The Bulb: from the Batman Villain Project

Every once in awhile, we stumble upon something new and interesting while researching old, obscure comic-book characters. The Batman Villain Project is one of these hidden gems; it’s a photo set on Flickr that features artistic interpretations of a multitude of Batman villains. And there have certainly been a lot of zany ones over the years!

Description from the project page:

In this project, you’ll find WanderingBert (that’s me!) endeavouring to draw as many batman villains as possible. Even the obscure and mostly unknown ones. And even the dumb ones that may look interesting but suck as actual villains. Even them.

The Batman Villain Project

Young All-Stars

Times Past, 1943

When Sidekicks Unite

by Blackwolf247

On a summer’s day in 1943, three millionaires and their young wards gather for a social visit. But when Robin the Boy Wonder, Sandy the Golden Boy, and Speedy the Boy Bowman are kidnapped in their secret identities and held for ransom, they must outwit their kidnappers without any of their usual crime-fighting tools!

• Chapter 1: Death on Horseback

• Chapter 2: Unsolved Mystery

Return to Earth-2 titles. Return to Young Heroes stories.

Return to chapter list

Without another moment’s thought, Dick Grayson, Sandy Hawkins, and Roy Harper launched themselves at the gunsels holding them hostage. Each of them had experience fighting adults and, frankly, were not that far from adulthood themselves. It was a quick fight, and shortly only the three youths were standing.

“Dick, any idea where we are?” Sandy asked as he tied one of his foes up with some rope.

“No. This area doesn’t look familiar,” said Dick. “But I suspect if we take their truck and go down that road, we’ll find ourselves somewhere familiar soon.”

Roy sat rubbing his head. “Seems odd going into action without my costume on. Mine’s in Oliver’s car.”

“Ours are in Dick’s, so we three are gonna have to handle this as ourselves for a little while,” Sandy said. “Hey this goober is still conscious. Time to interrogate.”

“Right,” said Dick. “Good thing we, uh, Blue Boys are not known for killing people.”

“Can’t be known for what there ain’t no witnesses to,” Sandy said, slapping the semiconscious adult. “Come on, you — talk.”

***

Elsewhere, Oliver Queen regained consciousness just as he spotted a bicycle coming toward the cars. Just then, the purple mist reappeared, and the Confederate officer was once again there. “Beware! Beware! Danger!” Then, just as suddenly, he was gone. Queen felt himself being checked over by a rather portly man.

“Mawster Queen, it’s me, Alfred — Mawster Wayne’s gentleman’s gentleman. Are you seriously injured, sir?”

Queen’s head was pounding, and his mind was in a daze, but except for some minor injuries, he seemed to be in good condition. ”What brings you this way, Alfred?”

“Mawster Dick and his friend are overdue in returning to the manor, so I decided to look for them,” said Alfred Beagle. “Gas-rationing being what it is, it seemed prudent to use my cycle as compared to the car. I say! I just spotted a note, sir.”

He picked it off the Wayne vehicle and handed to Queen, who studied it. “Damn. Someone’s kidnapped the boys and wants a ransom. I, uh… Ow! I think we had better head back to Bruce’s place and, uh, report this to the police.”

“Yes, sir. Good idea, sir.” Alfred started to turn his bike around.

“We’ll take my car, Alfred,” said Queen.

“Oh, jolly good show, sir. Say, an arrow — how interesting.” He picked it up and handed it to Queen. “Might be a clue, sir.”

Queen looked at the green arrow. He didn’t know if Alfred knew his identity as Green Arrow, although Bruce certainly did. But if he did, he was certainly discreet about it. ”Right. Thanks, Alfred.”

***

“All I know is the boss paid us to take you rich kids. Said we’d get a couple thou each. I didn’t know you was the fighting type. Oh, my head!”

Roy smirked. “Now you know how I feel. Who’s your boss, anyways?”

The hoodlum shook his head. “He calls himself Rag — just Rag, not mister, or captain, or anything fancy. He’s new, I think.”

Dick looked around at what seemed to be a very desolate area. “Where are we?”

“Not far from the ruins of the old battlefield,” the hood said. “Before I hadda drop outta school to get a job, I remember we visited this place in school — well, the battlefield, at any rate.”

“Battlefield?” Sandy asked Dick.

“Yep. A small band of Confederate guerrillas had pulled a daring raid pretty far north,” said Dick. “One of Bruce’s ancestors led a counterattack. Legend has it that almost everyone on both sides vanished, never to be seen again. No one knows why.”

Roy said, “Bet there was a purple mist involved.”

Dick nodded. “Probably. Captain Andrew Wayne was one of the ones who vanished. Fortunately for me, he already had two sons when that happened. OK, we head for town, call Bruce, and, uh, better tell the police about these guys. Getting dark. Bet Alfred’s getting worried.”

“Hey, you just gonna leave us here?” the hood asked.

“Sure. Nothing around here to eat you that I know of.”

Dick responded, “Come on, guys. Let’s roll.”

The three boys headed for the army truck they had been brought in to this remote location, and as they approached it, Sandy yelled, “I’m driving!” He climbed into the driver’s side. Roy and Dick climbed in on the other side.

Looking around, Roy picked up a comic-book. “Hey, Captain Marvel! That’s swell! But what kind of name is Pinky for a boy sidekick?”

The three youths looked around, making sure it was all clear to pull out, and Dick indicated which direction they should drive. Since they were closer to Gotham City than Wayne Manor, their plan was to drive into the city, alert the authorities as to the location of the captured baddies, and call Bruce.

“Maybe we should bring them with us,” suggested Sandy.

“No, they’ll be OK here,” Dick responded.

***

At Wayne Manor, Bruce Wayne and Wesley Dodds listened to Oliver Queen as Alfred treated his wounds.

“Think we should suit up and go looking for the boys?” asked Wes, alias the Sandman.

“No, not yet,” said Bruce, alias the Batman. “But taking a drive in our civvies would be OK. Alfred, that purple mist story sounds familiar. Didn’t you tell me once about seeing something like that?”

“Yes, sir — in France during the last war. Always was a mystery to me, Mawster Bruce.”

***

Meanwhile, where Dick had left his car, two off-duty G.I.s were walking. “Hey, Willie, look — this car’s got its keys in it and a full tank of gas. Wonder where its driver is.”

“Don’t know, Joe. Maybe we had better take it into town and turn it over to the police. ‘Sides, that’ll get us back to base a whole lot quicker.”

They climbed in and drove toward town.

***

The Rag, as he called himself because of the ragged costume he wore, was in the meantime driving to meet his cronies when he spotted his other truck heading toward him. He slammed on the breaks and leapt out, pulling his machine gun with him.

The three boys also stopped and jumped out.

“How?” cried the Rag incredulously. “You three are more problems than you’re worth!”

He raised his weapon, but before he could unlock the safety, all three of them were on him like mustard on a hotdog, and he was quickly subdued. Roy pulled his mask off. “James Thatcher!” he exclaimed.

“Who?” Dick and Sandy asked the smaller youth.

“Oliver’s representative to the Army. He’s in charge of weapons sales, which explains why the pistols we found were from Queen Manufacturing.”

“Stupid kids! I had to pick three athletes to kidnap!” snarled Thatcher, a balding, skeletal, thin man. “The ransom would’a been my ticket out of this stupid war!”

Dick laughed and said, “Well, so would have been doing your job, bringing the Axis down that much sooner!”

“You tell him, old son!” Sandy said, slapping the slightly shorter Grayson on the back.

***

Later, at stately Wayne Manor, three reunited crime-fighting duos were relaxing after a fine dinner Alfred had fixed for them.

“The state boys rounded up Thatcher’s men, and the Gotham boys in blue have your car, Dick. Couple of soldiers turned it in, so all’s well that ends well,” Bruce said.

“What about the mist and the Confederate officer?” Roy asked.

Oliver shook his head. “That is indeed an odd mystery, but not one we’re going to solve tonight.”

“Indeed,” Wes said. “I plan to ask the Justice Society members to see if they have any information on it, but we may just have to file this mystery under unsolved.”

Bruce nodded. “Wouldn’t be the first one.”

The End

Return to chapter list

Return to chapter list

It was an early summer’s day in 1943 when millionaire Bruce Wayne — secretly the crime-fighter known as the Batman — walked toward the front door of his mansion. Just as he reached for the doorknob to open it, the door bell chimed. Since he was already right there, he opened the door immediately.

“Wes Dodds! Good to see you!” said Bruce, a surprised look on his face. Seeing the young man next to him, he grinned at the boy and said, “Hi, Sandy.”

“Bruce Wayne, you old stick in the mud!” replied a smiling Wes Dodds, who was secretly the Justice Society of America member called the Sandman. “Answering your own door? What happened — your butler get drafted?”

“Hi, Mr. Wayne,” said Sandy Hawkins. “Is Dick here?”

Just then, Alfred Beagle entered the foyer, followed by Dick Grayson.

“Sorry, Mawster Bruce,” said Alfred. “I was in the kitchen and didn’t hear the door.”

“It’s OK, Alfred. I was just going to check on our gardeners.” Turning to his friend, Bruce said, “Fortunately for me, Alfred is exempt, being a veteran and all, but I lost most of my groundskeepers to the army. The people I have now do a good job, but they’re older, so it takes them awhile.”

Dick walked forward and said, “Hi, Mr. Dodds.” Looking at Sandy, he grinned and said, “Hey, string-bean. I see you’re still around. ”

Sandy chuckled. “Haven’t fallen off of any buildings yet, bird-brain.”

Bruce turned to Wes and said, “Oliver Queen and his ward will be here later today. Come on in. Alfred will get your bags.”

A few minutes later, Dick and Sandy entered the study, where the two men were talking either munitions manufacturing or the Dodgers game coming up later that day on the radio. Dick wasn’t sure, not that it really mattered to him.

“Bruce, Sandy and I are going into town,” said Dick. “I want to take him to Pop Tate’s for a milkshake.”

Wes looked at Bruce and smiled. “Couldn’t Alfred make them milkshakes?”

Bruce looked thoughtful, then replied, “Yes, but I doubt he has any teenage girls in the kitchen.”

“Aw, Bruce…” Dick stated in mock exaggeration.

“You have girls in Gotham?” said Sandy, pretending to look astonished.

“A few,” Dick responded. “And soon even electricity. Come on — let’s see if we can put some flesh on that skeleton of yours.”

“Be back by five. I’m expecting more company,” said Bruce.

“Yes, boys. You know Roy Harper, don’t you?” Wes asked. “He’s about your age.”

“Yeah, Wes,” Sandy said. “Met him at summer camp last year. He’s all right, but he’s no junior super-duper like bird-boy and myself.”

Wes looked at Bruce and winked, but since both of the youths had their backs turned to their mentors, they completely missed it.

On the way to the car, Dick said, “I do know some nice girls. If you’re polite, we may get dates for this weekend.”

“Hey, I can be polite. I didn’t insult Hawkgirl at the JSA Christmas party, did I?”

“No, but I bet you couldn’t look Wonder Woman straight in her big blue eyes.”

“Her eyes are blue?” Sandy asked, semi-jokingly.

***

The two youths were in the Wayne roadster, and Dick was telling Sandy about the time how, when he was first learning to drive the Batmobile, he nearly wiped out a very startled farmer just around the corner. “Right about where that smoking car is…” he looked at Sandy. “Hey, wait a minute!” Dick parked, and the two boys jumped out.

“This is Mr. Queen’s car,” Sandy said.

Dick looked inside and spotted a bleeding, unconscious Roy Harper. “Sandy, get the first aid kit out of my car. He doesn’t look too bad. I may be able to help him here.”

At that moment, a figure on horseback appeared near the boys. He was dressed as an officer of the Confederate Cavalry of some eighty years before and cried out, “Beware! Beware! Death comes calling!” He then vanished as quickly as he had appeared.

Any other teenaged boys would have been scared out of their wits, but Robin the Boy Wonder and Sandy the Golden Boy had seen far stranger things in their day. They’d almost expected something like this to happen; whenever the Young All-Stars got together, odd things always seemed to happen.

“Weird,” Sandy said, nonplussed. “Well, my costume is in the backseat if needed.”

