Manhunter
Déjà Vu
by Libbylawrence
Mark Shaw watched the crowd in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel in Paris, France as he waited for his family. It felt good to be able to say that he still had a family after years of difficulty and suffering. His stepfather Elliott was really more like a true father since the wealthy lawyer and businessman had always insisted that Mark was as much his child as the children he had with Mark’s mother Rose were. He had adopted Mark and had been as proud of his rise to the role of crusading defense attorney, as he had been hurt and disappointed by Mark’s later mental troubles and brush with the law. These events had occurred after his being brainwashed by the secret cult of robotic beings called Manhunters. Mark had known many roles in his time. He had been a hero. He had been a pawn. Now, he hoped to forge some new role of his own choosing. It would not be easy since he felt that he was still being defined by his past at least in the eyes of some. He included his brother James in that group. The younger lawyer saw himself as the “good son” and he disapproved of Mark’s past. Mark knew James loved him; however, he was fiercely concerned with things like image and social status and felt embarrassed by his sibling’s criminal past.
Mark thought about his family and his past and his future; however, all the while his mind was occupied, he also noticed everything about those around him. He had been trained well by the Manhunters and he retained all those old skills. He was a keen observer with an analytical mind and a detective’s eye for detail.
He also was a superb martial artist and a skilled actor. The Manhunters prided themselves on their ability to keep out of the public eye. Deception and duplicity and role-playing were all traits that applied to the select band of robotic agents and their human pawns. Thus, Mark could assume roles as easily as he could discard them.
Discarding roles was paramount on his mind now. He had served his time and paid the price for his crimes. He had received extensive psychiatric help and had broken free of the mental conditioning that had turned him from a hero into a villain. He also had had his sentence commuted due to secret service he had rendered as part of a governmental team called Task Force X. He remembered how that service had nearly cost him his life and had tested his regained principals. He had triumphed and the woman who ran the covert team had asked him to serve as leader. He had refused and she had made some comment about having another equally good choice in mind. He had never cared enough to try to learn more about the team. He knew the more public branch of the team had been led well by Captain Comet. He knew that it was the very public nature of Comet’s team and Comet’s own unshaken sense of morality that had led the government to create a second more covert version of the group. That was when Mark had been approached by Amanda Waller. He had accepted her offer of service for one case and he had received the benefits of that service. He was a free man. Still, he would not remain with that project. He had no desire to have his role defined by others. He would select his mask himself this time.
He greeted his distinguished stepfather Elliott and his blond sibling James as they appeared and crossed the lobby to join him.
“Sorry to keep you, son. We took a bit longer getting ready,” said Elliott.
James adjusted his thin wire glasses and said, “You know how Mark is. He doesn’t care a fig about appearances!”
Mark stifled a reply as he considered the truth of the statement. In many ways the young man cared more passionately about appearances than his sibling knew. He could not help but define himself as the son of a failed super villain. He knew his late father had been a petty costumed thug named Outlaw and he could only shudder as remembered how his poor mother had taken him and fled into the uncertain night to escape the abusive man. She had eventually met Elliott Shaw and he had married her and adopted her son. Rose had given birth to James and Eleanor as well. Life had been good. Still, all of his youth had been spent in an effort to justify himself to his new father. Mark could not shake the sense that in spite of all the love and acceptance his family had given him, he had always been thought of as the son of a criminal. Outlaw (Mark Fletcher) had died in prison and Mark had never made any effort to see him. He had been a small boy of course but he had been old enough to know exactly what shame and regret accompanied his real father’s troubled career. He wanted to regain his family’s trust and reclaim his own self-respect.
“Sorry, Jamie. We can’t all be as big a clotheshorse as you are!” he said.
“Or as big a horse’s end either!” he added mentally.
Elliot said, “Nonsense! Mark’s just used to dressing quickly. We’ve got plenty of time before my dinner with Richard Reynolds of the French Trade Bureau. I expect we can fit in a bit of touring as well. I’m so glad you both could come. It is good to have a bit of male bonding as those talk show experts call it!”
Mark smiled and followed them outside. He was very appreciative of the chance to be with them. He wanted to mend some damaged relationships and he knew taking this type of time was necessary in order to create some natural healing.
After a quick tour of the city, the three Shaws stopped at the elegant home of Richard Reynolds. Elliott nodded with approval.
“Reynolds has a nice place. I think we’ll be able to have a good talk before our formal sessions begin next week. This will be a real pleasure!”
James said, “Yes! The French do know how to live!”
Mark remained silent. He had been to France many times and he was rather blasé about the entire experience. It was his family that occupied his mind and not the city around them.
