Rasputin raised his arms over his head as energy poured from the Staff of Ra and coruscated over his body. “So it ends how it begins, with the two greatest champions of time and space locked in conflict once more!”

“You are mad, Rasputin,” intoned Lincoln. “Hitler seeks to destroy everything in existence. What do you possibly hope to gain from preventing me from finishing my invocation?”

Rasputin’s eyes were filled with a terrible serenity, a calm that marked him as being irrevocably insane. “Know this: When the Staff of Ra burned away the last line of your scroll, it stored the words within the magic of the staff. The only way for you to win is to take the staff from me, and you can only do that when I am dead.”

“So be it,” said Lincoln. “I am the Greatest Emancipator, dedicated to granting freedom to all beings. I can see now that, of all the creatures in the cosmos, you will never know any freedom but oblivion.” He took a deep breath, then began:

“Oh, say, can you see the shit that’s about to go down?”