Abe Lincoln collapsed to his knees in the soft volcanic ash. He tried to start his electric gauntlets, but the heavy brass weapons on his hands only fizzled. The time-space generator he wore on his back coughed and spluttered, exhausted. All seemed lost. Nearby, Nikola Tesla’s hulking steel robot body, the Autoviathon, lay in wrecked pieces. The broken engines wheezed, struggling to supply oxygen and blood to the tank that held the genius inventor’s severed head.

Dressed in the flowing black robes of the Esoteric Order of Mars, Rasputin towered over Lincoln, pointing the Staff of Ra at him.

“For four score and seven eons, I have fought you and your diabolical master, Mecha-Hitler,” said Lincoln, his powerful voice uncowed. He picked up his dusty stovepipe hat and set it on his head. “Do you expect me to stop even as Vesuvius erupts?”

“Nyet, Mister Lincoln,” lisped Rasputin, a grin spreading beneath his long beard, “I expect you to die.”

But just as the blast of ancient energy prepared to discharge…