The Death and Life of Superman (10 page)

Their argument had escalated, and she’d wound up blasting Superman into a landfill halfway across the city. He had not been physically injured, of course, but they’d both been embarrassed by the altercation.

We’ve hardly spoken since. He knows I’m sorry, and I know he’s not the type to carry a grudge, but I still feel awful about it. We should be . . . well, not partners . . . and certainly not lovers! I have Lex and he has Lois. But I wish we could be closer.
She briefly considered dropping by Clark’s apartment but decided against it.
He might have company. He is engaged, after all! Besides, there’ll be other times to talk.

Supergirl turned in a wide loop back toward the LexCorp Tower. She loved to soar over Metropolis and tried never to miss her nighttime flights. But dawn was now just a few hours away, and she had to be there for her darling Lex when he awoke.

5

“Hey, Mr. Kent! Wait up!”

Clark stopped in midstride and turned as a red-haired young man dashed toward him from a nearby subway entrance, a camera case slapping against his leg.

“Hello, Jimmy. And how goes things in the borough of Bakerline this fine morning?”

“Okay, I guess, for Bakerline.” Jimmy Olsen shrugged. “I’d still rather live here on the big island—like you do, Mr. Kent—but it’s so hard to find an apartment I can afford.”

“Jim, I’ve told you, I really don’t mind if you use my first name. Every time you call me ‘Mr. Kent,’ I feel like looking around to see if my father’s there.”

“Yeah, I know. Ms. La—I mean, Lois has been after me about the same thing. I still feel funny about it, though.”

“I’ll make you a deal. If you don’t call me Mr. Kent, I won’t call you Mr. Olsen.”

Jimmy chuckled. “Okay, Clark . . . I’ll try.”

“Good. As to your apartment problem, have you considered finding a roommate?”

“Aw, I tried that once and it didn’t work out.”

“Maybe you just didn’t find the right roommate. It’s worth another try, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Jimmy absentmindedly smacked his hand with a rolled up magazine as they waited for the traffic lights to change.

“What do you have there, Jim?”

“This? It’s the latest
Newstime.
”

“Ah. Did they pick up another of your photos?”

“Not this week. No, I was reading an article about Guy Gardner, you know, the ex-Green Lantern.”

“I’m . . . familiar with Gardner’s exploits, Jimmy.”

“Boy, I don’t know why the Justice League puts up with that jerk. Seems to me, when I was in high school—which wasn’t that long ago—the Justice League used to go after butt-heads like him; they didn’t admit ’em as members!”

“Well, the world turns and times change, Jim.”

“Yeah, and not always for the better.”

The
WALK
light came on, and they started across the street.

“It doesn’t pay to be negative, James. Besides, you’re much too young to be a curmudgeon.”

“Well, if I were Superman, I’d bounce Gardner out of the League so hard, he’d come down in Australia.”

“Maybe Superman has a good reason for keeping him in the Justice League. Maybe he thinks it’s better to have Gardner around people who stand a chance of keeping him in line, rather than letting him run off and get himself into trouble.”

Jimmy considered that. “I suppose. But I still don’t like the idea of him and that Maxima woman being considered super-heroes. Heck, Maxima gave Superman all kinds of grief, and now she’s his teammate?” The young photographer shook his head. “The Justice League used to stand for something, but now they’re just a bunch of joke-heroes . . . except for Superman, of course. I don’t know why he let himself get mixed up with those guys!”

“I’m sure Superman has asked himself that question many times, Jimmy. I suppose it seemed like a good idea to him at the time. Maybe he feels . . . responsible for them.”

“Responsible? For the Justice League? How so?”

Okay, Kent, explain your way around that one.
Clark scratched the back of his neck. “Well, Jim, wasn’t Superman the first hero with extraordinary powers to go public since the end of the Second World War? Certainly there were earlier costumed heroes, people like the Hourman and Dr. Mid-Nite, but they’d mostly retired by midcentury. It wasn’t until after Superman came on the scene that we started to see a lot of new super-heroes. I guess he really started something.”

