Showcase

Times Past, 1949

Vic Valor, Invincible

by Dan Swanson

Background… Opal City has been without a resident super-hero for more than 3 years.

Starman announced his ‘semi-retirement’ in December of 1945 in a press conference. In the question and answer session afterwards, he revealed that the mayor of Opal City still had a way to contact him in emergencies, as did the JSA. It was a very emotional press conference, and unique, because as far as anyone could tell, this was the first time a ‘mystery-man’ had ever publicly announced his retirement.

Earlier in 1945, Starman had embarked on a vigorous personal crusade against crime. For about 2 weeks, if there was any significant criminal activity anywhere in Opal City, Starman had been there to stop it. He had brought so many captured criminals to the police that they were almost tired of seeing him! In most cases, he supplied enough evidence to convict. In many cases, he had intimidated the criminals to the point where they confessed voluntarily. By the end of the second week, violent criminal activity in Opal City had almost ceased, and it remained at an all-time low for the next 6 months or so.

When Starman announced his retirement, the police expected a sharp rise in criminal activity, but it didn’t happen. A large percentage of Opal City’s criminals were in jail, many had moved to other cities, and many others were convinced that Starman’s retirement was a ploy. As a result, Opal City’s criminal activity remained unusually low, and Opal City was named ‘America’s Safest City’ in 1946 and 1947.

After 2 years without a Starman sighting, most people were finally convinced that Starman really had retired. Criminal activity began to increase. And Opal City Police Commissioner O’Dare was extremely worried. Over the past several years, the low level of criminal activity had convinced the City Council to reduce the size of the Opal City police force, ‘saving’ money that they could then divert to ‘pork’ for their own districts. In O’Dare’s opinion, Opal City only had half the cops it needed, but nobody listened to him! Opal City politicians had a long history of dismissing ‘alarmists’ and their causes – it’s what they do. As the level of criminal activity rose, the politicians all pointed fingers at the police – conveniently ignoring the fact that they had cut police funding by 50% over the past 2 years.

Starman’s appearance in Baltimore in December 1948 had apparently scared some of the criminal element in Opal City into hiding, and the crime rate temporarily fell, but by March 1949 it had jumped again. The level of criminal activity in March was higher than it had been at any time since Prohibition! And the police were too undermanned to do much about it.

1. A New Hero for Opal City!

Thursday, March 24, 1949 A Heroic Debut!

Opal City War Memorial Auditorium 10 PM

The Global Wrestling Empire sponsored a wrestling match between Gorgeous George and the Obsidian Warrior, with all proceeds going to charity. This was the first-ever professional match held in Opal City, and there were over 10,000 people in the auditorium to watch this titanic struggle. The match went back and forth – at first, the Warrior seemed to have the initial advantage, slamming Gorgeous George into the mat, then stunning him with his patented ‘Head Hammer’. Gorgeous George got his second wind, pulled a reversal, and the Warrior barely escaped.

Then something went terribly wrong. Gorgeous George grabbed the larger Warrior, and straining mightily, lifted him overhead in a stunning feat of strength. While lifting the Warrior, George pulled a muscle in his leg, and this caused him to stagger sideways. He hit the ropes and fell over the top rope, catapulting the Obsidian Warrior headfirst to the concrete floor! The Warrior was knocked cold, was cut badly, and was bleeding heavily!

Trying to avoid panic, the referee pretended that it was all part of the show, counted the Warrior out, and raised George’s hand as a sign of victory. Amid thunderous applause, the ring announcer presented the GWE World Championship Belt to Gorgeous George. The Obsidian Warrior was loaded onto a stretcher and into the back of an ambulance that was waiting on the auditorium floor.

The crowd had paid premium prices for match, and they started getting ugly when they realized that it was over in the first minute! There had better be something really good coming right up or a lot of people would be screaming for their money back!

No one in the crowd suspected that the Warrior was seriously injured. Everyone knew that this kind of ‘accident’ happened all the time in pro wrestling matches, and they all expected that next week the Warrior would be back in the ring after a ‘miraculous’ recovery’ in a fight for the belt in some other city.

The ambulance wasn’t real. Whenever the arena allowed, the GWE would always park this phony ambulance near the ring, hoping to whet the crowd’s appetite for violence and injuries. But the stretcher with the Warrior was loaded into the back anyway. The phony ambulance driver started the vehicle and headed for the garage door that opened onto the street. One of the corner men hopped in the passenger seat, and directed the driver to head for the closest hospital with lights flashing and siren blaring!

Suddenly, the ambulance virtually exploded! The patient compartment was shattered from the inside, and a 12′ tall gleaming black figure, seemingly made of living obsidian, burst forth! The crowd, thinking this to be part of the show, cheered wildly. Now they were getting their money’s worth! But then, the giant figure knelt down, smashed both hands deep into the cement floor, and an earthquake began.

The crowd began getting uneasy, and some people started heading for the gates. Then pieces of ceiling started to fall into the crowd in the seats below. Panic erupted, with people screaming and running for the exits or for the auditorium floor. Fortunately it was not yet a very energetic earthquake, and the auditorium was holding up pretty well – so far. But if this quake kept up for much longer, the whole place would probably collapse! Opal City wasn’t near any known faults, so very few people in Opal City actually knew what to do in quakes. But everyone instinctively knew how to panic!

Suddenly a dynamic figure flew into the Auditorium through one of the new holes in the roof! He flashed towards the Obsidian Warrior! Without even slowing down, he smashed his shoulder into the Warrior’s stone stomach, wrapped his arms around the stone figure, and smashed through the still-closed garage doors! The earthquake ended instantly! Someone set off a fire alarm, and sirens start going off as emergency response teams rushed into action.

Moving at high speed, the flying figure carried the Obsidian Warrior to Opal Park, several miles away, before the Warrior even realized that he was being carried. The heroic mystery-man threw the Obsidian Warrior to the ground, then put on foot on his chest, and stood above him with his arms crossed. “I don’t suppose you plan to come quietly, do you?” he asked the prone figure.

The Warrior let out a mighty roar, and sat up, at the same time smashing the much smaller mystery-man with a two-armed blow that drove him backwards. The mystery-man smashed through a concrete park bench, totally demolishing it, and then flopped to the ground and rolled over several times. Any normal man would have been dead, many times over, already. Yet this man mystery was up and once more flying to the attack!

“So, you want to play rough, eh? Well, it’ll take a lot more than that to stop Vic Valor!” Valor flew with both arms extended in front of him, and battered the Obsidian Warrior with a two-fisted blow to the chin. The Obsidian Warrior had just managed to sit up, but Valor’s blow knocked him backwards, and his head whiplashed into the ground.

This impact didn’t appear to bother the Warrior, however. He bounced to his feet and roared again! Valor flew in a slow circle around him, and as he did, the Warrior turned to keep him in sight. Again, Valor drove at him with both arms extended, but this time the Warrior was prepared. As Valor drilled in, the Warrior stepped aside, then grabbed the smaller Valor, and executed his famous Head Hammer! With one hand, the Warrior positioned Valor’s head on his own knee, and then the Warrior’s elbow came down on the side of Valor’s head, hard! Usually this move was only simulated, but this time the Warrior put all of his greatly enhanced strength into it, this time it was for real! And his entire body was now made of living obsidian, one of the hardest natural minerals. There wasn’t a wrestler in the world that could have lived through that blow, much less kept fighting afterwards.

But even though he was only half the size of his opponent, Vic Valor was incredibly tough! Chips flew from the Warrior’s elbow and knee, and he roared again, in pain this time, as Valor rolled away. Valor shook his head, as if slightly dazed. Both opponents got to their feet and they stood there warily, each alert for the next move of his opponent.

This time the Warrior moved first! He gestured at the ground near Valor, and suddenly, the earth and rocks at his feet seemed to come alive! Within seconds he was being attacked by 3 new creatures, made of rock, which had seemingly clawed their way out of the ground at Valor’s feet. These creatures looked a lot like the Obsidian Warrior, and seemed to be under his control. They weren’t as large as the original, but they were composed of granite and they hit very hard! They surrounded Valor and pounded on him from every direction!

Even Valor couldn’t stand this terrible pounding for long! He launched himself into a super-speed spin, with both arms extended, hands clenched into steel hard fists! Battered by dozens of blows in a second, the three golems fell back. Some of the force of the blows somehow seemed to be transferred to the Obsidian Warrior, and he staggered a bit. This broke his concentration and the three golems simply fall apart. Valor seemed to have trouble regaining his balance, and once again there was a lull in the fight, as both opponents recovered from their last attacks.

Valor seemed to have recovered first. “Well, giant, if that was your best shot, you might as well give up now and save yourself a beating!” He advanced slowly, but the Obsidian Warrior said nothing, and didn’t move. “OK, big fella, you had your chance! I’ll try not to hurt you too bad!” Valor launched himself high into the air, then turned around and dove at the Obsidian Warrior at high speed, arms extended in front of him. He planned to drive the Warrior into the ground like a fence post!

The Obsidian Warrior was much faster than you might guess, given that he was 12 feet tall and made out of glass-like rock! And he had some experience with foes diving at him, although they were usually jumping off the top rope, rather than flying. He knew enough to get out of the way, and he was just fast enough to surprise Valor. Valor drilled almost half his body headfirst into the ground. This was damn embarrassing, as well as dangerous! Instead of taking advantage of Valor’s immobile condition, the Warrior pulled him free by his legs, and then battered him against the ground like a baby with a stuffed animal might bang it on the floor.

After slamming Valor twice against the ground, the Obsidian Warrior threw him as hard as he could against a granite outcropping, and Valor slumped to the ground. He wasn’t unconscious, but he was stunned, and unable to move. For a few seconds, he was sure he was about to die, if the Warrior attacked him again.

But the Warrior only raised his hands above his head and roared! And then headed back towards the city. A 12-foot high man, moving at top speed, can run pretty fast, and the Warrior was inside the Auditorium in only a few minutes. He spotted the GWE championship belt on the canvas where it had been dropped when everyone had evacuated the building during the earthquake. He climbed into the ring, picked up the belt, and raised it over his head. He slowly turned towards every section of the Auditorium, bowing each time he turned, as if accepting the cheers of the crowd for winning the GWE World Championship!

At that moment, Vic Valor flew through the smashed door of the building, and landed in the ring behind the Warrior. As the Warrior finished his turn, he slumped to the canvas, and then turned back into his human form! Valor quickly examined the man and determined that although he appeared to be uninjured, he needed to be in a hospital. Valor gently picked him up and flew at top speed to the emergency room at the nearest hospital, and gave the unconscious man into the care of the emergency room crew. He quickly gave the details that he knew to the attendant in charge, and tried to make a quick exit. But he was too late – as he made his way out the exit, he was swarmed by reporters!

Vic Valor really didn’t want to talk to reporters about his fight with the Obsidian Warrior. He had been soundly trounced, and while he knew it was only because he hadn’t taken the Warrior seriously, he didn’t want people getting a bad first impression of him. However, it quickly became evident from the questions the reporters asked that nobody had actually seen the actual!

Half a dozen reporters pressed around him, hemming him in a corner. He would either have to answer their questions or use his powers to free himself. Well, he wasn’t shy, and they would print whatever he told them! Vic Valor gathered himself for his very first press conference. But certainly not his last!

Rather than wade through all the details of shouted questions and rushed answers, here’s a summary of the headline story from the Opal City Register Extra edition the next morning:

“Opal City welcomed a new hero last night. With powers similar to Superman, Vic Valor burst gloriously onto the scene, defeating a super-powered monster and saving Opal City from an earthquake!

“It started at the War Memorial Auditorium, during a pro wrestling exhibition. Something went terribly wrong, and a monster was created. The wrestler named the Obsidian Warrior was seriously injured in the bout. As an ambulance carried him towards the hospital, some unknown force mutated him into a giant stone creature that could command the very rock beneath the earth! The monster started an earthquake. Who knows how much damage it might have caused if Vic Valor had not showed up to stop it?

“Valor, who confided to reporters that he is planning to make Opal City his home away from home (see related story, opposite page) was alerted by the quake. Being new to Opal City (and to Earth) he used his super sensory powers to determine that there are no faults underneath Opal City, so he flew to investigate the epicenter of the quake. When he discovered that the monster was causing the quake, he stopped it, and then carried it to Opal Park where their upcoming fight could not endanger anyone.

“It was a short fight. Within seconds, the monster was running. The monster used its mysterious powers to create several duplicates of itself, and while Valor was disposing of these unliving duplicates, the monster tried to escape. It ran back to its place of origin, the Auditorium. Valor arrived only seconds later and they fought again. Valor had to hold back, in order to avoid demolishing the auditorium, but he managed to tag the monster with a straight right, and the monster dropped unconscious.

“Apparently whatever force caused the Obsidian Warrior to change into a monster abated at that point, and the monster changed back to the man – an unconscious man, barely breathing. Valor quickly carried the unconscious Obsidian Warrior to an emergency room, where he was admitted and treated for exhaustion. This is where a group of reporters caught up to him, and learned something of his story.

“This reporter is thrilled to have a super hero in Opal City again, especially one with the mighty powers and evident nobility of Vic Valor!”

The facing story gave the details of Valor’s life as told to the crowd of reporters. See the Vic Valor appendix for these details!

2. A Day in the Life of Ted Knight

Friday March 25, 1949

Opal City was buzzing with the news about Vic Valor! Front-page stories in both major newspapers, the opening story on the radio newscasts, even a couple of minutes on the local TV news, Everybody had something to say about him. Vic Valor fan clubs were already springing up, and kids were already arguing about which hero was the best, Vic Valor or Starman! Ted even saw kids in imitation Vic Valor costumes, which must have been cobbled together from descriptions in news stories, because there were no color pictures of Valor available yet.

Ted had thought he might be jealous of a new superhero in Opal City, but instead, he felt as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Opal City had a new heroic protector; the guilt he had felt about ‘abandoning’ his city was assuaged. This day had definite potential!

Unfortunately, the day turned out somewhat less well than Ted hoped. Let’s follow Ted through much of his day…

With the notable exception of Starman, Ted’s life had pretty much returned to normal. He would always bear his guilt and painful memories, but Dr. Sooter’s therapy had helped Ted regain control over his life. Ted had stopped seeing Sooter professionally in January. He had also given up horses and poker, and much to his surprise, he had become a part-time design consultant to both Jason Heber and Doctor Sooter.

Ted had recently noticed two very unusual facts about his life.

First, neither he nor Doris seemed to be getting older. They both appeared to be just about the same age as when they first met, in early 1940. Ted was 34, but he looked and felt like he was still in his mid 20s. He discussed this with some of his friends in the JSA, and they reported that they also seemed to be aging very slowly or not at all. Ted, Hourman and Dr. Mid-Nite theorized that this retarded aging must have had something to do with the 1941 case when Ian Karkull had exploded, bathing the JSA and some associates in some kind of mystical energy.

The other oddity was that Ted had found that he no longer needed as much sleep as he had in the past. He could easily get by on 3 hours of sleep a day. He figured this was probably another side effect of the Ian Karkull energy. He put the extra waking hours to good use – he could spend several hours consulting, a lot of time with Doris, a few hours a night in his observatory and still he had time left over for sleeping and doing his own research. This morning, Ted was scheduled to work with Jason on the commercialization of some of Ted’s ideas, as well as some of Jason’s. After lunch, he would drop in on Sooter and help him design some instrumentation for psychiatric research.

Usually, Ted and Jason spent a few hours in discussion, and then another couple of hours building or rebuilding things. However, as soon as he walked into Jason’s lab, Ted realized something was wrong. All the file cabinet drawers were open and empty, there were papers all over the floor, and Jason was moving furniture to he could look behind it. Obviously, he was looking for something. When he saw Ted, he didn’t even say hello.

“Ted, the Supernova file is missing! I had some new ideas this morning, and I wanted to add them to the file, and it isn’t there! The last time I saw it was when we worked on it in December. I think it must have been stolen!”

Ted was startled. He quickly interrupted Jason. “Jason, hold on, it’s OK! Don’t you remember, I decided that the Supernova file was too dangerous, and I put it and a bunch of other papers into the trash?”

“Ted, you did what? You never told me about that!”

Again, Ted looked startled. “Are you sure? I’m sure I remember…”

Jason was more agitated now than earlier! He interrupted Ted, his voice rising, almost cracking! “Ted, you obviously don’t remember this, but last summer, the city stopped incinerating trash and started using it in that landfill out near the airport! We’ve been shredding all our paper trash since then. If you had told me you wanted to get rid of the Supernova file, I would have insisted you shred it, as well.”

Ted probably had never known about the city’s use of trash as landfill. He never worried about trash or garbage at home – there was probably somebody on the staff that was paid to deal with things like that. But Ted was sure he had discussed destroying the Supernova file with someone! He lifted both hands, palms up to shoulder level, shrugging. Jason wasn’t appeased.

“Ted, by now, anybody in the world could have his hands on the Supernova file! We have to see if we can find it!”

“Jason, if they dumped it in a landfill, it’s probably buried under tons of trash now! There is no way we are going to go out there and dig through all that stuff! Anyway, if someone had found that file, don’t you think we would have heard about it by now?” Jason was clearly worried, but Ted was calm.

“Ted, I can’t believe you are so blasé about this! Your gravity rod is one of the most powerful artifacts in the world, and the Supernova file has schematics and plans to make another gravity rod, much more powerful that the original! If that technology gets into the wrong hands, the whole world could be in danger!”

Back in 1946, when Doris had first proposed starting the Knight Foundation, Ted had been in a kind of a mental funk, and his interest in science and technology had totally vanished. He had gathered up a double armful of papers, schematics, plans and documentation from his research lab and dropped them into Jason’s hands. Unknown to him at the time, the documentation for the gravity rod was among those papers. When Jason found these plans, he had figured out that Ted was Starman. He had quickly revealed his knowledge to Ted and Doris, and promised not to reveal any of Ted’s secrets. He had kept his word.

Over the past couple of years, both Ted and Jason had thought of many improvements that could be made to the Gravity Rod as well as innovative ways to use its powers. They had worked together and developed plans and schematics for adding these new improvements to the gravity rod, and then put the documentation into the Supernova file.

Ted was privately amused with Jason’s enthusiasm. If they tried to incorporate just half of these ideas into the gravity rod, it would have to be rebuilt to be several feet in length. Many of the new powers were impractical for super-heroic use, and the complex controls would be difficult to use, especially in a life-and-death battle. Jason was a genius when it came to practical devices for use in everyday life, but he didn’t appreciate the difficulties of using a complex tool correctly in the middle of a battle with a super villain intent on killing you!

Ted had decided that if he ever became Starman again, he would need to invent a new weapon, rather than using the stuff in the Supernova file. It should be much more powerful than the gravity rod, but also very simple to operate. He had some ideas along these lines, but he hadn’t done any work yet.

Jason thought Ted might be rationalizing about the loss of the Supernova file. Even with the file in hand, it might take a year or more before someone could build a weapon making use of all the stuff in the file.

Ted continued ” I’m sure it will work out ok, Jason. Don’t worry about it, it’s my responsibility.”

***

Jason was really stunned! If Ted had originally felt that the Supernova file was so dangerous he wanted to destroy it, now that he had found out that it hadn’t been destroyed, how could he be so casual?

Well, Ted was the boss, and Jason did have a boatload of other things that needed his attention. He and Ted set about cleaning up the lab and then spent a couple of hours improving some of Jason’s latest projects.

Ted’s next appointment was with Dr. Sooter. Sooter did a lot of research into the biological aspects of psychology, and there was no instrumentation currently available to measure many of the things he wanted to study. So he had to build the tools he needed.

His current project was measuring the electrical activity in the human brain, and he needed to build some instruments that could detect and record the very small electromagnetic fields that are generated by nerve impulses. Ted had been working with him for several months, designing sensitive apparatus for this research. As they worked, it continued to nag Ted that he couldn’t remember who he had told about the Supernova file. Dr. Sooter had long ago figured out that Ted was (had been) Starman, and probably knew more about him that just about anyone except Doris. So Ted asked him. “Howard, do you remember the Supernova file?”

“Of course, Ted. What about it?” Howard had always been extremely interested in Ted’s career as Starman, and particularly in the gravity rod. At one point, Ted had even showed Howard how to use the gravity rod. Ted wasn’t sure whose idea that had been. He did remember that shortly after that, Dr. Sooter had started showing Ted some of his own inventions and suggested that he and Ted might collaborate on some of the research equipment Howard wanted to build.

“Did I ever tell you when I decided to destroy it? I thought I had told Jason, but he didn’t remember.”

“Yes, we discussed it, both before you made the decision and after you had thrown it away. Why, what happened?”

Ted was relieved. He knew he had told someone! Ted gave Howard the whole story. Sooter agreed with Ted that it seemed unlikely that anyone had recovered the papers. Ted was no longer worried, but Howard appeared to be distracted by the news.

Howard was building a new ultra-regulated super-stable highly shielded power-supply for the brain electrical field monitor that he and Ted had designed. He must have miswired it. When he turned it on, there was a loud bang and flame burst out of the case! Ted quickly turned it off and they put out the fire with lab fire extinguishers. That was a good day’s work down the drain!

“Well, Ted, I think I’m through for the day. I have appointments all day tomorrow and the next day. I’ll clean up the mess here myself. Do you think you can drop by next Monday?”

“Sure, Howard, see you then!” and Ted was away. It hadn’t been a great day, with the news that the Supernova file hadn’t been shredded, and then the small fire in Dr. Sooter’s lab. Ted was looking forward to dinner with Doris and then some time at the observatory!

3. The V-Signal

10 PM, Sunday, March 25, 1949 The Opal City Police Headquarters skyscraper.

Opal City Police Commissioner Charles O’Dare was working late – again! His police force was far too small for the population of Opal City. They had been lucky over the past few years, as criminal activity had been kept artificially low by the threat of Starman, but everyone was starting to realize that Starman was gone for good! He hadn’t been seen in Opal City since late 1945.