They were ushered inside by a grim butler who led them into a well-decorated room with warm colors and attractive furnishings. Paintings from both modern and classic eras covered the walls. Richard Reynolds himself was a handsome man whose serious demeanor did nothing to reduce his generally warm manner.
“Welcome! I trust your flight was not unduly turbulent?” he asked as he shook hands and offered them drinks.
Elliot said, “Thank you for your hospitality. Meeting here at your lovely home will allow us to work out all the details in our presentation to the Trade Bureau. Our nations may look forward to a profitable commercial relationship.”
As the evening passed, Mark made small talk with Marjorie Reynolds while her father discussed business with the elder Shaw. James hovered rather uneasily between the two groups. He was torn between being of use to his father and charming their hostess.
The patio doors crashed open and ended his indecision as a man in a dark purple costume and mask entered and casually backhanded James to the floor where he remained stunned. Marjorie screamed and men rushed to her side even as three of the servants hurried over to try to stop the intruder.
He laughed harshly and said, “You are not worth the use of my creation. I will merely deal with you with brute force. You mindless lackeys of the filthy rich expect no better, eh?”
He spun around and rammed one knee into the butler as his fists snaked out to stun another servant. The butler gasped and was shoved into the final servant as the masked figure brought both hands down on their necks. They collapsed to the floor even as Mark Shaw returned after briefly falling backward into the shadows of the room.
“Stay back!” he yelled at his father and Mr. Reynolds as he confronted the intruder. He had shed his suit to reveal a high-collared bright red shirt and brown pants and boots. He moved swiftly and jumped over a fallen chair to block the intruder’s entry.
“What have we here? A dashing swordsman? No doubt your good right arm serves the whims of the moneyed louts who support you!” said the masked man as he raised an odd looking gun.
Mark Shaw sliced at his arm with a thin bladed sword and cursed as the attack failed to disarm him. The other man received a cut but his weapon still fired three odd glass spheres. As they broke on the floor a gas rose up from within then shells to envelop Mark.
He choked as the vapor surrounded him and his very world changed before his startled eyes.
He no longer saw the expensive manor or the stylish decorations. He saw costumed figures and he knew them to be members of the famous Justice League of America. He saw himself confronting the one called Green Arrow who was imprisoned alongside of the sexy Black Canary and the ever-stalwart Green Lantern. Mark was not wearing his current costume, which identified him as the Privateer. He was instead wearing the red and blue armor of his first secret identity, that of Manhunter! He had captured the trio of heroes on behalf of his leader the Grand Master who had insisted that the Green Lantern was guilty of destroying an entire planet.
The cocky Green Arrow had demanded that he explain why he worked for an “inter-galactic-goon-squad!”
Shaw had removed the inhumanly passive blue face mask of the Manhunter costume to reveal his own passionate features. He recalled the sting he had felt at the words of the Battling Bowman and he still felt their truth.
“I was a normal human being. Mark Shaw, public defender, driving myself into the ground to gain justice for the weak, the poor, …and getting nowhere! I don’t say the Manhunters are perfect! There is no perfection in this jungle we live in! But they get their man! Green Lantern is guilty, isn’t he? So get off my back! I’m proud to fight for justice anyway I can!” he had shouted.
Green energy had silenced him on that dark day long ago. The enigmatic Guardian of OA who accompanied the heroes and eventually cleared GL of the charge of destroying a planet had beaten him. The entire event had been a ruse created by the Grandmaster who was in turn revealed to be a robot with deeply flawed programming!
Mark Shaw’s world had been shaken that day! He had faced his worst fears! He was not a defender of justice! He was nothing more than a petty costumed thug… like his late father had been before him! He truly had believed that the Manhunters worked for the common good until that day’s events shattered his illusions and broke his spirit!
As a second glass pellet shattered and more gas filled his lungs, Mark saw himself in the costume of his second heroic role: the Privateer! He was helping the JLA and he was slowly accepted by most of them except for the unerring Batman and the synthetic Red Tornado! He was living the cinematic fantasies of his boyhood as a modern day swashbuckling hero like Errol Flynn or Cornel Wilde! However, this too was just another role. It was also another mask worn to deceive. For while he posed as an ally to the heroes, he was also manipulating them. He was still under the sway of the Manhunter cult’s brainwashing and he was also using yet another role! As the masked villain called the Star-Tsar, he was secretly setting up the heroes he pretended to help as the Privateer! Again, he was exposed by the Red Tornado whose inhuman manner reminded him painfully of his false masters the inhuman Manhunters!
He was defeated. He was exposed. He was imprisoned. He saw his mother’s tears. He heard his father’s pain. He was nothing more than a common criminal. His dreams of heroism and crusading for justice had been taken away and nothing remaining but guilt, shame, and regret!
