The Death and Life of Superman (22 page)

In the media suite of LexCorp Tower, Lex Luthor II was in the middle of a news conference.

“In answer to your question, Ms. Anderson—no, I don’t know what Doomsday is or where he came from, but it has become increasingly obvious why he is here. The creature has some manner of grudge against Superman!”

Lex could feel Supergirl tensing by his side. He knew that such talk disturbed her, but he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to tear a strip off his old foe. WLEX might be blacked out locally during the emergency, but he could still feed his message to the rest of the world via his superstation’s satellite and cable connections.

“I’m loath to ask, but does Metropolis need a champion who draws such negative attention? Does Superman’s presence here cause more harm than good?”

At that point the shock wave from the Newtown Plaza blast hit them. The tower noticeably swayed, and the cameraman struggled to hold his Minicam steady. Supergirl kept Luthor on a steady footing, but she was clearly alarmed.

“I think Doomsday may be more than Superman can handle alone. Don’t be annoyed, Lex, but I have to help him!”

“Annoyed? Not at all!” Lex played to the cameras for all he was worth. “Very generous, love. Indeed, I agree with you, Metropolis must be preserved!”

As the cameraman turned to follow Supergirl down the corridor, Lex smiled.
I couldn’t have timed that better if I’d planned it!

Buffeted by the shock wave, Superman bore Doomsday up toward the vacuum of space. The monster struggled in his grasp, lashing out with the bony spur of an elbow. So hard was the spur, and so weakened had Superman become from the prolonged struggle, that Doomsday drove it deep into his captor’s side.

Superman cried out in shock and pain. He could feel an initial gush of blood wash down his side. This was far worse than any cut, this was a ragged puncture wound.
No one . . . has ever cut me like that before!
His head grew foggy and his limbs went numb as Doomsday hurled him away. Unconscious, the Man of Steel fell to Earth.

Doomsday roared with laughter as he stretched out into a free-fall. But before he dropped more than a hundred feet, a red and blue blur streaked up from the city below, slamming into him with unexpected force. Doomsday reached out to grab his foe and found himself gripping only air.

“I don’t know what you’ve done to Superman, but I’ll make you sorry you were ever born!”

Doomsday was confused. The voice was much higher-pitched than the one he’d expected to hear. The caped figure that pulled his arm behind him was smaller, slimmer, and topped with long, flowing blond hair. Doomsday turned to shake off the grip, and Supergirl kicked him square in the gut.

On a rooftop far below, Professor Hamilton and Bibbo rushed to assemble a series of huge components. Mildred kept glancing uneasily from their labors to the skies above. She lifted the electronic field glasses Emil had given her
—That man, doesn’t he have anything low-tech?
—and looked up, watching Supergirl struggle with Doomsday.

“My lord in heaven! What . . . what
is
that creature?”

Emil tightened one final connection. “I suspect it’s a living weapon, Mildred, perhaps sent by some would-be alien invader to decimate the Earth.”

Bibbo wiped his brow. “We finally got dis laser cannon put together, Perfesser Ham—so let’s use it!”

Emil checked the skies. “As soon as Supergirl gets out of the way, Bibbo.” The Girl of Steel’s battle with the monster was drawing closer as she strained to carry him away from downtown. They could be seen quite clearly now with the naked eye.

Doomsday hammered away at Supergirl as she fought to subdue him. But her punches seemed to have little effect on the monster, and his were beginning to make her eyes cross.
Can’t give up—can’t fail Superman.

With a bellow of rage, Doomsday hit Supergirl so hard that the young shape-shifter’s face deformed with the force of his blow. All the color drained from her. Supergirl went limp and fell spinning toward the Earth below.

Bibbo let out a howl. “Doomsday’s dropped Supergirl, Perfesser! Hit him now!”

Emil hit a switch, and a mighty beam of coherent energy blasted skyward. For a moment, Doomsday’s free-fall seemed to stop as he was transfixed in the cannon’s awful energies. A bellow of pain echoed across the sky.

“We did it!” cheered Emil. “We got him! He’s falling, but . . . Oh, dear.”

“Emil, he’s coming straight at us!”

Bibbo squinted. “If he’s tryin’ ta fall on top o’ us, he’s gonna make it! Run for it!”