Over the years after Starman’s retirement, the OCPD had received several ‘tips’ regarding upcoming criminal activity from someone who claimed to be Starman. All of those tips had paid off, resulting in some very good ‘busts’ and the prevention of several large planned thefts, which had continued to make the OCPD look good, which in turn helped convince the City Council that the OCPD was in fact adequately manned and funded. But those tips had recently ceased. O’Dare was certain that the spit was about to hit the fan, and he was standing directly in front of that fan! He was trying to figure out how to avoid getting covered in spit.

He had heard about a new hero, Ultimate Victorious Valor, Invincible, all day today. Valor had supposedly adopted Star City as his new home. So far, O’Dare was skeptical. The man’s name indicated incredible arrogance, even if Valor did claim that on his own world `Ultimate’ was a rank and his organization was called ‘The Invincibles’. If he had really studied Earth as closely as he claimed, he should have known better and used some other translation that wouldn’t put people off! And what was the deal with another alien? The general public was more accepting of aliens than O’Dare would ever have believed possible, because of the example of Superman. But the only aliens O’Dare had any close experiences with had all been enemies of Starman, and he considered any enemy of Starman to be an enemy of the OCPD!

So Charles O’Dare was working late, poring over the work schedules for everyone in the police force, trying to figure out ways to put more officers on the streets. He had his numbers guys digging into budgets, looking for money to hire new officers. He had already had to let go some of his clerical staff, which shot the hell out of morale among the rest of the staff while forcing them to work even harder, in order to pay for promotions to keep some of his best men from leaving for better positions and better salaries in other cities. They had already been over the same schedules and budgets several times, and O’Dare was reduced to hoping for a miracle.

A loud thumping coming from the roof interrupted his concentration. When it didn’t recur, O’Dare figured it wasn’t anything important, so he called his assistant on the intercom and asked him to send someone to look into it, and then went back to work. About 5 minutes later, an officer rushed into his office. Breathlessly he reported… “Commissioner! Dat new mystery-man, Vic Vigor or whatevah, the guy what’s been all over da news today! He’s on da roof and he wants to talk to you!”

O’Dare really didn’t want to go up on the roof. It was a cold, blustery night and he was already running on caffeine. If this Vic Valor really wanted to study the methods of the OCPD as he had claimed, he was going to need to do a better job of getting on their good side than he had so far! “Did he say what he wanted? What was that thump all about?”

“Commissioner, he said sometin’ `bout da Bat Signal, and dere’s a big box on da roof. I t’ink you had betta see for youself!” The cop was pretty nervous. The Commissioner valued initiative in his subordinates, and reprimanded them when he had to do something he thought they should have done themselves, but the cop couldn’t see what else he might have done in this situation. He hoped the Commissioner saw it the same way he did. He was greatly relieved when the Commissioner sighed “Never mind, looks like this is one I’m gonna have to take care of myself.”

O’Dare grabbed his greatcoat and stomped out of the office and up the stairs to the roof. He realized that it was even windier than he had expected. He saw a big man in the typical super-hero underwear, standing next to an even bigger crate. He walked over to face the man.

***

“Greetings, Commissioner O’Dare! I’m Ultimate Valor, of the Xadam Invincibles. I’m very pleased to meet you!” Valor stuck out his hand, but O’Dare ignored it.

“Charmed, I’m sure, Mr. `Valor’.” O’Dare responded, sarcastically. “What are you doing on my roof? What’s with the giant crackerjack box?” O’Dare wasn’t being intentionally rude, but he was letting Valor know he wasn’t all that pleased at Valor’s choice of meeting times and locations.

“Excuse me, sir. My rank is `Ultimate’ and the correct form of address is `Ultimate Valor’. `Mr. Valor’ would be reserved for a civilian.”

“Sonny boy, around here, a rank is a sign of respect, and so far, I got no reason to respect you! If you can convince me you deserve it, I’ll be happy to user your rank.” Before he could go on, Valor interrupted.

“Commissioner O’Dare, when you greet police officers from other cities, don’t you offer them the respect of using their correct titles? Have I done something already to lose your respect?” Valor honestly seemed puzzled.

“I read the newspaper reports of your fight last night. Made you sound like a big hero! But I heard an eyewitness who was in the Auditorium when you were supposedly fighting with that Warrior monster. He said that big guy collapsed and turned normal before you even got there!”

Valor couldn’t remember anyone being in the Auditorium. “Was this man a reliable witness? Why didn’t he go to the newspapers with his story?”

O’Dare tried to hedge on his answer. “I have no reason to doubt his report!” he said, with emphasis.

Valor thought for a second and then responded “Then sir, I assume that the man was inebriated and already well-known to your department?”

The Commissioner was stunned! His mouth dropped open, and he just stared at Valor for a few seconds. “How in God’s name could you know that? There’s no way you could possibly know this guy!”

“No, sir.” Valor agreed. “But at the first sign of the earthquake, everyone ran from the building. The only people who would have remained would have to have been too incapacitated to get out in a hurry. And the emergency crews had already removed the injured before the Obsidian Warrior and I returned to the building. So by deduction, the man who you talked to must have been in the audience, and been inebriated, therefore unable to quickly escape the building.”

O’Dare narrowed his eyes. Maybe this Valor wasn’t as big a flake as he seemed to be. He was exactly correct so far.

Valor continued “And, sir, from a study of your culture, I know that most people do not usually get temporarily incapacitated due to inebriation at events like this one. Those that do are usually consistent offenders, and most of these consistent offenders are well known to the local constabulary and are usually considered unreliable sources.”

O’Dare almost let himself be impressed! The big man’s logic was perfect! “Well, Mr. Valor, it doesn’t really matter to me what this witness said!” Valor noted that O’Dare had not contradicted his deductions. “If you want to get off an a good foot with the Opal City Police Department, and me, you’re starting off in a big hole, droppin’ in on me unannounced like this, so late and in this awful weather! Whataya got to say for yourself?”

“I’m sorry, Commissioner. I can’t operate during your daylight. Your sun blinds me, so I can only meet people at night. I didn’t wait for nicer weather because I thought you would probably want to get the beacon set up as soon as possible.”

“Kid, you’ve lost me again. What the hell beacon are you talking about?” O’Dare’s bluster was somewhat blunted by Valor’s display of deductive logic, his constant politeness, and O’Dare’s own curiosity about `the beacon’.

“I’m sorry, sir. My research shows that it is traditional for a city’s Police force to have a rooftop beacon in order to reach the resident super-heroic protector of that city. I assumed that your prior beacon had been removed since you have not had a resident protector for several years, so I took it upon myself to deliver you a new one. Behold, the `V-Signal’!” Valor moved very quickly, and the crate was opened almost before O’Dare could blink. The Commissioner was speechless, for probably the first time in his life, so Valor continued. “Gotham City has its Bat Signal, Star City has its Arrow Signal, and now Opal City has the V-Signal!”

Inside the crate was a giant spotlight. Valor turned it on with the flick of a switch. A very pale reddish beam was projected upwards, and O’Dare could barely make out a large pink `V’ on the underside of the clouds. Valor immediately turned his back, raised one arm to protect his eyes and quickly turned it off again. “I’m sorry, I had forgotten just how bright this beacon is when you are nearby! You probably ought to wear dark glasses when you use it, to protect your eyes!”

The Commissioner was sputtering now. He was trying to talk but he couldn’t get out anything coherent to come out – so Valor kept on talking. “The V-Signal works off of this bank of batteries” – he pointed to a compartment in the stand that supported the spotlight. “You can charge them by plugging them into any standard wall socket” and he held out a standard plug “and, I’ve built in a gasoline generator to supply power if the electricity ever goes out! You can see, I’ve thought of everything!”

Commissioner O’Dare had so much to say to this arrogant snot that he couldn’t even figure out where to begin. He was saved when he heard some fire sirens, and a speaker built into the V-Signal’s control panel started announcing a multiple-alarm fire across town. “By the way,” Valor said proudly when the voice finished its report “I’ve built an emergency channel scanning radio receiver into the V-Signal!”

The Commissioner couldn’t believe that Valor was still here! “So, Valor – if you want to prove yourself to me, go help with that fire!”

“Excuse me, Commissioner O’Dare? Do you think that the fire was set by a lawbreaker, or that someone will break the laws while the fire is burning?”

“No, you idiot!” O’Dare’s face was turning read, and his blood pressure was causing his ears to throb! “Go help the firemen! Save people and put out the fire!”

Now it was Valor’s turn to be puzzled. “I’m sorry, Commissioner O’Dare, but I’m a law enforcement officer. My union won’t allow me to do work that should be properly performed by other agencies.” The way that he said `other’ made it clear that he meant `inferior’.

“Your union?! Your UNION?! Your planet must be pretty damn strange, boy! You’re on Earth now and on Earth the police and the firefighters work together to protect the people. If you ever want to learn anything from us, you better learn that, fast, and get your ass over to that fire and do your damned best to save people’s lives! That’s your first lesson about Earth law enforcement and it’s free!”

Almost before O’Dare was finished speaking, Valor was gone. The Commissioner looked after him in amazement and suspicion. In his prior experiences he had found that most people who acted that arrogant, and that naïve, were working a con of some kind. He didn’t know what Valor’s angle was, but he was sure the big man had one!

Well, it wasn’t easy to con Charles O’Dare. And, if Valor was the real thing, maybe working with him could postpone the inevitable spit crisis of too few cops until after O’Dare retired. Things might just be looking a little better! O’Dare went downstairs and had a hot chocolate, with marshmallows, and then went home for the night. He had a lot of thinking to do, figuring out how to make the best use of Ultimate Vic Valor!

As he got into the limo the force provided him, he was thinking “That spotlight was almost too dim to see, yet it was blinding Valor. Maybe he really is an alien after all!”

4. Fighting Fire with Valor!

Valor used the emergency band radio built into his helmet, as well as the sirens, to quickly locate the burning building. It was a tall building, around 12 stories, he estimated, and the fire was located on the 4th floor. Several fire trucks had already arrived and hoses were blasting streams of high-pressure water into the danger areas. Valor located someone who was yelling orders, and he landed nearby. He walked up to the yelling man.

“Pardon me, sir, are you in charge here? I am Ultimate Valor and Police Commissioner O’Dare sent me to assist you with this emergency. How can I help?”

The fire chief had seen Valor land and remembered reading about him in the paper today. If this flying guy had O’Dare’s approval, the chief could certainly use the help of a super-hero! “Can you put out the fire?”

“I’m not certain, sir. I have never actually tried to put out a large fire before – it has always been against my union rules. But Commissioner O’Dare tells me that rules are different here. Can you confirm for me that it is allowable for a law-enforcement officer to engage in firefighting activity?”

The chief couldn’t believe what he was hearing! “How can O’Dare trust an idiot like you? This is an emergency!”

“Ah, I see!” Valor smiled hugely! “In the event of an emergency, normal rules may be suspended?”

The chief had had enough. “Listen, buster, if you don’t know how to put out the fire, make yourself useful and get people down from the floors above the fire! If you can’t figure out how to do that, and fast, then get the hell out of our way. We have work to do!” Disgustedly, he turned back to his firefighters, and resumed giving orders. He would have something to say to O’Dare the next time he saw him, you bet your butt! He quickly forgot about Valor, as the fire required his complete attention.

Valor reviewed the conversation and decided that the chief had in fact agreed that in an emergency, normal rules were suspended. He realized that he had been given an order, and since he didn’t know how to put out the fire, he had been ordered to rescue people! He leaped into action, flying to the 5th floor, smashing into the building through a window, and searching the floor at his top speed. Fortunately, this was an office building, and there were only a few maintenance people around at this time of night!

In a couple of minutes searching, he found two people, and he carried them safely to the ground, then flew back to the next floor and looked for more people to rescue. About a half-an-hour later, he finished evacuating the top floor of the building. By then, the firefighters had the flames under control, although the fire was still burning. His current task finished, Valor went looking for the chief again.

“Ultimate Valor reporting, Sir! As you ordered, I’ve evacuated the building. Does the condition of emergency still exit?”

“Hell, what do you think, flyboy? We’ve still got a fire!” Once again, Valor interpreted this as agreement from the chief, and he awaited the next order. The chief had noticed Valor’s successful rescues, and he was willing to cut him a little slack by now. “Can you survive in that fire?”

“Yes, sir, I believe I can. I seem to be invulnerable to harm on your planet.”

“Good. Do you think you could use that water tank” he pointed at a water tower on the roof of a shorter building nearby “to put out the fire?”

“Yes, sir!” Valor was instantly away. He flew to the roof of the other building and picked up the tank. He smashed a hole in it, and then carried it back to the burning building. He picked a section of building that was burning, tilted the tank so water gushed out, and then slowly flew back and forth next to the burning section until the flames died. He then moved to the next area, and repeated the process. When the tank ran out of water, he flew to the river and refilled it. With Valor’s help added to the job the firefighters were already doing, the fire was quickly extinguished.

The chief was extremely pleased to see that once he had started to undertake a specific job, Valor had been able to overcome problems that sprung up during the job, such as running out of water, without having to ask for further instructions. He had thought he was going to have to explain every step to the costumed man. Valor’s combination of arrogance, ignorance and inconsistent initiative was pretty confusing!

Valor landed near the chief. “I am pleased to report that with the assistance of your men, I’ve completed the rescue operations and the extinction of the fire. You and your men are certainly brave and well trained, but your lack of special abilities seems to put you at something of a disadvantage when dealing with a potentially major disaster such as this fire.”

Egads, this boy was arrogant! But the chief had to admit, there was truth in what he had to say. Not that it was a truth any firefighter would be comfortable hearing! Besides that, the chief felt that the bravery and training of the firefighters that Valor had mentioned were, in fact, ‘special abilities’! He cut off his angry response. The boy had done a good job tonight. And if he was a recently arrived alien, as the papers reported, he probably didn’t understand just what an ass he was being right now.

“Thank you, son! You saved a lot of lives tonight. Say, if O’Dare ever puts you out of a job, come look me up! Opal’s bravest can sure use more like you!”

“Why, thank you, sir! I would be honored to work among men and women as courageous as these – even if you only have the powers granted to normal humans.” Valor didn’t bother to correct the mistaken assumption that he worked for Commissioner O’Dare. He flew off into the night….

He left the chief steaming and confused! Even when he was being ‘gracious’, this Valor guy was still an arrogant S.O.B! Well, he still had work to do. But he hoped Valor would never return to take him up on the job offer.

5. Valor in the News!

After the fire, Valor stopped off at the Opal City Register office. He walked into the pressroom. There were 3 or 4 employees sitting near their phones or reading the press tickers. One of these was a very attractive young woman. Valor walked directly up to her and introduced himself.

“I am Ultimate Victorious Valor, of the Invincibles. Although I have only been on Earth for a short time, perhaps you have heard of me? May I have your name, please?”

“Umm, uh, hey, Hi!” she said, hesitantly, then brightly. “I’m Lily Deluna. I’m a copy. ” Lily coughed. “Sorry! I’m one of the night reporters. I read about you in the morning news! You’re the new superhero in town, right?” Lily wasn’t really a reporter (yet!); she was a copy editor on the night shift. She had a degree in journalism, and was working two jobs to support herself – she waited tables in the afternoons and evenings and did copy editing for the Register at night.

But her boss always told her that everyone who works for a newspaper ought to consider herself a reporter, and promised that if she ever gave him any good stories, he would give her a byline. She noticed that he never said that to any of the male copy editors, and she figured he was actually trying to give her some other kind of line. But she was going to take him at his word tonight, and get the next Vic Valor story! And none of this byline crap, either! This was HER story! After all, Valor was talking to her, nobody else!

“What can I do for you, Mr. Valor?”

Valor immediately started to correct her. “Please call me by my…” he was about to reprimand her as he had Police Commissioner O’Dare, but then he looked at her closely. Tall, with long shining black hair, her facial features showed an exotic Asian cast (Lily’s mother was half-Korean), and she had an athletic figure that her business dress-suit couldn’t hide. He didn’t want to be severe with this woman! He finished, smoothly ” name, Vic, if I can call you Lily!”

Lily was pleased. She was sure she would get a front-page story out of this encounter, and Valor wasn’t bad looking, either. A girl could do a lot worse!

“If you haven’t got the complete story on the big fire, tonight, would you be interested in hearing a first-hand account?” Valor continued. Of course she would!

Valor told his story, and for the next half-hour she quizzed him on the details. Finally she read her notes back to him to make sure she had the facts straight. Most of the `real’ night reporters had gathered around her desk, and she could see that they were jealous that this copy writer was getting ‘their’ story, but Valor made it clear that this was Lily’s story, and if she didn’t get the story, he would take his exclusives to the other paper instead of the Register.

Once the reporting was done, Valor did let one of the staff photographers take several pictures. Once that was done, he turned back to Lily.

Valor: “I’ve got to leave before the sun comes up, or I’ll be blinded!”

Lily: “Thanks for the exclusive! It will be in the morning edition. Please read it and drop by tonight to let me know how you liked it!”

Valor: “I’m sure it will be fine. Yes, I look forward to seeing you again tonight!”

Lily waved as Valor flew away. She was examining him avidly and she noticed that he seemed to move awkwardly. He wasn’t clumsy, he just reminded Lily of someone whose shoes were several sizes too big. Maybe it was a difference between his alien species and humans? That thought lead to other thoughts, and she wondered just how thoroughly human he was? Lily blushed, and finished submitting her story.

Her boss tried to put his name on the story, with Lily’s name as a byline, but the night editor had heard Valor’s threat, and having more Valor exclusives was more important to the paper than the night supervisor’s ego. Lily got the exclusive, and was instantly assigned the task of being the Register’s personal liaison with Valor. It didn’t get her a raise, but the night editor promised that if she kept getting exclusive Valor stories, a raise and promotion to reporter would follow shortly.

The next morning the Register had the exclusive story with exclusive pictures! The issue quickly sold out, and the Register did a one-time special print run later that day as to fill the clamorous reader demand for more copies!

There was nothing in the story that was false, but Valor had told the story in such a way that his own role was emphasized and the Fire Department’s role was minimized – and Lily had written the story almost exactly has she had heard it. Both O’Dare and Fire Commissioner Thurman believed that the story was slanted, but they didn’t want to complain publicly – readers might think it was a case of sour grapes.

Opal City’s other major newspaper, the Evening Gazette, ran the same story as recounted by an official Fire Department spokesman. One of the editorials in the Gazette that evening hinted that if Valor hadn’t been involved, the Register would probably have run the fire story no sooner than page 3, and suggested as well that the Register might be less than objective regarding Valor, in an attempt to boost circulation. (If that was the case, so far it was working spectacularly!) There had always been a low intensity rivalry between the two papers and now that rivalry threatened to burst into a feud!

Over the next several nights, Valor made news again and again. And every night, he talked to Lily about his exploits. Within a few days, Lily had the promotion and raise, and was well on her way to becoming Opal City’s second-most prominent citizen!

6. The Sweet Smell of Success

Tuesday, March 29, 1949

Valor heard the explosion from miles away, as he was flying night patrol over Opal City. He headed for the airport at top speed. He used his telescopic night vision to examine the explosion site, and realized that the explosion had totally demolished the buildings involved in the airport expansion.

Just outside of Opal City, the main channel of the Gunpowder River made a wide loop around a large swamp. The airport was built at the mouth of this loop, between the swamp and the city. The Opal City Trade Authority had decided that the airport needed to be expanded. It couldn’t be expanded cityward, so the only other option was to expand into the swamp. If the swampland could be totally reclaimed, it would provide enough land to just about double the size of the airport. About 6 months ago, the land reclamation project had begun.

The Army Corps of Engineers had built a levy along the inside shore of the loop, separating the river from the swamp. Powerful pumps ran day and night to keep the swamp drained. The City Sanitation Department delivered organic trash to a new trash compacting plant at the edge of the swamp, where it was compressed into dense bricks, which were then laid in the now-dried swamp bed. When most of the swamp was filled with these bricks, the plan was to add a cover layer of soil and stone, and then build the new airport facilities on top of that.

It was a win-win-win project! The airport was expanded, the worthless swampland was reclaimed for human use, and the Sanitation Department didn’t have to pay for rubbish incineration costs for over a year. Everyone benefited…

One of the demolished buildings had been the trash compacting plant. With the compactor demolished, the airport expansion timetable would certainly be delayed. Valor had no idea who might want to sabotage this project, but it didn’t matter, either. If the saboteurs were still around, he would capture them!

As he examined the area, his telescopic night vision detected a string of time bombs, laid on top of the levy. They were going to go off in sequence, and only seconds remained until the first one exploded! Valor increased his speed, and managed to reach the first bomb just in time to smother the explosion with his invulnerable body!

Which turned out to be a really bad idea! By directing the force of the blast downward into the levy, he had greatly increased the destructive power of the blast, and the levy under him virtually disintegrated! The gap in the levy must have been 20 feet long, and immediately water started pouring through, making the ragged tear even bigger. The raging water threatened to totally undo the months of work that had gone into the landfill!

The next bomb went off, not too far away from Valor, and then the next and the next. Without the added destructive power Valor had unwittingly supplied to the first bomb, the rest of the bombs barely blew small craters in the top of the levy. The Army Corps of Engineers did good, solid work, and the saboteurs had significantly overestimated the destructive power of their bombs. If Valor hadn’t unwittingly assisted in the destruction of part of the levy, the CoE could easily have repaired the minor damage to the levy the next day. .

Valor didn’t have time to cry over spilt glurten, though! He flew to the storage yard next to the compactor and tossed one brick after another high into the air towards the breach in the levy! Before the first brick feel back to earth, Valor was back at the breach, and he guided the bricks, one after another as they fell, building a wall to seal the tear. He then flew to a huge mound of dirt that was going to be used to seal the landfill, and gathered up a big ball of dirt, which he carried over his head as he flew back to the breached levy. He would pack the dirt around the edges of his repairs to make the whole thing watertight.

Suddenly, he saw some dull red flashes near the damaged buildings, and he saw two hand-grenades land on the levy nearby! Valor realized that the saboteurs must still be nearby. Well, he would deal with them shortly! He immediately extended an arm towards the grenades, his palm vertical. A very pale blue beam washed out from his palm, and the two grenades vanished!

