E8: Superman #1

[Spider-Man Beyond]

E8: Superman #1
Don't Ever Call me Superman! Part 1 of 4.

Written by Russell Burlingame
Cover by Jason Blankenship
Edited by Daniel Dyer

I have this…thing. I hardly even know who I am, and yet there are all these other people who want to tell me. They have these…expectations. It's like everybody wants a piece of me. It's so strange because it's like I know everything I'm supposed to know, but none of that is what seems important. I know what I'm supposed to do, and I know what's supposed to motivate me…but I don't have anything to make me…care. It's like everything I know is facts. There's no emotion because there's no memory. Nothing before the armored man.

Flying has always helped. Sailing over Metropolis, the city shining beneath me, the fresh air all around. It's a kind of quiet you rarely experience in a big city—the kind that can only come from putting yourself at least 500 yards from everyone else. It's helped me clear my head for as long as I can remember... which, as already established, isn't very long.

FOCUS. Something's going on. What...?

“Wake up, Son,” the old man says, waving his hand in front of my face while I stare off, still lost in my thoughts. I can't bring myself to point out that I'm not his son. He's about eighty now, I'd wager, and stooped over. He's a shortish man with a muscular frame—an old farmer—but he's looking tired and weak in the wake of the heart attack he suffered shortly after his son's death last year.

Here we are, in his attic. The old man leans against a cane so heavily that I'm afraid it might break under the pressure of his stalky, cover-alled body. We're digging through boxes of things that used to belong to the man's son, and I can't tell if he's just being helpful or if he's actually in denial. I don't know if he's trying to help me, or just trying to replace his son. Everyone wants me to replace his son.

These boxes—full of awards, trophies, books, article clippings—they're an entire life. His son's entire life in these boxes, and these two old folks want me to have it. Not just to take the things, but to, essentially, take over their son's life. And I can. And I'm supposed to. But it's meaningless to me—I just don't understand any of it. Maybe that's why I'm here. Maybe... Who knows? I'm tired. I haven't slept since I woke up. Does that even make sense?

The old man keeps carrying on: “He's rent-controlled out there, and he lives a ways from the college... but I 'spect you can get more or less wherever you want. Even if you couldn't fly, the mass transit there is good.” There's a quiet desperation in his voice. Hope wrapped in sadness. I start to feel like maybe he understands... it's so hard to tell. I wish I could READ people better.

In the end, I take a single box of things—a yearbook, inscribed with personal messages from some of the good people he held dear; a ball cap and football jacket (I wore the jacket home) with the home team's colors and logo; some photos of the family; and a cape. They were quite insistent that I take the cape, said that it would help me out “when I'm done mulling things over.” Again—it's so strange, so eerie to have people making all of these decisions for me. But there are times when everyone else is right. I need to find something to fill my days, or I'm going to lose it. College, I suppose, is as good a notion as any. The armored man helped out some, too—he stopped by the farm while I was out there and brought me some paperwork. I haven't the slightest idea where he might have come up with this stuff—Social Security card, birth certificate, all kinds of things. And in case I wasn't positive that I was being pressured into playing “son” for these poor, grieving old folks? The name on the birth certificate ties me to them for life now: Conner Kent. Apparently dear, departed Clark had a long-lost brother. I suppose that cousin would be more plausible, but I don't know that Jonathan and Martha have any family members who would be willing to participate in such a ruse. And besides, I don't need to be in Smallville, which is the only place where anyone might notice an extra Kent boy kicking around. Metropolis is far enough away, and big enough, that anything I say on the matter will be accepted.

***

[Spider-Man Beyond]

As I descend to the top of the apartment building about an hour after leaving the farm, I'm starting to feel more comfortable with it all—maybe they are trying to force me to do something, and maybe they don't really understand me. But I'm not sure I understand me either, and at least this gives me a starting point. If I don't want what they have to offer, I can always reject it... but in order to have a sense of what I want, this is more or less exactly what I needed. I walked down the stairwell from the roof, carrying that box of Clark's old things, and when I reached the third floor, I exited into the hall. 3B was—conveniently enough—the door directly opposing the roof access.

This guy thought stuff through. If he was trying to protect a secret identity, he only had to be exposed for about six feet before he was home free.

I try the key the Kents gave me, but it doesn't work—it feels like the lock has been changed. Maybe by Clark, before he died? More likely by the super.

No pun intended.

As I jiggle the key with one hand, I reach around the knob with the other. Looking back and forth down the hallway to be sure there's no one watching, I mutter to myself, “Tactile telekinesis.”

I can't explain why. I just like to say it out loud. But as I use it, the door knob's component parts all shift away from each other, as though a magnet had been applied to the entire structure of the door. In this state, I have to think very hard about it, but I can keep the knob together while moving the tumblers into place. My hearing isn't “super,” as such, but it's pretty acute, and I can just barely hear the tiny clicks as the metal pieces fall into place. I push the door open and immediately face an apartment full of stale air.

The lights are off, but I can see the place is pretty nice—a computer on a small desk in the corner of the living room, with a coffee maker sitting on top of it. The small amount of coffee in the bottom of the pot has grown a thin layer of mold that floats on the surface of the liquid, and shimmies around when I jar it by pulling out, and then pushing back in, the rolling surface that's home to the keyboard. There's a phone on the desk with no dial tone, and a cable modem that's totally lifeless. The power works—I can hear the refrigerator running—but it's like nobody's been in here since Clark.