He shuddered and rubbed at his eyes. The scene slowly returned to that of the Reynolds home. James stood over him and called his name until he blinked and nodded to indicate that he was unhurt.
“Some kind of gas …like LSD! I had a weird flashback to scenes from my past. Scenes that robbed me of the will to act. I felt all the old emotions again. What happened here? Is Dad OK?” he said.
James said, “No! That creep took my… our father! He said he would not allow the proud nation of France to unite again in an illicit affair with the harlot America!”
Richard Reynolds said, “I feel terrible. I’ve notified the police. I blame myself. My home was not as secure as the office would have been. I brought this on you all myself!”
Marjorie said, “Mark, why are you wearing that costume? You look like one of the super heroes from the news.”
He looked at the woman and wiped one hand across his face. “No. I’m no hero. Far from it!” he said as he walked out of the room.
James followed him into the night air. “Mark, I didn’t know you still had that costume. I thought those days were behind you. You could work at the firm with us. That is, when we get father back. Can you do it? Get him back, I mean? I know I’ve been the one who gave you the hardest time about your past but only you can fight and track this man down. You have all those abilities and that knowledge that others don’t have. I see that it is wrong to ask you to let them go to waste. I’ve been so smug, so hateful. I’ve tried to deny what you are and what you’ve been but now we need you and I love you. Please, will you save our father?” he begged.
Mark looked at his brother and was startled by his passion and his words. “I love you too. I will do anything to save him. You know that. The family means everything to me but I don’t know that I can do it. I have been a failure and a fraud for most of my life. I’ve always been pretending to be something I’m not.”
He placed one arm on James Shaw’s shoulder and said, “I’ll try. I promise you that.”
He said, “First, let me get this nut’s name. He spoke so bitterly about America and the wealthy in general. He has a grudge against an entire class of people and against America in particular. He used advanced drugs against me. He wore a distinctive costume. I can learn who he is. I still have connections.”
He made his way across the city until he reached an elegant penthouse. He slipped inside and sneaked by the doormen with ease. He could still use those old talents. He could slip into the shadows, pick locks, defy the odds, and yet he still felt that he was a fraud.
He made his way to the top floor where the wealthiest residents lived. He knocked on one door and glanced left and right. The security cameras were deactivated. He had taken care of that earlier. He had no time to wait for social niceties. He had to get to the woman who lived in the suite. If she was away on a case then he would have lost precious time.
The door opened and a beautiful woman with platinum blonde hair and bangs peered out at him. She wore a filmy nightie and yet for all her seeming frailty, she was clearly alert and capable.
“Mark? I knew you were in the city with your father but I did not expect you would visit me. Our last parting was not exactly pleasant, ” she said.
He said, “Noelle, please help me. Father has been abducted. I need your help. I need your sources of data.”
She frowned and then closed the door only to unbolt and open it again. “Come inside,” she said.
Mark watched as Noelle Avrill typed rapidly on a computer. She glanced at the screen for moments then looked up at him. “The costume, the m.o., the weaponry, all mark this man as a former chemist of brilliant mind and bitter views. His name is Louis Regarde. He lost his father to an industrial accident in an American operated French factory. Thus, he vowed to use his chemical skills to oppose all efforts of American industry to unite or work within France with local companies. His last effort to ruin such a trade agreement ended when Batman and the first Wonder Woman defeated him. He calls himself Deja Vu or Flashback due to the LSD-like drug he uses on his foes. The gas makes them relive their worst moments, ” she explained.
Mark hesitated for a moment then he touched her cheek. “Thank you! I knew you would be able to identify him. You always knew more about the French underworld than the authorities,” he said.
She started to push his hand away. His touch brought back too many memories but then again, not all of the memories were bad ones. “Mark, I will help you locate Elliot. I have an idea that Regarde is hiding out at where his father died. The now empty factory is almost a sacred spot to him according to files his prison shrink compiled, “said the French beauty.
Mark said, “Noelle, I understand you are no longer with the Global Guardians. A new hero called the Musketeer replaced you. That surprised me.”
She said, “He is a good man. His grandfather was the original hero of that name. He worked against the Vichy in the war. He was a logical replacement for me when I quit. I wanted to work free of any other restrictions. With my computer skills and my physical gifts, I am more suited to the role of a lone wolf.”
She said, “I’m used to being alone. You should know that better than anyone. I will change into something less comfortable.”
She slammed the door to her bedroom and Mark frowned as he recalled their passionate romance. He had been a law student and she had been a college girl with ties to the top-secret French law enforcement branch called Department Gamma. Her passion for justice had matched his own and they had planned a life together based on working for the weak and the helpless.
He had broken off their relationship when he joined the Manhunters. There was no room in his life for any lover except for the love of justice as perceived by his robotic masters from that moment on.