Perhaps Valor had miscalculated the range on his disintegration beam, or perhaps he was still getting used to his new powers. Whatever the reason, the disintegration beam immediately ate another large hole into the levy before Valor could shut it off! He was sure glad there was nobody nearby to see his gaffs!

As an added indignity, as soon as Valor had removed one hand from the ball of dirt, the entire ball collapsed on him. He was immediately buried under several tons of topsoil! But this was only an inconvenience – he burst free instantly.

Leaping back into action, Valor quickly had the new gash plugged with bricks of trash. He used soil to plug the gaps. However, the rushing current of the river threatened to quickly erode his hasty repairs.

Valor hovered over the newly repaired levy and a cone of heat came from his eyes! He played his heat beam over the mixture of fresh mud and trash, and he continued baking it until it achieved the consistency of fired pottery! That should hold for awhile!

While Valor was repairing the second gash in the levy, the Opal City Police and Fire Departments had arrived on the scene. The Fire Department started to work on the still-burning buildings, and the Police spread out and started an extensive manhunt for the bombers.

A dense cloud of steam and smoke was rising from the hot levy, and a brisk evening breeze was blowing it towards the airport and the emergency response teams. Fortunately for Valor, he was high enough in the air to avoid being engulfed in this cloud, because the stench of burning mud and trash was incredible! The Police and Firefighters, and the team of saboteurs, was not so lucky, as the stinking cloud enveloped them entirely!

It was worse than tear gas. The stench was so bad it was stunning, and some of the victims passed out due to the stench alone. It also caused irritation in the victim’s eyes – they started watering and itching, and virtually everyone who was caught in the cloud was temporarily blinded! Worst of all was the effect on victims’ lungs! On the first breath, the linings of the lungs started to swell, and victims’ lungs closed up, much like the effects of asthma. Within seconds, all those who were caught in the cloud were laying on the ground, retching and gasping for air, many of them barely conscious and the rest passed out! This disaster just got worse as the night wore on!

Valor quickly touched his belt buckle. A secret compartment sprang open, exposing some controls inside. He pressed a button, closed the compartment, and flew into the cloud at top speed! It no longer seemed to affect him. He quickly gathered up the moaning, gasping men and carried them away from the cloud. He moved faster than he had ever moved before, and he had everyone safely out of the cloud in only a few minutes. He quickly disarmed and bound the saboteurs.

There were some ambulances approaching the airport by now, and Valor flew to them and carried them quickly to the safe area where the cloud victims were starting to recover. Some of them would clearly be all right, and some of them just as clearly needed emergency medical treatment, now! The medics indicated 4 victims that would die if they weren’t hospitalized immediately, and Valor quickly delivered these 4, and the medic who had examined them, to the nearest emergency room.

Finally he went back to the airport. There was still a dangerous cloud of poison gas blowing towards Opal City!

Valor wasn’t quite sure what he ought to do, but then he figured it out! He quickly landed in the path of the cloud, raised both arms, and used his disintegration beams on the cloud. He was very careful to control the range of the beam, so it disintegrating nothing but gas and air. He used his speed to circle the cloud and insure that he disintegrated as much of it as possible.

Finally, he picked up a large tank of some kind that had been damaged in the explosion, and used it to pour water over the still-steaming levy, cooling it off until it no longer emitted noxious smoke.

He repeated his earlier actions with the belt buckle. As soon as he did so, he apparently realized just how bad he smelled, because he quickly headed for the river and used clean river sand to scour himself! He then flew around at high speed until he had dried off.

Satisfied with a good night’s work, he headed for the Register and Lily.

***

From the front-page of the Opal City Register, the next morning (Wednesday, March 31, 1949)

Vic Valor Stops Airport Sabotage As reported by Ultimate Valor to Lily Deluna

Last night, Opal’s amazing new hero, Ultimate Valor, captured a band of saboteurs with suspected communist ties that were attempting to derail the multi-million dollar Opal City Airport expansion project.

Shortly after midnight, a massive explosion shook the airport, and totally destroyed the landfill trash compacting plant that was the center of the expansion project. Only minutes later, Valor appeared on the scene. He spotted other explosives dotted along the levy along the river, with their timers still counting down! Valor’s arrival was almost too late, as one of the exploding bombs knocked out a big section of the levy, and the river started to flood the dried swamp. The airport expansion could have been delayed for years.

Valor acted quickly to rebuild the levy using some of the landfill ‘bricks’ of highly compressed trash. While Valor was rebuilding the levy, the Opal City Fire and Police Departments arrived on the scene. The Fire Department took charge of the burning buildings, while the Police quickly began an extensive search for the bombers.

The well-equipped 6-member sabotage team attempted to cover their escape by attacking the emergency teams with tear gas. This tactic almost worked, as the emergency workers were all-but-paralyzed by the painful affects of the gas. Fortunately for the cause of justice, Vic Valor proved to be immune to the effects of the gas, and his mighty powers made short work of capturing the saboteurs. Valor then assisted in the efforts to rescue the emergency workers, delivering 3 police officers and 1 firefighter to the hospital, where they are expected to make a full recovery. 42 other emergency personnel were treated and released at the scene.

None of the captured saboteurs are currently on the OCPD ‘wanted list’, but unofficial reports suggest that several of them are known to be members of the American Communist Party.

A spokesman for the OPCD issued the following statement: “As you know, this is not the first criminal incident involving the airport expansion project. In December, vandals tore open hundreds of ‘bricks’ of highly compressed trash, which were waiting to be used in the landfill. Papers and other garbage from these bricks were spread throughout the airport. Although the earlier incident involved inconsequential vandalism, while this incident involved serious sabotage, we will fully investigate any links between the two incidents. We intend to prosecute the captured saboteurs to the full extent that the law allows!” When asked about a suspected link between the saboteurs and the American Communist Party, the police spokesman had no comment.

A pre-trial hearing will be held at 10:30 this morning in the Municipal Court Building.

7. Supporting Character Update

Lily Deluna

Lily had noticed something odd about Vic Valor during their interview after he captured the saboteurs. She had watched Valor move, and his awkwardness reminded her of a teenager who had grown several inches in the past year and still hadn’t adapted to his new size. She realized that this might be a side effect of his suddenly and unexpectedly gaining super-powers when he arrived on Earth, but now she was curious, so she had started watching him much more closely.

Lily knew that everyone at the Register was jealous of her sudden rise to prominence, and that most of them attributed it solely to her extraordinary sex appeal. They figured Valor was trying to get her into bed, and was granting her these exclusive interviews as part of his plan. Lily recognized that her beauty gave her a potent tool in dealing with men, but she was determined that she would succeed on her merits, not because of her looks. She definitely found Valor attractive, but she wasn’t going to let that attraction interfere with her reporter’s instincts! She sensed something strange about Valor and she was going to get to the bottom of it!

What she could see of Valor’s expression never changed. He never smiled and he never frowned. His helmet-mask covered most of his face, but in the lower half of his face, the only thing that moved when he talked was his lips. Last night, she had even asked him about it.

“Xadamites don’t express our emotions the same way humans do. Instead of smiling or frowning, our skin color changes as we feel different emotions.”

“I didn’t notice your skin changing color during your story. It seemed to me that you were angry when you spoke of the tear gas attack on the helpless emergency workers, and excited when you described capturing the saboteurs, but your facial color never changed.”

“You are certainly very observant, Lily! I’m flattered by your interest. No, you wouldn’t see the changing colors – Xadam’s sun emits light which is mostly in the infrared spectrum, and that’s where our eyes are most sensitive. The colors we see are invisible to human eyes.”

This explanation was certainly consistent with everything else she knew about Valor, so she dropped the topic. She was curious how those colors appeared to him, and a little sad because she would never know. But she realized that Valor must have the same problem in reverse – he probably could not perceive the colors that humans could see. Look at the ugly brown color of his costume, and those awful yellow armbands – nobody who could see those colors would ever put wear them together! She wondered how he saw his own costume – and then it occurred to her to wonder what her own fashionable clothes looked like to him?

What seemed strange to Lily was that although she couldn’t read Valor’s face, she thought she had been having no trouble with his body language, or with recognizing emotions in his voice. His voice and his body language had indicated anger, excitement and satisfaction at various times during his story. It seemed curious to her that Valor’s people’s visible expressions of emotions would be so different than those of humans, but his voice and body language seemed to be identical to what she expected. Maybe she was over-analyzing, though. Who knew how an alien should react? She was pretty sure she would see Valor again tonight, and she was going to see if he was interested in spending a little private time together. She looked forward to learning more about him.

Lily had also noticed that there were some differences in the stories as reported by Valor and the stories describing the same incidents in the Evening Gazette. She knew that if you asked 100 eyewitnesses to describe the same event, you would get 100 different stories. Some witnesses would directly contradict others and both would believe they were telling the absolute troth. The differences in the Register and Gazette stories could probably be reconciled by considering the different points of view of the witnesses who told the story. But when the time came ’round to hand out the Pulitzer Prize, Lily didn’t want to miss out because someone had given her a slanted view of the facts! She was going to find out the truth, whatever it was.

Lily was distantly acquainted with one of the airport saboteurs. They had been in some of the same freshman classes at Opal City University. It wasn’t exactly a first-name relationship, but Lily was pretty sure this guy would recognize her, and probably tell her… things. She decided to stop at Police HQ and talk to him this afternoon, before she went to work. She was pretty sure that whoever was in charge of visitors would let her in to see him, even if she wasn’t on an OCPD-approved visitor list.

***

Ted Knight

Ted actually had business at the airport the day after the sabotage. Not long ago Doris had been introduced him to Donna Watson’s husband Tim, and after the two got to know each other a bit, Tim had approached Ted with a business proposition.

Tim had been a fighter pilot during World War II. He had flown with the Army Air Corps’ “Red Tails” bomber escort group in Europe. The Red Tails had never lost even a single bomber to enemy fire throughout the entire war! Ted realized that he had met Tim’s younger brother in 1945, when he had stopped a late night fight between 2 groups of kids. It was a small world!

After the war, Tim had remained in the Army, working as a flight trainer until his recent honorable discharge. When he re-entered civilian life, he had realized that he wanted to continue to train pilots. So he was in the process of starting his own flight school.

Because of his color, Tim was encountering significant resistance to starting his own business. Opal’s banks were reluctant to give a loan to a person of color, and Tim needed a short-term loan to get started. He had asked Ted to invest in his proposed flight school.

Ted had started flight training in the Army Air Corps during the early months of World War 2. It was during a joint flight training exercise with the Marine Corps that he had met Marine pilot Ted Williams, starting a lifelong friendship. But Ted had never finished flight school. President Roosevelt had decided that America’s ‘mystery-men’ and ‘mystery-women’ would be more valuable to the war effort in their costumed identities rather than as GIs, and excused them from military service. Of course, some of these mystery-men and women had chosen to serve in the armed forces anyway, but Ted had left the Army Air Corps.

Ted had been very impressed with Tim’s business plan. He made the investment, but on one condition – Ted wanted to go through Tim’s course and officially get his own private pilot’s license. Tim had obtained his Civil Aeronautics Administration certification, leased a small hanger at the Opal City airport, and made a down payment on a plane. Today was Ted’s first lesson, and he was Tim’s first civilian student.

Tim had been able to get some good deals on military surplus machine tools and equipment, and he had set up a complete machine shop in the hanger, figuring he could save some money by doing his own maintenance. He was even made a little on the side doing maintenance for some of the private pilots who used the airport.

Before Ted’s first lesson, Tim showed him around, letting him see what he had invested in. Tim had reserved one room in the hanger as a sort of ‘clean room’. In this room he worked on instruments, radios, and avionics. It was much better equipped than Ted had expected. Tim explained that radio and electronics had been his hobby since before the war.

Ted noticed an unusual device on a table in the clean room. He had never seen anything exactly like it before. As he studied it curiously, and started to puzzle out what it might be, he was startled to realize that it was a navigational position calculator, based on some of Ted’s own ideas!

“Say, Tim, what’s this? I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anything like it!”

Tim looked a little uneasy. “I’d be really surprised if you had, Ted. It’s a prototype navigational system I’ve been working on. I’m afraid it has limited range, but the concept has unlimited potential.”

Ted was always interested in new inventions. “How does it work? Where did you get the idea? Have you applied for a patent yet? If you think there are potential applications for it, maybe the Knight Foundation could help you develop it!”

Tim looked even uneasier. “Whoa, hold on Ted! Slow down, man! Honestly, the basic idea isn’t even mine. Back in December, somebody ripped open a lot of those trash bales and papers and garbage got blown all over the airport! When I was cleaning up around my hanger, I found a bunch of papers containing a preliminary design proposal for something like the device you see in front of you.

“There was no identification anywhere on the proposal. The idea caught my fancy so I built this thing. I’d like to figure out who had the original idea – maybe we could work together.”

“Tim, this is a really weird coincidence, but I think I wrote those papers you found! I spent hours trying to figure out how to make that idea work, and when I couldn’t I just threw the papers away.” What was really worrying Ted was that he had tossed those papers at the same time he threw out the Supernova file! Jason had been right – if Tim had found the plans for the navigational device, anyone in the world might have the Supernova file by now!

Tim was immediately defensive and apologetic at the same time. “I’m really sorry, Ted – I wasn’t trying to steal your ideas! But you know, you really ought to be more careful about what you throw away!” He didn’t know if he should worry about Ted trying to steal his developments to the original idea. He knew who would win if the case should ever come to court! A rich famous white man, or a self-employed unknown black man – no contest. Ted’s next words made him regret that he had ever had that thought!

“Don’t worry about it, Tim. I gave up all rights of ownership when I threw that file away. I honestly never expected to hear anything about it again. It’s yours now, and you are welcome to it! Give me a demo, will you?”

Tim was clearly proud of his invention, and he had done a great job building a practical device based on Ted’s pie-in-the-sky idea. Ted thought that this young man would go a long way in the world. He really wanted to spend more time discussing the invention, but it was past time for Ted’s first flying lesson to begin.

As they walked out of the ‘clean room’, Ted asked casually: “Did you find anything else interesting in the trash that day?”

Tim was clearly startled! He quickly turned to look at Ted, and he stopped walking so abruptly that Ted ran into him. “Tim, what’s wrong?”

Tim recovered quickly. “I didn’t find anything else, Ted. But there must have been 60 or 70 city workers out here that day, cleaning up the garbage that had scattered all around the airport. I didn’t think about it much back then, but some of those guys seemed to read every paper before they threw it in a trash barrel. Those guys seemed to be looking for something specific.”

“Any ideas if they found it?”

I don’t know. Not while I was watching, anyway. But I didn’t watch them for too long. Why?

“Apparently I threw away something else that I was still working on. It’s no big deal – I still have a copy of that file, so I didn’t lose anything. Since nobody has brought the project to market yet, the file has probably been destroyed or buried in the landfill.”

Continued in Vic Valor Part 2

Continued from Vic Valor Part 1

They moved on to the lesson. During the first lesson, even though Ted had flown before, they never got near a plane. Tim gave Ted an overview of the course, then they talked about the history of flight, and the Civil Aeronautical Administration regulations regarding private pilot’s licenses, and the safety rules and procedures that Tim insisted on for anyone in his course. Ted was impressed with the breadth and depth of Tim’s knowledge of aviation, but Tim learned some new things from Ted, too.

When the first lesson was over, Tim promised that all the rest of the lessons would include at least some short flights. He emphasized that even though Ted had gone through much the same kind of course before, they were going to cover every lesson just as if Ted had never seen a plane before in his life. Once again, Ted was impressed. This man took his job seriously! Ted was already sure he had made a wise investment!

Doris Knight (with a quick glance at Jason Heber)

Doris was really enjoying her life! She couldn’t say that everything was going smoothly. But, when she appraised her life honestly, she remembered several periods of her life in which everything had gone her way – and what she remembered most about those times was how bored she had been!

The Knight Foundation for Advanced Radiation Research was producing a steady, if unspectacular cash flow. Doris had been proud to be able to give grant funding to Brookhaven National Laboratory, for radiation research, and to the International Red Cross, for medical supplies and assistance in Japan, where there was still suffering caused by radiation and fallout from the atomic bombs.

Ted had been right about Jason – he turned out to be a genius at commercializing Ted’s inventions. Well, some of them, anyway. Not everything Ted invented was practical, and he insisted on keeping everything related to the gravity rod secret. It was too dangerous to get into the hands of criminals or anti-American governments.

And Jason hadn’t turned out to be as reliable as Doris would have hoped. He never came to work at the same time 2 days in a row, and half the time he didn’t punch in until noon or later. He had picked up bad habits when he worked for Ted, who was himself notorious for his unpredictable schedule. Doris had no complaints about the amount of work Jason put in – he often worked until the early hours of the next morning, and she had often found him in his shop on weekends. She had finally learned to deal with Jason’s variable working hours by always scheduling important events in the mid-afternoon.

A fascinating puzzle in Doris’ life was her apparent age. She and Ted had not seemed to have grown any older since the beginning of the war. They were both in their mid-30s, and looked neither one of them looked a day over 25 – if that. Several other members of the JSA, and their associates, had noticed the same thing. Nobody had figured it out for sure yet, but a leading theory was that their extended youth was caused by the Ian Karkull energy many of them had been exposed to in 1941. No one knew how long this extended youth would last, but Doris planned to enjoy it as long as she had it!

Dr. McNider theorized that the Karkull energy might also have other unique side effects on some of the people who had been exposed. For example, over the past year, Ted had gradually realized that he no longer required very much sleep. He now spent much of the day working, and after Doris went to sleep at night, Ted would head to the observatory. Doris wondered if something weird might affect her, too – but she wasn’t the kind of person who worried a lot about things she couldn’t control.

What was really bothering Doris right now was Vic Valor! Ted had given up being Starman, but suddenly, Ted was spending all night at the observatory and Opal City had a new hero, with super powers, who was only active at night. Doris wasn’t a suspicious person by nature, but this just seemed too unlikely to be a coincidence! True, Valor claimed to be from another planet, and his powers were natural, rather than artificial as Ted’s were, and he was much bigger and bulkier than Ted. Well, if Vic Valor were not really Ted, a little investigation wouldn’t hurt!

On Valor’s third night (the night of the airport sabotage) Doris called the observatory at about midnight. She was disgusted but not surprised when she reached a tape recorder answering machine telling her that Ted was in the darkroom. So she left a message. She was surprised when Ted called her back in 15 minutes! She told him a nightmare had awakened her, and she just wanted someone to talk to, and then hung up. The next day, she found that Vic Valor had been rebuilding the levy at the same time she had been talking to Ted.

That tactic hadn’t proved anything. Well, she had something more certain in mind for tonight…

8. Lily at the Tombs

March 31, 1949

Lily left for work a couple of hours early that afternoon. The ‘Tombs’, the jail where the saboteurs were kept as they awaited trial, was quite a ways out of her way, and she thought she might be there for quite awhile.

She showed the desk sergeant her press pass, which might not have been the wisest thing to do. Her front page Valor stories the past two days had not shown the Opal City Police Department in the best light, and although Lily had been unknown to almost everyone only 3 days ago, the OPCD were definitely learning who she was!

But there was no real reason to stop her from seeing the saboteurs. Other reporters had already visited that day, and the police had to be very careful not to seem to favor one news outlet over another. Actually, all of the other reporters had asked to talk to the leader of the group of saboteurs – nobody had asked to interview the guy Lily wanted to talk to.

The Tombs didn’t have an ‘interview room’. The other reporters (all men) had talked to the prisoners in their cells, but the police didn’t really want to take a woman who looked like Lily into the cellblock. So they let her use the office of the deputy chief. ‘Her’ saboteur was brought in wearing cuffs, and two big mean-looking guards remained in the room, despite Lily’s protests.

“Jimmy Valente – you look awful!” The saboteur was tall and thin, and one of the lenses of his glasses had been cracked during yesterday’s adventure. He had bruises on his face and arms, and he limped painfully. “Do you remember me?”

Very few guys who met Lily ever forgot her, and Jimmy was no exception. Yet his greeting was not very enthusiastic. “Lily Deluna.” he barely acknowledged her greeting. “You wouldn’t look so damn good yourself if you were tear gassed, roughed up by some super goon and then tossed in jail by a bunch of sadist cops!”

The two guards looked very angry, and Lily was sure Jimmy would have been roughed up some more if she hadn’t been there!

“If you’re here to mock me, just have them take me back to my cell and beat me up some more instead. That would be so much more fun!” Jimmy looked miserable, but he still had some fight left in him!

“Nope, Jimmy, I’m here to hear your story. I don’t think you’ll get roughed up any more” and she glared at the two guards meaningfully “because I can see just how healthy you are right now. If anything happens to you between now and when my next story gets published, everyone will know just who to blame! By the way, I hope you don’t mind that I’m recording this conversation?”

Jimmy finally raised his head, and he looked straight into Lily’s eyes, startled, and them he slowly smiled. He realized that Lily was at least going to give him a fair shake! He hadn’t known her well back at OCU, but unlike some of the other attractive coeds, she had never been a snob. He hadn’t been surprised that she remembered him, even though they had never been great friends – that was just the kind of person she was. He thought he might be able to trust her to at least listen sympathetically to what he had to say.

“Oh, no, I don’t mind at all! Record all you want!”

Lily pulled a recorder out of her handbag and set in on the desk. One of the guards stepped towards her and reached for the recorder. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but it’s against the rules to record interviews with prisoners. I’m going to have to take that.” It was clear from his tone that seconds after he touched the recorder, it would be smashed into pieces on the floor. Lily quickly moved it out of his reach.

***

“Corporal, you may not recognize me, but you’ve no doubt heard my name over the last 2 days. Those two Lily Deluna exclusive interviews with Vic Valor in the Register yesterday and today? That was me! And he’s dropping by the Register again tonight, for another… intimate… chat. He’s told me he’s not real fond of ‘lawbreakers’. In fact, Jimmy here can probably tell you better than I can just what happens when Vic is mad at you! And you’re wrong – it’s not against the rules, if Jimmy says it’s ok.” Lily could be quite caustic when she wanted to.

