The Death and Life of Superman (31 page)

A little girl squirmed in her mother’s arms, straining to see better. “But, Mommy, Superman saved us from that bad fire! Why did he have to die? It’s not fair.”

No, child,
thought Wonder Woman as she passed by,
it is not fair. But there is much in life that is not fair. All we can do is strive to make things better.

The procession of super-heroes was followed by units of police and fire fighters, with Mayor Berkowitz and members of the city council close behind. And then, flanked by a special Secret Service detail, the President of the United States walked down the street, leading a long line of international dignitaries. Virtually every nation in the world had sent a delegation. Never in all of history had so many heads of state been in one place at one time.

When the cortege had passed the
Daily Planet
Building, Jimmy started to steer Lois away from the curb. “It’s over, Lois. Come on, let’s go inside.”

“No, Jim.” Lois pointed down the street. “It’s not over yet. Look, the whole crowd is following.”

People were indeed filtering out into the street and falling in behind the procession. It looked as if most of Metropolis had decided to walk to the burial site.

“Uh, Lois, wait. I’m not sure that’s such a good idea with a mob that size, things could get out of hand.”

“I want to go, Jimmy.” Lois gave him a tug. “I—I need to be with him at the end . . . the way he was always there for . . . for all of us.”

Unable to dissuade her, Jimmy let Lois lead him along.

As the funeral procession moved further uptown, one furtive little man slipped through the crowd, darting back and forth as he searched for the delegation from the Republic of Kanad. When he found them at last, his eyes fixed on a gray-haired man in the lead.
Kanad’s president struts in this funeral parade as if he had every right—as if his people did not labor under the yoke of ethnic oppression!
The little man reached into his coat pocket, his hand fingering a crude bomb of plastique explosive.
Before the day is over, the world will know of the Kanad Liberation Front and its heroic struggle.
As soon as an opportunity presented itself, he would hurl his bomb at the president and disappear into the crowd before anyone was the wiser.

The opening never came. Instead, a loop of high-test nylon cord suddenly dropped down over the little man’s shoulders, tightened, and yanked him skyward. Several stories above the ground, the man found himself dangling in the grasp of a dark, brooding figure. The figure was cloaked in a black cape that flared out around him like ebon wings, and his face lay hidden behind a black, horned mask. The would-be bomber knew that this could be but one man.

“B-Batman!” The little man swallowed hard. He’d thought nothing of the fact that the Dark Knight was missing from the procession.
I didn’t think he came out in the daylight.

The Batman crouched on the cornice of a building, the cord that held the terrorist aloft looped around one powerful hand. His eyes narrowed behind his mask, and his voice thundered. “Explain the bomb in your coat pocket.”

“B-bomb? What bomb? I don’t—”

The Batman shook the cord, and the terrorist felt his shoulders start to slip through the loop. The little man desperately clutched at the cord. The pavement seemed miles below.

“A-all right,” he confessed, “I
do
have a bomb. I’m a patriot—fighting oppression! I—”

The Batman hoisted the little man up until they were face-to-face. “Innocent people would be hurt in a bombing.”

The little man screwed up his courage. “None who harbor that monster, that so-called president, are innocent!”

The Batman started letting the cord slide.

“No! Don’t drop me!” The little man closed his eyes tight and pleaded for his life. “I’ll turn myself in! Anything! Just don’t drop me.”

“If this were Gotham, I’d almost be tempted . . .” The Batman let his threat trail off. “But Metropolis is Superman’s town. And for today, I’ll play it his way. Today, I’ll be merciful.”

When Lois and Jimmy passed by, moments later, they saw the police setting up a ladder to rescue a little man who dangled precariously from a rope attached to a third-story flagpole. And what was more amazing, the man was begging to be arrested: “Hurry, please, he might be back!”

Several blocks away, Professor Hamilton and Mildred Fillmore stood watching the growing procession.

“Look at that crowd, Mildred. There must be over a million people.”

“They don’t want to let Superman go, Emil. He helped them—he helped all of us!—so many times. Oh, Emil, if only we could’ve done more. Your laser machine was brilliant!”

“Not brilliant enough, my dear. Literally. Not nearly enough to save him.”

In silence, Mildred watched the crowd pass by for a few minutes more. Then she turned to Hamilton. “Come on, Emil. Let’s follow them to the park.”

The professor frowned. “I don’t think that would be wise, Mildred. A crowd this large can so easily turn into a mob.”

As the cortege skirted the edge of Suicide Slum, a huckster started working the crowd. “Getcha T-shirts! I got Superman T-shirts right here! I got
Daily Planet
memorial editions—custom bagged with a commemorative armband! Getcha T-shirts!”

“Hey, you!” A big arm shot out of the crowd, grabbing the man by the lapels of his jacket. “You tryin’ to cash in on Sooperman’s death? In
my
neighborhood?!” Bibbo tightened his grip on the huckster and shook him like an old mop. “Ain’tcha got no respect?”

The man’s merchandise slid from his hands as he hung in Bibbo’s grip, gasping for breath. “H-hey, l-look, man. You think I
like
doing this? Superman saved my family from a burning building. B-but now we’re on the streets—and I’m out of work. I gotta feed my family somehow!”

Bibbo gave the man a fishy eye. “Ya wouldn’t be lyin’ to me, would ya?”

“N-no, man. I swear.” The huckster looked close to tears.

Bibbo considered that for a moment. The man did seem too afraid to be lying. And from the looks of him, he hadn’t been eating regularly for some time. Bibbo didn’t like the idea of anybody making money off his favorite, but he liked even less the idea of people going hungry. Slowly, the old roughneck lowered the huckster to his feet.

