First appearance: S4E9 — Shootout — Stanley Second Life Gibbs v Gideon Regalis Electus Gregorius the 537th (Greg) · watch it on YouTube
Stanley Second Life Gibbs was a hooded cowboy gunslinger who called himself “the fastest gun in the West” and “judge, jury, and executioner.” He was pulled into The Void for a Western-saloon duel against the accident-prone Greg. A small floating drone kept bringing him back from the dead, so he died ten times in a single Deathmatch, more than any champion had before. The tenth death was the one that stuck.
Story
Stanley arrived during the Shadow King’s rule, after the Grandmaster smashed the Shadow King’s PlayStation and hurled its controller against the wall, where it shattered into a portal for the champions in S4E9 — Shootout. He introduced himself as “Stanley Second Life McGibbs” and told the Grandmaster, “I am the answer to the Call of Duty.” When she crushed her amulet in a tantrum, it bled into her hand and opened another portal, this one into an abandoned ghost-town saloon with a piano playing to itself. Stanley opened with a trick shot through a flying ace of spades, which also put a hole in an Acolyte’s cowboy hat. He then took to Greg at once (“Oh, I think I like you, Gregory”), proposed a drinking wager, and offered to turn his back with his hands in the air to give Greg a free shot. Greg’s awkward bow knocked one pistol out of its holster, and it went off and ricocheted into Stanley’s thigh. When Greg leaned over to pick it up, the other pistol fell out and fired too, and Stanley was dead before the duel had properly begun.
That was when the drone showed itself. It was a tiny mechanical figure with one eye, and it sparked Stanley back to life in a flash of light. The Grandmaster would only say that such people “made a deal of some sort” and that “their secrets are theirs to keep.” Stanley leaned into it. The Shadow King slammed an Acolyte into the corner pocket of the pool table until the body was pulp, ripped the soul out of the meat pile and stuffed it into The Box of Chaos, and Stanley threw himself into the box. His corpse came flying back out holding a greater silver pistol, and once revived he named it Daffodil. He caught about eight shots of tequila from a vendor in the stands, then sat down in a chair and kept sipping whatever stale beer was on the table. From there he died over and over. A shot from Greg made his heart explode. A bullet shattered his tumbler and a glass shard opened his neck. A ricochet off the floor caught him between the eyes. The Grandmaster complained that the respawn was terrible and that this was “basically spawn killing,” so the drone revived him in a different spot. Then the Shadow King’s prismatic rings left him a skeleton in his chair, and at one point he simply lost the will to live.
The Shadow King then gave Greg some advice: “maybe shoot the little contraption.” Stanley fought on. He fired a shadow-magic round from his old pistol, but it only blew off Greg’s pinky and accidentally gave him perfect vision. When his own healing came up short, the Grandmaster tossed him an extra die: “Second wind for second life. I got you, Gibbs.” Greg’s next shot ricocheted around the saloon and dropped three chandeliers, and the last one snapped Stanley’s neck. Then a bullet went straight down Stanley’s barrel and fired his own round back into his face. For his last big play, he melted his hero point into a single golden round. Daffodil bloomed into a lava-dripping flower and fired it “at the speed of light,” taking two of Greg’s fingers. Soon afterwards Daffodil’s holster melted to ash and the gun clattered to the floor.
By then Greg’s remaining pistol had revealed it was sentient and was fighting on its own. Three beautifully placed shots shattered the drone, and the last bullet ricocheted off a broken piece into Stanley’s chest. “Would you look at that? Seems there won’t be a second life for me after all,” he said. He allowed that one of “the three of y’all” had “delivered quite the performance,” and asked Greg to bring his big sister next time. Stanley died for good. Moments later Greg’s own gun shot him, and he slipped on his own blood, cracked his head and died, so the match ended with no winner. In Dried Blood, the drone admitted it was “quite sick of reviving that sack of shit,” a man who flung himself “into a mysterious flaming box” or would “just sit still while fucking Chandelier falls on his head.” It ended with: “And quite frankly, I will miss him.”
Personality and Abilities
Stanley wore a hood, not a hat, and he tipped it anyway. He spoke in a slow, friendly cowboy drawl and handed out nicknames like “Timmy 10 guns” for Greg. He never turned down a drink, a wager or a big sister (“I never said no to hanging out with anybody’s big sister”). He mentioned an old pal “Jack” behind the bar and drank tequila like a professional. He had no dog, despite the Grandmaster’s guess that “Justice” might be one. He took his own deaths with remarkable calm, offering notes like “maybe go for more center mass next time.” At the table, his player said he simply “really wanted to be a cowboy.”
In a fight Stanley was all flair: card tricks, elaborate pistol twirls, and six bullets tossed in the air to land in the cylinder. He carried an old pistol that fired transparent rounds full of swirling shadow magic, and later Daffodil, the silver pistol from the Box of Chaos. His real lifeline was the drone, which healed him with little holographic hands and revived him each time he died. It grew visibly more exasperated as the night went on. Once the drone was gone, so were his second lives.
Relationships
- Greg: His opponent and fast friend. Stanley liked him from the start, was killed by him repeatedly, mostly by accident, and asked him to bring his big sister next time.
- The Grandmaster: Begged him to “quit dying,” threw popcorn at his drone to make it wake him up, and gave him a second wind for his second life.
- The Shadow King: Gave away Stanley’s secret by telling Greg to shoot the drone. Stanley called it “pretty underhanded.”
- The drone: His tiny, one-eyed reviver and the source of his nickname. It said it would miss him.
Memorable Quotes
- “My name’s Stanley Second Life McGibbs, and you can call me the fastest gun in the West.” (S4E9 — Shootout)
- “Judge, jury, and executioner.” (S4E9 — Shootout)
- “Sometimes life deals you a bad hand and you go down. And in my case, I didn’t get the name Stanley Second Life Gibbs for nothing.” (S4E9 — Shootout)
- “This is just beautiful. Like a little flower. I think I’ll call it… Daffodil.” (S4E9 — Shootout)
- “Would you look at that? Seems there won’t be a second life for me after all.” (S4E9 — Shootout)
- “This has been the most beer I’ve ever had during a duel in all of my life.” (S4E9 — Shootout)