Truth & Justice I #10

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Truth & Justice #10

Written by JC Roberts (Calamityjamie)
Edited by Daniel Dyer (Spider-Man Beyond)

During the six grueling months it took Batman to get back into what narrowly could be described as fighting shape, his teammates continued to impersonate him frequently enough for the criminal element of Gotham to remain relatively quiet. Increased appearances by Superwoman, who was still assumed by most to live in Metropolis, and by Quiver, who was known to have moved to Gotham not quite a year earlier, added to the city’s sense of security. During that time, there had been only one unpleasant moment, when Alfred interrupted Gren’s attempt to use the Batmobile. The car was not considered essential to the disguise and Alfred had no instructions from Bruce to allow anyone to drive it.

“He probably wanted to use it to pick up girls,” Martha said. She had not seen a lot of Bruce since he’d started physical therapy, but she did continue to enjoy an occasional brunch with Alfred. She had the feeling that Bruce was avoiding her, and she wasn’t wrong. He did not want any of his teammates to see him before he’d regained full strength, but he was particularly careful not to run into Martha. He felt so much in her debt that he truly did not want to start fighting with her again, but he was not sure he could stop himself. It was better that he keep his distance. Bruce had run into her a few times when she was visiting Alfred; the encounters were brief and polite.

She was as surprised as everyone else when, on a warm September afternoon, almost a year to the day that Martha first offered Harvey Dent a pizza, Batman responded to a call from the Justice League.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

If it had been anybody else, they all would have rushed up and hugged him. But he was still Batman. Arsenal asked him how he felt, Batman gruffly replied that he was “good” and asked Roy to get on with the meeting.

“We’re waiting for Superman,” Arsenal said. “We’re gonna need him for this one.”

Martha frowned at Roy from across the conference room. Almost incidentally, her gaze wandered from Arsenal’s face to Batman’s. Her eyes lingered on his for a moment and she seemed to want to say something. If this was so, she reconsidered, ducking back into a conversation she was having with Quiver and Midori.

Even from the other side of the room, Batman could pick up the curious words, “Sex” and “Councilman Greenberg.” Midori had apparently asked one of her innocently inappropriate questions, because Martha and Quiver now looked like they were trying desperately not to laugh. Batman wondered if they were talking about Josh Greenberg, a councilman whose anti-poverty programs had ruffled the feathers of Gotham’s conservative upper class, but had had a profoundly positive effect on many inner city families. Bruce had met Greenberg at a few fundraisers. He seemed like a good man.

“Well, if I am,” Martha was saying mischievously, “I’m not calling him ‘Councilman Greenberg’.”

Batman felt strange, as though he’d been gone a long time. Was Martha seeing Josh Greenberg?

“Unless you’re playing the Politician and the Lobbyist.” Lian had added in a dramatically high-pitched voice, “Oh, Councilman Greenberg. I really need those funds.”

At this, Martha dropped her head onto the conference table, sobbing with laugher.

Batman did not realize how intensely he had been watching her until she knuckled away a few tears and straightened in her chair. Her father had just flown into the room and suddenly everyone was sitting a little taller.

“Hope you haven’t been waiting long,” Superman said, taking a seat near the middle of the table.

“Just glad you’re here,” said Arsenal. He touched a button on his laptop and Batman got another surprise. The state-of-the-art nine-by-twelve SmartBoard provided by Wayne Industries had been replaced by a wall-length, three-dimensional interactive presentation system. Midori had been busy.

It would be uncharacteristic of Batman to say, “Wow,” so he just thought it.

Arsenal slipped on what looked like a half-glove – it covered his fingers and a few centimeters of palm – and gave his digits a slight wiggle. The screen’s default image melted into a camera sweep of a small African village – one that appeared to have recently suffered devastation.

“This is – this was – Malindi, a coastal town just north of Mombasa,” Arsenal said.

“Kenya,” interjected Meera.

“Yeah. Like I said, it was Malindi. What’s that look like, a tornado?” Arsenal asked.

“We know it’s not a tornado,” Flash said. “I’m guessing this disaster wasn’t natural.”