“Mine, too,” said Dick. “But right now I want to take care of Roy.”

Dick cleaned the wound. A cut in the forehead had a tendency to bleed a lot, but it wasn’t serious. Roy started to regain consciousness.

“Green Arrow! Look out, it’s Purple–” Roy began, then faded into unconsciousness again.

“Holy secret identities!” said Dick.

“Do you suppose our young friend is Speedy?” asked Sandy.

“At the moment he isn’t. As for him being Speedy, well, it’s possible. Those two are from New York City, and our little buddy is a redhead. Still, New York must have a lot of — Hey, maybe he is. Outside, of All-Star Squadron meetings, I never worked with the Green Arrow and Speedy, but I did like them.”

A sudden explosion rocked their world, and it came from nearby.

“OK, that shakes me up,” Dick said, and Sandy nodded in agreement.

In a grove of trees nearby, a shadowy figure watched. “Soon, you spoiled rich kids. Soon.”

The explosion worked to bring Roy Harper to consciousness. ”Oliver?” He looked up and saw Dick Grayson looking at him. “Dick?”

“Yes, Roy, it’s me. And Sandy is with me, too. What happened to you and Mr. Queen?”

“We were attacked by — and this is gonna sound strange — but there was this Confederate officer on a horse,” explained Roy. “He warned us of danger, then vanished. And then this purple mist appeared, and now you guys show up. Ow… my head is killing me.”

Sandy Hawkins handed Roy two aspirins and a canteen with water in it. ”Hope this helps, little buddy,” he said kindly.

Roy sat up and took the pills, gulping down water. ”Thanks! Oh, and by the way, I grew some since last we met.”

Dick helped Roy out of the car. Standing next to Dick, he was still a couple of inches shorter than the Boy Wonder, but not as short as he had been last summer. But then, Dick and Sandy had grown, too.

“We’re pretty close to home,” Dick said. “I think it would be a good idea to get ahold of Bruce. Maybe he and Wes can find Mr. Queen.”

Roy shook his head and immediately winced from the pain. “Oww. That was dumb.” Then he looked at his friends. “I don’t know if they can do anything, really. But I suppose it would be a good idea. Mind if I look around a little first?”

Sandy popped up from the other side of the car. “I found an arrow. Say, it’s green!”

“Huh? A green arrow — that’s odd,” Roy stated, looking at the ground.

“Well, Roy, considering you were trying to warn the Green Arrow of something purple, and you just mentioned a purple mist, maybe not so odd. At least not to Sandy and me.”

“Dick? You’re talking in riddles.”

“Easy, Roy. Sandy and I think you’re Speedy, the boy bowman.”

Roy looked like he was going to protest, but then finally nodded. “You got me. Why? Who are you two — Little Boy Blue and the one of the Blue Boys?”

“Nope. I’m Sandy the Golden Boy, and Dickie is Robin the Boy Wonder.”

Roy looked stunned, then said, “Yeah, makes sense. When I saw you guys at All-Star Squadron meetings, I thought you looked familiar.”

“If we can solve this mystery ourselves, well, that’ll be a big boost for us Young All-Stars,” Dick said. “OK, Roy, you take it easy. Sandy and I will look for clues.”

A second explosion closer to the cars sent all three teenagers to the ground, covering them with dirt and knocking them unconscious.

A tall skeletal figure dressed in ragged clothing suddenly appeared, holding an army-issue machine gun. Several men in gas masks were behind him. “Take ‘em. But don’t rough ‘em up too badly. Their parents will pay big money for their return.”

“Right, boss. What about their cars?”

“Leave ‘em. Will help when I send the ransom notes later.”

***

Unseen by the motley band of criminals in a copse nearby, a bleeding blond man tried to rise to his feet, his expensive suit filthy and covered with blood and grime. He raised his head, caught a bit of what was going on, and passed out again.

***

Dick Grayson woke up in the back of an army truck, tied but not gagged. Out the back he could see the country rolling by. Sandy Hawkins was still out but talking in his sleep. “Princess Diana, you have the most beautiful blue eyes!” he muttered. “I have never seen eyes so blue! The junior prom? I’d love for you to be my date.”

Roy Harper’s soft laughter brought Dick’s head around. ”They never searched us. I got an arrowhead in my pocket that can cut these ropes.”

“Good idea. Odd they put us back here with no guards, though, isn’t it?”

“Must be amateurs,” said Roy. “Hey, string-bean awakes.”

“Uh, hi, guys,” said Sandy dazedly. “Where are we?”

“Nowhere near Wonder Woman,” Dick said, grinning. “I can assure you of that.”

Roy had nearly cut through his ropes when the truck stopped, and the three boys found themselves facing several men with pistols aimed at them.

“OK, youse boys, come quietly, and we won’t have to hurt you none.”

Dick stood up, followed by the others. He didn’t recognize the immediate surroundings, but judging from the sky, they weren’t far from where they had been captured. His one question was, Now what?

Return to chapter list

The Fanfic Writer: The lowest form of geek?

Whenever I’ve mentioned writing fan fiction to friends or family, I get the usual reactions. Many people seem to think that all fanfic is bad — that fanfic writers are the lowliest type of geek in all geekdom. According to this line of thought, it’s so bad that fanfic writers routinely use nicknames rather than their own names when publishing their stories. And it’s not just that fanfic is badly written and juvenile, but that it’s all a bit seedy.

Yes, there’s a lot of questionable fanfic out there dealing with mainstream movie and TV characters that deals exclusively with seeing what happens when two or more characters hook up, and unfortunately a lot of those pairings are just… just wrong, especially when they deal with underage characters like those in the Harry Potter franchise. Definitely NSFW. And there are also several fanfic stories out there referred to as the Mary Sue variety, in which a character based on the author is written into the story and manages to almost singlehandedly save the day and win the heart of the hero or heroine.

Yeah, a lot of fanfic is bad, but that doesn’t mean it should all be lumped together and dismissed as not worth your time. It’s just that there’s so much fan fiction out there that it can be hard to find anything you’d want to read. Just look at FanFiction.net for a sample of how much fanfic is out there. And even that site only holds a fraction of the fanfic available on the web. A good rule of thumb for judging fanfic, as with almost anything else, is that quality varies.

The kind of fan fiction that I love, and the kind that I write and edit, has more to do with a love of characters and settings and wanting to tell stories with those characters in those settings. Writing fan fiction is akin to beginning a career in an entry-level position. It’s just easier to tell stories using characters that your readers are already familiar with (though by the same token you’d better be familiar enough with them to characterize them well). And since your readers are already familiar with those characters, you’ve already got a built-in potential audience for your stories. As writers of fiction know, it’s very hard to build an audience for your stories. Writing fanfic is a shortcut to building an audience for your writing.

But does that mean fan fiction is a stepping stone toward writing mainstream fiction? It can be, and it has been for a few professional writers. But for the vast majority of fanfic authors, it’s an end in itself. At the Five Earths Project, we’ve published stories by writers who had never written stories before, but they’ve not only discovered a love for writing fanfic that they likely wouldn’t have had if they had gone the mainstream route, they’ve been able to improve their writing through instant feedback from both readers and writers.

I question the traditional mainstream route these days, anyway. Publishing has changed and keeps on changing drastically in recent years. The Internet has given everyone online the opportunity to be heard and even to be published online, and traditional ways to get published no longer apply. There are self-published authors who have found mainstream success by defying those traditional ways and trying whatever works best in the digital age.

I’ve read comments from professional writers, usually older ones, who complain about people just giving away free content and making it harder to earn a living as a writer. While I understand where they’re coming from — I’ve been working as a writer/editor for a few years now but have found much more demand for my web development and graphic design services — this is the world we live in now. The successful writers of today are those who accept the way the digital age works and find new and innovative ways to market their writing. So I reject the idea that free content provided freely to the masses is a threat to the livelihood of creative people.

But what about the fact that fan fiction deals almost exclusively with characters created by and owned by others?

First, while it’s true that most of the characters featured in the stories published by the Five Earths Project are owned by DC Comics and other publishers, our writers have also introduced a significant number of new characters. And all of our stories, except those directly adapted or expanded from a comic-book story or film script, are original.

Second, as we’ve always stated in our legal notice in the footer, we write these stories out of sheer love of the characters, not in an effort to compete with the publishers or copyright holders who own them. Many, if not most, of our writers still collect monthly comics or collected editions from the publishers on a regular basis, and we believe our stories have created a certain amount of buzz that helped bring back older characters that the publishers had largely forgotten about. And we have certainly never made any money off of these characters, nor do we ever intend to. For us, writing and reading the fan fiction we’ve produced is just plain fun. It’s also a way of having new stories about characters who for the most part no longer exist in comics — Ambush Bug, Captain Carrot, a whole host of Golden Age comic-book characters such as Captain Triumph, and characters by defunct publishers such as Fawcett Comics, Charlton Comics, and Quality Comics.

In the months to come, we hope to make our stories even more accessible than they already are by continuing to edit older archived stories to be consistent with the others, adding expository sequences that explain more about obscure characters, and providing links to other stories that tie in somehow. We also plan to unroll ebook versions of many of our stories in the most common formats, so that you can download our stories for easy reading on your e-reader device.

And we are looking for more talented people to join us! Soon the Five Earths Project will be expanding into a new sister site that features completely original characters and content created by a few of the Five Earths Project writers. This will be a commercial site with very affordable stories and novels for ebook readers who like various genres, such as action and adventure, science fiction, and, of course, superhero fiction. If writing fan fiction doesn’t interest you, perhaps writing and selling your own original fiction does. We’re also looking for talented artists to provide both the Five Earths Project and its sister site with title covers and promotional artwork. If you’re interested, please contact us.

Anyway, to answer the original question about why I write and edit fan fiction, it all boils down to this: Storytelling is my passion. And whether it’s writing my own stories or spending hours with others’ stories by improving them or introducing them to many more readers, I love it. And I hope that you will give us a try and read a story or two. Who knows? You just might like it.

If you’re interested in reading some of the stories at the Five Earths Project, I’d suggest checking out our Anthology page first. The stories on the Anthology page are all self-contained short stories that will give you a taste of the kind of writing available on our site. If you’re feeling a bit more ambitious, I’d suggest trying out the Superman, Batman, or Justice League title pages to read stories featuring those characters in chronological order. There are several more title pages available to read from if you’re interested in getting into the more obscure characters. These are all listed on the sidebar or on each of the Five Earths pages (Earth-1, Earth-2, Earth-4, Earth-S, Earth-X).

Kai Jansson, web developer, writer, and editor (paper bag on head removed)

We will, of course, continue to provide at least one new story each week for as long as we can. And if you have any requests, we’d be happy to consider them (just remember that we’re a clean site).

Happy reading!

Kai Jansson

Editor and web designer for the Five Earths Project
AKA Doc Quantum of the Time Trust

Blackhawk

The Cry of the Hawk

by Doc Quantum of the Time Trust

A sneak attack on the California coast and an escape to Washington, D.C., is a prelude to the formation of a new team of Blackhawks, led by Will Hawk, son of the original Blackhawk. Introducing Zinda Blake, Jimmy Chan, Elsa Hendrickson, Reed Grover-Baines, and Dmitri Pushkin, the new Blackhawks! Guest starring President Donald Daniel Richards (the former Manhunter) and Vice President Chuck Wilson (member of the original Blackhawks)!

• Chapter 1: A Day of Infamy

• Chapter 2: The New Blackhawks

Return to Earth-X titles. Return to Independents stories.

Return to chapter list

Will Hawk moaned loudly and awoke with a start, his heart pounding fast as a jackhammer.

“Are you all right, Will?” said the beautiful blonde Veronica Lake lookalike standing over him with a concerned look on her face.

“It was just the dream again,” he replied.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

Will couldn’t help but smile at the look of worry on Zinda Blake’s face. “I’m OK, honey. I could use a kiss, though.”

Zinda leveled her eyes at him. “I think you’re doing better. Personally, I think you’d be better off with a cold shower.”

He laughed lightly at that, glad for the company. The dream and variations of it had been plaguing him for the last two months, ever since he left California. If only it was nothing more than a dream, he thought. If only it wasn’t so close to the truth.

