homage: Lewis said that the inspiration for this storyline was Power Rangers. In fact, the preparation for the climactic fight against Mechakara eventually led Lewis to start his History of Power Rangers series.
- Hypocritical Humor: At the beginning of the "Wolverine: Adamantium Rage" review, Spoony's casual dismissals of Linkara prompts him to declare that he will make his own video game review show that will "be ten times as original!" The following intro segment is a complete shot-for-shot copy of the intro to Spoony's show with the same theme song.
- I'll Kill You!: Linkara borrows the "I'll kill you to death!" line from Countdown before stabbing the Countdown monster with the Dragonzord Flute.
- Insulted Awake: Linkara snaps Spoony out from being controlled with the Black Lantern ring with the line "You're standing in my spot, sir", a line that constantly drove him mad in his Let's Play of SWAT 4. Spoony wakes up, but punches Linkara, shouting "I'm not in your fucking way!".
- Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: The various appearances of Mechakara. Lewis claimed that every appearance of Mechakara contains some kind of clue to his identity or his goal, and challenged fans to figure it out before the big final showdown.
- Magic Versus Science: Magic is something Mechakara cannot fight against; he came to our dimension to get the power to fight magic.
- More Dakka: Linkara takes out Pyramid Head by shooting him with a arm-mounted chain-gun.
- Multiple Endings: Parodied in the "Alternate Endings" follow-up to his Silent Hill: Dying Inside review - the alternate endings include being trapped in a room a la Silent Hill 4, being trapped in Phantasmagoria 2 in a Shout-Out to Spoony, and Harvey Finevoice turning out to be an alien who takes him to a planet which has good comics.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Mechakara gives several to Linkara.
- Punctuated Pounding: Linkara pulls this off while beating Pyramid Head over the head during the finale of Silent Hill: Dying Inside #5.Linkara: WORD! TO! THE! WISE! WEARING! A! HUGE! FREAKING! METAL! CHAMBER! ON! YOUR! HEAD! IS! NOT! VERY! SMART!
- Rage Breaking Point: Mechakara throughout this arc was mostly a calm, tactical being, but Linkara's snarky remarks and voice upon being captured finally led him to snap.
- Record Needle Scratch: Linkara is sucked into Silent Hill and stares in horror as Pyramid Head approaches him as ominous music plays... before being cut off by a record scratch as Linkara sticks his tongue out and makes a hasty retreat.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Linkara's entourage bid a hasty retreat after Mechakara survives being shot at and having his face exposed.
- Self-Deprecation: Linkara parodies his own Schedule Slip in his Superman vs. The Terminator review, where his self-published comic Revolution of the Mask has still not come out with a third issue 30 years from now.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Linkara arrives 30 years into his own future and is horrified to discover that his future self still reviews bad comics, still lives in his parents' basement, and has lost his hat. Linkara proclaims that he will go back and change everything, and when he leaves the timeline does indeed change... but the only real change is that he has his hat back.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: Linkara tosses a magnet at Cable to get him to stop his awful, ellipses-ridden self-narration.
- Why Won't You Die?: As he mercilessly beats Linkara and Linkara keeps rebounding, Mechakara yells at him for being alive.
- Yet Another Christmas Carol: Linkara is visited by the Ghosts of Christmas, but refuses to go along with it, claiming that he still loves Christmas and doesn't need to be reminded of it. Mechakara also disguises himself as the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come to toy with Linkara and hints at his true nature by pointing at Pollo, who claims that "The day of reckoning is at hand".
- You Bastard!: Invoked by Mechakara to turn Linkara's fans against him, as he disguises himself as Linkara during the final part of his Ultimates 3 review and rants about how his audience are mindless sycophants who are to blame for terrible comics being created