Noelle had tried to make him see that his new cause was not what he thought it was. She had her own keen insights and she suspected the cult of being twisted or wrong in some manner. Still, the brainwashing had already begun by the point and Mark had refused to listen to her.
She had eventually become the heroine called Fleur-De-Lis and he had followed the path to disillusionment that he recalled so well. Now, she was his best source for help since her career as the national heroine of France had given her priceless knowledge about the French underworld.
She returned wearing a skintight red jumpsuit. He started to speak but she raised one hand. “I gave up the solid white masked version when I stopped wearing wigs. I care little now if anyone knows my secret. Noelle Avril has no real life outside the costume of Fleur-De-Lis.”
Mark wondered if this slightly bitter statement described yet another crime his Manhunter deeds had brought about.
They headed into the night and she handed him a small device. “This filter should make you immune to Flashback’s gas. Odd, you were always ready for anything during your days behind the blue mask.” she said.
He said, “I know. Still, for every advantage that role gave me, it cost me far more in terms of my sense of self.”
She drove him to a rural area outside the city. She gestured to a structure up on a hill. “That was the factory in which Regarde’s father lost his life. I see light within. That is where your father is being held. If you like, you can take him to safety while I handle Flashback.”
Mark Shaw said, “No. I want to fight him. I need to do this.” She glanced at him and nodded slightly.
They made their way to the factory and she ran forward to leap into a stunning series of spins that enabled her agile form to hurl through the air and break through the upper window high above. Mark admired her remarkable agility even as he followed via a grappling hood she had provided.
He swung down to where Fleur-De-Lis faced the purple costumed Flashback and a bound Elliot Shaw.
“You found me? I had little doubt that I would be found but I expected the gears of the industrial complex to turn slowly enough that I could slay this pig!” gasped Flashback as he reached for another gun.
He fired a series of energy bursts that illuminated the factory and left the heroes leaping for cover. Noelle’s faster than any Olympic athlete. She can dodge those bursts with ease. That means I need to get moving if I want to save Dad! thought Mark.
He rolled beneath the blasts and kicked the gun out of Flashback’s hand. As the villain reached for his other gun, Mark grappled with him and they fell to the floor. Flashback struggled to fire the gas gun, as Mark smashed him in the face three times. He reeled backward and the gun went off. Mark’s gas mask enabled him to ignore the vapors as he moved forward to connect with three more blows that left Flashback stunned and beaten.
Fleur-De-Lis had untied Elliot Shaw and had taken him outside while the men fought. Now, she returned to see if Mark was unharmed. “Magnifique! You have lost none of your skills,” she said.
Mark said, “No. I have not lost my old skills but more to the point I think I’ve finally found myself.”
She frowned quizzically as they carried their foe outside. “What do you mean?” she asked.
He stopped her and said, “The mask was damaged in the fight. His gas worked on me. It brought back all my old failures and fears but this time I faced them down and did the job I had to do. I think I’ve finally come to terms with my past and I think just maybe I know what my future holds. Being forced to relive my past thanks to that vivid hallucinogenic gas and hearing certain words from my brother has given me a new perspective.”
She leaned over and kissed him. It was certainly not a complete reconciliation but it was a start and it promised healing.
Days later after Elliott and Reynolds had completed their business successfully, Elliot and James waited at the airport for Mark. As the glanced at their watches and made small talk, Mark rushed inside to join them. “So, this time you are the one who is late!” joked James.
Mark smiled at his brother and said, “Nope. I’m right on time for the start of a new beginning!”
Elliot said, “Son, are you going to join us in the firm as I’d hoped?”
Mark said, “No. I’m not going to live my live defined by roles of anyone else’s creation. I want to use my skills and my passion for justice in my own way. I am going to use my abilities to capture super crooks. I’m going to bring in masked thugs and with every one I capture, I’m going to be making up for my own past deeds behind various masks.”
James sputtered, “You mean you are going to be the Privateer again?”
Mark shook his head. “Nope. I cut my hair as you can see. My days of role-playing a modern day pirate are over. The only name and role that suits me is that of Manhunter. Oh, I know what you are thinking but you are wrong. I’m free of all the mental conditioning that cult gave me. I will be a new Manhunter who will do what he can to redeem the name of the original group. You see they were designed eons ago to fight crime and help the weak not to be a super secret cult who dictated justice based on personal power. I’m going to alter my old gear and create a new Manhunter in my own image. With Paul Kirk dead, I have every right to that name.”
Elliot said, “This is not what I expected to hear from you but I admire your desire to right old wrongs. Just remember that no matter what you do, we love you.” They walked off together and a new hero was reborn!