The guards noted that Lily seemed comfortable using Valor’s first name, and they had heard about the reprimand he had given Commissioner O’Dare for not using his rank when addressing him. And Valor did have super powers and he didn’t seem to be real careful in using them. Valente and his friends had already been quite banged up when they reached the hands of the police!

The guard who had reached for the tape recorder quickly considered his options, and then returned to his original position by the door, and no further mention was made of Lily’s tape recorder. Lily realized that as matters stood, she had just made 2 lifelong enemies. But she had an intuition that before she finished talking to Jimmy, they might change their minds!

She talked to Jimmy for over an hour. He admitted that he was part of a group that was trying to ‘protect the Earth’ – he was pretty vague about what that meant. But they had never done anything violent before. They had sometimes carried signs to protest the construction of so many new housing projects in and around Opal City, but nobody had ever paid any attention to them.

Their leader was new to the group. He had first joined last month, and quickly become the leader because of his enthusiasm, and, frankly, his money. The plan to blow up the levy and ‘save the swamp’ was his. His money had paid for the whole thing. He had provided the explosives and somehow, he had managed to convince the previously peaceful group to help him carry out his plan. Jimmy didn’t understand it at all – he and his friends had never done anything violent before, and they were appalled that they had somehow been convinced to cooperate. Jimmy promised her he had never done anything like this before, and he would certainly never do anything like it again! He was clearly ashamed of his actions – so ashamed that he was almost crying.

A couple of things Jimmy said were of major interest to Lily. Although Jimmy’s group had set bombs at intervals along the entire levy, only the first bomb had actually caused major damage. Jimmy had helped build the bombs, and he knew that they were all identical. He didn’t know why the first bomb had worked so well and the others had been so ineffective. Also, Jimmy swore up, down and sideways that his group had never, ever had tear gas! He had no idea where the tear gas had come from.

These 2 guards had heard the other reporters talk to the leader of the saboteurs, and his story had been wildly different from Jimmy’s. He had taken credit for blowing up the levy, and the tear gas. Lily was secretly quite smug when their expressions gradually changed from anger at her to interest in Jimmy’s story. After about 15 minutes, the guard who had tried to take her tape recorder interrupted and asked, respectfully

“Excuse me, ma’am – do you mind if I take some notes here? I have a friend who was out there last night, and he’s in the hospital today because of that tear gas. Some of us were pretty upset when we thought these guys” and he pointed at Jimmy “might have used tear gas against the cops, and, well, maybe we were wrong about that. Maybe we ought to be looking somewhere else… begging your pardon, ma’am.” He turned to Jimmy “That ain’t to say, pal, that we’re gonna let you off after you tried to blow up that dyke. Can’t have that kinds crap goin’ on in Opal! But you gotta understand, tear gas is for cops and we gotta enforce that/”

Lily didn’t necessarily agree, but she did understand. She had actually seen police use tear gas before, at some student protest or other. Some student had been stupid enough to pick up a tear gas canister and throw it back at the cops. Almost instantly, a half dozen cops had converged on the unfortunate youth and instantly beat him unconscious. Lily was sickened, but she understood. Police forces are always vastly outnumbered by civilians, and the police felt that certain actions by civilians, such as attacking cops and using tear gas against cops, needed to be ‘discouraged’ for their own protection.

Lily was sure nobody who had seen that incident would ever make the same mistake that unfortunate student had made that day. In fact, as she thought about it, it seemed likely that Jimmy had either seen or heard about that same incident. Just to be sure, she asked him about it. “Say, Jimmy, do you remember that student who got hurt back when we were sophomores?”

“You betcha, Lily! Say, no wonder the cops was so rough on us, huh?” he said, understanding dawning on his face. Then his anger returned. “Hey, you, copper! This is supposed to be America, isn’t it? Innocent until proven guilt, right? Well, buddy, you cops owe me and my friends, big time. Why don’t you and your tough-guy buddies get out there and find the real bad guys, huh?”

“Ah, Jimmy? You and your friends are some of the real bad guys, remember!” Lily had the facts on this case, and she was going to make sure everyone else got them straight too! “You just admitted to trying to blow up the levy. Maybe you and your friends and these cops are even? I wouldn’t push them if I were you.”

“Oh, yeah, huh?” and Jimmy shut up. Lily could tell that the cops were firmly on her side by now. And she knew it wasn’t her looks that changed their minds, but her insistence in digging up the truth!

After the guards took Jimmy back to his cell, they came back and, with Lily, talked to a police detective about what Jimmy had said. The detective wanted the tape, but the guards convinced him to let Lily keep it. He told her he was going to initiate 2 new lines of investigation – the ‘new guy’ in the environmental group, and who had tear-gassed the cops?

Lily headed off to her waitressing job, well satisfied with her afternoon’s work! Even more than before, she was looking forward to talking to ‘Ultimate Valor’ later tonight!

9. Lily Kicks Butt!

As expected, Valor showed up that night, sought out Lily, and started telling her about his night’s adventures.

“I was summoned to Police Headquarters by the V-Signal. While I was there, I talked with Commissioner O’Dare, and found out about the super-villain attacking the power plant…”

Valor’s voice trailed off as he noticed that Lily wasn’t taking any notes. After a slight pause, he spoke again. “What’s the matter, Lily? Don’t you want to interview me tonight?”

“I think I need a cup of coffee, Vic. Will you join me?”

“I’m sorry, Lily, but I don’t drink coffee. Caffeine has unpredictable affects on the metabolism of Xadamites. However, I will be happy to wait here until you get your coffee and return.”

This wasn’t at all what Lily wanted! “Well, can you drink water, then? C’mon, let’s go to the break room.” She took his arm and started walking. Valor didn’t move.

“Yes, Xadamites can safely drink water. But I am not thirsty right now. Please get yourself a drink, and then we can continue with the interview.”

Lily leaned closer and whispered to him fiercely. “Listen, buster, you and I have to talk! Now, by the way, not some other time! We can either do it privately in the break room, or right here where everyone can hear!”

“Of course, Lily! The entire reason I’m here is to talk to you!”

“Break room, buster, now! Or else!” Lily didn’t specify what else. In fact, she wasn’t sure ‘what else’ meant in this case! What could she possibly do to Valor that he would worry about? Fortunately, he didn’t seem to be thinking along those lines, as he started walking in the direction Lily was leading him.

Lily ushered one of her co-workers out of the breakroom, then prepared a coffee for herself and a glass of ice water for Valor. There was a box of donuts on the table, so she offered him one. “I thank you again, Lily, and again I must refuse. Earth food is not suitable for Xadamites. But please, feel free to have one yourself.”

***

When Lily didn’t take a donut, Valor continued. “So what are we going to be talking about, that requires privacy?”

Lily sipped her coffee, then put it down. “I’m not quite sure, Mr. Valor” she said with a sneer “why you think I’d prostitute my ethics to give you publicity, but I’ll tell you this right now, you can forget it!”

Valor was puzzled. “What does it mean, prostitute? The radio and TV programs I listened to never use that term.”

Lily was slightly flummoxed. “Umm, do you know what sex is?” She was blushing slightly.

“Of course, although on Xadam, men and women rarely discuss sex with each other. It makes us uneasy.”

Lily nodded slightly. “Same here on Earth. But we’re not really talking about sex. Do you know what money is?”

“I really don’t understand money. We don’t use money on Xadam. I don’t understand why you are asking?”

No money? That was the most alien thing about Valor so far. She thought for a moment. “OK, try this – do you have anyone on Xadam who exchanges sex for favors?”

“Yes, we call them klentos. They have very low status in society!”

Lily agreed. “Once again, same as Earth! Well, those people are called ‘prostitutes’ here. And by extension, anyone who does something illegal, immoral or unethical in order to achieve something she could not achieve through legal, moral and ethical means has prostituted herself.

“Well, I am not a prostitute, for you or for anyone else! If I was, I wouldn’t be working two jobs and busting my tail on the night shift for a crummy 2 bucks an hour!”

Valor seemed to be puzzled. “I can see you are very passionate about this issue, Lily. But I hardly think it applies here.”

Lily was very close to screaming, but she kept her anger, and her voice, under close control. “You come here and feed me lies, and I print them and you get good publicity, and I become famous as ‘Valor’s girlfriend, the reporter!” That’s what I’m talking about. Well, pal, forget it. It’s over. I’m not doing any more exclusive interviews with you, now or ever, and whatever you were looking for, you’re not going to get it from me!”

Valor responded “I’m not sure what you are getting upset about. I’m not telling you lies, and we are both getting famous, because of these exclusive interviews. I thought of it as kind of a symbiotic relationship. You humans have a word for it – quid pro quo. It was my understanding that this is a common way for humans to do business?”

Lily was furious by now, and her voice was rising! “I’ll quid your pro, buster! And you have been lying; you might was well admit it!”

She stopped and took a deep breath, and made a deliberate effort to get back her self-control. Once more calm, she continued. “If I’m going to be an outstanding reporter, or not, I’ll do it on my own by reporting the truth! I’ve done some thinking and some checking, and your stories don’t add up! I don’t know who you are or what your game is, yet, but I do know you aren’t from a planet circling a brown star, you’ve been feeding me lies, and you aren’t anywhere near as great as you want people to think!”

She took another deep breath and went on. “So, no more interviews or stories by me. But you are going to keep talking to the Register! I’d get fired if I ran you out of here, and I happen to like the job. Here’s what you’re going to do. We’re going back to the newsroom and you are going to tell my friend Betsy tonight’s story. And you are going to tell her the absolute truth! I’ll be listening and I’ll check every detail, and if I find even one tiny little lie, I’ll write a story that completely exposes you. Not just the lies to Betsy, but the lies you told yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. Every blessed lie. And don’t you doubt I can do it!”

Valor was trying to talk, but Lily was on a roll! “Just so you don’t think I’m bluffing, here’s a free sample – if you have so much trouble seeing in daylight, and you see by infrared, how the hell were you able to operate so close to that fire? No, don’t answer – I don’t want to hear any more lies. Just go give Betsy that story!” With that, she turned away from him abruptly and walked back to the newsroom. She walked up to Betsy’s desk. As she expected, Valor had followed her.

“Say, Betsy, would you mind doing the Valor interview tonight? I’m not feeling well and I think I’m going to go home. Would you mind, terribly?”

Betsy had seen how much recognition Lily had gotten after her Valor interviews. Here was a chance for some of that fame to rub off on her, as well. Of COURSE she didn’t mind! She pulled out her notebook and started asking questions and taking notes.

Lily didn’t actually go right home. She stayed in the newsroom, behind a row of file cabinets, so she could hear every word. She made sure Valor knew she was there and Betsy didn’t. Thus she got Valor’s firsthand report on tonight’s activities.

10. The Fight of His Life!

It was a dark and stormy night in Opal City! Great black clouds hung low over the cityscape, and it had been pouring rain off and on all night. It was cold and blustery, with wind gusts of up to 40 mph. There was localized flooding in some sections of town, and the radio and TV stations were urging people to stay at home if they didn’t need to be out. Most of Opal’s residents didn’t need to be told!

Even though observational conditions were impossible tonight, Ted was at his observatory. He told Doris he was going to be doing equipment maintenance, developing some film, doing careful comparison of some photographic plates he had taken previously, and getting his current paper ready for publication. Doris had planned to drop in on him unannounced later tonight, but the weather conditions convinced her to stay home.

Shortly before midnight, something interrupted the electricity throughout the city. Phone service went down at the same time. People who were awake at that time figured that these outages must be storm-related – lightning knocking out a power transmission station, or power lines blown down by the wind, perhaps. Within seconds, the only lights showing anywhere in Opal City were headlights and taillights from the sparse traffic on the streets.

In a few buildings, emergency lighting kicked in. Some buildings, including Ted’s observatory, some of the local radio stations and Police Headquarters, had independent emergency diesel generators, and had their own lights back on as soon as their maintenance people could get those generators up and running.

A police car which happened to be near the Opal City power station radioed HQ that they were going to check and make sure everything was OK. When they didn’t report back to the dispatcher within 15 minutes, he assigned two other cars to check out the station, and notified the night chief. Although they didn’t have a specific name for it, the police station went on yellow alert.

Three cops from those 2 squad cars cautiously entered the power plant, while the fourth stayed with the car, maintaining radio contact with HQ. When none reported back within 5 minutes, the chief declared an emergency. Squad cars from all over the city started converging on the power station. Some non-uniformed personnel were sent to the homes of day-shift cops, and the limo was dispatched to bring Commissioner O’Dare to HQ as soon as possible.

It wasn’t raining when the commissioner’s limo pulled up. As he got out of the car, O’Dare happened to look upwards, and he was startled to see a blood-red circle of light on the clouds! Some idiot had triggered the V-signal! O’Dare had given the emphatic order to the entire force that no one was ever to touch that darned thing! When he found out who set it off, somebody would be looking for a new job!

***

He sighed as he entered the building and immediately took an elevator to the top floor. That arrogant ass Valor would be here soon, and the commissioner needed to get rid of him ASAP! He had been in radio contact with the chief during his limo ride, and he knew there wasn’t anything further he could do right now about this emergency, so he could take a few minutes to deal with Valor and the V-Signal.

When he reached the door to the roof, O’Dare was surprised to find that it was still locked from inside. Whoever turned it on should still be up there. However, when he stepped out onto the roof, there was nobody there! “What’s going on here?” he thought to himself. “I don’t have time for #”(?|^& mysteries right now!” He was in a foul mood when Valor landed beside him seconds later. Valor’s first words didn’t help!

“Commissioner, I expected to be summoned for last night’s emergency, but you never used the V-Signal. It was fortunate for all of us that I discovered the airport sabotage on my own! When your forces require aid, please be sure to summon me!”

“Valor, I’ve given orders that nobody – I repeat, nobody! – is ever to use this d****d thing! We don’t need your ‘aid’ and we don’t WANT your ‘aid’! I don’t know what caused this thing to go off, but I came up here to shut it down! And to get rid of you when you showed up!”

Valor ignored most of O’Dare’s rant. He turned and stared intently at the V-Signal, moving his head slowly from side to side.

“What the hell are you doing, Valor!?!? I’m talking to you!”

Valor walked over to the V-Signal. “I’ve discovered the problem.” He pointed a finger at one of the screws that was holding an access panel closed, and the screw started backing out, without being touched. Within a few seconds, he had the panel open and had reached inside. The V-Signal shut off. “Just a loose wire. It’s fixed now.” He put the access cover back on, once again using some invisible power to drive the screws. He turned back to O’Dare. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you correctly. What were you saying about the use of the V-Signal by the police force?”

O’Dare was flabbergasted! Did Valor only hear what he wanted to hear? Before he could bark out his furious response, the emergency radio scanner built into the V-Signal came to life.

“This is a Code 9 emergency Police alert! Officers down, I repeat, officers down! Some unknown super-villain has taken over the power station and he’s killed everyone in the building, including investigating officers from the Opal City Police Department! Send emergency response squads to the Opal City Power Station immediately. This is not a drill; this is not a prank! Code 9, Code 9, Code 9! All units, use extreme caution when approaching the power station!”

Valor turned to O’Dare. “I trust our next discussion will be more fruitful!” and he was gone.

O’Dare headed for the stairs. He needed to call the State Police and the mayor. He would recommend that the mayor call the Justice Society of America and the National Guard. Meanwhile, he knew Valor would get to the power station before he could, and all he could do was pray that Valor wouldn’t make the situation worse. He hadn’t yet started to grieve for the dead cops, but he did have the almost irrelevant thought that the City Council was going to have to let him hire more cops now – if he lived through this and still had a job afterwards!

* * *

Vic Valor was on the job! He was at the power station within minutes. About 30 police cars surrounded the station, shielding 60 or more heavily armed cops. Spotlights powered by their own generators had been brought up and the grounds around the power station were lit as brightly as if it were daylight. Valor didn’t want to operate in that bright light, so he landed on the roof. He used his disintegration beam set for very short range to cut a hole in the roof, and then flew down into the plant.

He could hear the generators running lower down. He didn’t know where he was going to find the super-villain, so he decided to head for the generator room. The generators were running, so they must still be producing electricity, but something was keeping that electricity from the city. The generator room seemed like a logic place to start looking for the source of the problem.

He had no idea of the layout of the power plant, but he didn’t care. Whenever a hallway he was following didn’t lead where he wanted to go, he disintegrated a hole in the wall or the floor. Finally he cut a hole in a blank wall and discovered that he was looking into a huge room with 60′ high ceilings from a hole about halfway up one wall. This was clearly the generator room.

On the floor were 6 giant oil-burning steam-driven electrical generators, which appeared to be operating normally. Valor quickly noted that jerry-rigged cables ran from each generator to some kind of complex device in the center of the room. Standing upright on a pedestal on top of that device was something that looked a lot like Starman’s gravity rod! His first thought was that it was somehow being charged by the generators around it, although his understanding was that the gravity rod worked on stellar energy, not electricity.

Well, that didn’t seem too important right now. He was going to have to disconnect those cables if he wanted to restore power to Opal City!

He couldn’t see the alleged super-villain, but there were a bunch of bodies scattered on the floor throughout the room. Some were clearly power-plant workers and others were policemen. Valor used his telescopic vision and was extremely relieved to realize that they were all still breathing, but definitely unconscious! It was fantastic news that they were still alive, but it would complicate his victory over the villain – he would have to find a way to protect the unconscious people during the battle. He never questioned that there would be a battle – there always was – or that he would win – he always did!

Suddenly an alarm siren started blaring. A door opened in the far wall of the power room and a large man walked through, moving quickly but not running. He walked over to the device supporting the ‘gravity rod’, threw some switches, and picked up the rod. Valor examined him closely with his telescopic vision, and realized that the man was wearing some kind of high-technology body armor that made him appear larger than he was. The armor had been a dull gray when the man entered the room, but it changed to a highly reflective silver color as he picked up the rod! He aimed the rod at the ceiling and blasted a hole in it, and then flew out of the building through the hole.

Valor wanted to stop him, but the debris falling from the shattered roof was threatening the lives of the unconscious people below. Moving almost too quickly to see, Valor flew into the huge room from his vantagepoint high on the wall. He was able to deflect some of the falling debris, and he used his heat beam vision and his disintegration rays to destroy the rest before it crashed to the floor.

Apparently his troubles weren’t over yet! The voltage produced by the generators had nowhere to go, but they were still working! The sounds they made changed to an ominous high-pitched screeching, which was growing louder and louder! Already Valor’s head hurt from the noise. He opened the secret compartment on his belt buckle and touched a switch,

Valor saw electric sparks like lighting bolts leaping from the cables to the floor and walls. It sounded like the generators would tear themselves apart soon, and the lightning bolts were getting more powerful. If one of those bolts struck one of the men lying on the ground, it would be just too bad!

Valor flew at high speed towards the controls of the closest generator. There HAD TO be an emergency cutoff switch somewhere! There it was, a giant knife switch, painted bright red, marked EMERGENCY! As he reached for the switch, a lightning bolt blasted him!

Valor had never experienced anything like this before! His invulnerability seemed to protect him, but he was smashed in the chest as if he had just been hit by a giant wrecking ball and thrown backwards into the wall of the room. He slid down the wall to the floor. Who would have ever guessed that a cement floor could be so comfortable? It was soft, and he was warm, and he really wanted to close his eyes and go to sleep! Suddenly he shook his head sharply, and then struggled to stand up. Once he got to his feet, he once again launched himself at full speed towards the kill switch! Perhaps if he moved fast enough, he could get there before he got zapped again!

***

He should have realized he couldn’t move faster than electricity! Moving at full speed, he ran into another electric blast! He thought he was braced for this one, but once again he was blasted backwards into the wall. Clearly the frontal approach wasn’t going to work!

Groggily, Valor considered his options. He could easily disintegrate the generators, but he had a feeling that wouldn’t enhance his stature with Police Commissioner O’Dare. Just about any method he could think of to turn those generators off from a distance involved somehow damaging them, and he decided he was not going to do that!

“Think, Vic! They didn’t make you an Ultimate for nothing! You are the strongest smartest best Ultimate ever! You can’t give up, there must be a way!” And suddenly he had it!

Valor pointed his index finger at the kill switch and concentrated. This was much harder than turning a screw from a few inches away! He realized that he had been able to get much closer before the lightning blasted him, so he moved as close as he dared and tried again. It worked – he was able to pull the kill switch to the “Off” position and the noise the generator was making started to wind down! Only 5 to go!

Working as fast as he dared, Valor turned off the other generators. He accidentally got too close to two of them before he turned them off, and both times, he was blasted! Valor had never tested the limits of his invulnerability, but it was being tested now! The last bolt had hurt more than any other, and Valor’s coordination was just about shot from the electricity jangling through his body. He barely got the fifth generator turned off, and he didn’t know how he was going to take care of the sixth one.

He staggered towards it but fell to the floor. His legs refused to support him any longer. The room had grown quieter as he shut down each generator, but the last one was getting louder and louder, and it was now as loud as all 6 of them had been a few minutes ago. Without knowing how, Valor was certain that it was only seconds from exploding! No doubt he would survive the explosion, but many of the unconscious workers and cops would be killed or injured! Valor knew there was something he could do, but his mind refused to work – he couldn’t think of it, no matter how hard he tried!

Something in the back of his mind started a countdown, and Valor knew that generator was going to explode at time zero. He concentrated on recalling his abilities, methodically listing them one by one, trying to re-discover the power that he was sure could save everyone. The countdown clicked 7 seconds! “Flight – nope. Super speed – not right now, my legs are worthless” 6 seconds “heat vision. Hey, that might work!” He tried to blast the generator with his heat vision. Within a few seconds, he realized that he couldn’t heat that massive generator enough to make a difference in the remaining 3 seconds. His recent life flashed before his eyes and he remembered disintegrating the levy! That was it! Fortunately he had been straining to reach the generator when he collapsed, and both arms were outstretched in that direction! Straining mightily, he raised his hands slightly from the floor and blasted! The generator vanished! The beam wasn’t well controlled, and it opened a small hole in the far wall, about 15 feet off the floor. But Vic didn’t care – he had saved everyone!