“Come on,” Zinda said, tossing him his clothes and opening up the curtains to let the morning sunshine in. “The Vice President’s waiting for you. You don’t want to keep him waiting like you did last time.”

“The V.P.’s an old family friend of mine,” said Will, smiling. “I really don’t think he’ll mind too much.”

Zinda looked back at him, deadly serious. “I think this time is an exception. President Richards is waiting for you as well, with some special guests they want you to meet. Now get ready.” At that, she stepped outside and closed the door just enough to give him privacy to change into his clothes.

Several moments later, Will and Zinda were walking together down the length of the White House hallways to the Oval Office. Will was again proudly dressed in uniform, this time for his chief commanding officer. Two Secret Service men at the door to the Oval Office allowed them in.

“Will! How are ya, bud?” said the Vice President, a smile on his face as usual. Even after he was drafted into politics, he’d always been an easygoing, down-to-earth kind of guy — except when he got angry, and it took a lot to get him angry.

“I’m doing much better, Mr. Vice President,” Will replied.

“I’ll have none o’ that, m’boy. Y’can always call me Chuck. If it was good enough for your father — may he rest in peace — it’s good enough for you.”

“Now, now, Chuck. You’re embarrassing the boy,” said the man next to him, the President of the United States of America. He extended a welcoming hand to the young pilot. “Dan Richards. Pleased to meet you, Captain Hawk.”

“The honor is all mine, sir — and you can call me Will,” he said, shaking his hand. As a president, Donald Daniel Richards — known affectionately to the public as DDR — was easily as popular as his predecessor, Brian O’Brien, and almost as well-regarded as JFK or FDR.

President Richards examined the U.S. Air Force pilot soberly. “Son, we’ve brought you here to the White House for a reason. Chuck, here, has assured me that you’re every bit the man that your father was, maybe even more. What I want to know is – are you?”

Will hadn’t expected the question. “I could never replace my father, sir. He was a hero.”

“I’m not asking if you could replace your father, Will,” said the president. “I’m asking you if you’re up to the task we’re about to propose to you.”

The son of Blackhawk stopped to consider. He was being put to the test, he knew. The President wanted to see if he was made of the right stuff.

“I am, sir,” he said with conviction. “Consider me at your service.”

President Richards continued to examine him, his stare evenly met by the young pilot’s matching gaze. Finally, the President smiled and patted Will on the shoulder. “I think Chuck may be right about you, after all. You are every bit your father’s son.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Will, I’d like you to meet a few brave young men — young people such as yourself. You may know some of them, may have heard of the others.” The President motioned to a couple of Secret Service agents to bring them in.

A smile broke upon his face as Will recognized the first man. “Jimmy!” he said excitedly as he regarded his longtime friend. Thanks to their fathers being members of the famed Blackhawks, the two had known each other their whole lives. “What brings you here? I thought you were living up in Vancouver now.”

Jimmy Chan smiled, nodding at the President and Vice President, and replied, “Hopefully for the same reason you’re here, Will. Our countries need us.”

The next man to walk in was Dmitri Pushkin. Will had heard of him and his so-called Rocket Red Squadron over in Russia. If the reports were true, this man could equal the best American pilots any day. Will shook his hand and was received with a wide, crooked smile behind the Russian’s beard.

Behind the two men walked Elsa Hendrickson, daughter of the famed Hans Hendrickson of the Blackhawks. Will greeted his old friend with a warm hug, biting back a patronizing remark about how beautiful she had become, now that she was all grown up.

Two other men Will didn’t recognize followed her in, one a regal-looking black man and the other a Spaniard who resembled another of his so-called uncles.

“Will, I’d like you to meet Reed Grover-Baines of England,” said the President.

The Englishman stepped up and shook Will’s hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“The pleasure is all mine,” said Will. “Am I correct in assuming that you’re the pilot responsible for rescuing the Queen and bringing the Royal Family to safety in Canada?”

Reed smiled politely and said, “You’re giving me too much credit. It was Sir Justin Sheldrake who saved the Royal Family. I just came along for the ride.”

“No need to be modest, Reed,” said the President. “You were, after all, the co-pilot.” He turned to another man. “And this is Paco Herrera. He’s Andre Blanc-Dumont’s nephew.”

“So you’re Andre’s nephew!” said Will ecstatically as he shook the Spaniard’s hand.

“Yes,” Paco said with a slight accent as he returned the handshake. “My mother was Andre’s half-sister.”

“He was a good man,” said Will. “I was very young when he was killed, but I remember how he always had chocolate for me.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” President Richards said, addressing the seven men and women in the room, “the reason I’ve brought you all here is this. As you all know, the unthinkable has happened — Nazi Germany, thought to be long extinct, has risen again from the underground and attacked our world. Even the continental United States has been attacked and partly occupied by an Imperial Japanese faction working with the Nazis. No single goverment has been able stop them yet, nor should any of us try to go it alone in the face of this worldwide crisis.

“Our world has been attacked by a very powerful enemy, one that has held everyone under its thrall before, and one that seeks to do so again. The only thing stopping them are the hearts and minds of good people all over this green Earth. But the battle for morale, which is the first battle we need to win, is one of the most difficult battles of all.

“We’ve all seen the Nazi propaganda and the claims they’ve made that extraterrestrials — aliens from the planet Mars, no less — are helping them win this war. The Nazis claim that the Martians have recognized the so-called superiority of the Aryan race and have rallied behind it, supporting the Nazi cause with amazing technology and their greatest warrior, whom they’re calling the Manhunter.”

President Dan Richards wore a look of disgust as he said the name. It had been decades since he’d been a rookie policeman who took the law into his own hands as the vigilante crimefighter known as the Manhunter, but he knew the choice for that name was deliberate.

“The Nazis are currently winning the war for morale, ladies and gentlemen,” continued the President. “Some of us may laugh at the idea of a Manhunter from Mars, but I can assure you that the people of Russia are not laughing. As Dmitri can tell you, this genetic abomination the Nazis are calling the Manhunter is currently slaughtering hundreds of men, women, and children every day in the Ukraine and Russia.”

“Da. It is true,” said Dmitri grimly. “I have seen the monster at work myself. He has slaughtered village after village, almost enjoying it. It is like he does not even care as much about the military victory as the killing itself.”

“And as if that were not enough,” continued President Richards, “this so-called Martian is the leader of a group of sadistic men with super-powers who have also been given the names of our world’s heroes. The S.S. Ubermenschen is no joke, people. With the Freedom Fighters gone missing ever since the Crisis on Infinite Earths and the lack of any real opposition, this team of Nazi super-agents has captured the public’s imagination in a way we never dreamed possible only two months ago.

“To add insult to injury, except for the Ray, the names that most of these men have taken — the Red Torpedo, Magno, the Invisible Hood, Neon the Unknown — are the names of some of our dearest heroes. The men who originally held these names died in a mission led by Uncle Sam to prevent a sneak attack on a U.S. naval base called Pearl Harbor. While they were unknown at the time, the world now knows how they died in a valiant but doomed attempt to stop a war. They may not have stopped a war, but their deaths brought about a much larger and more powerful team of Freedom Fighters that helped eventually win that war. (*) And I will tell you this, ladies and gentlemen — I won’t have their names dragged through the mud much longer.

[(*) Editor's note: See "Crisis on Earth-X: The Prequel," All-Star Squadron #32 (April, 1984).]

“Uncle Sam and his Freedom Fighters may be missing either temporarily or for good, but we can’t pause for one minute to wonder where they are or whether they survived the Crisis at all. (*) What the world needs now, more than ever, are heroes.

[(*) Editor's note: See Freedom Fighters: The Fight Continues.]

“Your fathers, Will, Jimmy, and Elsa, and your uncle, Paco — they fought and died battling this evil that has been set loose upon the world once again, leaving behind only two survivors. As Chuck can tell you, it wasn’t an easy fight. And they lost good men along the way. But they never gave up, even in the face of certain destruction. As you all know, the world lost the Blackhawks in 1968 when they made a valiant but doomed attempt to destroy the Nazi mind-control devices before they went on-line and enslaved the entire world. As one of the precious few unaffected by the rays, I can tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that in 1968 things looked bleaker than they ever had before. And yet, a mere five years later, the scourge of Nazism was wiped clean from the face of the world.

“Today we face another disaster of seemingly unsurmountable proportions. Mere hours after the Crisis, as the world was just starting over and picking up the pieces, we learned that Nazism was not merely something to be remembered but that it lives on to this day. We learned that the moment those Nazi bastards came from nowhere and overran the globe in a record amount of time, establishing a Fourth Reich and turning the world back to war. And now the fight continues. It’s almost as if the last thirteen years had never even occurred, as if those years of peace had been a mere interval between times of war. But I will tell you this: It won’t be another five years before the world regains its freedom. I know this, because even without the Freedom Fighters, the world still has heroes. And heroes are what the world needs now more than ever.”

President Dan Richards paused to look into the faces of each of the men and women standing in front of him and said, “Will, Zinda, Jimmy, Elsa, Reed, Paco, Dmitri — the world needs all seven of you to stand against the powers of darkness. The world needs the Blackhawks once more. Will you be the heroes that our world so desperately needs? Will you be the new Blackhawks?”

Captain William Hawk looked around the room. He saw Zinda smile at him, and Jimmy give him a slight nod. He saw the others nod their assent as well, and he looked at Vice President Chuck Wilson, who gave him a thumb’s-up sign.

“I think I speak for us all, sir,” said Will, grinning, “when I say we’d be proud to serve.”

“If Uncle Sam were here, I know what he’d say,” said the President, smiling broadly. “We beat ‘em before – and we can beat ‘em again!”

Vice President Chuck Wilson shouted in a Texan drawl, “And don’t forget to give ‘em hell, boys!”

The room erupted with applause and the famous whooping cry of the Blackhawks:

“Hawk-a-a-a!”

The End

Return to chapter list

Return to chapter list

Wednesday, August 7, 1985, two days after the Crisis on Infinite Earths:

Captain William Prohaska Hawk and Captain Travis “Ace” Jordan strode, almost swaggering, down the hallway of an Air Force base in Santa Barbara, California. They felt on top of the world. True, they were the best of the best, but it was not that fact that made them happy this day.

The reason the two were so jubilant was that they had a hot double date with two of the most beautiful girls in California. Will’s date was Zinda Blake, a fellow United States Air Force Academy alumni and pilot in her own right. And Travis’ date was Tara Ferris Jordan, his beautiful wife and the mother of his child.

“So what do you think, Will?” Travis asked his best friend with concern. He was a tall, Nordic-looking man with pale blonde, almost white hair and a non-regulation white goatee that he’d grown over his leave. He was in his thirties and still in peak physical shape. “You think the Nazis are trying to make a comeback?”

Will Hawk was silent for a moment. The younger man, in his late twenties, had jet-black hair, a strong jawline, and a hawklike nose. Anyone who met him noted that his blue eyes were unnaturally piercing, like those of a bird of prey. Now he averted those eyes and tried to keep things irreverent. “All I know is what I’ve seen on the news, buddy,” he said. “It looks like they were making an attempt on Europe this morning. It’s been a virtual news blackout since then. I wish I knew.”

“Sorry, man,” Travis said, patting Will on the back. “I know you hate the Nazis for what they did to your dad. He was a great hero.”

Will smiled and said, “Yeah, I miss my dad. I wish he could see me now. But I’d like to think he would be proud of me, being the head of my own air squadron and all.”

“Hey, what were Larry and Nate up to tonight, anyway?”

Shrugging, Will said, “Probably the same as us, Ace. You gotta love these California girls. Hey, what’s that?” He pointed up into the sky at some moving objects.

“Oh, God, no,” Travis said after a moment. “They’re bombers! Run for it!”

***

It all began so peacefully, didn’t it? We were walking down the long hallway, my best friend and I, proudly dressed in our uniforms, all smiles, spit ‘n’ polished. And we were ready to take our best girls out for a night on the town. Nothing’s too good for my girl.

Then there’s the first shock. A bomb. And not too far away. They’re bombing us, we realize in horror!

Running. We’re running down the long hallway, trying to make it to the exit to see what’s happening. My baby. She’s in trouble.