Emil grabbed Mildred and scrambled for the fire escape with Bibbo hot on their heels. As they reached the third floor, Doomsday slammed into the building with the force of a twenty-ton bomb. The metal staircase began to collapse, shaking them loose, and they fell into the building’s dumpster.

They landed with little grace among the trash bags but were otherwise unharmed. “Mildred! Mildred, where are you?”

“Over here, Emil.” She emerged from beneath a green plastic bag, her glasses slightly askew. Everything had happened so fast, she’d had little time to be frightened by the fall.

“Thank God. Bibbowski? Are you still with us?”

Bibbo rose up at the far end of the dumpster, covered with packing material. “I’m okay, Perfesser. That din’t hurt no worse’n fallin’ off a stool. Ouch! Hey, what gives?”

Bricks, dislodged by Doomsday’s impact with the building, started raining down from above. As they ducked for cover, Emil looked back up at the building and shook his head. It’d be a while before he dared to go back inside.

Superman came to in what had once been an abandoned tenement building, now boarded up and waiting for demolition. His fall had already begun that process. All around him the old structure lay in ruins. A wave of heat washed over him, and the acrid smell of smoke hit him in the face. He could hear a series of explosions rumbling not too far off.

Another gas main must have been ruptured.
The thought came to him slowly, as if he were still trying to shed the fog of a deep sleep. Just sitting up was a struggle for this man who had once changed the course of mighty rivers. His side burned as though it were on fire. He felt for the spot where Doomsday had cut him. The wound was already starting to close, but his hand still came away wet with blood.
My blood.
The realization was very matter-of-fact, as though he had become numbed to the shock of finding himself wounded. He grabbed hold of a slab of masonry to pull himself up. His arms felt like lead and his legs like jelly. Every move was agony, but still he forced himself to his feet.

Around him, the neighborhood looked like a war zone. He grimaced at that thought as he staggered from the ruins. Suicide Slum had sometimes been compared unfavorably to New York’s South Bronx and Chicago’s Cabrini Green. Now this section of it looked more like Beirut.

“Help! Superman—help!”

The cry cut through the fog in his head like a searchlight. It was the high, earnest cry of a small, terrified boy. Superman became instantly alert. Who needed his help? Where—? He strained to peer through the smoke and dust. There . . . just a few blocks away. A fire at the Coates Children’s Center . . . the orphanage maintained by the Metropolis Children’s Aid Society! The building was being evacuated, but a caseworker and two young children were trapped inside.

Reflexively Superman leapt skyward and almost came crashing down again, so great was the pain in his right side.
Keep going . . . got to keep going . . . they’re depending on you! They may die unless you do something!
Gritting his teeth, he dove into the midst of the burning orphanage. The careworker gave out a shriek at the sight of him.

“Don’t be afraid!”

The boy in her protective grasp let out a whoop. “It’s Superman! I knew he’d come!”

“You just hush, Keith!” The woman looked uncertainly at the bloodstained letter S emblazoned across the front of the man’s tattered shirt. His face was bruised and swollen. A raw and bloody wound oozed at his side. This man looked more like someone in need of rescuing than a rescuer.

“I guess I must really look like a mess, don’t I?” He tried to grin, but it came out more like a grimace. “Even Superman has a rough day now and then. Come on . . . I’ll get you out of here . . . just stay close.”

Not good for much,
he thought,
but I still make a pretty good shield.

Fire trucks were arriving as Superman led the woman and children to safety. A fire fighter on the scene was aghast. Superman looked in much worse shape than those he had just saved.

“Sit down for a moment, over here. Let me take a look at you.”

Numbly, Superman did as he was told, and a paramedic pressed an oxygen mask gently to his face. The fire fighter shook his head in dismay.
What is the monster,
he wondered,
that it could do such a thing to Superman?!

The metal back door to the building Emil Hamilton had called home exploded outward, sending shrapnel flying for half a block. The exploding door was followed a split second later by Doomsday.

Doomsday was a hellish sight to behold. The last few tatters of his outer restraining garment had been burnt away by Emil’s laser. All that clothed him now was a pair of dark olive trunks, which ended in metal bands encircling his thighs, and a pair of massive boots. He was covered all over in a gray, leathery hide wherever stark white bone did not protrude, and it seemed to protrude in sharp spikes or spurs at every major joint. Doomsday’s hideous face was a catcher’s mask of chiseled bone, its high forehead topped by an unruly shock of white hair, now singed and smoking at its ends.