“Of course I did! I’m Vic Valor, and it’s what I do!” When he realized that he had said that out loud, he looked around and was relieved that there was no one there to hear him!

Ultimate Vic Valor, Invincible, collapsed on the floor and let himself slip into unconsciousness. Well, actually, it wasn’t like he had a choice…

* * *

When he came to, he was lying on a cot, covered by a blanket, and was surrounded by a lot of other cots populated by unconscious people. He recognized them as the police and power plant workers who had been in the plant earlier. When he sat up, he attracted the attention of a doctor, who came over to talk to him.

“Ultimate Valor, I’m glad to see you looking well! There didn’t seem to be anything I could do for you except let you rest. I had no way of knowing what your normal vital signs are, but your body temperature is way lower than normal, I can’t find a heartbeat or a pulse, and your skin feels like hard plastic! I couldn’t see any external damage, but I had no way of knowing if you were bleeding internally, or even if you can bleed!”

“Thank you sir, I appreciate your concern. But there is no need for you to worry – an Invincible is trained to ignore injuries, and here on Earth, I seem to be resistant to them anyway. I’ll be leaving now!”

The doctor thought about trying to stop him, but this was Valor, after all! “Ultimate, would you please talk to the police before you leave? They really need to know what happened!”

“Sir, could you please give the police my regards? Tell them I surprised a man who appeared to be wearing body armor and wielding Starman’s gravity rod. We battled, and he blew up one of the generators to cover his escape. While I was using my powers to protect the unconscious men in the plant, this costumed man struck me a treacherous blow from behind, and then made his escape by blasting a hole in the roof. I need to go quickly, because I want to search for him while it’s still night!”

And he was gone. Shortly afterwards, he dropped in at the Register and talked to Lily, and we already know how that turned out!

* * *

Valor told Betsy essentially the same story he told the doctor. Neither Lily nor Betsy had any way to immediately verify what had happened inside the power plant, as there were no witnesses who had been conscious at the time. Lily had her suspicions, especially about the exploding generator, and as she had promised Valor, she would investigate!

Betsy wrote the story, presenting it as Valor’s account of the events at the power plant. She got the front-page byline and Lily didn’t get fired. As long as the paper kept getting Valor exclusives, management didn’t really care who wrote the stories. They would have liked to bump Lily back down to copy editor, but she threatened to quit and go to work for the Evening Gazette, and the Register didn’t want to give the Gazette the kind of publicity this would generate. Lily had finally gotten the break that management had previously denied her because of her gender, and she was on her way up!

Friday, April 1, 1949

11. The Menace of Xenon

The Register carried Betsy’s interview with Vic Valor on the front page. Once again, there were people who suggested that his account of the incident might possibly stray from the facts. But they only had inferences to go on, since nobody had been conscious in the power station to see the actual fight. However, the debate about the truth of Valor’s adventures was about to loose its immediacy!

At exactly 5:01 PM, every radio and TV program in Opal City went off the air, and were replaced by a single broadcast. A broadcast from a seeming madman!

The TV screens showed a man, wearing some sort of silvery armor. It was difficult to make out the details, because the armor’s surface appeared to be a shiny silvery mirror. The mirrored surface reflected the man’s surroundings, and the reflected images shifted when he moved. Some of the viewers got seasick watching him. He held a scepter-like device in one hand that looked very similar to Starman’s Gravity Rod.

“I am Xenon! I control your radios and televisions to demonstrate my power! I demand that Opal City pay me 1 million dollars as insurance! Yes, insurance… that I won’t destroy your city.” There was a slight pause and then laughter blared out, much louder than Xenon had been talking. “BWHA HA HA HA!” It was so loud it hurt to listen to it. Then his voice returned to normal. “You have until 7 PM today. If I haven’t received my payment by then, I will destroy City Hall.”

“Just in case you doubt my power, I will now destroy the condemned Bextar Building. I know that the city is planning to demolish this building and that the estimated cost is around $1.5 million. So just think of this as my civic contribution – the condemned building will be destroyed ahead of schedule and the city saves a half a million dollars!” Once again there was a slight pause, and once again, incredibly loud laughter blared forth! “BWHA HA HA HA!”

***

“And don’t think anyone can stop me, especially not that pantywaist stupor hero Vicky Valentine! He’s too scared to come out before midnight, and if he did, I’d just blow him away! Remember, there’s a 7 PM deadline – and I do mean DEAD!” He paused again, and by this time people had learned to cover their ears to protect themselves from the blaring laughter. “BWHA HA HA HA!”

He continued to laugh as he leaped into the air and flew away from the camera at high speed.

The stationary view from the ground was replaced by a view from another camera – apparently flying behind and slightly above Xenon. That flying TV camera followed Xenon’s scepter wherever he went.

Seconds later, the Bextar Building came into the view of the flying camera. Xenon pointed his scepter at it, and the building was immediately enveloped in a golden glow. A second later, there was the sound of a loud explosion, which continued for about 15 seconds, kind of like a long rolling thunderclap! The building crumpled inwards and then collapsed to the ground! A giant wave of dust flowed outward from the ruined building, blanketing the surrounding neighborhood with a thick black cloud.

Xenon turned to the camera and laughed again. “BWHA HA HA HA!” Most of his audience winced in pain. “1 hour, 45 minutes and counting! And all you clever cops thinking about setting up a trap – DON’T! I’ll be ready for you. If you are stupid enough to try, Police Headquarters will get it right after City Hall. And your insurance premiums will go up to $2 million.” A slight pause, and then even louder than before, he laughed again. “BWHA HA HA HA!”

He wasn’t done yet, either. “Mr. Mayor! Yes, I’m talking to YOU, Mayor! You get that money and go on TV and I’ll give you further instructions then. Any TV studio is OK with me – I own ‘em all right now anyway!” Everyone realized he was about to laugh again. “BWHA HA HA HA. I expect to hear from you real soon now. Don’t keep me waiting!”

The Mayor and Police Commissioner O’Dare had been meeting with the City Council in the Council Chambers in City Hall. An aide had run into the room, interrupting the meeting to tell them about Xenon’s threats. Within minutes, a TV had been brought into the Council Chambers and everyone watched in awe and dread as the Baxter Building was destroyed. A clamor arose after Xenon had delivered his message for the Mayor.

Half the Council wanted the Mayor to stand up to Xenon – paying blackmail money only lead to more blackmail. The other half didn’t want to take the risk and demanded he pay. After all, they reasoned, the City had been going to spend that money anyway. The Mayor was a belt-and-suspenders type of guy. He immediately ordered the City Treasurer to start getting the money together, and then he called the governor and asked him if he could contact the State Police, the National Guard and the JSA. If they could come up with a safe plan to capture Xenon and protect his city, he would authorize it. But unless someone could show him a no-risk plan, he would pay the ‘insurance premium’.

Police Commissioner O’Dare sighed loudly and headed across the street to Police HQ. He really hated what he was being forced to do. He quickly climbed to the roof and activated the V-Signal. Valor was an arrogant jackass, but he did have super powers and until the JSA arrived, Valor was the only person in the city who had any chance of taking down Xenon.

O’Dare left a cop on the roof with a walkie-talkie, and orders to clear out at 6:30 if Valor hadn’t showed up before then. He then hustled back downstairs to direct the evacuation.

* * *

Xenon floated in the air over City Hall. He saw the evacuations going on below and found them amusing. He didn’t really care if the people got away – this time. If he didn’t get his money, he would blast City Hall, and the price would go up. If they didn’t pay then, the next time people would get hurt – and the price would keep going up!

Every TV in Opal City still showed the view from Xenon’s flying camera. Everyone who was still watching saw Valor rocketing towards Xenon. He almost caught Xenon by surprise, but the whistling sound of his high-speed flight warned Xenon at the last microsecond, and he managed to turn slightly towards Valor. Valor had planned to smash him in the back, but instead he bashed Xenon’s helmet with a glancing blow. Xenon spun through the air, but quickly recovered. Both foes hovered, facing each other, each waiting for the other to make a move.

Some of the TV viewers noticed a change to Valor’s helmet. He had replaced his red goggles with dark blue lenses, similar to but larger than those worn by Dr. Mid-Nite. It was the first time anyone had seen Valor this early in the evening, and the remaining daylight didn’t seem to be bothering him.

Xenon spoke first. “Ah, the ever-so-vigilant Vicky Valentine. You really can see in the daytime. I knew that was just a ruse!”

“You’re mistaken, lawbreaker! I’ve simply used superior Xadamite science to modify my visor. Very simple, really – I should have thought of it sooner. I should thank you for forcing me to realize it. But I never thank criminals, especially just before I thrash them!”

Xenon laughed out loud! The sound was loud enough to hurt even Valor’s ears. “BWAH-HA HA HA! Here’s a little Earth super science, alien! Let’s see how Xadamite science measures up?” He blasted Valor with a powerful energy beam from his scepter! The energy splashed on Valor’s invulnerable body, clung to him, and as the beam continued to batter him, he was forced backwards and downwards!

Valor realized that this fearsome energy beam might soon overwhelm his invulnerability. He fled from Xenon at top speed, flying so fast Xenon was unable to hit him. Xenon started to chase the fleeing Valor. Vic wanted to get the fight as far out of Opal as possible. He slowed a little, trying to entice Xenon to keep following him. He was deliberately heading for the airport landfill – with the workday ended, it was probably the least populated area within 20 miles.

Over the middle of the swamp, Valor turned and blasted up at Xenon with his heat beam vision. The heat beam reflected wildly off of Xenon’s armor. Although it didn’t harm him, the brilliant shower of jagged flashes did briefly confuse Xenon. He barely managed to point the scepter at Valor and unleashed a powerful beam of energy down towards him. Valor waited until the last millisecond to dodge, and the entire force of Xenon’s blast struck the swamp. The incredible power of the beam instantly vaporized tons of water and mud in a tremendous explosion! Rocks, mud, steam and debris erupted from the swamp in a deadly plume hundreds of feet high.

Xenon couldn’t dodge in time and he flew right into the battering force of the explosion. He managed to create an energy shield around himself, and his armor helped protect him, but even so, he was battered and bruised. A flying boulder smashed him from its path and was sure he had cracked some ribs. But his shield and armor held and he pushed his way through the plume of debris.

Valor almost managed to dodge the explosion entirely. He was blasted by the steam on the outer edge of the plume, which didn’t bother him at all. He turned and scanned the mess behind him, and he wasn’t surprised to see Xenon slowly fly out of the flying debris.

So far, Valor was winning this fight and hardly appeared to be trying. Xenon needed to try something different. He waved his scepter and Valor was suddenly enclosed in an energy sphere. Vic tried to punch his way out, but the skin of the sphere was sticky and it caught Valor’s wrist and held it immobile. He struggled but couldn’t pull his hand free. He thought about punching with his other hand, but if it got caught too, he would be helpless.

The inside of the sphere started to fill with crackling electrical energy. Valor could feel it crawling over his skin, like a mild itch. As the energy density increased, the itching turned to pain. Last night, Valor had discovered that he was vulnerable to high-powered electrical current. He had to get out of this trap fast!

Maybe the energy sphere wouldn’t block his disintegration beam? He aimed his free hand at Xenon’s scepter and blasted away! Totally unexpectedly, the energy sphere popped like a soap bubble. Valor was free again. Xenon frantically flew out of the path of the disintegration beam, and his wild gyrations enabled him to avoid it. But he had forgotten his damaged ribs, and the pain from his chest almost caused him to pass out. He realized that he had to win this fight in the next few seconds or not at all!

***

And now was his best chance. Valor was free of the trap, but his body was still suffering the effects of the electricity. He was shivering uncontrollably, his arms and legs were weak and limp, and he couldn’t concentrate enough to fly! He crashed to the ground and lay there quivering.

Xenon leaped on his chance. From the floor of the crater his earlier blast had created, he used the scepter like an ice cream scoop and scooped up a giant half sphere of granite bedrock. He smashed this giant piece of rock down on top of Valor, pinning him to the ground and hopefully crushing him! Just to be sure, Xenon piled several more scoops of rock on top of and around the first one, and then he used an energy beam from the scepter to fuse all the different rock lumps together. He waited several minutes and there were no signs of life – not that he expected any!

Xenon made an adjustment to his armor through the controls on the scepter, and the pneumatic inner suit tightened gently around his chest. He made careful adjustments until the sleeve supported him comfortably. Not as good as a doctor would do, but good enough for the moment. Now he had some money to collect. He anticipated that he would really enjoy selling insurance!

Before he left, he unfastened his helmet, and spit on the dully-glowing pile of rocks that marked Valor’s final resting-place. “Hey, Boy Scout! You weren’t so damn tough. Sorry you’ll never get a real burial, but at least you have a granite monument!” He tapped the ends of his thumb and middle finger on his right hand together twice. ” BWHA HA HA HA! BWHA HA HA HA!” Before he turned to fly back towards Opal City, he used his scepter to carve an epithet into the side of the mound: “Vicky Valentine – Rest in Pieces”. His finger and thumb clicked again ” BWHA HA HA HA!”

* * *

Xenon noticed that it was past 7 PM and he hadn’t heard from the Mayor yet. That didn’t bother him – he looked forward to wrecking more buildings! He knew he’d get his money sooner or later. The longer they delayed, the more fun he would have!

As he flew away, Xenon heard what sounded like frying bacon behind him. Probably had something to do with swamp water boiling away from the still-hot mound of granite, but he had time, so he turned around to make sure. A lump of rock the size of his head, moving at least 100 mph, smashed into his helmet. Before he even felt the impact, another stone smashed into his chest. Within seconds, he was battered into unconsciousness by a dozen rocks Valor had thrown at him at super speed. The frying bacon sound had been caused by Valor’s disintegration beam eating through the granite rock pile. Fortunately he was more invulnerable to physical trauma than he was to electricity!

When he lapsed into unconsciousness, Xenon dropped the scepter. As soon as it fell from his limp hand, his armor changed from a shiny mirror to a dull gray color and both villain and scepter fell towards the earth. Valor was barely able to move fast enough to catch them, and he realized he might not be quite as invulnerable as he thought – there wasn’t a part of his body that didn’t scream with aches and pains! But nothing seemed to be broken, and everything seemed to be working. He tucked the scepter into his belt and, carrying Xenon over one shoulder, headed back towards town. He didn’t realize it, but Xenon’s flying camera was still following him.

He was puzzled to see the V-Signal, but he headed towards police HQ and landed on the roof. He was greeted by a group of wildly cheering cops, including Commissioner O’Dare!

The TV transmission from Xenon’s flying television camera was still preempting all local programming. Police Commissioner O’Dare and most of the Police HQ staff had been watching the fight from the Silver Shield, a bar a few blocks from HQ that was run by a retired cop. O’Dare had never liked Valor, but this fight was changing his opinion. Like all the other cops in the bar, O’Dare was cheering as Valor took an incredible pounding but kept coming back for more. That televised fight firmly established Valor as the new heroic protector of Opal City. Who cared if he had embellished his adventures to the Register? This whole fight was caught on TV and Valor’s role didn’t need embellishing!

When Valor knocked Xenon unconscious, O’Dare and the rest of the cops headed for the roof and the V-Signal, and they were there to greet Valor with cheers when he reached HQ.

“Commissioner O’Dare, why have you summoned me? You said you had given orders that no one was ever to use the V-Signal again.”

O’Dare looked uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, my boy. That was clearly poor judgement on my part. I’d like to start over with you if I could.” Valor gave a slight nod. He then gently laid Xenon down on the roof and then turned back to O’Dare. O’Dare’s hand was extended. Valor slowly extended his own hand, and the two men shared an historic handshake!

“Ultimate Valor, on behalf of the Opal City Police Department and Opal City itself, I’d like to say thank you for protecting our fair city tonight! You fought a tremendous fight and overcame a dangerous opponent. Opal City is proud to have you as our protector!”

More than the handshake, O’Dare’s use of his rank told Valor that he had indeed won O’Dare to his side. “Thank you, Commissioner! I’m very gratified, and I hope I can live up to the courageous tradition set by Opal’s police force, fire fighters and last heroic protector, Starman! I can’t hope to replace Starman, but I can aspire to live up to his legend.”

Valor turned the unconscious Xenon over to the police, who carried him down to the lab to try and remove his armor. Valor suggested that there be a doctor present as well, because he feared that Xenon might have internal injuries. And he made O’Dare promise to use the V-Signal immediately if there were any problems when Xenon woke up. After all, they really didn’t know much about the abilities built into Xenon’s armor.

But Valor doubted that the armor would work without the scepter. He planned to keep the scepter himself, and was relieved when the Commissioner didn’t ask him about it. Finally, with good wishes all around, Valor took to the sky.

As he flew, he pulled out the scepter to examine it. The flying TV camera was still following him and broadcasting his actions, although he wasn’t aware of it.

Suddenly, an incredibly bright beam of light, like a super-bright spotlight speared upwards from the ground. Valor was caught squarely in the center of the beam. The scepter started to emit a golden glow. Instantly, Valor was in terrible pain. The light was trying to suck his mind right out of his body! He didn’t know how it was happening, but he knew that this beam would kill him if he couldn’t escape!

He frantically tried to fly out of the beam, and was shocked when he couldn’t. The inside edge of this beam was somehow solid and he couldn’t break though! He pounded with all his strength – no joy. He blasted with his heat beams and his disintegration beams, with no results. He fled upwards, hoping the power of the beam would lessen as he got further from the source. He noticed no change. He used his telescopic vision and traced the light beam as far as he could see. As best he could tell, it might go on forever.

Valor was growing weaker. The pain was diminishing, but he knew that was only because there was less and less of his mind remaining to feel pain.

He attempted to activate the scepter, but he couldn’t figure out the controls. Whatever this device was, it was definitely not the Gravity Rod. But it was the only weapon he had! Suddenly, with all his remaining strength, Valor hurled the scepter earthwards down the middle of the beam. Perhaps it would damage the source of the beam enough that Valor could escape! But it seemed that his last most desperate attempt to escape had failed. The deadly beam remained as potent as ever, and Valor was still trapped. He could think of nothing else to try, so he once again began pounding the wall around him.

As he grew weaker, he found that it was growing harder and harder to see. He could feel his conscious mind being erased by the power of this deadly weapon. Valor realized he must be hallucinating, because the last thing he ever saw was Starman, floating in the air outside the tube, his cape billowing behind him, talking to Vic.

“Thanks for protecting our city, Vic! To me, you are a true hero!”

With the vision of Starman still in his mind, fighting courageously as he had fought his entire short life, Victorious Valor, Ultimate of the Invincibles, died.

12. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

Have you ever had a really terrible nightmare, where you know some terrible slimy smelly doom is stalking you, chasing you, slobbering over a chance to tear you to shreds and feast on the shreds? And you run and run and run and just when you think you’re safe, there it is again? And then, just when things are at their worst, and you know you are about to experience a horrible, painfully fatal fate and you are helpless to prevent it or escape it, you wake up and realize, with a sigh of relief, that it was all a dream?

Ted Knight had just awakened from a dream like that. Like a lot of dreams, he had already forgotten the details, but he remembered the horror. He was totally relieved that it had been ‘just a dream’. Ted stretched, rolled over and opened his eyes, thinking about all the things that he wanted to do today.

“GREAT STARS AND SMALL! Where the h#^* am I?!?! What the heck is going on?” A tidal wave of adrenaline tore through Ted’s body as he realized he must be over half a mile above the ground – and falling fast, tumbling wildly as he fell!

He was looking out through some kind of visor and wearing some kind of helmet that covered his whole face. What the hell was going on? For an instant, panic threatened to overwhelm him, but he had years of experience as Starman working to offset that panic. He had been in incredible unbelievable dangerous situations before, and he had learned years back that panic never helped. “Although” said a wry little voice in the back of his mind “you’ve never fallen out of bed a half mile in the sky before!” “Well, there will be time for panic later! Leave me alone, I’m busy” he admonished that detached part of his mind.

Unconsciously, without even realizing it, Ted had adjusted his body position to stop the tumbling. He was staring down into an incredibly bright light. He must be wearing some kind of … of spacesuit? How had he got here? He prayed that this was just another dream, but he knew it couldn’t be. His body ached everywhere and he could hear the whistle of air as he fell. Dreams couldn’t be this real.

On the inside of the visor, just above Ted’s line of sight, he noticed something moving. He raised his eyes and saw some readouts and displays. Ted didn’t immediately recognize most of them, but one was clearly an altimeter, counting down! For some reason, that altimeter jumped into focus in his mind. It was like something inside of him had seized on it as the single most important thing in the world! Ted kept trying to think about what he might do to save himself, but he could not draw his attention away from the altimeter. He watched if for a second or two and realized that it showed that he was falling much more slowly than he ought to be! There must be something in this… suit, or whatever it was, that resisted gravity. Maybe it could even fly? But could he figure out how to make if fly before he smashed into the ground? He was still fast enough to kill him on impact. He had to find some way to slow down!

That thought was as good as any deed Ted had ever done! Suddenly he and the suit were trying to fly rather than fall! Ted concentrated on slowing down and staying conscious as the g-forces built up. He still didn’t know exactly how he was doing it, but the suit he was wearing was responding to his thoughts!

Finally, he got his fall under control. With a little attention to spare, Ted noted that another one of the gauges on his display was also falling fast. The gauge was labeled ‘Power’ and it was already into the danger zone. Whatever this beam was, it was draining power from something at a deadly rate!

A memory tickled the back of Ted’s mind, and he forced it to the surface. Somehow this situation seemed familiar. Ted quickly recognized a scene Doris had described to him years ago, a scene she had seen on TV. (Well, actually, it had been a different Doris who had actually watched the TV, but Ted’s Doris had been in telepathic contact with the other Doris). A heroic figure, flying through the sky, holding his Gravity Rod and trailing a cape – Starman, pinned against the sky by an ultra-bright spotlight beam that had caused some kind of massive explosion, killing that Starman.