I guess that stands to reason, with the coffee. So apparently the superintendent isn't the one who changed the locks. I wonder who's been paying rent all these months? Even with rent control, this place would be pretty steep for a retired couple living in Kansas to cover on the off chance that someone with powers and a few common genetic markers might need to move in someday. I'll have to ask Pa—Jonathan--when I see them next.

Wait, I'm planning on seeing them? I suppose I have to. They're my parents...Well, not really, but as far as anyone knows...

This is all so confusing.

I sit down, turn on the television and watch Dr. Phil try to convince some crazy woman that the Web site she operates is mean-spirited. She claims it's a public service or something, I don't know. I can't really focus. I can't seem to focus on anything. There's something going on. Something in the back of my mind, and I can't... place it...

Dr. Phil's face gives way to a blue screen and the Emergency Broadcast System squeals its squeal. I'm hardly conscious—I haven't slept since I woke up—but I see the word “explosion” out of the corner of my eye. I shake it off and start paying attention to what's on screen:

“--is WLEX breaking in with an urgent bulletin: A massive explosion has rocked Coast City, California this evening. We've lost communication with the city, and can't say exactly what has happened, but reports are coming in that an explosion loud enough to be heard from as far away as Star City has taken place in the water just off Coast City's shores. Smoke and ambient heat has prevented any news choppers getting to the area, but the President insists that US military aircraft have been able to make visual contact with the city and that it appears to be largely intact. The President has declared a state of emergency in Coast City promised federal aid for the victims of what is presumed to be a massive tsunami—but there has been no word as to what may have caused the explosion to begin with.”

Damn it. I really wanted to sleep. Some men are born great, though, and others have greatness thrust upon them. I wasn't born great. I wasn't even really born, if you want to get technical about it. But there's something inside me. It's like I've got obsessive-compulsive disorder, except that instead of counting the ceiling tiles or not drinking milk on its expiration date, I have to be a good guy. I look into the box of Clark's things—right at the cape—and I think that now is not the time for that. Whatever the old man thinks, the world doesn't need another Superman—it already has one. The news hasn't mentioned him, though, and it makes one wonder where he might have got to in this time of national emergency.

Rifling through Clark's closet, I find an outfit that works for me—boots, loose-fitting bluejeans and—ironically enough—a Superman t-shirt. One of those silly stylized ones, though, with the triangle on it instead of a pentagon and a yellow “S” on a black background. This should be different enough.

Sorry, Martha. I love the cape, really. And I'd wear it. But I'd rather not ruffle Superman's feathers the first time I get to meet him. If I can't get this crimefighting addiction thing out of my system, he may be someone I have to deal with on a regular basis.

What the hell will I call myself if I have to do this stuff anyway? Everything I know, tells me that I'm Superman.

Ah, what does it matter? Maybe I'll be something simple. I won't wear the tights. They can call me “Everyman.” I'm not Super. I'm just that guy with powers. Maybe then I won't be hounded whenever I leave the apartment.

I throw on one of those bulky Carheart jackets and jump out the window—I guess it would have been just as easy to take the roof access, right?--and fly west. To Coast City.

As I cross the country, the explosion is all anyone's talking about. I catch bits of radio broadcasts and snippets of conversation. “Casualties in the thousands” keeps ringing in my ears. Finally, I'm over Coast City and there's bedlam. People in the streets, screaming and running. Cars jammed up all over town, noplace for people to retreat to and water everywhere. There's water in places that really shouldn't have it. There's some super-guy I don't recognize running around with tattoos all over his bad self, literally pushing the water back with a giant shovel he's made out of his hand, but he doesn't seem to be helping out too much.

For a minute, I really wish I was Superman. He could freeze the water with his breath, right? Or boil it with his eyes. Although I guess, in reality, either one of those solutions would probably kill a million people from ancillary effects. What would he do? How would he--?

Why am I still flying here, watching people get hurt? I descend into the fray, picking up as many people at a time as I can carry, and flying them out a safe distance from the water. I do this over and over—I must have moved a thousand people—over the course of an hour, until finally I start to notice that the water is receding.

I helped the people—it's what Superman would have done. It's what I'm supposed to do. But I lost sight of the bigger issue: What the hell made this happen? Well, now I know. There's a massive hole in the ocean. It's got to be half a mile wide. The water that surged into the city in the immediate aftermath of the explosion, has changed tide and is now starting to run the other way, flowing thousands of gallons into the giant hole every second. It's like Niagara Falls times a thousand, and perfectly round.

Too perfectly round. Something did this. This wasn't an explosion, it was–I fly over to the edge of the hole to see for myself--It was a UFO of some kind. A huge, green sphere with jagged metal edges sticking out of it and into the earth surrounding it. It seems to be burrowing deeper into the planet with every passing second. So this was an attack.

Without really thinking about it, my mind propels me into the breach. I pound against the outside edge of the UFO, but the metal is some kind of powerfully-resistant alloy and I can barely dent it. The machine itself doesn't stop for a second. And then I get the idea:

“Tactile telekinesis,” I say, and I feel myself smile. I reach out to grab one of the jagged “legs” of the UFO, though, and just before I get there I feel something that my young life has never taught me about yet—I feel pain. My hand burns! All around me is energy, and it's burning, and I'm falling into the water.

The upside is that the water shields me from the heat. The downside? Now I can see where it's coming from.

Above me, Superman laughs. He looks down at me, and the shoulder-mounted cannon from which he'd been projecting all that heat is smoking. The metal of his body shines in the waning sunlight of a late Coast City afternoon. Around him, thousands of people are dead or dying. Below him, some strange contraption is invading the planet.

And Superman is laughing.

Continued...