Gaaah! An explosion blows out the wall behind me, and I’m sent flying toward the door. I black out for a few moments, only to awake just outside. Travis strikes my face for what seems to be the second time in an attempt to rouse me, and I grab his wrist before he can do it a third time. He gives me a firm nod, and I pick myself up in a moment of clarity and follow him. Barely conscious, I look up to see the hordes of jets in the air strafing the field. There’s no way. No. My baby’s gone. They’ve bombed her. My jet-black baby. Now only a smoldering ruin.

***

Will and Travis went running for the airfield just as the first wave of bombs ended. They quickly search for any undamaged fighter jets to take the fight into the air, but it was no use. The entire field was a smoking ruin. Nearby, rounds of antiaircraft fire were trying with limited success to shoot down the second wave of bombers. But as for the two pilots, they were grounded, and there was nothing more frustrating than that.

“They’re heading into the city!” cried Travis. “Damn it!”

“Over here!” said Will, pointing to a couple of antiaircraft guns. The gunners had been killed by shrapnel, but the guns themselves were undamaged. “At least we might be able to get a few of those bastards before they hit the city!”

Jumping into place, they began firing round after round into the attacking warplanes, which they couldn’t help but notice were painted with the insignia of the old Empire of Japan. Overnight, it seemed, the political landscape of the world had reverted to thirty or forty years earlier. Did this world love war so much that it could just pick up where the last war left off as if no time had passed?

“Ace, look over there!” Will said, pointing to the far end of the field, where the smoke had cleared enough for them to see that a few planes were still undamaged. ”Isn’t that Larry and Nate?”

“Yeah,” Travis replied. ”They’re trying to take off. Let’s keep ‘em safe.”

“You got it,” said Will. The two trained their antiaircraft guns to the sky above the field. With any luck, their fellow pilots would be taking the fight into the air.

On the airfield, Nate Trainor scrambled into the cockpit of his jet and started up the engines. Larry Adam did likewise, but half a second later a bomb hit, blowing up both the plane and Larry within it.

“Aw, no!“ screamed Travis, watching from afar. ”Larrryyy!”

“He’s dead, Ace!” said Will, his mind quickly focusing on the next problem, despite his injuries. ”Nate, get it in gear!” he muttered, knowing his buddy couldn’t hear him. “You’ve gotta get out of there, man!”

But the jet didn’t respond. And in another moment, Nate Trainor was also destroyed in a blast.

“Nooo!”

***

Another blast knocks me out for I don’t know how long, and where I was there’s only a crater left, and I realize I’m alone. I run. There was nowhere left to run, but I run. It really is the Nazis, I realize — or the Japanese, if the rumors about an Imperialist coup there are true. Somehow they’ve managed this sneak attack without being detected. Just too fast, I guess. I keep on running. Along the walls, toward the barracks. Toward my buddies. My buddy? Wasn’t my best friend with me a second ago? Oh, well. No time to worry about that now.

Twenty feet from the barracks, a bomb drops on it, blasting it all to pieces. I scream. All of them, dead. Dead. Tears are streaming down my face now. Or is it blood? I can’t see that well, but I keep running. My father would’ve expected me to keep running. And so I do. Away from the barracks. Away from the base. Somehow I manage it, and not just me. Travis catches up with me, and it’s a good thing, too — I can’t keep my mind clear from the red haze infesting it. Somehow we manage to get away without being killed. We find a Jeep and head into the city to get our girls.

***

Zinda Blake rose from the shattered ruins of the restaurant she and Tara Ferris-Jordan had been waiting at. Although her memory was extremely fuzzy, Zinda remembered having heard explosions and screaming.

“Tara?” Zinda brushed her long blonde hair out of her face and looked around, but her vision was blurry. The smoke didn’t help things much. “Tara, where are you?”

Seeing a hand from beneath some debris, Zinda rushed over and uncovered it. It was Tara, barely conscious. Her dark auburn hair was red with blood. “Tara!” she screamed.

“Z-Zinda… I’m… I’m dying. F-find Xeo. K-keep him safe.” Tara winced from the pain, fighting for consciousness for another moment, and finally said, “P-please tell Travis I — I l-love…” At that, she went limp. Zinda could tell she was already dead.

After a moment, she realized that someone was shouting. “Zinda! Tara! Where are you?”

Zinda heard the shouts. It was Will, thank God. She called back, weakly, “O-over here.” She was already losing a lot of blood and felt like she was going to pass out.

Will Hawk and broke through the smoke and found her, Travis Jordan hot on his heels. Travis had driven like mad back into the city as Will tried to keep from passing out in the passenger seat. Travis was silent all the way; he had known something was very wrong. And when the two pilots found the bombed and smoking restaurant where they were supposed to meet the girls, it seemed that all their worst fears were realized.

But while Will’s girlfriend was injured and looked hurt, it didn’t seem to be too serious. “Zinda, honey, are you all right?”

“T-Tara…” Zinda began weakly. “Sh-she…”

“Tara!” cried Travis, seeing the dead body of his wife. Grief-stricken, he fell to his knees and began to weep bitterly. “Oh, God, no… No, no, no…”

“Ace, we’ve… we’ve got to go…” said Will.

After several moments, Will was finally able to rouse Travis from his stupor. They made their way back to the Jeep, but only after Travis insisted on bringing Tara’s body along with them. Spotting bomber planes in the dusky sky, Will turned off the headlights and drove off as fast as he could.

Not long after, they were back at the hangar just as it began to get dark. “It’s time for us to escape, Ace. We’ve got to get to D.C. to warn them — tell them what’s happened. My father had contacts there, which I’m sure I could look up. Ace?” Will looked over at his friend. “Travis?”

Travis Jordan still held the limp body of Tara Ferris in his arms. “You go ahead, Will. You and Zinda get out of here — now.”

“Ace, listen to me,” began Will. “You’ve got more to worry about than yourself. What about your son? What about Xeo?”

“Now, Will,” Travis insisted. “I’ve got to bury my Tara. It’s what I have to do. I’ll be on my way shortly. Just leave. Now.”

Knowing the stubbornness of his friend, Will and Zinda went in search of a plane.

***

I know I’m in shock, because everything in those hours — or were they days? — is almost a blank, except for one thing. I know my buddy’s girl died, but mine survived.

It’s nearly nightfall, and Zinda and I are wandering around the charred ruins of jet planes. I think I must be going crazy when I spot an undamaged fighter jet. It’s my baby, painted jet black. By some miracle, it’s only been singed. I think to myself, it’s only twenty minutes to Nevada, and the Axis forces can’t have cemented their occupation of California just yet.

Still in shock, I jump into the cockpit, Zinda right behind me, and attempt to take off. It works. Somehow we make it to Nevada and to an American base there. I can’t remember anything between the takeoff and the landing, but I know it had to have been a miracle that we made it out of there.

The uniformed men at the base are both shocked and suspicious at our arrival. And then they realize who I am, who my father was. It doesn’t hurt to have a father who’s a renowned war hero, especially if he was known as Blackhawk.

***

The blitzkrieg attack orchestrated by the Nazis and Imperial Japanese was at several key locations around the world and was almost simultaneous. Thanks to the sabotage of Nazi sympathizers, power outages and media blackouts ensured that news of the attacks could not spread far. In a world still attempting to overcome the Nazi occupation of the 1960s and early 1970s, it was a terrific shock. Who would have thought that history could repeat itself in such a drastic way?

Dmitri Pushkin was a member of the elite Soviet Rocket Red Brigade, Russia’s premier defensive air patrol. When the news of the Nazi invasion of England and parts of Europe broke out, Dmitri was chosen to go to the United States to coordinate a defense. It was only a matter of time before the Germans would attempt another invasion of the Motherland.

Paco Herrera was visiting relatives in Spain when the Nazi wave hit. Although now only a mail-plane pilot, he had been a resistance fighter during the days of the war. Now another war was here, and Paco knew it was time to fight. He escaped to America with his cousins.

Elsa Hendrickson was the only daughter of the famed Hans Hendrickson, a member of the elite Blackhawk squadron who had died fighting the Nazis in the last war. Now twenty-two years old, she was raised to be the best of the best. Her piloting skills were without equal in her homeland of Holland. And it was Holland she was worried about now, because while visiting friends in the U.S., it had been invaded once again by the Nazis in a quick, decisive invasion that had left everyone wondering exactly how they had done it.

Reed Grover-Baines had been at Dover Airfield in Kent County when the Nazis invaded England once more, this time in full force. He wanted to stay and fight for England, but his friend and mentor, war veteran Sir Justin Sheldrake, had a critical mission to perform and wanted Reed’s help. For the future of the nation, they needed to fly Queen Elizabeth and the Royal Family to safety in Canada, and they were the only men able to do the job.

Jimmy Chan was a young, hotshot pilot from Vancouver, Canada. He was twenty-five years of age and the son of Weng Chan, youngest member of the Blackhawks. His father had been one of only two members of the Blackhawk squadron to survive the war and had filled the young boy’s head with stories of honor and glory. Now grown up, Jimmy was on his way to try to live up to the legacy, and just in time, too. For the Nazis were back and had now invaded most of Europe, England, North Africa, and now Southern California. He called his father, who told him to look up a certain old friend.

Return to chapter list

Enjoy!

(Direct link to video)

From the description:

A compilation of images from Freedom Force and the JSA All-Star Story Site fanfiction archives set to the tune of the Michael Kohler’s “The Time Is Now”. Freedom ForceSkins and meshes created by various members of the Freedom Force community (www.freedomreborn.net). I didn’t create any of them.

The Brave and the Bold: Whiz Kid and Savant

The City of Truth

The Race crossover

by Dan Swanson

It’s hard to be a couple of teenagers in love — especially when one is a superhero and the other is a super-villainess! Savant decides it’s time to face the truth in a unique way — by bringing Whiz Kid and herself into an advanced simulation in which they can live new lives free from all worldly burdens for a short time, so they can really figure out how they feel about each other. But even this worry-free simulation comes with its own set of consequences, and truth is not always easy to learn!

• Prologue: Simulations

• Chapter 1: Playing God

• Chapter 2: City in a Bottle

• Chapter 3: Second Life

• Chapter 4: The History of Candor

• Chapter 5: The Adventures of Nightbird and Flamewing

• Epilogue: A City of Lies?

Return to Earth-2 titles. Return to Junior JSA stories. Return to Villains stories. Return to Team-Up stories.

Return to chapter list

Within instants Whiz Kid returned to Henrietta King’s laboratory, although this time he was moving at invisibly high speed. His presence would certainly be noted, however, as the bottle city of Candor simply vanished from the lab.

Only a few seconds later, Alfred Beagle was helping him set up Candor in its new home in the Batcave. John Garrick gave him the entire story, including Henrietta’s fictional backstory and everything he had learned during a super-speed, ultra-thorough investigation of the bottle and its supporting equipment, using some of the advanced equipment he had access to as a member of the Junior JSA. In particular he had made sure that there was no way for Savant to continue to monitor events or people inside the city or even to locate it.

***

That night in his bedroom in one of the sleeping cars on the campaign train, John awoke in a cold sweat as a realization suddenly hit him. When he had come back from Candor, why had Savant’s teammates already been there watching the video transmissions from inside Candor? Had he remained unconscious long enough for her to have rounded them up, or had they been watching the whole thing from the beginning?

Savant had the modus operandi of playing mind-games with guys. It wasn’t usually with young guys like him, it was true, but that was how she made her living. Was this whole thing just another example? He didn’t believe it; he really liked her, and he really wanted to trust her. But how could he know? How could he ever know? Heck, how did he know that the whole Candor thing wasn’t just an illusion? After all, her father the Brain Wave had been capable of creating extremely advanced, detailed illusions that had fooled even the Justice Society on a few occasions in the past. Sure, the bottle city was physical in nature, since it was now on display in the Batcave, but he could not know whether he had actually manipulated one of the Candorian bodies or merely thought he had.

He resolved that the next day he was going to have a serious talk with his folks about the nature of reality. And then he would talk to some of the members of the JSA about how to protect himself from illusions and mental control in the future. He figured that Doctor Fate and the Spectre in particular ought to have some good advice.