“I see what you mean. I remember reading an interview with the Black Canary once, where she said that most of today’s heroes would probably never have gotten started if it hadn’t been for Superman. I’m not even sure there was such a term as ‘super-hero’ before he came along. From what my Uncle Phil once told me, the wartime heroes were mainly called crime fighters or mystery-men,”

“Exactly. You might say that Superman was the first of a new generation. He was followed by the Batman over in Gotham, the Flash in Central City, Green Lantern out on the West Coast . . . Aquaman, the Canary, J’Onn J’Onzz. And with all those heroes running around, they eventually founded the Justice League as an organization to take on the menaces that were too big for any one of them to handle.”

“Yeah, and the League was really something back then. It’s too bad Superman couldn’t have been a member of that original team!”

Well, they
did
ask me,
thought Clark.

Superman had been flying over the Aleutian Islands when he spotted a strange series of flashing lights. He’d followed the lights into Alaska’s Valley of the Ten Thousand Smokes when he saw the five founding members of the Justice League. They were fighting among themselves.

One moment, the Flash was punching Aquaman, and the next he suddenly turned and tried to tackle Green Lantern. There was no rhyme or reason to their actions. Each of them was striking randomly, and they were rapidly wearing themselves down.
What are they trying to do,
he wondered,
kill each other?

And then Superman spotted the robot.

It stood twenty feet tall and looked like a high-tech metal gorilla. It was a formidable construct, but he noticed that it kept a prudent distance from the superpowered combatants. He also noticed a strange ripple in the air which seemed to be originating from a sort of turret in the robot’s midsection. And behind the turret, secreted within a heavily reinforced control chamber, he could see a strange little gnome of a man.

He’s doing something to them, playing with their minds maybe,
thought Superman.
I have to put an end to this before one of them is seriously injured.

Staying out of range, Superman trained his heat vision on the turret. Under the bombardment, it began to glow red, then white. With a flash of energy the turret turned to slag.

The heroes of the Justice League froze in their tracks, looking on in wonder at the red and blue blur that dove from the sky, slamming into the big robot like a runaway train. Within moments, Superman gutted the walking tank and confronted its controller.

“No! NO!” screamed the gnome. “You couldn’t have destroyed my illusion maker!”

“Illusion maker?” If the situation hadn’t been so serious, Superman would have laughed. The weird little man had a strange accent, unlike any he’d ever heard, but he spoke like a mad scientist from one of those old movie serials Clark used to watch in college. “What is going on here?”

The little man cowered in the back of the control chamber. “There was no mention of this in the histories!” His voice rose to a high, thin shriek, and to Superman’s astonishment he began to fade away. “I was supposed to win—to WIN! What went wrong? What went wro . . .”

With that, he disappeared completely, and Superman was left alone amid the wreckage of the robot. He scanned every last bit of the metal hull with his X-ray vision, but he could find no trace of the little man.

“Superman, you did it! You stopped Xotar!”

Superman turned to find himself suddenly face-to-face with a masked man wearing a crimson bodysuit. “I beg your pardon?”

“Xotar . . . that’s what the fellow who ran this contraption called himself. He claimed that he was from ten thousand years in the future.”

“Ten thousand—?”

“That’s what he said. Personally, I think he was fudging his dates to impress us.” There was the slightest hint of a midwestern drawl in the masked man’s voice. “Oh, say, we haven’t really been introduced. I’m the Flash!”

“I’ve heard of you.”

“Really?” The Flash fairly vibrated in his excitement. “Well, hey, you’ve got to meet the others.”

“Wait a minute.” Superman held up a hand. “What about Xotar? He just . . . vanished on me.”

“Can’t say that I’m surprised.” The Flash looked thoughtful. “I think he had some sort of fail-safe device to send him back to his own time. Don’t worry, we’ll check it out.”