Although Ted had given up his Starman identity in order to avoid that future, the story Doris told him had aroused his curiosity. From her description, he had done a number of theoretical simulations trying to figure out how that beam must have worked. After intensive research, he could come up with only a single theoretical model that would produce the observed effect. Ironically, he had also discovered that the power of the Gravity Rod could have saved that other Starman, if he had only been given enough time to analyze the problem!

By now, Ted had realized that this suit he was wearing – a battle suit of high technology armor, actually, not a spacesuit after all – was familiar. In fact, he recognized his own handiwork in every aspect of its construction. He became convinced that he had built this battle suit himself, even though he didn’t remember it. Maybe that nightmare he had awakened from wasn’t a nightmare after all?

Ted frantically searched his memories and kept coming up blank! He remembered several discussions with Jason Heber about building an armored battle suit using the Supernova technology. Could this suit be the end result of those discussions? But how could he have built it and not remember it?

He realized that if he didn’t get out of this beam in seconds, he wouldn’t have to worry about missing memories! The beam continued to drain his power and he was still high enough that when the suit ran out of power, the fall would kill him.

However, he now had hope that he would survive this situation! If this suit was built with the Supernova technology, he could escape this beam! How could he turn on the gravity lens? He had to assume the suit would continue to respond to his mental control, so he concentrated. Suddenly the power drain stopped! Well, not entirely, the gravity lens did use a lot of power, but at least he was protected from the beam! Gravity could be used to bend light, and Ted had created a gravity lens that bent the deadly beam around him rather than allowing it to strike him.

Now that wasn’t in imminent danger of splatting to the ground at high speed, or being destroyed by the deadly energy-draining beam, Ted took a few seconds to explore the Supernova armor. He was pleased to realize that it really did seem familiar to him. All of the abilities of his Gravity Rod, and all of the new powers that he and Jason had theorized about, had been built into a battle suit that simulated natural super-powers for the wearer. Neat! He did great work, even when he didn’t know it!

So what to do now? He tried to batter his way out of the beam, but the edge of the beam seemed to be solid and beyond his current powers to break though. As unfamiliar as he was with this battle suit he really didn’t want to fly any higher. That only left down, so down he went!

As he approached the ground, Ted saw that the beam was projected from a ‘spotlight’ that was concealed in the back of a panel truck. A roof panel had slid back to let the beam through. There were five or six uniformed men surrounding the truck, holding strange, futuristic weapons. Through the open panel in the roof, Ted could see a bald man sitting at a control panel in the back of the truck. Because the gravity lens bent light as well as the deadly beam, none of the bad guys could see him.

Did this suit include the gravitic disintegration beam? Ted extended his hand and concentrated, and a blue light flared out, destroying the beam projector. YES! Ted turned off the gravity lens and flew through the open panel in the top of the truck. He wasn’t surprised at the identity of the man at the controls.

The bald man stood up, and turned to face Ted. He was wearing golden robes, with a lightning bolt embroidered on the chest. It was none other than Starman’s archenemy, the criminal genius Dr. Doog! As soon as he saw Ted, Doog started ranting!

“VALOR! No, No, it’s impossible! You don’t exist! You have to be Starman, and my Destructo-Ray was infallible! You’re dead! My plan was perfect! My revenge is ruined! You’ve destroyed years of work tonight! Well, the Destructo-Ray failed, but I’m not finished yet! Even if you aren’t Starman, I’ll kill you anyway. After your death, I’ll search out Starman and complete my revenge!”

Ted had read about Ultimate Vic Valor in the newspapers over the past few days. He had an unusual fascination for the new hero – he had read and saved every article about him, discussed him with Doris and his friends, and followed his young career eagerly. He had thought it was because of his relief that Opal City finally had a new super-hero, but he was beginning to realize it was something more. He was wearing a battle suit that apparently gave him Valor’s powers and Doog had just looked directly at him and seen Valor.

***

Ted was forced to conclude that somehow, without his knowing it, he had been masquerading as Vic Valor! He hoped the real Valor wouldn’t mind. Normally a discovery like this would have unnerved him, but right now he had a battle to win!

The boots of Ted’s battle suit (Vic Valor’s battle suit?) touched the floor of the truck. Ted tried to stand, and instead nearly fell. He was several inches taller in the suit than without it, and his feet were forced into a strange angle to conform to the legs of the suit. He felt as if he were wearing high heels!

As he stumbled, he grabbed at one of the posts supporting the walls of the truck and he got some other surprises. The suit made him appear much more bulky that he really was, which affected his coordination and balance. And when he finally did grab the supporting post, he gripped it tightly and the steel beam actually squished in his hand! He steadied himself and turned towards Doog. Every new power he discovered raised his confidence level. This suit was a better-than-expected substitute for his Gravity Rod.

Many years before, Dr. Doog had experimented on his own mind, giving himself the mental power to hypnotize with his gaze. Starman had resisted his hypnotic gaze before, but by now, Doog had concluded that Valor couldn’t be Starman. Doog concentrated his mental powers on Valor. He also started whispering hypnotically, barely loud enough for Ted to hear. “Dr. Doog is your master. Dr. Doog is your friend. You don’t want to attack Dr. Doog. You want to join Dr. Doog. Dr. Doog is your master. Dr Doog is your friend.” He repeated this, over and over again.

On the prior occasions when Ted had resisted Doog’s hypnotism, it had required an intense mental struggle. Doog had a powerful mind, driven by his maniacal desire for power! However, Ted (or Vic Valor, or whoever had built this battle suit) must have added a defense against mental attacks because this time, Ted felt nothing! He still didn’t know how this whole situation had come about, but he was starting to enjoy it!

“Foolish Earthling! Your puny hypnotic powers cannot affect ME!” he laughed. This wasn’t his normal style at all, but it felt good. Had Ted Knight had become too serious?

He took a careful step closer to Dr. Doog, reached out towards him, and snapped him in the chin with his right forefinger. Doog fell to the floor unconscious! Ted had barely touched him!

He crashed through the wall of the truck. He needed to stop those uniformed guards before they hurt or killed anyone else! The guards had heard the commotion inside the truck and as soon as Ted appeared, they began firing. Ted figured he would be invulnerable to their weapons, so he made no attempt to dodge. Electric bolts from 6 weapons struck him simultaneously. What Ted didn’t know, and Valor had only learned recently, was that the battle suit was vulnerable to powerful electricity! Ted wasn’t expecting any problems, so he was totally unprepared for the tingling in his limbs that quickly grew to spasms and dropped him to the ground, twitching and moaning in pain.

After overcoming Doog and his Destructo-Ray, Ted wasn’t about to surrender now. If Valor’s powers couldn’t save him, maybe Starman’s powers could! After all, at the center of the Supernova files was the good old Gravity Rod! Ted concentrated on the stun guns the guards were holding and tried to make them super-heavy. Somewhere, deep inside the battle suit, the Gravity Rod circuits responded!

The stun guns instantly dragged the guards to the ground. Ted quickly erected an energy prison around them. He was still having coordination problems, but these guys weren’t going anywhere soon!

A few minutes later more police showed up to take custody of Ted’s prisoners. Several officers asked Valor (they thought) for autographs. Ted had no idea what Vic Valor’s autograph looked like, but that turned out OK because Valor had never signed one before. So nobody ever decided that these autographs were phony.

One of the cops was talking to HQ on the radio, and he came over to Valor. “Uh, Mr. Valor, I got a message for you from Commissioner O’Dare. That super bum Xenon that you trashed tonight? Well, the brainy boys in the lab think they can get his helmet off. The Commish wants to know if you want to be there?”

Ted didn’t remember fighting Xenon – it must have been Valor. But Ted had read about Xenon in the Register this morning, and was very interested in discovering Xenon’s real identity. The powers of Xenon’s scepter were very similar to the Supernova powers. Ted had three close acquaintances that might have had access to the Supernova papers, and who also had the technical expertise to build an enhanced gravity rod from the Supernova plans. He was afraid that Xenon might be one of those three.

“Tell the Commissioner thanks, officer, and I’ll be there shortly!”

A German spy had supposedly held Jason Heber a captive in his own house for several months during the War. The spy had been disguised as Jason, and was stealing secrets from the Manhattan Project. Could Jason actually have been part of the German plot, and told that story as a cover-up? Ted had worked closely with Jason for the past 5 years. Had Jason been stealing his secrets all along?

During his psychotherapy, Dr. Sooter had figured out that Ted was Starman. This was good, because they had discovered that most of Ted’s mental issues had been somehow tied to Starman. Had Sooter misused his knowledge of Ted’s secrets? He had been very interested in the Gravity Rod, so much so that Ted had actually shown him how to use it! Was this interest mere curiosity, or did it have a darker origin?

Tim Watson had found some secret documents that Ted had thought destroyed, blowing loose from the landfill near the airport. Could he have found the Supernova file as well? Tim was facing discrimination problems that often left him angry. Was he angry enough to lash out as a super villain?

Ted headed for Police HQ. Since Ted had no lucid memories of being Valor, he didn’t remember keeping Xenon’s scepter earlier that night, or throwing it away in a vain attempt to shatter the Destructo-Ray projector. The scepter bounced off of the panel truck and fell in a patch of darkness nearby, where it lay unnoticed for the rest of the night.

Continued in Vic Valor Part 3

Continued from Vic Valor Part 2

13. Xenon Unmasked!

Very early morning, April 2, 1949

Ted, still wearing the Vic Valor battle suit, flew quickly to Police HQ where he was met by Commissioner O’Dare. Ted wasn’t quite sure how to address O’Dare. He had read that O’Dare wasn’t too thrilled to have Valor around, and he didn’t have Valor’s memories to guide him. And he wasn’t yet ready to let anyone know that Vic Valor was really Starman in a battle suit.

O’Dare made it easy on him, though. “Vic, my boy! Good work on capturing Dr. Doog and his minions! My men should be bringing him in for booking in a few minutes. I hope this time those bureaucrats at the state prison pay attention to our warnings! We’ve given Doog to them 3 or 4 times, and no matter how much we warn them, he still escapes, every time. We’ve always had Starman to capture him before, but since Starman retired, we weren’t sure anybody else could catch him. Thanks again!”

“My police scientists have discovered that Xenon’s armor has some kind of fail-safe that locks it shut when it doesn’t have any power. They think a car battery will supply enough juice to open the lock, and they don’t think that will be enough power for Xenon to cause us any trouble. They seemed a little unsure, though, so we’re all glad you decided to come by for this!”

So, the Commissioner and Valor were all buddy-buddy now, huh? Well, that would make this a lot easier. His reading about Valor suggested that Valor was sort of pompous. “I’m pleased that my presence will help them feel more comfortable. I am in fact very interested in learning Xenon’s identity. In the Earth idiom, ‘I wouldn’t miss this for the world’!”

The reached the lab. Xenon was strapped to a table. There were some heavy wires taped to the palm of his right glove and the other ends of those wires were clamped in the alligator jaws of a pair of ordinary car jumper cables. The other end of the black jumper cable was already clamped to the terminal of a car battery and a man in a lab coat, wearing heavy rubber gloves, was holding the red clamp. He seemed impatient to go ahead, and Ted was surprised that he had waited for the Commissioner before completing the connection. As soon as Ted and O’Dare walked into the room, he attached the red cable to the plus terminal of the battery. Nothing seemed to happen.

After a few seconds, the observers noticed that Xenon’s armor was slowly turning from dull gray to a silvery mirror. The change started near his feet and slowly crept up towards his head. Ted moved closer to Xenon, while everyone else moved away. O’Dare turned to one of the scientists.

“Are you sure this is safe?”

The scientist looked very nervous! “Well, actually, Commissioner, some of us don’t think this is safe at all.” He was clearly one of the unbelievers. “He shouldn’t be able to do much with only the power from a car battery, but we don’t know what that armor is capable of. Certainly we never expected this!” and he pointed at the transformation from dull gray to shiny mirror that was still moving upwards across Xenon’s body.

Ted reached out and disconnected the red jumper cable from the battery. There was a spark as he broke the connection and interrupted the current. “I think he’s absorbed enough power for now. Let’s see what happens before we give him any more.” Some of the scientists looked like they wanted to argue, but Vic Valor had a very imposing presence. (Ted realized that this had probably been one of his design goals – the Valor armor could easily have been much less bulky than it was.) Several others, and the commissioner, looked relieved that someone had decided to play it safe.

The armor continued to change from dull to shiny, but much more slowly. The area of the armor that had already changed seemed to dull slightly, as if some of the power that had been used to transform that part of the suit was being drawn away and used to transform the rest of the suit. This reassured Ted (and some of the police scientists) somewhat, because it suggested that Xenon just had barely enough power to mirror the armor and wouldn’t have any power left over to fight with.

While the transformation was being completed, Ted questioned the scientists. “He must be conscious by now. Have any of you tried to talk to him?”

“We don’t think he can hear us. We think that without power, he can’t see or hear anything, or even move. That armor is pretty tough and thick.”

Xenon tapped his right thumb and middle finger together. Immediately, his horrible laugh assaulted the ears of everyone in the room! “BWAH HA HA HA! Fools! You think I’m helpless but you know NOTHING about Xenon! When I escape, there in nothing in the world that will protect you!” He twitched his fingers again. “BWHA HA HA HA!”

Ted’s attention had been drawn to the visual display in his visor. Wow, that thing there is a sound analyzer! And it showed some interesting results. “So, that idiot laugh is a recording? Interesting. And it’s not even your own voice, is it? Hmm, looks like a mixture of laughing hyena, jackass, and, hmm… chimpanzee? Sounds about right…”

“You, alien, I will save for last! You will regret ever stepping foot on this planet!”

Commissioner O’Dare broke in. “OK, both of you tough guys, that’s ENOUGH! Xenon, if you could get away, you would have already, so drop the intimidation routine – I don’t buy it. We want that helmet off and we’re going to get it off one way or another. Either you can tell us how to open it, or we’ll cut it off.”

O’Dare pointed at one of the scientists. “Ellison, get the acetylene torch.” He pointed to another. “Mendez, get a power saw! We’ll cut him open one way or another.” He looked at Ted. “Ultimate Valor, if our other efforts don’t work, perhaps your disintegration beam could help?”

Ted realized that O’Dare was using ‘the intimidation routine’ on Xenon, so he added his own twist. “Commissioner, as you are aware, I’m still learning the extent of my powers. I’m sure my disintegration beam could open his helmet, but it might also accidentally vaporize his head.”

“OK, we’ll save that as a last resort. Ellison! Get started with that torch!” Ellison put on welding leathers and a helmet, and fired up the acetylene torch. He adjusted the flame to be long, blue and very hot. He moved forward, and directed the flame at the neck of Xenon’s armor. At first, the flame was reflected off of the mirrored surface, but in a few seconds, the mirrored finish started to dull.

Xenon screamed! “STOP! You’ll kill me! STOP! I’ll open my helmet, only STOP!”

The leather-clad scientist turned a valve and the flame died with a popping sound. Xenon tapped his left thumb and ring finger together. The mirrored surface of the armor immediately faded to dull gray. He then clicked the thumb and little finger on his right, and the helmet separated slightly from the collar of the suit. Ted gently removed the helmet, and Xenon’s face was revealed.

Ted had more than half expected that Xenon would turn out to be one of his friends. He thought he had been prepared to deal with the shock and shame of discovering that one of his friends was a super-villain. But nothing could have prepared Ted for the truth.

Xenon was really Woodley Allen!

14. Woodley Allen’s Story

To Ted, this was totally unbelievable! Woodley Allen was Doris’ uncle, and Ted had known him since before the war! Woodley worked for the FBI and had been Starman’s FBI contact since his earliest cases. Woodley knew more about Starman than any man alive, and he and Starman had worked together many times. Ted had never seen any hints from Woodley that he might be a power-mad super villain, and he didn’t believe it now, not for an instant! There was more going on here than they knew, and Ted was determined that he would get the whole story!

Ted had to remember that he was pretending to be Vic Valor, right now, and Valor almost certainly didn’t know Woodley Allen. So he had to hide his astonishment from everyone around him. Fortunately, Valor’s face, other than the mouth, was really a plastic mask, so Ted’s shock was not visible on Valor’s face. Ted tried to speak calmly. “I’d afraid I don’t recognize him. Commissioner?”

O’Dare was stunned as well. He also had known Woodley Allen a long time, as Allen had often worked as a FBI liaison with the Opal City Police Department. O’Dare had never had any reason to doubt Allen in any way before. He was almost speechless. Almost… “He looks like an FBI agent named Woodley Allen. But I won’t believe it’s him unless he tells me so, or we match his fingerprints!”

Allen heard this, and turned to glare at O’Dare. “I am Xenon!” he shouted. “And you will all die!” He struggled, but was unable to break the bonds holding him to the examination table. His fingers twitched, but Ted had anticipated him, and quickly grabbed each of Allen’s hands in one of his own. There were controls built into the fingertips of Allen’s gauntlets, and Ted couldn’t be sure he didn’t have some kind of weapons built into the suit. Or worse, a self-destruct device!

For the moment, it was a stalemate. The Valor armor gave Ted super strength, so he could easily keep Xenon from using his fingertip controls, but Ted would have to release him sometime. Using cloth tape, one of the scientists immobilized Xenon’s fingers. When he was certain Allen could no longer move his fingers, Ted released him.

The whole time they were immobilizing his hands, Allen said nothing. He was staring madly at the ceiling, and straining mightily to bring his thumbs and fingertips together. He was even drooling. Watching his face, Ted was sure this wasn’t Woodley Allen, and yet, it clearly was. Ted still hadn’t fully recovered from the shock of finding out he had recently been living a secret double life – secret even from himself! It suddenly dawned on him that if it could happen to him, maybe it could happen to Woodley, too. Maybe this really was Woodley, but he might have suffered some kind of mental breakdown, or perhaps he was possessed? Ted had seen stranger things as Starman!

O’Dare and a plainclothes detective were trying to question Xenon/Allen, but he was ignoring their questions. He returned to threatening everyone, alternating with swearing, using some of the most colorful language Ted had ever heard. Woodley had been involved in the capture and questioning of a lot of really bad people through the years, and obviously he had heard and remembered some unique language.

Ted excused himself for a few minutes. He knew this combat suit included a short-wave radio, and he needed to make a radio call. He stepped into the next room, and tried to figure out how to activate the radio. It didn’t respond to his thoughts, as so many other functions of this suit had. The only place on the suit where there could possibly be manual controls was the belt buckle. He ran his fingers over the belt buckle and found a hidden button, which opened the front cover of the belt buckle when Ted pressed it. Inside was a control panel, and on the inside of the buckle there was a mirror that allowed him to see the various controls without having to take the belt off. Ah ha, there was the radio! He really DID do good work!

Ted tuned the radio to the JSA emergency frequency and called JSA HQ. He reached the on-duty radio operator, who patched him through to Dr. Fate. Ted told Dr. Fate what he knew about his own situation and asked Fate for help investigating.

Dr. Fate entered the Opal City PD HQ a few minutes later. He was quickly escorted to the lab by the desk sergeant on duty, and he introduced himself to O’Dare and ‘Vic Valor’. “Pleased to meet the latest visitor to our fair planet, Ultimate Valor! Commissioner, the JSA heard the news of your capture of Xenon, and I was asked to assist you in the investigation. With your permission, of course!”

O’Dare had dealt with Starman in the past, as well as Valor, so super-heroes didn’t overly impress him. In fact, he was getting a little bit tired of having super heroes just pop up in Opal City. But Fate was somehow different than either Starman or Valor.

Starman was just a man (an extraordinary man, yes, but still a man) with a costume and a super weapon. Valor claimed to be an alien, but he was as human as anyone O’Dare had ever met. And flawed, besides, with his apparent ignorance of the nuances of human interaction, and an over-inflated sense of self-worth. Still, this wasn’t an uncommon combination of traits among human beings – O’Dare could name 3 or 4 people just like Valor without even thinking hard.

Fate was different. Even his name suggested something far beyond human understanding or control. His mere presence filled the room. His voice was deep, reverberating throughout the room, and all his pronouncements sounded like self-evident prophecies. While Fate was in the room, O’Dare had to constantly remind himself that he was an important man in his own right, just to raise his self-confidence to the level where he could even talk to this awesome being!

“Pleased to have you, Dr. Fate!” Not really that pleased, but how did you tell someone like Fate to mind his own business? “Do you know Mr. Woodley Allen, here?”

“Indeed. Agent Allen has assisted the Justice Society several times in the past. However, at present, this man is not Woodley Allen!”

Ted wasn’t surprised to hear this. O’Dare wasn’t sure what Fate meant. “I’m sorry, Dr. Fate, but he sure looks like Woodley Allen.” At that point, Xenon started screaming again.

“I already told you, I am not Woodley Allen! I am Xenon and I WILL destroy you!”

Fate turned to Xenon and said, flatly “You will be still” and Xenon was immediately silent. Fate turned back to Ted and O’Dare. “The body is indeed that of the man that you know as Woodley Allen, but his mind is not. He is under a spell of some sort, and his will is the will of another.” He waved a hand casually at Allen.

“His will WAS the will of another. I have lifted the spell, and he is returned to himself!”

Allen was understandably confused! Unlike Ted, who remembered nothing of his masquerade as Vic Valor, Woodley remembered everything about his assumption of Xenon’s identity. He had been kidnapped by Dr. Doog to be used as a tool of vengeance against Starman. Allen had been unable to resist Doog’s hypnotic powers, and Doog turned him into another lackey. Like many egomaniacal criminals, Doog needed to brag to someone. The hypnotized Allen made a perfect audience.