The End

Return to chapter list

Return to chapter list

“One thing I don’t understand, Hank…” Dollface and Faust both looked a little dismayed at John Garrick’s easy use of the Dolly’s nickname for Henrietta King; nothing good could come out of a romance between their leader and one of the good guys.

“Only one thing, Johnny-Boy?” said Henrietta, a hard edge in her voice; he had called her by her brother’s name for the first time. “You really are a genius, aren’t you?”

Whiz Kid ignored her teasing. “Why would you put a deadly monster into your bottle city? I thought you cared about the people there?” He was clearly puzzled and concerned.

“Oh, Godzilla, there, isn’t really dangerous. He’s a strict vegetarian, and he’d never actually threaten anyone. He’s just there to provide the Candorians with a scare and a challenge every now and then.”

“Um, Savant, if Godzilla’s a herbivore, why did he just eat that dog?” asked Stretch O’Brien, concern in his voice as his wife Maggie turned away and retched. “And his tail just wiped out that whole building — I hope nobody was inside!”

“Oh, no! Something’s wrong!” Something very like horror played across Henrietta’s face, and John realized that she wasn’t just pretending.

“Can you use your powers to control it?” he asked, thinking fast.

“The temporal-distortion grid interferes with my powers. There’s nothing I can do!”

“Look! Here come the heroes!” Dolly yelled. “Boo-ooo!”

On the screen, a brightly colored flying vessel flashed past the monster’s head, distracting it.

***

The city wasn’t Tokyo or New York, and the countryside didn’t look familiar at all. Somewhere deep in Godzilla’s mind, the monster knew it was lost. But it was hungry, and from previous adventures with these bipedal animals, it knew they made a tasty snack. The dog had been good but far too small to do anything more than whet its appetite. It also remembered that in the past, the bipeds always initially ran away, but they always returned later and attacked. They weren’t dangerous, never anything more than annoyances, but their flying allies had nasty stingers. Deciding to eat and run before they could set up their attack, it exhaled a cloud of poisonous vapor at the fleeing figures on the ground in front of it, and strode forward to gather up its meal.

Never before in its memory had bipeds reacted as these did. They leaped into the air, prodigious leaps carrying them far out of reach of the monster’s breath weapon. It roared in anger and then began pursuit. It could move much faster than the jumpers, and it would catch them and pluck them out of the air like ripe fruit from a tree — although here in the bottle, the trees weren’t quite real trees, and this seeming reincarnation of a famous movie monster had never eaten fruit.

A brightly colored flying thing flashed in front of the monster’s face, distracting it, and it turned to follow the vessel’s flight path. It was a stubby cylinder that appeared to be about forty feet long, ten feet in diameter, with wings that appeared much too small to support it, tapering to a point in front, with a very large jet in the back. It was colored a wild mixture of red, orange, yellow, blue, and black.

Godzilla began pursuing it — this flying thing was just the right size to make a good meal. The flier pulled ahead, then stopped, hovering in place, and spun in the air to face the monster. A panel in the front opened, exposing a cannon, which immediately fired a package of some sort. The packaging sloughed away, revealing a net, spinning and expanding as it flew toward the monster’s face.

Inside the car, Henrietta’s alter ego Nightbird had just fired the multi-blaster. The largest net package they carried would wrap up about four Candorians, but it wasn’t nearly large enough to entangle the monster. She was puzzled. “With all the years of preparation we’ve done, why haven’t we developed gear for fighting a monster? Everything we have is designed for use against other Candorians! That net might slow it down a little, is all…”

Indeed, the net flew rather slowly. It was designed to capture a leaping Candorian, trapped by gravity and the laws of physics into moving along a ballistic flight path. The monster saw it coming and slashed at it with its left paw. The electrical charge on the net discharged, and the monster’s entire foreleg went numb. It was a much better result than Nightbird had expected.

With a roar, the monster turned back toward the hovering plane, and the pilot — John’s alter ego, Flamewing — sent it roaring away. He had to perform some fancy acrobatic maneuvers to keep away from the clouds of acid the monster breathed out, and at the top of one loop, Nightbird fired her ejection seat.

“Jungar, I’ll keep his attention on me while you get the last of the spectators out of harm’s way!” she radioed as she flew to the ground. Landing in front of the beast, she stood with legs spread, arms outstretched, leaning slightly backward, and then she seemed to grow until she was even larger than the monster. The monster charged this new danger, not intimidated in the least at facing a larger foe.

Godzilla rushed toward the athletically built woman in the gray and green armor, the colors of the nocturnal nightbird. It breathed acid at her, but she was unaffected, so it switched to a physical attack. Almost faster than a normal human could see, the beast’s tail whipped around and slashed at Nightbird’s head.

The giant heroine seemingly vanished completely, and the monster spun partway around and stumbled, off-balance when the tail didn’t meet any resistance. She reappeared, now behind the monster, and quickly lifted its tail high off the ground. Off-balance as it was, it fell sideways and crashed heavily to the ground. Before it could recover, she delivered a quick kick to the side of its head.

Meanwhile, Flamewing had piloted the Nightflame — their flying vessel — toward the few Candorians who had not yet fled and warned them away using the external loudspeaker. Putting the plane on autopilot, he used his jetpack to blast into the air, roaring toward the battle. In flight, he really did resemble the flame-colored flying reptile from which he took his code-name.

The monster was just getting to its feet when he flashed by. From a handheld weapon, he fired a dart at the monster’s snout. The dart trailed a line that unreeled from the gun. It impacted the monster’s jaw and stuck, and Flamewing quickly began wrapping the snout shut with the line by speeding in tight loops.

Godzilla stumbled again, its tail flailing wildly. The giant Nightbird, an illusion created by the heroine’s mental powers, disappeared as the tail accidentally struck her, and she was sent flying. Regaining its balance, the monster used the claws on the non-numb paw to shred the line on its snout — a line that had been designed to restrain Candorians, not an angry monster. Flamewing tumbled through the air and barely regained control before he smashed into the ground. He realized he was right on the edge of panic. Nothing in their lives of training had prepared them to fight a monster like this. And she thought Reeki might be seriously injured or even dead. Then, with a great deal of relief, he heard her voice.

“Jungar! We’ve got to come up with new tactics! We aren’t prepared to fight monsters — but we don’t have time for anything fancy!” She flashed into the air, flying close enough to the monster that it started following her. “As long as we can keep it following us, the city is safe, and we’ll have time to figure it out.”

Suddenly, his panic was eased. Wasn’t that just like his partner — always alert, always thinking. Together they’d figure out something.

***

Back in Gotham City, Savant’s friends were peppering her with questions while she banged away at her keyboard, trying to figure out what had gone wrong.

“Wow, Hank, the way Nightbird flipped that monster was neat!” said Dollface. “How did you give her super-strength? Do you have powers like that, too?” Dolly was ecstatic at the display from her friend’s alter-ego.

“It’s called tactile telekinesis, Dolly. I’ve got it, too, but it isn’t nearly as useful for me. It works so much better for her because they are all so much smaller. Even Godzilla is hardly the size of a flea’s egg.”

“Speaking of Godzilla,” Whiz Kid said, “what’s up with him?”

“I think I know what happened, but it should have been impossible. Look!” She typed a command, and the view on the monitor switched to one of the Godzilla movies, showing the monster walking out of the harbor and attacking a major city. “Bluestreak is a monster movie buff, and he left his videotapes here, since I told him it was possible to digitize them and store them on one of my advanced computers. Somehow, my genesis computer – the one that created Candor and everything in it — used the Godzilla movies as the basis for this giant monster instead of building it the way I programmed it.

“But that means that someone other than me was messing around with my computer. Whoever it is must know my password. But how could anybody know that? I’ve never told anyone, and never written it down anywhere!”

“Gee, Hank! And who’s smart enough to use your computers, anyway?” Dollface asked.

Faust interrupted, a little annoyed, “Can we figure this out later? We were just getting to the part where the monster eats the heroes, and I want to find out what happens!”

***

Candor:

“None of our regular routines will work on a monster this size, Jungar!” The roaring of the monster forced Nightbird to use her helmet radio, which allowed the Gotham City audience to listen in. “You make sure he keeps following us while I try to figure out some way to beat it!”

“But, Reeki–”

Nightbird cut off her partner’s response. ”Jun, I’m trying to think. Do your job!”

Flamewing slowed and aimed his rocket-pack at the monster. The flames didn’t seem to hurt it, but they did draw its attention, and it increased its pace. Jungar nudged his partner into a slightly new direction. Pacing them through the air was what seemed to be a crystal ball, and within it a miniature monster battled with even smaller versions of the Candorian crusaders. Nightbird was using Savant’s mental powers to try to work out a winning plan of attack.

***

Back in Gotham City, Dollface smirked at John Garrick. “He’s pretty whipped, ain’t he? She likes ‘em like that!” It wasn’t clear to Whiz Kid if Dollface was referring to Nightbird or Savant. Henrietta King was not happy with her friend.

“Shut up, Dolly! You know that Jungar and Reeki are not John and I. They are artificial beings with computer-generated personalities.”

John thought she was protesting too much. “You did say you chose them because their personalities were similar to ours…”

“She did – muph-thumph-thamp!” Dollface’s mouth was suddenly muffled as Stretch O’Brien elongated his arm and covered her mouth with his hand, but Faust managed to stick his two cents in.

“She didn’t tell you she made those two personally?” he asked, seemingly only mildly interested but always playing the manipulation game. “Hey, look what’s happening now!”

***

Candor:

Once again, Flamewing was trying to get his partner to listen to him, and once again she was blowing him off.

“Look, Jun, this is important. If we can’t beat this monster, it might devastate the city!” said Nightbird. Whoa! Watch it!” A massive blast of flame obliterated her crystal ball, stunning her into silence.

Flamewing quickly took advantage. ”Damn it, Ree, listen to me! When you come up with some way to defeat this monster, what are we going to do with it? Tie it up with the bird-arangs and bird-ropes and leave it for the police?” She looked stunned at his suggestion, since she obviously hadn’t thought that far ahead. ”Why do we have to beat it, anyway?” he continued. “Why don’t you just use your powers to convince it to go home — and stay home, eating fish from now on?”

Nightbird had obviously been about to explode in anger, and then she paused and thought for a second. Then, still without speaking, she stopped her flight and turned to face the beast. She glared at the monster for a couple of seconds, and it stopped roaring, turned, and headed straight for the sea.

Flamewing summoned the Nightflame, and as it flew toward them, the two heroes were clearly involved in a highly animated discussion.

***

But in Savant’s Gotham City apartment, the broadcast was shut down, and Henrietta King turned to her friends. “Once again, the Candorian crusaders save the world!” she announced brightly. “Anyone for pizza?”

Without the distraction of the video battle, John Garrick was suddenly struck with the incongruity of his situation. What was he, Whiz Kid — a member of the Junior JSA — doing sitting down with some of his team’s worst enemies? And was he really about to break bread with them? Their presence here might be legal right now, but he was sure they’d be on the wrong side of the law again soon.

“I really have to be getting back,” he said. “We’ve got another political rally scheduled tonight!” He turned directly to Henrietta. “Thanks for a really… interesting time! I’ll call you later!”

“Don’t forget me!” Whiz Kid heard Dollface call after him as he vibrated through the door and went on his way.

Return to chapter list

Return to chapter list

Long ago, on a world far, far away, in a process that is common throughout the universe, life evolved. And eventually a species of warm-blooded bipeds arose to dominate that world. Other species had superior physical characteristics — there were other animals on this planet that were bigger, stronger, faster, more agile, and more adaptable to environmental extremes — but this species was able to dominate because of their superior intelligence. They called themselves Dyrons, which meant intelligent bipedal mammal in one of their own languages, and they eventually called their planet Kutti, which meant, simply, home.

The Dyrons multiplied, spread, and started a civilization that grew to girdle the planet. They were neither exceptionally peaceful nor exceptionally warlike, and though they had a number of wars, these wars never seriously impeded the growth of civilization and the advance of technology.

On the very eve of their long-anticipated space age, disaster from the sky laid low the proud Dyron civilization. A rogue white dwarf star wandered into Kutti’s solar system, and the gravitational effects on the system and especially Kutti itself were devastating. Kutti was wracked by earthquakes, violent volcanic eruptions, dangerous weather, and deadly climate changes as the sky filled with soot, smoke, and dust — driving the planet into nuclear winter. Billions of Dyrons died in the disasters and the plagues and famines that followed.