As they walked out of the robot’s metal shell, the other members of the Justice League gathered around them.

Another masked man, this one lanky and dark haired, stepped forward, offering his hand. “An honor, Superman. They call me Green Lantern.” As they shook hands, Superman swore he could feel an endless wave of energy surging within the glowing emerald ring on the Lantern’s second finger.

“I need your help with this wreck, Lantern,” said the Flash. “We want to make certain that Xotar hasn’t pulled a fast one on us!”

Green Lantern nodded and followed the Flash back into the remains of the robot. As they disappeared from view, a nimble young blond woman dressed in black and navy spoke up. “I’m Black Canary, and this tall drink of water”—she gestured to a muscular, fair-haired man—“is Aquaman.”

The fifth and final member of the League towered over Superman. His skin was an unusual shade of green, and his eyes were shadowed by the ridge of his brow. “I am J’Onn J’Onzz, a detective of sorts. And to answer your unasked question . . . no, I am not of this world. My planet of origin is Mars.”

“I didn’t think there was any life on Mars.”

“That is unfortunately correct . . . in this era.”

Before Superman could question J’Onzz further, Green Lantern and the Flash returned, looking pleased.

“Xotar’s gone back to his own time,” the Lantern reported. “My power ring detected a deviation in the”—he turned to his teammate—“what did you call it?”

“Quantum field,” said the Flash. “Anyway, G. L.’s ring traced him through the field into the future. Get this . . . Xotar beamed himself right back into the hands of his own time period’s police. And he’s no problem there. Thanks to Superman here, he had to bug out without any of his fancy weapons . . . not that there’s much left of them now!” The Flash began pumping Superman’s hand. “That was great! Superman, this is a real pleasure.”

“The pleasure is mine, Flash. This Justice League of yours has made a lot of news in the past few weeks. I’m glad I finally got the chance to meet you.” Superman glanced back at the wreckage of the robot. “I just wish it could have been under more sociable circumstances.”

“Well, with Xotar gone, I’d say we all have reason to celebrate,” said Black Canary. She gazed admiringly at Superman. “We have a place back east where we meet in private. Why don’t you join us?”

Unable to turn down such an intriguing invitation, Superman accompanied the Justice League back to their hidden sanctuary. It was an impressive hideaway, from its extensive computerized library to its satellite uplink.
This group is full of surprises,
thought Superman. But the biggest surprise came when the Flash gaveled a meeting to order and nominated the Man of Steel for membership, a nomination immediately seconded by Aquaman.

“Flash . . . Aquaman . . . I’m very flattered. And I’d be honored to join . . . if I could devote the time to your League that membership demands.” Superman paused. “But my time is not my own. I’m afraid I cannot accept your nomination.”

Superman regretted the decision, but he could see no way to be an active member of the Justice League in addition to his other activities.
Just being Superman is as much a full-time job as working for the
Daily Planet.
I wonder how these people manage to find time for private lives? Maybe they don’t. After all, as far as the public knows, I’m Superman all the time.

Superman could see the disappointment in the Flash’s face, even without peering beneath his mask—and he respected the privacy of his fellow heroes too much to do such a thing. All five of them looked disappointed, even the big poker-faced Martian.

“Look,” he said, “you’ve created a well-organized team. I doubt that you really need me as a member. But rest assured, if you ever truly do need me, I’ll be there.”

In the years that followed, Superman proved true to his word. He stood by the Justice League as a faithful ally in fighting and defeating threats to this planet and others.

But time did not remain kind to the Justice League. There were countless changes in membership and two major reorganizations, and eventually the League disbanded. Shortly after the group’s dissolution, Superman enlisted the aid of former members to organize a superpowered fighting force to combat an alien invasion. The success of that mission led him to reassess his standing in what the media was starting to call “the super-hero community.” Finally, Superman agreed to become a member of a new American division of the Justice League.