It took Ted, O’Dare, Fate and the other officers and scientists about a half an hour, a lot of talking and several shots of whiskey before Woodley Allen had calmed down enough to talk sensibly. Even then, the story came out in pieces and it took another couple of hours before they put it together in a coherent way. Fortunately for us, we have access to the condensed version:

“Surely you guys know who Dr. Doog is?” Allen asked. They did. “Well, ever since Starman retired, Doog has apparently been a little crazy. He’s always wanted revenge against Starman, and me, for the many times we’ve ruined his plans.” Woodley wasn’t boasting. He had indeed been instrumental in many of Doog’s defeats. “He started working on a plan to bring Starman out of retirement, just to kill him.” The story continued…

***

15. Dr. Doog’s Plan

Dr. Doog had just escaped from prison… again. Although being captured and sent to prison was always painful and humiliating, he had to admit that there were few things in his life that were quite as much fun as figuring out new ways to escape from prison. It had become a welcome intellectual challenge in a world that usually didn’t provide him with many challenges.

Contrary to what Commissioner O’Dare thought, the prison officials at Ellington State Prison, where Doog did most of his time, did indeed take special precautions whenever Doog was in their care. Certainly, each time he escaped, they improved their security, so each time he was recaptured, he had to develop a new plan. Doog held almost everyone in the world in contempt for their lesser intellects, but he had a grudging respect for the ESP officials. Not that they could ever hold him, but it was something of a challenge to figure out new methods of escape each and every time. Sometimes they even surprised him, and fixed in advance some of the security flaws that he had noted for exploitation the next time he was incarcerated.

Most of the other prisoners were angry with Doog because every time he escaped, prison security was improved, and it got harder and harder for them to escape. Doog really didn’t give a darn what other prisoners thought of him – if they couldn’t escape on their own, they deserved to be in prison. Nowadays, nobody dared to let him know about that anger.

A couple of years ago, several of the other prisoners had formed a ‘good-will’ committee and ‘discussed’ Doog’s attitude with him in the prison courtyard during a recreation period. The prison guards were used to discussions like this, and while they (usually) made sure that nothing fatal happened, they rarely interfered otherwise. Doog had spent a week in the infirmary after that discussion. But that was nothing compared to what happened to the members of the goodwill committee!

Shortly after Doog got out of the infirmary, he escaped again. About six months later, a half a dozen prisoners came down with an unknown disease. This disease caused them to itch unbearably. Unable to control themselves, they scratched their itches until they actually ripped away their own skin. Taken to the prison infirmary and tied down so they could no longer hurt themselves, they struggled so hard against their bonds that they actually broke bones trying to break free.

The prison doctors sedated them. Each prisoner had an allergic reaction to the sedative, with effects similar to pneumonia, and their lungs filled with body fluid, and each prisoner drowned. These were the same prisoners who had been on the goodwill committee. Doog had been free for several months and no one could ever prove that he had anything to do with this unknown disease. But the prisoners knew.

Several guards contracted a milder case of the same disease. They needed to be restrained from scratching themselves, but the disease never got as bad and none of them reached the point where sedation was necessary – to everyone’s relief. One of the afflicted guards realized that he and all the rest had been on duty when Doog was assaulted in the prison courtyard. The message was clear to everyone, prisoners and guards alike, and Doog was never again harassed by anyone when he was imprisoned.

During his most recent incarceration, Doog had volunteered to work in the prison kitchen, and the warden had given him permission to do so. Allowing Doog to follow his seemingly innocent whims was a lot safer than denying him. Doog continued to escape, time and again, but he had never again harmed other prisoners or guards. It was a game to him and as long as the rest of the players followed his rules, nobody got hurt.

All of the prisoners on the kitchen staff snuck food out with them when they left the kitchen and went back to their cells. The kitchen guards knew this, and looked the other way, because if the cons couldn’t sneak food, they wouldn’t work in the kitchen, and if the cons weren’t working the kitchen, some of the guards might have to. It was a crummy job and no guard wanted to do it! So, when Doog started sneaking food back to his cell, no one thought anything of it.

There were first aid kits on the walls in the prison halls, and a patient Doog had managed to loot one of these and bring the entire contents back to his room as well. Doog’s vast scientific genius allowed him to mix the chemicals from the first aid kit with various food items and concoct a compound that could release a very potent sleeping gas. He stole a handful of damaged Ping-Pong balls from the prison rec room, stuffed them with his compound, and was ready to go.

The next time he was in the kitchen, he covered his mouth and nose with a wet rag, and smashed one of the Ping-Pong balls to the floor. Everyone in the kitchen, guards and cons alike, collapsed unconscious except for Dr. Doog.

He grabbed a Billy club (no guns allowed in the kitchen) and headed for the front door. He was able to put each group of guards he encountered to sleep before they could sound the alarms. Along the way, he picked up quite an arsenal of weapons from the sleeping guards but he didn’t plan to use them. And he didn’t have to. He put on a stolen police uniform and drove away in a stolen squad car. Doog was the only prisoner who escaped. Several others tried to follow him, but he put them to sleep as well. This was his game – let them play their own game if they were smart enough!

Doog made a plan to bring Starman out of retirement. A vicious attack on his city by a super-powered villain ought to do it. But Doog wasn’t interested in being that villain. He needed someone else as a stalking goat, to fight Starman, wear him out, and lead him into a trap.

But what if a menace to his city wasn’t enough to bring Starman out of retirement? If Doog could smear Starman’s reputation, that would be almost as good. If someone using a gravity rod destroyed the city, and Starman didn’t show up to stop him, plenty of people would be willing to believe that Starman had gone rogue. But where would Doog get a gravity rod?

In the middle 1930′s, when Dr. Doog had first embarked on his criminal career, he had briefly worked for the Ultra-Humanite. At the same time, another young genius, known only as Xnon, had also worked for the Ultra-Humanite. Apprenticeship with the Ultra-Humanite was considered a rite of passage for aspiring criminal scientists of the time. The Ultra-Humanite always liked to keep some loyal minions with lesser intellects around to carry out his plans, allowing him to remain out of the spotlight and above suspicion.

These 2 Ultra-Humanite proteges quickly developed a mutual animosity. The Ultra-Humanite had been forced to let both of them go before their feud caught the attention of the authorities.

Xnon had gone on to invent a ‘power rod’ and a suit of high technology battle armor. Unfortunately for him, in his first major solo adventure, he had confronted the Spectre, and he had never been heard from again. That power rod would be a perfect substitute for Starman’s gravity rod.

Dr. Doog had considered Xnon to be a potential rival, so he had kept close tabs on him. He knew where Xnon’s secret laboratory was, but he had never before felt that it was worthwhile to investigate.

Doog had hired some minions, given them uniforms and informed them that they were now members of the Brotherhood of the Electron. This was supposed to impress them. It didn’t. All they cared about was getting paid. He sent them to raid Xnon’s lab, and they returned with a suit of armor and a power rod, apparently Xnon’s prototype. The next question was, who would wear it?

Doog wanted someone who knew everything there was to know about Starman. A little research showed him that the man he wanted was Woodley Allen. It didn’t matter to him that Allen was one of the good guys and worked for the FBI. The only person who had ever resisted Doog’s hypnotic power was Starman.

The Brotherhood of the Electron kidnapped Allen. Doog was almost impressed by their competence. He then hypnotized Allen, and gave him the armor and power rod. He told Allen that he was now a super-villain named Xenon and gave him a plan to carry out. Terrorize the city, draw Starman out of retirement, and make sure the battle occurred in the downtown area so Doog could blast him with the Destructo-Ray.

Vic Valor made his first appearance the day before Xenon was scheduled to make his ‘debut’. Doog had held Xenon back until he had a chance to study Valor a little bit. Then he turned him loose!

***

The encounter at the power station had almost been a disaster. Doog’s current equipment wasn’t powerful enough to fully charge the power rod, so he had directed Xenon to the nearest location where there was enough power available. Xenon was supposed to be in and out before Valor arrived. Doog blamed the near-disaster on Allen’s incompetence, but it was too late to change pilots now! Actually, Doog really didn’t care if Xenon got caught or killed, but he had to last long enough to draw Starman/Valor into range of the Destructo-Ray.

Dr. Doog considered the Destructo-Ray one of his ultimate achievements. He had designed the Destructo-Ray specifically to destroy Starman. The D-Ray drained energy from whatever was illuminated by the Ray. Specifically, it drained infra-ray energy, the energy that powered Starman’s gravity rod. And the ray was surrounded by a powerful force field that would prevent Starman from escaping. Doog knew his plan was foolproof.

Fortunately for Opal City, Doog was wrong!

This story explained a lot to Ted. Just about everything except why he had become Vic Valor in the first place, and why the Destructo-Ray had apparently killed Vic Valor.

Fate pulled Ted aside, and told him he had just had a radio message from Dr. McNider. McNider was tending to an unconscious Doris at stately Knight Manor. It wasn’t an emergency, but McNider thought it would be a good idea if Ted were there when Doris woke up. Ted asked Dr. Fate to hang around and help him investigate Vic Valor, and then the two made their excuses to O’Dare.

O’Dare assured the two of them that if Dr. Doog validated Woodley Allen’s story, Allen would not be charged, as his criminal activities were the result of Doog’s super hypnotism. Fate and Valor left, and they flew together to Knight Manor.

16. Doris learns the truth!

Doris had been doing some investigation of her own, attempting to confirm her suspicion that Ted was Vic Valor. She had a number of reasons for her suspicions.

Valor had super powers and only operated at night; Starman had super powers and only operated at night.

Valor could fly, had heat beam vision, could lift heavy objects, and was invulnerable to some degree. Starman, with the Gravity Rod, could fly, project heat beams, lift heavy objects, and protect himself with a force field that made him invulnerable to some degree.

Valor had a disintegration beam; Starman had used the gravity rod to fire a disintegration beam in his adventure with the atomic zombies.

Valor had telescopic vision, but he also wore goggles. Ted certainly knew enough about telescopes to build goggles that could simulate telescopic vision. They had only Valor’s word that his powers were ‘natural’, and there had been a lot of speculation, in the Evening Gazette at least, that Valor didn’t always stick to the strict truth.

Valor could clearly move at super-speed, although his observed top speed was not nearly as fast as the Flash or Superman. Doris hadn’t quite figured that one out yet, but she knew that gravity could accelerate objects to high speed. If anyone could figure out how to use gravity to produce super-speed, it would be Ted.

The biggest unknown for Doris was Valor’s size. Valor was about 4 inches taller than Ted, and much bulkier. However, the idea of a man wearing bulky armor to give him super-powers was familiar to Doris – Metalo, for example, had fought Superman wearing bulky armor that gave him super-powers. She was sure Ted could easily have built such an armored disguise. In fact, she was sure he had done so. All she had to do was prove it.

Her first attempt at detection had failed. She had called Ted at the observatory, and when she had to leave him a message, she thought it proved her suspicions. But then Ted called her back, at a time when she later found out that Valor was fighting against the landfill saboteurs. This certainly seemed to clear Ted. Still, she had planned to visit Ted at the observatory later tonight. But when she turned the TV on at 6:30 to watch the local news, she discovered Xenon’s all-channels broadcast.

Xenon was using what looked like a modified gravity rod. She knew Ted had done some theoretical gravity rod redesigns, and it hadn’t bothered her as long as it was all theory. But now she wondered – could Xenon be Ted? His wartime experiences with the Manhattan Project and the atomic bomb had really affected him mentally and emotionally. Could that stress have caused him to become a super-villain?

Suddenly Valor entered the picture, and Valor and Xenon battled. Doris was absolutely certain that one of them was Ted, she just didn’t know which one. All she could do was pray that neither man would be hurt. She was very relieved when Valor defeated Xenon without major injuries to either combatant. If one of them really was Ted, at least he was safe now. She had to stifle her anger at Ted for lying to her, because she had no real proof yet. Now that this fight was over, she was going back to her detective work. Next stop, Ted’s observatory!

Just as she got up to shut off the TV she stiffened in shock. She had seen this scene before! ‘Future Doris’ had showed her memories of that other Starman’s death, caught on TV! Starman had been flying through the night sky, cape billowing out behind him, holding his gravity rod in his right hand. The details were slightly different in this picture – it was Vic Valor flying through the night sky, cape billowing out behind him, the scepter in his right hand. But the rest of the picture was exactly the same! At this instant, Doris became absolutely certain that Vic Valor was really Ted Knight, and that once again, she was about to watch his death. All her efforts to change the future had come to naught.

Doris knew in advance what was going to happen next. She screamed in terror as Valor was speared by the super bright beam of light. As she knew he would, he fought unsuccessfully to escape.

This scene played out differently than the one she remembered, though. The first time, when future Doris had witnessed this disaster, Starman flew higher and higher and there was a tremendous explosion! The explosion had destroyed the camera and apparently Starman as well, as they never found any traces of his body.

This time, Valor threw down the scepter and tried to break out of the beam, without success. The drama had already continued past the point when Doris had expected the explosion. She had just begun to hope again, when Valor went limp as if he had been shot, started to fall, and then started to struggle again. Within a few seconds, he had overcome his fall, and was once again trying to break out of the beam – equally as unsuccessful as in his earlier attempts.

Then he disappeared! The beam must have disintegrated him! The details were changed but the result was the same… Ted, dead! Doris screamed her anguish at the top of her lungs. “TED! OH NO, TED! YOU CAN”T BE GONE. DAMN YOU, TED KNIGHT!”

The emotional roller coaster of the last hour had taken a tremendous toll on Doris. She had been so sure she had saved Ted’s life by asking him not to be Starman, and now not only had he broken his promise to her but he had gotten himself killed despite everything that she had done. None of it had mattered. Her mind was drowning in anger at Ted for lying to her and grief at having had to watch him die a second time. Doris couldn’t stand it any longer, and she swooned, unconscious.

One of the staff members had heard her scream and found her unconscious on the floor of the library. She called several other staff and they carried her to her bed. She then called the number of Doris and Ted’s personal physician, Dr. McNider. She didn’t know that this number secretly rang through to New York City, or that McNider could travel from New York to Opal City in almost no time by contacting Johnny Thunder. (He tried Dr. Fate first, but Fate was unavailable). She just knew that she called McNider, and he was there in 20 minutes.

Doris was unconscious for several hours. During this time, she must have been having some horrible dreams, because she was twisting and turning, moaning and sweating. Several times she seemed to be talking – to herself! “Oh, Doris, you warned me and I tried! He wasn’t Starman any more but he died anyway. How do you stand it? What can I do now?” and at intervals she continued to swear at Ted in whatever dreams she was having. McNider made sure none of the Knight Manor staff heard her give away any secrets.

8 AM Saturday, April 2, 1949

The next morning Doris was awakened when Ted and Dr. Fate walked through the door and greeted Dr. McNider. Hearing Ted’s voice, she quickly sat up in her bed. She didn’t remember going to bed last night, but she did remember that she had seen Ted die.

“Ted, is it really you? Oh, Ted, I thought you had died! Oh it’s so good to see you!” She leaped out of bed and embraced Ted. “Ted, I thought you were dead! I tried so hard to keep you safe, and I thought I’d failed!” She pulled away from him a little. “That WAS you, pretending to be Vic Valor, wasn’t it?” she asked sharply.

Ted realized that behind her obvious relief for his safety, there lurked anger over his betrayal. He had promised Doris that Starman would retire. While he hadn’t been Starman, he knew that he had violated the spirit of his promise. Doris had expected him to give up super-heroics, and he had understood that at the time he made the promise – and he had planned to uphold the spirit of his promise as well as the letter. Ted wasn’t the kind of guy to stand on technicalities. So Doris had a right to be angry – especially after seeing him ‘die’ despite all she had done to try to prevent that very death.

But Ted was just as confused as Doris was. Even now that he knew that he, Ted Knight, had been Vic Valor, he had no memories of it. He had reread all the stories from the papers, hoping they would jog his memory, but still nothing! And that hadn’t been the only shock he had received that night. He still couldn’t get over the revelation of Xenon’s identity and origin!

“Yes, dear, I was Vic Valor. I don’t know why, I don’t remember, but it was me.”

Fate and McNider left the room. These two had a lot of things to discuss, and they didn’t need anyone around to witness their discussion. Including us!

The discussion was pretty loud for a few minutes, with Doris doing most of the yelling. After a while, it quieted down. As Ted had known would happen, once Doris got past her anger and realized that Ted was as much in the dark about Valor as she was, her anger turned to concern. They both realized that they needed to learn what had happened and why in order to try and make sure the same thing couldn’t happen again in the future. Well, Ted knew just the people to help him investigate, starting with Doris, Dr. McNider and Dr. Fate!

17. The Real Origin and Fate of Vic Valor

Dr. McNider had been compiling everything that was known about the effects of the Ian Karkull energy that Ted and Doris and several other JSA members and associates had absorbed in 1941. Besides its apparently life-extending effect, Ted had experienced another effect – he no longer needed more than 2 or 3 hours of sleep a day. Although Ted had not shown any physical ill effects of this lack of sleep, McNider theorized that it couldn’t be healthy – the human brain needed sleep as much or more than the body did.

McNider was somewhat out of his league here – he was a doctor, not a psychiatrist. Ted suggested adding Dr. Sooter to their research team – after all, Sooter was an expert on the human mind, and he already knew that Ted had been Starman. Dr. McNider donned his costume to protect his own identity. Then Dr. Fate used a spell to summon Dr. Sooter. Howard was temporarily stunned at popping out of reality in his office and popping back in Ted’s study, but after Ted explained, and introduced him to Dr. Mid-Nite and Dr. Fate, he recovered his aplomb.

Magical investigation by Fate, under the direction of Dr. Sooter and Dr. Mid-Nite, discovered several interesting things about Ted’s body and his brain. The Karkull energy had not only slowed down Ted’s aging process, but it had increased his body’s vitality to the point where he physically needed very little sleep. Unfortunately for Ted, the human mind required sleep even when the body didn’t.

Dr. Sooter reported that experiments in sleep deprivation had discovered that extended sleep deprivation had a profound effect on human mental stability, inducing hallucination and paranoia, among other things. While Ted’s body was getting enough sleep, his mind was not, and his mental functions had slowly deteriorated.

At some point, his abused mind had rebelled and started sleeping anyway. His body was still ‘awake’ during those times when the ‘Ted mind’ slept, and an alternate personality started to evolve. This alternate personality eventually became Vic Valor.

Valor had access to all of Ted’s memories, knowledge and skills, but Ted had no knowledge of the times when Valor was in control – Ted was always asleep when Valor took control of the body. The Valor personality was fed by Ted’s strong desire to continue to be a super-hero, and didn’t feel bound by Ted’s promises. The Valor mind had built the Valor armor, adapting the capabilities in the Supernova file to simulate natural super powers. Valor’s powers and origin were clearly modeled on Superman, and the Valor mind had added elements drawn from current science fiction and the latest astronomical theories. Ted thought that Valor probably had been a fan of the Doc Smith ‘Lensman’ series.

Somehow the Valor mind had been linked to, or perhaps powered by, an infra-energy reservoir in Ted’s body, a reservoir that had built up due to Ted’s repeated exposure to concentrated infra-energy during his Starman career. Wearing the Valor armor had increased Ted’s exposure to infra-energy, as the suit used the same power source that the gravity rod used. The more Ted wore the Valor armor, the stronger the Valor mind had become. When the Destructo-Ray had started draining infra-energy from Valor, his mind had literally been sucked out of Ted’s body. Valor was truly dead.

The Destructo-Ray had completely drained the infra-energy from Ted’s body. There was no possibility of another ‘Valor mind’ growing in Ted’s mind. Fate was able to slightly modify the effects of the Karkull energy. The youth prolonging effect would remain, but the unnatural vitality was reversed. Ted’s life should start returning to normal.

At that point, Ted suggested that all the mysteries were cleared up, and they could all return to their normal lives. He and Doris still had a lot of talking to do, so they thanked their friends for their help, and Fate used his magic to return Dr. Sooter, Dr. Mid-Nite and himself to their homes.

18. Valor’s Last Goodbye

Late last night after they had left Police Headquarters, Ted and Dr. Fate searched for and found Xenon’s flying TV camera. Ted had shut down the camera, and then had brought it back to Knight Manor with him. Even amidst all the other issues he was dealing with right now, Ted was intrigued by this invention and wanted to study it.

After Fate had transported Dr. Sooter, Dr. Mid-Nite and himself back to their respective homes, Ted continued to brood. He was unable to accept their original explanation of Vic Valor’s origin. Ted considered his mind to be his single most valuable asset and tool, and he refused to believe that it had betrayed him. He came up with an alternate theory that fit all the facts and felt more comfortable to him.

Suppose that rather than being a creation of Ted’s mind, the Valor entity was a totally independent being, spawned by the unique interaction between the Karkull energy and the infra-ray energy present in Ted’s body? And that as it had matured, this energy being had learned to possess Ted’s body when his mind was asleep? Ted didn’t know exactly why, but he found the idea of being possessed less distressing than the idea of having an alter ego that his conscious mind knew nothing about.

He moved on to the next issue that was bothering him. If Valor disappeared without explanation, there would be some kind of investigation. Such an investigation might lead to Ted. How could he forestall this investigation?

Vic Valor’s death seemed to have validated the warning from the ‘other Doris’, and Ted’s Doris conceded that he could probably now return to his costumed identity of Starman, or even Valor, safely. Well, at least as safe as any super-hero’s life could ever be. But Ted realized that, at least for the moment, he no longer wanted to be a costumed hero. Perhaps there was some other way that he could continue his career as a crime fighter without assuming a costumed identity?

Meanwhile, he needed to somehow inform Opal City of Valor’s death without giving away his own relationship to either Valor or Starman. He discussed this with Doris and they came up with a plan.

***

That night, wearing the Valor suit and carrying his gravity rod, Ted flew to an unpopulated area outside the city. He used his various powers to build an underground ‘hideout’ for Valor. Over the next 3 days he outfitted this hideout with used furniture, clothes, kitchen utensils, food, and everything else someone might need to live there.

After 3 days without Valor, people in Opal City were starting to worry. The mayor and Commissioner O’Dare were talking about starting a search for him. O’Dare recalled that Valor had been uncharacteristically subdued that last night at Police HQ and wondered if there might have been something wrong even then.

But once again that afternoon, all the TV and radio channels in Opal City were overridden. This time, Valor was responsible for the broadcast. The broadcast showed a comfortable room, with Valor sitting in a chair in front of a small control panel of some kind, facing the camera. He looked terrible! His skin was discolored, he was stooped over, and he moved as if he were very weak.