Then the rogue star swept on out of the system, and the worst of the disasters lessened, the earthquakes stopped, and the Dyrons began the long, painful process of recovery. By now most of the planet was uninhabited and largely uninhabitable. Still, due to some freak of geology, there was a small region in the middle of the largest continent that had been spared the worst of the devastation, and it was to this region that survivors came for refuge. Some were able to make it there on their own, though millions died in the trek, and others were gathered in by desperate search and rescue teams. It was the last hope of the proud Dyronian civilization.

The gathered refugees each provided what they could to the rebuilding, and their tremendous efforts paid off. A city grew where there had been nothing, and the wilds around were transformed into food-producing farms. The Dyrons soon began to rebuild their civilization as the chaos around them started to subside. They called the city Candor.

It was touch and go for many years, but after about a hundred years of unceasing labor by all the survivors and their descendants, society’s survival experts declared that a threshold of sorts had been passed. Life would not be easy for any Dyron for hundreds of years yet to come, but it now seemed likely that the race would survive. For most of that hundred years, Candor could have been wiped out by even a couple of minor disasters coming in sequence, such as a bad crop-growing season followed by an extra-harsh winter, but no longer. There was a short celebration, and then people returned to work; as a race, they no longer had the capacity to celebrate.

And then the other shoe dropped. The rogue white dwarf had not passed totally through the system — it had been captured by the gravity of their sun into a very long-period orbit and was now heading back into the system. Within no more than a few months, it would return, and this time it wouldn’t just disrupt Kutti, it would actually collide with the devastated planet. After the heroic effort to build Candor and save their lives and their civilization, they were all going to die anyway, no matter what they did.

The only escape was by space, but there wasn’t time or remaining technology to build a space ark large enough to carry all the residents away from Kutti. A team of scientists, led by a genius named Rayniac, came up with a solution.

By studying the gravity of the white dwarf, Rayniac was able to develop a shrinking ray, and one of his colleagues developed a flying saucer. Sacrificing himself for the future of his civilization, Rayniac flew the flying saucer over Candor, used his shrinking ray, and placed the shrunken city into a bottle with an attached life support system. He then fled into deep space before the final disaster. He wouldn’t live to see it, but his computer-controlled saucer would search until it found a planet that would support Candor and the Dyrons.

Meanwhile, in the bottle city itself, all was not well. People began to resent their fate, and some blamed the scientists. There were demonstrations that escalated into riots, which escalated into deadly civil war, and civilization fell.

All contact between Rayniac and the miniature city was lost during the war. It had now been about a hundred generations since the end of the war, and technology had recovered to about the level of the 1950s on Earth, but contact with Rayniac had never been restored. Eventually, the Candorians lost their history. All that remained were legends of a great disaster in the distant past, trapping them in some kind of gigantic prison.

***

“Well, John, what do you think?” Henrietta King asked as the history concluded. She had spent long hours developing the background of Candor, and she was proud of the ingenious details she had created.

John Garrick was much less impressed. “There are an awful lot of holes in it, Henrietta. What about time dilation? How did a scientist on a planet that never even achieved space travel invent an interstellar vessel? How–?”

She interrupted him, angry as he pointed out these holes. “Geez, John! It’s frigging fiction! Give me a break!” She paused, drew a deep breath, and composed herself. “There’s a differential time-field built into the bottle itself, OK? The scientist was the greatest genius his race ever produced — and he was working to save the race. He achieved something extraordinary, all right?”

John was impressed that she had realized the problem of time-dilation and already planned for it. But he wasn’t satisfied. “Well, I’m just wondering — it seems as if the Candorians would ask the same kind of questions. Why don’t they?”

“They are programmed to believe their legends, and the first generation is programmed to not be very curious.”

She looked troubled, though, as she continued. “Still, that won’t last. Their life experiences are already altering them, and they will quickly become more curious about their past. I planted clues that will allow them to figure out the history you’ve just seen — recovering their lost history, as it were, and any discrepancies will be attributed to the chaos following the civil war. I hope–”

“I’d say that this society is about to enter a period of crisis, then, yes?” he asked. She nodded, agreeing with him. ”People who have been programmed to believe they had a complete life up to today are going to start realizing that they don’t like where they are or what they are doing. The personality of the librarian, for example, might be better suited as a politician, the stand-up comedian might realize he wants to be a medical researcher… that sort of thing. Right?”

She was slow to answer, afraid that he would become even more angry with her. But there was no way to avoid the truth. “Yes, that kind of scenario is likely. You’re right, there could be chaos! I’m sorry, John, I had no idea what I was doing!”

John shrugged. “I’ve figured that out. Since it’s too late to stop you, and we can’t simply destroy Candor, we need a plan to help these folks. Fortunately, you have a genius for a boyfriend…” He said this hesitatingly, but she didn’t contradict him. “And I’ve got a great plan! One thing, though — when we get out of here, I’m going to give the bottle to someone who’ll take good care of it.” This was not a polite request; it was a demand. And again, Henrietta didn’t contradict him.

“So, let me tell you my plan, and then let’s get started!”

***

They worked together for several hours, the two of them. These artificial bodies were not only incredibly strong (in their own milieu, at least) but also had fantastic stamina. Henrietta’s construction computer had equipped the top-of-the-sky aerie with every instrument, tool, or device her inventive mind could imagine, and the two young geniuses made effective use of most everything around them. While they were working, neither said a word about their relationship or their future, though each mind was filled with burning questions. Finally, all their preparations had been made, and it was almost time for them to return to their own bodies.

“You know, John, once we leave here, we can never come back,” she commented sadly. “These bodies will have developed their own unique personalities, and if we take them over again, we’ll not only disrupt their lives, but we might give away the big secret, too.”

John was overjoyed; he had come to that conclusion hours ago, but for him it was a morality issue, and he was uncertain that her morality would lead her to the same conclusion.

She continued, “The Candorians will eventually figure out their origin on their own, but I’d sort of like them to have a couple of generations of real life and real accomplishments behind them first. Stuff they can point to that proves that, regardless of their origin, they are real people.”

“We could animate some other bodies, couldn’t we?” he asked. He knew the answer but wondered what she would say.

“No — too many issues, and you know what they are!” He did. In particular, they would have to tamper with the memories of those new bodies, just as they were tampering with the memories of their current bodies. Even though he couldn’t see any alternatives, he was extremely uncomfortable doing that now. His parents had warned him about playing God, and he was learning more about the incredibly difficult responsibilities one took on when assuming that role.

“You don’t seem to have any such qualms about using your powers on other humans!” He hadn’t meant to say that, but suddenly it popped out. Well, it was an ugly fact, and it was bothering him, so it was best to get it out in the open now and deal with the consequences, even if it meant he would lose his girlfriend. He hoped he wouldn’t gain a nemesis in her place.

He had been sure that she would respond in anger. But she was thoughtful, instead. “I was thinking about that myself. It’s not totally true, you know. I have never used my powers on you or anyone else I care about. And I never will.” He nodded, doubtfully.

She continued. “I know it’s strange to you, but to me, most other people don’t matter. They are basically selfish, scheming nonentities who would take your last nickel and leave you for dead as soon as look at you. There is no such thing as an unselfish human being, John — take it from a telepath; I know!”

John realized he had know this about her all along, but his heart sank into his shoes when she actually stated it. He had hoped that her experience with him and with the Candorians might have changed her. Now it seemed that it hadn’t. But she wasn’t through.

“I guess,” she continued, disbelief creeping into her voice, “I’m feeling maternal about the beings in Candor! Birds and bees!” She used one of Dollface’s favorite exclamations. “Me, feeling maternal? It’s hard to believe!”

She laughed, but John didn’t join her. “Henrietta, before you got to know me, I was just another one of those selfish, scheming nonentities, wasn’t I? I don’t think you feel that way about me anymore. How can you be sure that everyone else wouldn’t turn out the same if you go to know them?”

In the middle of his sentence, an alarm went off. Henrietta jumped to a control panel in front of a bank of TV monitors while he was still speaking, and John was never sure if she had heard what he had to say. He suspected she had but hadn’t wanted to listen, so she’d used her powers to create a diversion.

“We need to return to our own bodies now! A wild monster has somehow made it into the city streets, and our alter-egos are needed!” She slapped a switch, and John’s awareness of the world snapped off like a lightbulb that had just burned out.

***

When Whiz Kid recovered consciousness in Gotham City back in the real world, he was lying in large cylinder. The hinged upper half of the cylinder was made of transparent Plexiglas and was now swung open. Almost instantly, he heard a voice whisper in his ear. It was Henrietta’s voice through a speaker.

“It’s about time you woke up, sleepyhead! You won’t be able to move for a few minutes, but that’s just a side-effect of the transfer process. Join us as soon as you can; we’re in the TV room, watching a special broadcast from Candor. I think you’ll enjoy it!” She laughed. “Oh, and don’t try to capture any of us — you would get in more trouble than it’s worth, since we’re all legally free right now. Wouldn’t look good for the son of the leading Presidential candidate to get busted for false arrest, would it?”

A mixture of cheers and boos came over the same speaker. When they quieted down again, Henrietta continued. “I’ve adjusted the temporal differential grid embedded in the bottle to keep things from starting until you get here, but the rest of the crowd is getting impatient. And I can’t keep Stretch from your popcorn much longer!”

Not far away he could hear cheers from a group of young people who appeared to be watching a sporting event. He immediately blurred into super-speed and was relieved to find that he had his full powers back. Apparently the transfer paralysis had worn off faster than Savant had expected.

In the TV room, he found the people who had been cheering, now seemingly motionless due to his super-accelerated state. He saw Savant and her friends and criminal partners Dollface and Faust, as well as Stretch O’Brien and a very pregnant woman who must be his wife. These members of the Junior Injustice Society were all in costume, seated in front of a giant TV screen with popcorn and soda, watching a monster movie.

Probably cheering for the monster, Whiz Kid thought with disdain. The monster looked familiar, so he looked closer; it was motionless. This must be a live feed from Candor! So that’s what Henrietta had meant about the temporal differential grid — she slowed downtime in the bottle when we left, so we can watch the first real adventure of the Candorian champions, Nightbird and Flamewing. Those were the names of the heroic alter egos that their Candorian bodies had when given their own set of false memories. It had been John’s suggestion that they become the city’s superheroes, and surprisingly Henrietta had not objected with anything more than a smirk.

Growing up as the son of the Flash, John Garrick had learned a lot about Earth-One not only through his father but through his Uncle Barry, the Earth-One Flash, who had regaled him with heroic tales of the Justice League of America and their allies on that world. Knowing something about that world’s Superman, John had recalled the existence of the bottle city of Kandor and had inwardly marveled at the similarly named counterpart that Savant had created with little to no knowledge of that parallel world. John knew that Kandor had its own champions, Nightwing and Flamebird, and he had suggested names based on them. He decided to let Henrietta think that he came up with the names Nightbird and Flamewing himself; there was no sense making her feel like she’d been caught up in the parallelism that often occurred between Earth-Two and Earth-One. Meanwhile, Henrietta had supplied their alter egos’ civilian names: Jungar and Reeki.

The monster looked familiar, very much like something he’d seen many times — Godzilla. And it seemed to have similar powers to that famous movie monster. Right now, slowed to immobility on the screen by the temporal differential grid and his own accelerated senses, it was belching a cloud of something toxic at a group of fleeing bystanders. John was relieved to see that the battle was occurring on the outskirts of Candor rather than downtown. Apparently he and Henrietta had left in time for the two heroes to intercept the monster outside the city.

His plan was working, yet he had rather hoped that the tiny titans could have had some easy cases before they had to battle anything really dangerous like this monster. Henrietta had left them with memories of an heroic life, with cases based on her own life as well as John’s, but there was no substitute for real experience. Well, he and Henrietta had done their best, and even the best, most experienced heroes had been rookies at one time in their careers.

