As the public grew restless in anticipation of Commander Keen's next adventures, rival programmers of entertainment software began making small jibes and hints at Keen's possible demise. The following comment was made in the classic Epic Mega game, Jill of the Jungle:

When interviewed about this blatant attack on Billy Blaze, Jill's real-life alter ego, Mrs. Gillian O'Blaster, explained:

"Look, what happened back then was just a joke. The Epic Megagames team were on friendly terms with the id Software people and the reference to Commander Keen was just a harmless joke, which we expected them to be capable of taking in good humour. Of course we never caused - let alone conspired towards - Commander Keen's downfall."
When asked about her relationship with Apogee's Alabama Smith from the game Paganitzu, Gillian declined to comment.
But, ignoring his own downfall which loomed above his helmet like an ominous raincloud,

Billy began encouraging id Software to continue making The Universe Is Toast. He was determined to see that the epic story of Commander Keen would not go unresolved.

"So Billy was always hanging around our offices and everything, which was okay - he was really into what we were developing, always helping us improve the quality of the games, but he did keep going on about the next series of Keen, which we had pretty much abandoned by that time."


With his career in computer games painfully on the wane, Billy spent his time promoting new id Software games at sci-fi and roleplaying conventions. However, as Keen's fame dwindled, the popularity of the Dopefish began to increase steadily. Billy became restless and often grumpy.


"Every day at the office, Billy would be babbling on about Commander Keen this, Universe that, and it was actually getting rather tiring. We at Apogee were all rather fed up with his whingeing, actually, so I suggested that in one of our games we put a secret level in which you could actually kill Commander Keen. Huh-huh, that was actually rather funny. Uh-huh-huh-huh. Uh-huh-huh-huh-snort!"


"Well you know, we were keeping Billy happy by giving him little cameos in games like Crystal Caves and Bio Menace. But he just kept getting more and more bitchy over the fact that his game was pretty much finished. Now y'see, although my games are under some competition with those of Max Payne, Max and myself have reached a mutual understanding so that we don't have to work against each other's interests. It's all based on trust, something that Billy didn't have for anybody here. And so one day, after an argument with Tom and Keith, Billy just stormed out and never came back."

Billy's falling out with id Software left a scar of resentment. When id produced Doom II, the sequel to their ground-breaking 3d game Doom, it included a secret level in which the player must kill Commander Keen to finish the level.

August, 1994. With the toystores full of Commander Keen merchandise and kids across America leaping around on Pogo sticks, Billy's fame and celebrity status seemed under no immediate threat despite the drop in popularity of the old Commander Keen computer games. Believing that he could "make it on his own", Billy Blaze, with the support of his parents and a fleet of lawyers, set about organising a Saturday morning television cartoon show: The Heroic Adventures of Commander Keen. But the media is a difficult thing to work with, and soon it would turn against Billy, as disaster befell with the strength of a Quantum Explosion Dynamo.
Pop goes the Galaxy!

Suddenly, a freak accident involving a pogo stick caused Commander Keen merchandise to be banned in a number of states. With newly-emerging computer games of higher quality than that of Goodbye, Galaxy, Billy Blaze's celebrity status was fading rapidly. As the year 1995 progressed, Billy, abandoned by id Software and forgotten by most people as if he was just a passing fad, tumbled down the slippery slope of post-stardom.

And when he finally hit post-stardom's tar-slicked bottom of unpopularity, he began to sink further, into a world of alcohol binges and petty theft.

The downfall of Commander Keen had begun in earnest.

NEXT