“Greetings, people of Opal City. In the past few days, many of you have come to know me as Ultimate Victorious Valor, of the Xadamite Invincibles. I apologize for interrupting your regular programs, but I don’t have much time remaining. I’m speaking to you today to tell you goodbye.

“As many of you know, 4 days ago, Dr. Doog and Xenon attacked our fair city. Dr. Doog used a weapon he called the ‘Destructo-Ray’. What Doog could not possibly have known is that exposure to the Destructo-Ray is invariably fatal for Xadamites. It doesn’t kill instantly, but the eventual mortality rate is 100%.

“The Destructo-Ray first drains the life energy of a Xadamite, and then, at the instant of death, he vanishes as if he had never existed.

“I am honored to have been the protector of Opal City, though my tenure was brief. You have my best wishes for your future success and you will be in my heart and mind as long as I live. You will not see me again. Goodbye.” Valor reached for a nearby switch and the all-channel broadcast ended.

The transmission was easily traced. A search party discovered Valor’s hideout, several hours later, but they were too late. Valor’s body had vanished, as he had said it would, and all they found of him was his uniform draped over the chair he had been sitting on during the broadcast. A close search of Valor’s hideout discovered nothing to confirm or contradict his claims of being an extraterrestrial.

The Mayor and City Council issued a proclamation that May 2 that year would be a city in Valor’s memory, and life in Opal City pretty much returned to normal.

The JSA asked the Opal City Police Department for the Xenon armor for safekeeping, and the OCPD was happy to turn it over. The JSA then gave the armor to Ted for study. Ted had discovered that Valor had constructed a secret laboratory in the bedrock beneath Ted’s observatory. Ted allowed it to remain secret.

He set up some display cases in this secret lab, and displayed the Valor battle suit and the Xnon/Xenon armor much like displays of various Batman costumes he had seen in his visits to the Batcave. He also stored his various gravity rods there. He would have liked to keep Xenon’s scepter (Xnon’s Power Rod) there, too, but when he went back to search for it, he had been unable to find it.

Over the next two decades, working on the Valor battle suit became something of a hobby for Ted. When he was bored, he would tinker with it, improving existing features and adding new ones. When transistors became widely available, Ted was able to use the new technology to redesign the Valor suit’s circuits, making them smaller, more powerful and more efficient. After he reverse-engineered the Xenon armor, Ted was able to add many of its features to the Valor battle suit. Though he had no intentions of ever donning the Valor battle suit again, he felt almost compelled to keep improving it.

19. Lily’s Legwork

One person who was not satisfied with the ending to Valor’s story was Lily DeLuna. Valor had twisted the truth before – how could anyone be sure he had been telling the truth about his death? When Lily had been promoted to the day shift, she quit her second job as a waitress, and she used some of her newfound spare time on a private investigation into everything that was known about Vic Valor.

Lily had felt a passionate interest in Vic Valor from the moment she met him, and her anger at his consistent bending of the truth had not tempered her interest. In fact, she had promised to document his lies. When she learned of his death, she changed her promise – she would document his life!

For the next couple of months, Lily spent several hours of each working day investigating every aspect of Valor’s brief interlude in Opal City. Fortunately when she was transferred to the day shift, she got a raise that allowed her to quit the waitress job or she definitely wouldn’t have had time in her life to sleep.

She started by creating a time line. She broke the times that Valor had been seen down into 15-minute intervals. She gathered all the available details as to what had happened in each of those intervals. She made lists of people who had actually seen Valor during those intervals, people who might have seen Valor, and people who might be able to answer questions about events in those intervals. For example, during the first such interval, the wrestler Obsidian Warrior had somehow turned into the Obsidian Warrior monster. Lily wanted to know how and why. Did Valor have anything to do with it?

She also used a map of Opal City to chart Valor’s known movements. She was hoping to find a pattern of where he was first sighted, or where he was sighted most often. Unsurprisingly, he had most often been sighted downtown near the Register building. It was interesting to Lily that he had never been sighted anywhere near his supposed hideout.

Lily then started her legwork. She talked to everyone on her list who had ever seen Valor in person. She talked to people who had been nearby when Valor was in action. She talked to doctors regarding the Obsidian Warrior’s sudden mutation. She talked to astronomers, including Ted, about the theory of brown stars. It was a wild theory and widely discounted among astronomers.

Lily found out that the US government had asked the JSA to investigate Valor’s claim that he had parked his spaceship on the moon. Magical and scientific searches carried out by the JSA failed to find such a ship, or any evidence that there ever had been one.

When she attempted to find out more about Xenon, she ran into a stone wall of silence. The official word was that Xenon had been an innocent man, hypnotized by Dr. Doog, but nobody would say who it was. Lily had never before run into a secret so closely held.

Lily continued her relentless research. She put together a fact gleaned here, another fact painstakingly uncovered there, and thought she might finally be getting a handle on the big picture. One of the most significant events in her research was when she requested an interview with Dr. Doog.

Prison officials were being particularly cautious with Doog this time around. He was being held in solitary confinement, with nothing in his cell except a mattress on the floor. A lead-lined cowl was locked in place over his eyes, and he had shackles on his wrists and ankles. He was monitored 24 hours a day by a team of guards who watched him through observation slits cut into the walls of the room. His meals consisted only of food that could be eaten without utensils and he received nothing but water to drink. No more doing advanced biochemistry in his cell!

So far, Doog had not figured out a means to escape from his cell, and he was getting bored sitting there hour after hour. Although he would let no one know it, he was relieved at the break from his boring routine of sitting, eating and sleeping, and he welcomed the chance to sow some intimidation among the prison guards. He would enjoy this interview!

***

Lily was appalled at the interview room. It was a very small room that had perhaps started life as a supply closet. She sat on an extremely uncomfortable straight-backed armless chair while Doog was positioned on a stool and his shackles were locked to some eyebolts extending from the wall. An armed guard sat at either end of the room, each with his gun cocked and ready. To Lily the scene was surreal – a prisoner, bound and shackled, blinded by a hood covering his eyes, attached to the wall, and still the guards felt it was necessary to have their weapons drawn and ready to use. Just how dangerous was this man, anyway? Just how safe was she?

Lily tried to conceal her nervousness with a brisk businesslike manner. “Dr. Doog, thank you for talking with me. I’m…”

Doog cut her off. “Lily DeLuna, of the Opal City Morning Register. Yes, I know that. You’re that fawning sycophant who did those candy-cotton interviews with ‘Ultimate Victorious Valor’. What drivel!”

“Doctor, if you have actually read those interviews, you would realize that I don’t ‘fawn’ for anyone – including Valor. I…”

Doog cut her off again. “DeLuna, this interview is interfering with my escape planning.” Both guards nervously fingered their weapons, preparing for action. “I do not have time to listen to your feeble attempts at self-justification. If this interview doesn’t become much more interesting to me in the next minute, it will be over.”

Lily struggled to contain her anger. Clearly Dr. Doog had little but contempt for the rest of the world. She wanted to rub his nose in that attitude, but she realized that if she provoked a confrontation with him, she would never get another chance to talk to him. “Ok, Doctor, let’s cut to the interesting stuff. If you designed your Destructo-Ray specifically to destroy Starman, how is it that it killed Vic Valor?”

Doog was secretly a little impressed with Lily’s self-control. And she had surprised him by immediately asking a key question! “Miss DeLuna, I’m surprised. That’s an excellent question. I don’t know the answer. The Destructo-Ray was specifically designed to be harmless to normal humans. It had to be. It was assembled from my plans by my incompetent technicians, who would have killed themselves 20 times over if they could have. Even incompetent minions don’t grow on trees.”

Lily was surprised that he seemed to be giving her straight answers. She noticed his use of ‘Miss’, which seemed to indicate a modicum of respect. “So, Doctor, does the fact that your Destructo-Ray was designed specifically to affect Starman and not normal humans establish that Valor wasn’t human? Or that there was a link between Starman and Valor? Or could Valor’s death be a put-on?”

Doog was even more impressed. “Miss DeLuna, you are surprisingly competent… If you ever wish to make a career change, please look me up after I have escaped.” The way it said it left little doubt that he was sure he would escape. One of the guards stood up and nervously raised his weapon.

It was very hard to distract Lily from her job, but Doog had just managed. “I heard that hesitation, Doog! You were going to say, ‘very competent, for a woman’, weren’t you?”

Doog was genuinely amused. “My dear, it is so extremely rare to find competence at anything. The value of competence far outweighs any trivial variances between people such as gender.”

Lily almost felt flattered, until she remembered to whom she was talking. She knew she had to get back to her original line of questioning, but Doog’s last comment absolutely required more investigation.

“Doctor, do you include ‘race’ as one of those trivial variances?”

“Differences in race are much less important that the idiot public believes” he responded. “I am interested only in competence. And no one race, no one gender, in fact, no one country, has a monopoly on competence.”

Lily was stunned to find this kind of attitude in one of the most dangerous men on the planet! “Dr. Doog, thanks for your job offer, but I doubt I will ever be interested. But, if you should ever decide to go straight, there are a lot of people I know who are fighting for equality who could use a man of your brilliance on their side!”

Doog returned contemptuously “You misunderstood me totally. I have no use for equality. I simply use a more rational standard of judging people. The competent should do my bidding and be rewarded for their competence and the incompetent should be grateful for whatever scraps they receive.”

Well, Doog had just ruined whatever good impression he had started to make! Time to bring this interview back on track. “Dr. Doog, let’s get back to the question. What do the affects of your Destructo-Ray on Valor tell you about him?”

Doog, like many other people who came in contact with Lily, was becoming more and more impressed with her. Since he had left the employ of the Ultra-Humanite, there were few people who he found interesting enough to talk with. “Very good, Miss DeLuna. Many people become sidetracked by trivia and unimportant peripheral issues. Unfortunately for you, I am not prepared to share my conclusions about Valor with you or anyone. Do you have any other questions?”

Doog had not dismissed her, but he had clearly ended discussion on the topic of Valor. Lily really wasn’t interested in talking about anything else, but if she kept him talking about related topics, perhaps she could pick up something else. She changed the subject. Doog was impressed once again. A very practical lady.

“Xenon was obviously working for you. The police obviously know who he is, but no one will tell me. Who was he?”

“Ah, Miss DeLuna, the police have their reasons for silence, and I have my own. Next question, please?”

She still hadn’t been dismissed. Doog must be interested in talking about something, but clearly he was going to make her fish for it. She had a thought – perhaps Doog wanted a chance to boast? “I’ve discovered that Xenon’s armor and scepter weapon were very similar to those used by a villain named Xnon, in an unsuccessful encounter with the Specter back in 1941. And there is the obvious similarity in their names, too. But Xenon’s armor and scepter seemed to be more powerful and sophisticated than Xnon’s. Did you have anything to do with that?”

Doog recognized the subtle flattery in the question, but he knew he deserved it. “In fact, I was acquainted with Xnon before the war, and he built his armor and power rod based on designs he stole from me. His implementations were crude and unsophisticated, and it was a relatively simple matter for me to improve them.”

Lily didn’t want to hear about a contest of egos between two power-mad super-geniuses. “Doctor, it appears that the purpose of your whole plot was revenge against Starman? If Starman is retired, why bother?”

“Why indeed, girl? He no longer stands in my way. My desire for revenge has once again led me to this sorry state. Perhaps it is time that I reconsider my goals. You may leave now. Perhaps the next time we meet, you will be working for me!”

End of interview. Lily had found out almost nothing. She shivered as she recalled Doog’s last comment. Hopefully they wouldn’t meet again!

Lily had the feeling that she had been missing something all along. Finally she pinned it down. Valor had been carrying Xenon’s scepter when he had been trapped in the Destructo-Ray, and he had thrown it away. As far as Lily knew, it had not been recovered. She started looking for it.

Lily couldn’t find it. She talked to a lot of people in the neighborhood where Doog had used his Destructo-Ray and nobody knew anything about it. She was starting to think that perhaps the D-Ray had destroyed it, when a kid walked up to her.

“Hey, lady! You’re looking for somethin, and I know where it’s at!”

Lily examined the kid. He was wearing a faded red T-shirt with a star on the chest, and ragged blue jeans and sneakers. “How do you know what I’m looking for?”

“Well, I hear you askin bout it all round the neighborhood, so it ain’t like it’s a secret or nothin. You’re lookin’ for some fancy thing kinda like what Starman carries, right?”

Lily really hadn’t been trying to keep it a secret. But she hadn’t thought about asking any of the kids. She realized now that kids were far more likely to have found the scepter than adults. “That’s right. How do you know where it is?”

The boy said proudly “Cause I found it! And now it’s mine. Losers weepers finders keepers!” He was defiant. Then he added “But it must be broken, it don’t do nuthin!”

Lily wanted to recover the scepter. “Will you sell it to me?”

“I dunno. It’s part of my Starman costume” and he proudly pulled out the bottom of his T-shirt to show her what he meant. “I made the rest of it myself! When we play Junior Justice Society, I always get to be Starman!”

Lily had an idea. “You said it didn’t work, right?” He nodded. “Well, there’s a costume shop over on 27th Avenue where they sell gravity rods as part of their Starman costumes. They have a radio and a flashlight built in. Tell you what, I’ll trade you one of them, with spare batteries and some extra bulbs, for the broken one you’ve got.”

The kid had seen the Starman costume on a dummy in the window of that shop, including the gravity rod flashlight radio. “But that costs 10 whole dollars!” With a monthly allowance of a quarter, $10 was well outside his price range. This lady must be rich if she could buy one of them and then trade it for his broken scepter.

Lily smiled. “So do we have a deal?”

The kid was really excited. He didn’t really believe it, either. “You ain’t just funnin’ me? You’re really gonna trade wit me?”

“Tell you what. Let’s walk over there and buy your gravity rod, and then we can make the trade.” And they did.

So Lily ended up with Xenon’s scepter and the kid ended up with a working gravity rod with flashlight and radio. Whenever he and his friends played Junior Justice Society after that, ‘Starman’ usually got to be the leader, because he had the best costume and accessories. She put aside her new possession for later investigation, because it was time to write her Vic Valor story.

20. Lily Gets the Last Word

She wrote a three-page story that was published in the magazine section of the Sunday April 24th Opal City Morning Register. She retold everything that was known about Vic Valor, including his untruths and the unembellished heroic actions that lead to his death. Human-interest stories about super heroes were pretty common fare in the Sunday papers of the nation, but Lily’s story stood out. It was eventually nominated for several awards. We already know the facts that Lily reported, so most of that story won’t be recounted here. She summarized her feelings about Valor in her closing.

“The citizens of Opal City were witness to some extraordinary events last March. The first public adventure of a new super-hero. A brief career followed by a tragic death. An extraordinary man surrounded by extraordinary circumstances.

“We will probably never know who Vic Valor really was. The origin story he told us seems unlikely, based on the most advanced science of our times. He clearly ‘embellished’ the truth on several occasions in order to make his actions appear more heroic. And he died before he really got a chance to establish himself in our community or the super hero community at large.

“By choosing Opal City as his home base, Vic Valor stepped into some pretty big shoes. In attempting to replace a legend, is it not understandable that he exaggerated his early exploits a little? From the moment he appeared on the scene, he was being compared to Starman, one of the greatest heroes of our times.

“We might ask, ‘Why pick Opal City, if the legend of Starman is so hard to live up to?’ I think Valor chose Opal City precisely because of the legend of Starman. It provided him with a goal. Living up to that legend would be a formidable challenge, a challenge that would require Vic Valor to be at his best every day, to grow and transcend himself. A challenge he welcomed!

“We might also ask ‘Why make up such a silly origin?’ I think Vic Valor was much younger than he appeared. His origin was based in his youthful sense of wonder, and an attempt to build an adult persona for himself, so that he could interact on an equal level with the adults in the world around him.

“Vic Valor is gone now, seemingly killed as an accidental side affect of a weapon designed to kill a different hero. The answers to many of our questions died with him. His imperfections proved that he, like all of us, was human, and his courageous death proved that he was also something each of us can aspire to, a hero.”

21. The Vic Valor Appendix

Vic Valor Bio

The original Vic Valor bio, as presented in the Opal City Morning Register. Note that later events have shed doubt on much of the information presented herein:

Real Name: Ultimate Victorious Valor, Invincible Quote: “My friends call me Vic, bad guys call me ‘Bad News’, and everyone else addresses me as ‘Ultimate Valor’, or ‘Ultimate’.” Occupation: Crime Fighter Base of Operations: Currently, Opal City. Previously, Ortle City on the planet Xadam Group Affiliation: The Invincibles, the world government of Xadam’s most elite law enforcement agency Height: 6’4″ Weight: 320 lb. Hair: unknown (he wears a helmet) Eyes: unknown (his eyes are covered by brick-red goggles)

History: Vic Valor grew up on the planet Xadam, which is ruled by a planetary government. From the time he was little, he always knew he wanted to work in Law Enforcement. He was an excellent student and a superb athlete, and at 16 (Earth equivalent), he was the youngest cadet ever accepted into the Law Enforcement Academy. He graduated in 3 years at the top of his class with the highest grades, marks and scores in the history of the Academy.

Vic worked his way up through the ranks, until he reached his present rank of Ultimate, and was assigned to the Invincibles, a squadron of elite law enforcement agents who work mostly independently, and mostly undercover. This rank of Ultimate is similar to the rank we know as Colonel.

Vic came to Earth on an assignment of his own devising. He wants to study the law enforcement techniques used on our planet, and he chose Opal City because of our prior history as America’s Safest City. He reasoned that the safest city in the safest country must have the most efficient law enforcement capabilities.

Xadam is a very large planet, circling a very old, dim star – a brown star they call simply ‘The Sun’ in their own language. Vic’s people have evolved so that they can see perfectly in the very faint light provided by this brown star. Daytime sunlight on Earth would blind him, and even at night, he must wear special goggles to protect his eyes.

Vic learned English from radio and TV programs that he picked up using the advanced instrumentation on his space ship. He claims to have left his space ship parked on the moon, while he commutes between Earth and the moon using a much smaller vessel.

You will probably hear much more about Ultimate Valor in the future, but here’s how you can recognize him:

Vic is a big man. He wears a light brown skin-tight uniform with yellow bands on his arms, from his wrists to his just below his shoulders. He has dark brown boots, gloves, helmet and belt. He has a red cape and a yellow triangular symbol on his chest. This symbol is repeated on his belt, and Vic says it is a symbol of his rank (Ultimate). Vic’s eyes are covered with brick-red lenses that protect them from too much light, and there are pods over his ears, also brick red, with antenna sticking up from the top of each pod. He has a square chin with a heroic cleft. His appearance is totally human – there is nothing about his visible appearance that indicates that he might be from another world.

Vic indicated last night that he is on a 3-year (Earth equivalent) mission, so we should enjoy his presence while we can!

Powers: Vic has so far exhibited super-strength, super-speed, invulnerability, flight, and some kind of super sensory capability that allowed him to determine that Opal City is not located on an earthquake fault. He can see in total darkness. He is still learning his powers and may discover other abilities in the future. Vic has access to technology and science well advanced beyond anything available on Earth. The pods over his ears appear to be some kind of radio equipment.

***

Obsidian Warrior Bio

The Obsidian Warrior was Valor’s first foe.

Real Name: Larry Jackson Occupation: Professional Wrestler Base of Operations: New York City Group Affiliation: Global Wrestling Empire Height: (as Larry) 6’1″ (as Obsidian Warrior): 12’4″ Weight: (as Larry) 250 lb. (as Obsidian Warrior): 2435 lb. Hair: (as Larry): Black (as Warrior) none Eyes: (as Larry): Very dark green (as Warrior) black

History: Larry Jackson was the first black man to wrestle for the Global Wrestling Empire. He felt that he was carrying a burden because of this, and he would do anything to present a winning image. He spent long hours working out in the gym, and he had even found a renegade chemist who made him a ‘secret potion’ that Larry felt improved his conditioning, strength and reflexes. The GWE gave him the identity of The Obsidian Warrior, and he was originally cast as a villain. In scripted matches, Larry always lost, but his work ethic and his demeanor were such that his fellow wrestlers felt it was his turn to win. Gorgeous George had convinced the GWE management to make the Opal City match a real match, not a scripted match, and Larry and George were actually wrestling, not acting out a script, when the accident described in the story Vic Valor, Invincible! occurred.

After the Obsidian Warrior collapsed and Larry was taken to the hospital, tests showed that he had some kind of genetic abnormality. The doctors theorized that Larry was a genetic mutant, and the combination of the strange chemical potion he had been taking and the near death experience he had undergone had combined with the genetic abnormality to trigger a change in his body. When he changed back to his human form, he was exhausted but completely healed.

Nobody knows if Larry will ever change back to the Obsidian Warrior again. This experience has convinced him that he shouldn’t be drinking potions with unknown side effects, so he is now back on a ‘normal’ diet for bodybuilders.

The Obsidian Warrior did not seem to be criminally inclined. Vic Valor suggested that he appeared confused and perhaps causing the earthquake was accidental rather than malicious.

Powers: In his human form, Larry is a highly trained athlete, in top condition. He has extensive knowledge of wrestling, having won the Nationals for black colleges 3 years running at the heavyweight division. In addition, he has extensive knowledge of the techniques used in professional wrestling.

In his ‘mutated’ form, the Obsidian Warrior is composed of living obsidian. He has highly enhanced strength, and high resistance to injury. He has been seen to cause an earthquake by driving his hands into the ground and concentrating, and he has also created golem-like duplicates of himself that he is able to mentally control. Because his legs are so long, the Obsidian Warrior can run very fast, about 45 mph. It is unknown how long he can keep up this pace.

Also, when Larry changes forms, his body seems to heal itself. So any damage he had taken in one form is immediately healed when he changes to the other form.

There has been speculation that Larry can control his size and weight as the Obsidian Warrior. He may be able to ‘shrink’ to a minimum height of 7 feet, and 12 feet is probably his maximum.

The End