Kicking into an even higher speed, Whiz Kid zipped off to FBI Headquarters in less than a femtosecond and quickly checked out the most wanted list. And he saw, incredibly, that Dollface and Faust were both out on parole, Henrietta’s current sentence was suspended awaiting a legal appeal by her lawyer, and Stretch had some kind of probationary pardon from the government. They were all — right now, at least — legal.

So he decided he would join them, pretend they weren’t villains, and enjoy The Adventures of Nightbird and Flamewing. He decided not to let Henrietta know about his almost-instant recovery or that he had already checked up on their bona fides. He walked into the TV room at normal speed.

“Hey, sleepyhead! You’re just in time — the credits have just finished!” joked Savant. She swatted Stretch’s elongated fingers away from a bowl of buttered popcorn. “Maggie, can’t you keep him under control? Or do I have to blast him with my liquid nitrogen squirt-gun? Plastic gets really brittle when it’s cold, Stretch!” she warned. “You wouldn’t be nearly so unbreakable then!”

Whiz Kid looked at the five villains appraisingly, and they looked back at him, each side warily waiting for the other to make the first move. As he had expected, it was Dollface. However, he would never in a million years have guessed what she was about to do.

“Hey, blue and blurry! Better think twice before you touch us!” Dollface said indignantly. She jumped to her feet, then flipped over to her hands, then back to her feet again, faster than anybody but John could follow. “We’re all here legit!” She did a cartwheel, ending right in front of him, and handed him some papers. “Check it out before you start any rough stuff!”

She leaned over and whispered in his ear. “I could sorta go for the rough stuff later, if you know what I mean…” And she was back in front of the screen.

Whiz Kid was stunned. Had Dollface just hit on him? Henrietta was looking tolerantly amused, but there was a thundercloud literally floating over Faust’s head. Stretch and Maggie hadn’t even looked away from the screen.

“Good group!” Henrietta said approvingly. “C’mon, John, have a seat. Action’s about to start.” And as she patted the sofa beside her, John couldn’t help but to flinch at her use of his real name in mixed company, even though Whiz Kid was publicly known as John Garrick, just as his father Jay Garrick was known to be the Flash. Dolly turned her head, a big smile on her face. “On the screen, Dolly!” Henrietta practically shouted in exasperation.

In some sense, it was a case of déjà vu – John and Henrietta sitting down in front of a big TV screen, watching a drama together. Only this time, it wasn’t fiction. This time, lives were on the line.

Return to chapter list

Return to chapter list

Something was making John Garrick uneasy. “Henrietta, you are going to be putting us back in our own bodies, right?”

Henrietta King smiled seductively. “I have… plans for you first, John, but eventually, yes, we both go back to our old selves — with some new memories and something to look forward to when we come back again.”

There, that was it. “What will happen to these bodies when we leave? Will they just lie around in some kind of trance or something?”

Henrietta was startled. “Why, I don’t know, John. I hadn’t thought about it. Hold on…” John could almost hear her brain whirring at high speed. Then her expression changed — her eyes widened, and she looked very solemn, and then, to his astonishment, she started crying.

He pulled her close, and she sobbed against his shoulder for a minute or so. Finally, her crying subsided, and she was just sobbing every couple of seconds. He had not dared talk to her while she was crying — he had no idea what was wrong and had no idea what to say. But it seemed as if holding her and staying quiet had been the best answer, even though it tore at his heart to see her cry.

“So, what’s the matter…?” he stopped abruptly. He wanted to call her something other than Henrietta, some kind of pet name, but he didn’t know what she answered to. Hen and Etta seemed somehow disrespectful.

“Oh, John, I’ve done a terrible thing! You might not know, but I had a terrible childhood.” In fact, he did know, but now didn’t seem like the right time to tell her he had spied on her during childhood using his time-viewer. “I interrupted Mama’s career, and she never wanted a baby, and she hated me, but she kept me around because she didn’t want to spoil her image, and sometimes the men she was seeing would bring me gifts that she could trade for drugs, and she used to lock me in a closet to keep me away when her boyfriends would come over, and… and… oh, I just hate to even remember it.”

Once again, he realized the best thing he could do was just hug her, and he did. She sobbed a little, but she seemed to be over the worst of her crying.

“As bad as I’ve turned out…” she continued; he shook his head, and she pulled back and looked him in the eye. “Stop it, John — you know the truth. I’m a super-villain, and you know it. And I did it on purpose, to get revenge on my mama and the world! And I’m not going to give it up, either, even for you! But as bad as I’ve been, even after everything I’ve done, I’ve never hurt a child. And I always vowed I never would.”

John Garrick was at a loss for words. What could he say now that wouldn’t sound fatuous? Several possibilities came to mind. “You don’t have to be a villain, you know?” Of course she knew — she’d just admitted she did it deliberately. “That’s very noble of you.” Hell, if she was really noble, she’d give up being a villainess and become a hero. “It’s OK.” Bull — it wasn’t OK. “We can worry about it later.” It was already too late for that; he’d had his chance five minutes ago — a chance a lot of guys wouldn’t have passed up, but he had. He wondered if he would regret that decision for the rest of his life.

Since he couldn’t think of anything useful to say, and saying nothing seemed to be working, he continued to say nothing. And once again she kept speaking.

“When we leave these bodies, John, they are going to continue their own lives — but they will have our memories. I promised never to hurt any kids, but I’ve just brought to life a new kid — the one I used to be, and the one this body will remember being, who suffered the same things I suffered. I just created a kid who has felt every pain and torment I’ve ever felt. And it’s going to be even worse for her — she’ll know that she was never real until I made her, and that all the good things I remember, that I’ve made for myself, she’ll never have a chance at. She’ll remember that she is smaller than an ant — that she’s so tiny she would be totally insignificant to a real human. That she lives in a frigging bottle, for God’s sake!” She couldn’t go on, and she broke down into sobs.

John had earlier had an inkling of some of this when he’d scolded her for playing God, but he hadn’t any idea of the full dimensions of her folly. And he realized just how terrible life would be for the John he left behind when he left the bottle — a young man who remembered growing up in a loving family surrounded by wonderful friends, a life populated by heroes and fueled by promise — a life he could never return to. This place wasn’t a fantasy, it was a nightmare. Suddenly, he was close to crying himself as he realized the horror that they had unwittingly created — for two living beings who would soon believe that they were Henrietta King and John Garrick, but who would never be able to live their own lives.

Henrietta felt the change in his body — the warm confidence of his embrace replaced by slack muscles as horror struck him. She pulled her head back and looked at him, and in a voice totally devoid of emotion, asked him desperately, “My God, John, what have I done?”

John was thinking hard. Even without his powers, he was supposed to be a genius, wasn’t he? What good was being a genius if he couldn’t solve the tough problems? He had a glimmer of an idea when he realized he was thinking at super-speed. Maybe he did have the rest of his powers in this body as well, and they had just taken a couple of hours to manifest. He zoomed away down the length of the gigantic hangar, except that he almost immediately fell headlong, as his body wouldn’t move nearly as fast as his mind commanded it to.

There must be a mental aspect of my powers, he mused to himself, that is decoupled from the physical aspect, and which moved with me when I was transferred into this mind and body. He thought a while longer and then deliberately slowed down his thoughts.

Henrietta was just now reaching down to help him to his feet. He grabbed her hand and pulled himself up. “Henrietta, I want to try an experiment. Would you do me a favor and try to hit me?”

She had been on the point of being angry, anyway. Did John realize the opportunity that he had just turned down? She didn’t come on to just anybody. Well, wait, actually she did, didn’t she? But that was all a meaningless revenge game — this was real. When John offered her the opportunity, she took it and swung at him without any warning. He easily dodged, which made her more angry, so she swung again — and once again he easily dodged.

Savant wasn’t some slow, feeble weakling, especially in this body, and she was intrigued enough to forget her anger. “You have your powers back! How did you do that?” John waited warily for a second, then responded.

“Not really,” said Whiz Kid. “I’m not moving much faster than you are. But I am reacting much more quickly. Somehow, I can speed up my thoughts, which speeds up my reactions. Your punches seem to be in super-slow-motion to me, and I react instantly, so even with a just a little above-normal speed, I can dodge pretty well.”

He paused for a second or two for thought. “If you had your powers, could you erase our memories from these minds? You said that you had already programmed false memories into all the minds in Candor, so you would be just returning them to their earlier state.”

“If I had my powers, I probably could. At least, our memories would seem to be no more than daydreams. And they would still have our personalities — I designed them to be a close match, and the longer we inhabit these bodies, the more the brain will adjust. But that’s OK, isn’t it?”

She looked so vulnerable when she asked this that he had to hug her again. “Of course it’s OK!”

Reassured, she continued. “I would have to set the transfer machine on a timer and wipe the memories of being us from them just before we vanish back to our own bodies. And I’ll have to give them some other memories to replace ours and explain what they are doing here in this hangar. But, John, I don’t have my powers in this body.”

John smiled at her. “I think you do. Your powers are mental, and they are actually tied to your mind — and your machine transferred the essence of your mind into that body. We both retained our genius, and I just discovered that I was thinking at super-speed. If the mental aspect of my powers was transferred, your mental powers must have been transferred as well!” John wasn’t as absolutely certain as he was trying to sound, but if he couldn’t convince her, the rest of his plan wouldn’t work, either. “Try to use your powers.”

She was uncertain, but it couldn’t hurt to try. “OK, we’ll start with something simple.” She tore a strip of cloth from her already-short skirt and handed it to him. “Blindfold me.” He did, although he was having a hard time concentrating. She sure had great legs.

“OK, now jump away far enough so I can’t hear you. Then move around, and I will turn to keep pointing at you. Sensing people nearby was the first manifestation of my powers when I was young.”

He jumped about a quarter-mile away, and then jumped again and again in other directions. By now he had circled about a third of the way around her. She was turning slowly, her arms outstretched, palms out — and she was turning the wrong way. She went through a half-circle and hesitated.

“It’s not working, John!” she called to him. He didn’t say anything, and she kept turning. “Hold on! Why, you rascal!” There was joy in her voice, and she turned to face him. “There you are! Just try and hide now!” She dropped one arm, but the other was pointing directly at him. He moved — running, jumping, and hanging from some pipes near the ceiling — and she was unerring. Shortly, she tired of the game. “OK, that works. Come back in now!”

She took the blindfold off as he approached. “Why, thank you, John! You actually have pretty great legs yourself!”

He blushed. It was the first time that he knew of that she’d actually used her powers on him. She caught that thought, too. “I’m sorry, dear. Now that I know my powers are back, I promise I won’t invade your privacy again. This is great, John. You just saved Other Savant from years of pain!” She stepped closer and gave him another big hug. With his super-enhanced reflexes, he could easily have avoided her, but he didn’t want to.

Whiz Kid also didn’t want to get sidetracked again, and he knew he might if they continued to celebrate the partial return of their powers. So he moved away. “What should I call you? Is there some other name you prefer? Henrietta is such a mouthful.”

He immediately regretted his choice of words, but she smiled and winked at him. “Dolly calls me Hank, but she only does it to irritate me, because it’s my half-brother’s name. You could call me honey if you want. But never ever call me Hen or Etta!” There were daggers in her voice, so he resolved to stay away from those pet names.

“OK, Henrietta it is, honey!” They both smiled at that. “So you said you had a background story for Candor. What is it?”

“Ah, I was hoping you would ask. I’m rather proud of my history. Have a seat while I show you… The Illustrated History of Candor.”

She led him to a bank of control panels that included several computer monitors. A few quick keystrokes on a keyboard, and a video began to play. John suddenly realized with a start that the video was not in English, and that he and Henrietta weren’t talking English, either.

“Darn, John, I lost the bet with myself — I have thought you’d have figured it out an hour ago.” At the look of anger on his face, she hastily added, “Nope, not reading your mind; just simple logic.”

One of the control stations was actually some kind of auto-chef. Savant dialed up popcorn, and they sat back to watch some historical fiction.

Return to chapter list

Return to chapter list

A few days later, John and Jay Garrick were talking privately.

“I talked to Lana, and she did some investigating in and around Gotham City,” Jay mentioned. “She hasn’t found any evidence of insect mind-control, other than her own.”

“I’m pretty sure she isn’t working on mass human mind-control either, Dad. If I’m right, she’s experimenting with artificial intelligence.”