From around the corner of the alley, Emil Hamilton watched furtively as the monster angrily flung the huge metal dumpster out of his way.
No wonder the beast has been able to take such a pounding . . . he has a partial exoskeleton, as well as an endoskeleton.
The professor prudently slunk back into the shadows, hugging the wall, as Doomsday looked around. This was clearly not the time to inspect the creature’s anatomy too closely. Emil glanced back to warn Mildred and Bibbo to silence. He could hear his own heart thundering in his chest. Should Doomsday turn down this cul-de-sac, they would be finished. But when Emil looked back, Doomsday was already leaping away.

The oxygen smelled sweet to Superman. It was having a revitalizing effect. His thoughts were coming faster now, more coherently.
Is this how boxers feel? Is this what it’s like to be hit so hard that your brains rattle? What sort of damage has been done to me?
He considered that thought for a moment.
How dangerous would a brain-damaged Superman be?

Someone let out a shout. Superman looked up just in time to see Doomsday bounding high into the sky, and his blood ran cold. The monster was headed toward the central business district. Taking one last hit of oxygen, Superman gathered himself together and launched himself skyward.

“Superman!” The little boy whom he’d saved turned to the caseworker. “Ms. Myra, what is that Doomsday thing? Did somebody build him? Like a giant Frankenstein monster?”

“I don’t know, baby.” Myra held the boy tight. “From the way he’s behavin’, I’d say he’s the devil incarnate . . . usherin’ in the end of the world!”

From where she lay, Supergirl could see Doomsday passing by overhead. Painfully, she rolled over onto her stomach and pressed her hands to the pavement. Inch by inch, she worked to raise herself to her knees. Unable to grit her teeth, Supergirl squeezed her eyes shut tight, and concentrated. Her face throbbed, and her breath burned against the inside of her mouth as she tried to reshape and heal her injuries by force of will. But the pain was too great, the effort more than she could bear. Supergirl fell back down into the street. All was silent, save for the wail of distant sirens.

As police helicopters spread out over the city, radioing in Doomsday’s ever-changing location, the department’s Special Crimes Unit was tightening its dragnet. A line of police cars and vans roaring up Bessolo Boulevard suddenly braked to a halt at Thirty-second Street.

“He’s headed this way! Fall out and get ready!” The unit commander, Captain Margaret Sawyer, pulled taut the last strap of her flak vest. This was looking to be their toughest mission ever. Despite the situation, Sawyer allowed herself a quick grin as she watched her second-in-command, Inspector Dan Turpin, slam an oversized ammo clip into his custom assault gun. She’d grown quite fond of the old cop, and she knew the feeling was mutual. “Ready, Dan?”

“Uh-huh. And just in time!” Turpin pointed skyward. “Those sky jockeys were right on the money, Maggie. Here he comes! Ugly sucker, too!”

“You’re a master of understatement, Turp. Come on, nail him—now!”

A hail of ten-millimeter armor-piercing shells greeted Doomsday as he touched ground. But if the monster was done any harm, he didn’t show it.

“He’s not stopping!” a cop yelled.

Like a maddened bull, Doomsday charged the police line, upending cruisers as he went. Answering the challenge, Turpin ran ahead to meet the monster, emptying his weapon in Doomsday at point-blank range. With a hideous laugh, Doomsday grabbed Turpin and flung him away. The old cop flew backward down the boulevard, the storefronts a blur to his eyes. But as he crossed Thirty-first Street, another figure shot past Turpin, and an arm slipped around his midsection. An instant later, he was jerked to a stop, the wind momentarily going out of him.

“Suh . . . suh . . . Superman!” Turpin was having a hard time catching his breath.

Superman’s breathing was a little ragged as well. “Get Maggie and the unit out of the way, Turpin—on the double!”

In a flash, the beleaguered hero bounded over the heads of the police line and again faced Doomsday. A look of recognition burned in the monster’s eyes.

Superman returned the monster’s stare.
Have to hit him with everything I’ve got. Have to hope that he has his limits . . . like I do.

Doomsday eagerly lunged forward, and Superman answered with a right to the throat that echoed like the crack of a rifle. Part of the bony escarpment that was Doomsday’s chin broke away, and the monster staggered back a step. Doomsday shook his head, and his eyes widened in wonderment. Truly, here was a challenge. Here was an enemy whose power rivaled his own, one who would no more give up than he would.