Over on Facebook in a Marvel Comics alumni group, Ted Jalbert has posted a July 1976 Get Well card to Stan Lee which I’d completely forgotten I’d ever signed, dug out of the archives The Man had donated to the University of Wyoming.

It shows Stan on crutches wearing a cast, so I’m guessing he’d broken a leg—though perhaps that was only metaphorical—and was drawn by Paty Cockrum. Included are caricatures of Stan, John Verpoorten, Archie Goodwin, and many other Marvel staffers, plus the signatures of John Romita (both Sr. and Jr.), Walt Simonson, my wife Irene Vartanoff, Steve Edelson …

Steve Edelson? Wait—who’s Steve Edelson?

I’m Steve Edelson!

The reason I signed the card that way was because even though I was the one who organized the panels for the 1975 Mighty Marvel Con and edited the program book (so you’d think Stan would get my name right), when it came time there for him to introduce all us Marvel staffers from the stage, he pointed me out and called me … you guessed it … Steve Edelson.

So, of course, I’d tease him about that whenever I’d get the chance. When this card was put in front of me the following year, I apparently couldn’t resist.

Can you blame me?

I dreamt that I was hanging out at the beach with coworkers in a gathering meant to induce bonding. I’m not sure how much bonding was going on, though, as I couldn’t even tell the identities of the coworkers who were with me. What office were they supposed to represent? Were these comrades from my current job at Syfy, or were they from past employers Sovereign Media or Marvel Comics? I couldn’t tell. As we milled around in the sand, it was one big faceless mob.

Then the boss stepped forward with a surprise. Two surprises, actually. The first surprise was that as soon as he started speaking, I recognized him. It was Steve Carell, in his role of the not-so-bright boss of The Office. (My coworkers remained anonymous after this big reveal, though, and did not suddenly turn into other Office cast members.) Surprise number two was his announcement that as an additional part of our supposed bonding, we were all about to go skydiving together.

My boss began climbing into his chute, and as he wrapped the straps around himself, he tripped and fell, bumping into a trash can in which a fire was going to keep us all warm. The can tipped over onto him, and his hair caught fire. No one else seemed to be doing anything as he screamed, but I scooped him up in my arms and, since we were at the beach, ran into the ocean to submerge him in water. (Though thinking about it now, awake, I’m not entirely sure that was such a good idea. What would salt water do to his burns? Maybe I should have covered him in sand instead.)

Suddenly, it’s months later. As a result of what happened at the beach—and I’m not sure whether this resulted as a reward for rescuing my boss or merely because an opportunity arose because my boss was dead or incapacitated as a result of the fire—I’m writing a massive issue of a Marvel comic in which the Hulk fights the Thing.

I’m doing it in a hotel room for some reason, my wife beside me. When I step into the hallway, there’s John Verpoorten, longtime Marvel Comics production manager (who’s long gone from the real world). He’s worried about my progress. Will I be able to get it done in time? I didn’t mind him asking, because it was his job to worry. I told him this would be easy for me, that I’d been reading stories of the Hulk fighting the Thing since I was a kid, so their rivalry was in my blood. It was going to be a snap.

I woke while continuing to reassure him in that hotel hallway, both of us smiling.

In a dream this morning, Irene and I were working for the same company, though I had no idea what it was or what we did there. We were getting ready to leave for the day, but before we did, I had to find my jacket.

When I finally did, it was one of my leather ones, but sadly, it was covered with a white mold. I looked further and found a second one of my leather jackets, and that one was also covered with mold. As I began wiping away the mold, someone walked by out in the hallway, and I when I turned I was startled to see that it was John Verpoorten. He was hectoring some poor freelancer for being late with an assignment.

“But … he’s dead,” I said to Irene. (In the real world, John, who’d been the production manager at Marvel Comics, died in 1977.)

Irene explained to me that it had become the fashion nowadays for people to disguise themselves as John. Everybody was doing it. Only those of us who’d known John could see through the disguise.

The bogus John moved on, and Irene and I moved out into the hall. Paul Levitz was there, who in the real world I’ve known since the early ’70s, as this photo proves. This Paul was the Paul of today, though, and I suddenly realized that the office we were in belonged to DC Comics, and that I had just started working on staff there.

I asked Paul whether I’d now have to salute him, and jokingly raised my fingers to my forehead. (Paul had edited some of my comic-book stories when I freelanced for DC, but unlike Irene, I was never on staff, so this was the first time he’d officially be my boss.) He said that it wouldn’t be necessary.

And then I woke.