“Okay, tell ya what. I’ll take ’em.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’ll take ’em all,” repeated Bibbo. He spoke more slowly this time, trying to make himself as clear as he knew how. “Every T-shirt. Every paper.”

“All?! But there must be nearly three hundred—!”

“I tol’ ya, you’ve sold yer stuff! Now shuddup an’ lissen.” He poked a big beefy finger into the man’s chest. “You want honest work, you come see me tomorrow. M’name’s Bibbo. I own the Ace o’ Clubs on Simon Street. You got that?”

The huckster barely had time to nod before the tavern owner threw a huge arm around his shoulders.

“C’mon. Everybody’s headin’ ta the park ta pay their last respects. You can come along with me. I wanna be there when they buries him.”

Bibbo’s voice ordinarily boomed even when he whispered, but now it softened and thickened to little more than a croak. And when the former huckster looked up, he was startled to see tears running freely down Bibbo’s face.

The nearer people got to Centennial Park, the higher emotions ran. All around the ceremonial grounds, police barricades were in danger of being overwhelmed by sheer numbers. As people caught sight of the massive new stone statue of Superman towering over the treetops, they began pushing, trying to get closer to the tomb. Caught up in this giant shoving match, Lois and Jimmy suddenly found themselves being separated.

“Lois, grab my hand—quick!”

Lois strained to reach her young friend, but it was no use. “Jimmy, I can’t—!”

“Lois?!” Jimmy couldn’t see her, couldn’t even hear her anymore over the noise of the milling crowd. The press of human bodies was carrying them farther and farther apart. The increasingly restless throng was on the verge of becoming a full-blown mob.

Fortunately, those in charge seemed alert to the potential danger. Several large stadium-size video screens, which had been placed at regular intervals around the perimeter of the park to show televised coverage of the funeral, were suddenly filled with the image of Lex Luthor II.

“People of Metropolis!” Luthor’s voice boomed out over the park. “The eyes of the world are on us. I ask you . . . please remain calm.”

While Luthor got the people’s attention, the super-heroes in attendance fanned out through the crowd, bolstering the police lines and gently separating those spectators who were on the verge of becoming violent.

The situation was defused in a matter of minutes, although for those caught up in the crowd—and those watching at home on TV—the tension seemed to go on for an eternity.

Jonathan Kent came in from the barn to find his wife sitting mesmerized in the parlor. “Martha, you haven’t got that TV on
again
?”

“They’re making a circus of his funeral, Jonathan. Doesn’t anyone have a sense of dignity?”

Jonathan looked at the screen. Lex Luthor stood on a dais at the base of the tomb appealing for calm. Peace was slowly being restored, though the compression of the television lens still made it appear as if people were pushing and shoving up to the edge of the tomb.

“Some of those folks have surely lost their heads,” said Jonathan. “But they mean well. They loved him, Martha. Everybody loved him.”

“You’re being too charitable, Jon. Remember what happened that time when Clark rescued the space plane? Remember how they mobbed him? He said it was like they all wanted a piece of him. Things haven’t changed a bit.” Martha shook her head, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Jon, he was our son. I can’t stand what they’re doing to his funeral.”

“Martha . . . honey . . . turn the thing off.”

Martha closed her eyes and switched off the set. Jonathan knelt beside his wife and hugged her to him, gently stroking her hair. “Let all those people say good-bye to Superman their way. We’ll go say good-bye to Clark in ours.”

As order was restored at the Metropolis funeral site, Lois Lane found herself standing less than fifty yards from the base of the tomb. The carriage that had borne the Man of Steel through the city sat virtually in front of her. As Lois watched, the six surviving members of the current Justice League lifted the coffin onto their shoulders and began to slowly carry it to the waiting crypt. Unable to move any closer, Lois craned her neck to follow the pallbearers’ slow progress and then gave up and turned to watch the rest of the ceremony on one of the giant screens.

As the coffin was placed onto its bier, a group of clergymen and women gathered on the dais for a series of invocations. It was a most ecumenical gathering. There were ministers and priests, rabbis and mullahs, and bishops and monks. Virtually every religion had sent a representative to invoke the deity on behalf of Superman.

Finally, a stocky black man whom Lois recognized as the pastor of the Hob’s Bay Mission approached the microphones.

“Brothers and sisters,” he began, “we, the family of humankind, have gathered here to celebrate the life and mourn the passing of a great and kind man. We do not know his name. We knew him only as Superman.

“He was different from us, possessing powers and abilities almost beyond imagining, but he did not use those powers to set himself above us. No, Superman used his powers to bring comfort to those in need and hope to those mired in the depths of despair.

“And he could fly. Oh, how he could fly! He soared through our skies—some say like a great bird, but I say like an angel.

“I once saw him tear apart the walls of a burning building—rip them apart with his bare hands!—and pluck a young baby from certain death, cradling that child in his mighty arms as gently and as tenderly as would that child’s own mother.

“It is said that Superman had enemies. Well, there were among us men who made of him their enemy; that cannot be denied. But his real enemies were the enemies that bedevil us all: greed . . . fear . . . hate . . . ignorance! He fought those enemies and inspired others to fight them as well!

“Superman came to us, a stranger from another planet. He was many things to many people. Some saw him as a champion of life, others as a protector of the oppressed, and still others as a mighty warrior in the battle for truth and justice. And, yes, he was all those things and more. But mainly, he was our friend.