He looked so unhappy that Jay asked him, “What’s really bothering you, son?” John looked surprised. Before he could respond, Jay continued, “C’mon, John, who knows you better than I do?”

“Dad, I ought to be out looking for her. She’s committing crimes, and I know about it — and I’m supposed to be a superhero, and superheroes aren’t supposed to let the bad guys commit crimes.”

Jay became serious. “Unless you think she is really up to something dangerous, I’d like you to continue to keep a low profile until the election — or at least until we get through this current tabloid firestorm. (*) There are a lot of superheroes in Gotham City. How about just filling Batwing in and letting him handle it?”

[(*) Editor's note: See DC Universe: The Race, Book 3: Dirty Tricks.]

“C’mon, Dad, Jason couldn’t handle her mental powers!”

Jay was thoughtful. “He’s been trained by the best. I wouldn’t be so sure. Still, who could?”

“Probably Amanda; she could command her star sapphire to protect her mind. Maybe Mina, too, since has her own telepathic powers, but they still didn’t stop Coral from falling under Faust’s spell. (*) But together they’d be stronger.”

[(*) Editor's note: See Junior JSA: The Junior Injustice Society.]

“Well, ask them to look for her, then, and to come to you for help if they need it. Or, if you think it’s necessary, take action yourself.”

John thought about calling in his friends for quite awhile — a few seconds from a normal perspective, but much longer to the super-speedster known as Whiz Kid. Originally, he thought it was a cop-out, but he reluctantly decided to follow his dad’s advice.

But it didn’t pan out; the two young heroines searched for a few days and didn’t find anything. And then the Savant-related thefts stopped, and Coral and Star Sapphire went on to other, more exciting cases.

The unease in the back of John’s mind didn’t lessen when the thefts ended. Eventually it reached the point where he couldn’t stand it any longer. His father had told him to act if he felt it was necessary. He made preparations to make a social call on his one-time girlfriend.

***

Whiz Kid awoke with a start. The last thing he remembered was speeding toward Gotham City, looking for Henrietta King. How had he gotten into bed? Had the whole thing been a dream? But something was wrong.

“Wha–?! This isn’t my bedroom! What’s going on here?” With those words he leaped out of bed and, vibrating furiously, ran through the wall of the room to see what he could find out.

Well, actually, he tried to do so. His vibrations didn’t work, and he slammed into the solid wall at top speed and slumped to the floor, stunned by the impact. It took him a few seconds to recover, which was almost as stunning — if he had really run into a wall at super-speed, he would have expected more damage, both to himself and the wall. Something was definitely not right here.

He realized that he ought to have broken his shoulder, at least. He flexed his shoulder, and the pain was almost gone. Then he stopped moving, once more stunned beyond words. His hand was not really his. He had a jagged white scar on the knuckles of his left hand, and the scar was gone. He also realized he wasn’t wearing his own clothes. When he realized who had to be behind this, he heaved a sigh of relief.

“Henrietta, I don’t know what you’re up to, but I know it’s you. Put me back in my own body now!” he yelled.

The door opened, and Henrietta King walked into the room, but a subtly different Henrietta. Her hair color was slightly lighter, and she was a little taller, with a more voluptuous, womanly figure. “Why, John, I built that body just for you. Don’t you like it?” She pushed a button on the wall, and a section of the wall turned into a full-length mirror.

Like Henrietta, John realized that he was subtly different. His shoulders were a little wider, his face shaped slightly differently, with more of a square jaw, and he was slightly taller as well. Actually, it wasn’t bad, and then he realized what she had said.

“You built this body?! Henrietta, I want to know what’s going on, now!” He put all the fire he could muster into his voice, remembering the times his parents had raised their voices with him while he was growing up. Henrietta didn’t seem to react to the tone of command in his voice, but she explained anyway.

“We are both part of a computer-created simulation, John! I created these bodies ‘specially to resemble us and then temporarily moved our consciousness into them. Neither body has any super-powers — I wanted to see how the two of us would interact if we were just a normal couple.”

“So you downloaded us into some kind of virtual reality? And don’t you think putting the two of us alone together is kind of artificial?” Privately, he was astounded at the level of detail she had managed to program into this single room and their bodies. This environment was absolutely indistinguishable from three-dimensional reality, and his body felt real, though he had run smack into a solid wall without picking up a bruise — he seemed to be partially invulnerable. He wondered with a smirk what other improvements Savant might have made over the originals.

“Why, John, I wouldn’t call this a virtual reality at all. I’d call it an artificial reality — which is a totally different thing.” There was mischief in her smile; he was missing something, but he didn’t know what. “And who said we’re alone? Come with me!”

He was confident that she didn’t have enough computing power to extend this illusion much beyond a couple or rooms, and then it struck him again. She could be mistress of illusions if she chose. “Henrietta, you told me before you’d never used your powers on me. I demand that you stop using your powers on me now!”

She laughed, gaily. “Silly boy, I already told you, I don’t have any powers in this body. This really is part of my simulation.” They stepped out of the bedroom and through a beautifully furnished house. As she led him through the front door, she waved her arm to encompass the whole scene outside. “What do you think?”

John was stunned to see that they were on the outskirts of a tremendous city — very futuresque and extremely detailed. Cars without wheels floated down the streets, and there were dozens of people in his field of view. “Mercury’s winged sandals! This is amazing!”

Henrietta kept John so busy he didn’t have time to think, dragging him on a whirlwind tour and using a control panel on her belt to call a flying car for their use. John noticed that he and the other people around all had similar controls on their own belts. Before they got into their sky car, he studied the people around them.

“So all these people are simulations? They look pretty realistic.”

She smiled, pleased at his interest. “Why, thank you, John. I developed a set of parameters to define a person — five thousand in all, and each parameter can vary over a wide range. Sort of like a genetic code for my sim-people, if you will. My computer then designed each of these by varying each parameter according to a set of rules. Five thousand different parameters isn’t really enough to fully specify a human being, but once they become self-aware, it will be hard to tell the difference.”

“Are you out of your mind? You’ve designed self-aware simulations? What’s going to happen to them when you turn the simulation off? It will be the same as killing them!” John was recalling his recent conversation with his parents about playing God. And here Henrietta was, playing God with a vengeance. John estimated that he could see several hundred of these sim-people, and a city this size could easily be home to millions.

“How dare you judge me?” Henrietta’s voice was flat and cold, conveying her anger that he would disapprove of her efforts. “I’ve told you repeatedly that this is not a computer-generated artificial reality. I thought by now you’d have figured it out.”

The sky car zoomed upward. Miles above the city, John noticed a shimmer in the sky, and as they drew closer he realized that the city was enclosed in something. He had trouble with the contours for a moment, and then something snapped into place; he was looking at a bottle — a big water bottle — from the inside. He must be less than the size of an ant.

“Yes, John, the truth. Not a virtual reality, an artificial reality. Not a computer simulation, but a computer-created city in a bottle, populated with computer-created artificial beings. The city of truth – the bottle city of Candor!”

Above them, a sliding door the size of a football field slid open in the bottom of the cork to the bottle, and Henrietta guided their flying car inside. They were in a the single biggest room John had ever seen, probably a quarter-mile high and several miles across. As the sliding door closed, she landed near some kind of control and monitoring station, which had many television screens. The view on the screens constantly changed, showing all aspects of life in a futuristic city that John assumed must be Candor.

The young scientist in John was fascinated, although the humanist in him was silently screaming. How dared she play God like this, not only creating a species of living beings but then spying on them? He realized he needed to find out more before he made any judgment. Henrietta clearly wanted to show off her new toy, so John hardly even had to ask questions.

“The Candorians are living beings, their bodies composed of artificial organic materials I originally grew in my lab. Because they are so small, the internal structure of the bodies is much simpler than humans, so even though they look human, inside they are not. But they are completely mammalian, warm-blooded, reproducing sexually and bearing live young who require significant attention from their parents. The process of making babies is pretty much identical to the human style, and they seem to enjoy it at least as much as humans do.”

She smiled seductively, and John blushed. She thought it was appealing and very cute, and she realized that she was deliberately teasing him — and thoroughly enjoying it. But she changed the subject slightly anyway, as she was also having fun boasting about her accomplishments. John had the intellect to understand what she had done as few other men would.

“An organic brain this small would be too tiny to be intelligent. The brain of every Candorian is non-organic, a highly advanced nanotech device, almost alive in its own right. I hesitate to call them computers, as they don’t compute — they think, just like we do. I’ve built in a subconscious and generally tried to model them as closely as possible to a human brain. I’m pretty familiar with human brains, given my powers, and I think I’ve done a good job. You’re thinking with one of these devices now. What do you think?”

Again John was stunned. As far as he could tell, his mind seemed completely normal. This technology was incredible — far beyond anything the science he knew was capable of.

“I’ve programmed each Candorian with a plausible shared history, and they each have a complete set of memories of their lives. As time goes by, their artificial memories will fade and be replaced by real memories, and they will never know that they are artificial creatures. And the next generation will be created the normal, human way. In fact, it’s happening now.” She pointed to one of the screens with that same seductive smile, and he blushed again and quickly looked away.

“Pregnant Candorian females require a special diet so the inorganic brain can grow as the baby develops. Each brain is closely matched to the body it develops in, and they can’t be transplanted to other bodies, so Candorians have limited lifespans just as humans do. But there are distinct advantages to the simpler biology. There are fewer things that can go wrong with Candorian bodies — they are much healthier, and they heal faster. And because of the square-cube law, they are much stronger in proportion than humans and much more damage-resistant.”

Without warning, she hit John across the face with a wicked backhand blow — not a slap, either. She was incredibly strong, and he tumbled backward until he banged into a wall. In his own body, bones would have broken, he would have been in incredible pain, and he would probably have had a bad concussion, at least. In this Candorian body, he felt almost no pain and suffered no damage that he could tell. He wasn’t sure how he felt about getting hit by his sometime-girlfriend like that, though, even though she was just proving a point.

He was going to have to do a lot of heavy thinking, but he decided to put off his emotional reactions for a short time. Then he wondered if his ability to separate his emotions from his thought processes was a human ability or a Candorian ability.

“In human terms, of course, Candorians are about as strong and tough as fleas. But in their own milieu, we have Superman-style powers!” To demonstrate further, she jumped and easily touched the ceiling a quarter-mile above, then landed lightly. “Square-cube law — I can fall miles and touch down more lightly than a feather!”

She leaped toward him and touched him, fairly lightly this time. “Tag! You’re it!” And she leaped away. John was at the point of being overwhelmed by Candor, and he welcomed the chance for some mindless exercise. For a good half-hour, they chased each other through that gigantic hangar. Henrietta had more experience in her Candorian body, but John was used to having super-powers. For a short time, she was mostly able to escape being tagged, but he quickly became more adept. They swapped being it for awhile, and finally John launched himself perfectly, intercepting her in mid-leap, and the two wrapped their arms around each other and eventually tumbled to the ground together, laughing.

The laughing stopped when they reached the ground, but there was still mutual activity as it became something a bit more passionate. After a few minutes, however, John reluctantly pulled away.

“What’s the matter, John?” Henrietta was distinctly displeased at his reaction.

“There’s just too much going on right now, Henrietta. I can’t stop thinking. I’m sorry. You know we shouldn’t be doing this…”

“John, we aren’t really doing anything except sharing a fantasy! This isn’t really you or me. Think how incredibly free we can be, right here, right now! There’s no one who can tell us what to do, nobody we have to behave for, nobody will ever know except us! You know, as a human, I can barely stand to have any man touch me — even you. But here, John, I can leave my trauma behind and be whoever I want to be! Don’t you see how perfect it can be? We can have here what we can never have outside!” She was practically pleading.

And the argument was very persuasive. In a sense, this experience really was nothing more than a shared fantasy. Nothing they did here could affect their human bodies. What happened here would stay here. And yet he knew it wasn’t that simple. The memories wouldn’t stay here; they would follow him for the rest of his life. Still, would that be so bad? He felt that he and Henrietta deserved to be happy together, and he knew she was right — it would be difficult for them to share anything outside in the real world. Why not take advantage of this opportunity? He had to admit, it was one of his fantasies on the verge of coming true.

Return to chapter list