“Totally unnatural,” said Roy. “Locals report a rampaging gray giant with bones protruding from his shoulders and fists. He –”

“Shit,” Martha said, her near-black eyes boring into the view screen. Her hand moved towards her right hip.

“—didn’t leave a building, bus or bike standing,” Roy continued.

Superwoman followed up this statement with several obscene words.

Superman was silent, his features as harsh as his daughter’s language.

“Great,” Gren said. “So it’s…”

“Big bony bod, itty bitty brain. Must be Doomsday,” Roy said grimly. “You can see why we need you here, Clark.”

“I would rather my father not be here,” said Superwoman. One of the most memorable mother-daughter talks she and Lois had had, shortly after Dave’s murder, involved her mother’s recollection of Superman’s death at the hands of Doomsday. Clark’s resurrection, months later, had not made the experience any less traumatic for Lois – and her recounting of those darkest days had deeply shaken their daughter.

“He only beat me the first time,” Superman said.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Kenya was one of the most beautiful places in the world, thought Superwoman, as she zig-zagged over the countryside west of Mombasa. She had not been there in a long while and she had forgotten the thrill of watching herds of wild zebra charging through the grasslands. There was no greener grass, no bluer sky, she thought. She hoped she could keep things free of red, that no further blood would taint the stunning landscape.

“Anything?” A static-filled voice buzzed in her ear. Meera was still back at headquarters, working with the others, so Superwoman and her father were communicating by radio and reception in this part of Africa was awful.

“No,” she shouted. “Nothing big and bony.”

“You don’t have to shout,” he pointed out. “I can hear you without the radio.”

Superwoman rolled her eyes. “Show-off,” she said, and heard Superman’s static-filled chuckle. “I’m heading north.”

“No.” Superman’s voice was suddenly charged with urgency. “I’m just south of the border, over the Mkomazi Game Reserve. Get over here.”

Superwoman somersaulted into a southbound trajectory and shot down toward northern Tanzania. Her dad had found Doomsday. She hoped the discovery wasn’t mutual.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

“So what do you do with a homicidal super-powered giant who can regenerate spontaneously, even when you’ve scattered his atoms all over the universe?” Arsenal had asked hours earlier. “Turns out we have some ideas.”

For “the Supers,” as Roy sometimes called them, the plan would be relatively simple.

“He’d rather kill you two than anyone else,” said Arsenal. “He responds to red capes like a bull on steroids – especially when they’ve got those big yellow S’s on them.

“You guys have got to keep him occupied – without, if you please, getting dead or anything.”

“Dead is bad,” Quiver agreed.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Superwoman rocketed across the Tanzanian border, searching doggedly for the landmarks her father had described. She’d flown so fast that the radio earpiece had blown out of her ear miles back, but not before Superman laid out Doomsday’s current route through the spacious reserves of Tanzania. Flash was on his way as well – he’d accompanied them to Africa, while the others stayed behind to work on Midori’s dubious brainstorm.

Speeding over a herd of caribou, she saw him, a bony gray mammoth bounding wildly towards some unseen target. Flash was tailing him from about 30 meters away, using the lush trees and bush as cover. Superman was also following, at a distance, directly behind Doomsday. A brutish, single-minded and entirely unself-conscious creature, Doomsday never gave thought to the possibility that someone might pursue him. Unfortunately, this was hardly a handicap: the Kryptonian monstrosity was so astoundingly strong, that it did little good to try to catch him by surprise. Outsmarting him was their best bet. The problem was that Doomsday was genetically bred to gain immunity to all previous methods of attack against him. Superwoman had not fought him before and wasn’t sure if there was anything left that hadn’t been tried.

She shot ahead of him, careful to remain out of eyeshot. Four jeeps, each filled with tourists on a “camera” safari, motored over the hilly plains about a mile ahead.

Adjusting the mouthpiece to the radio, which had been blown down around her neck, Superwoman burst forward, shouting out instructions she hoped Superman would hear and relay to Flash. It must have worked. Seconds later, all three of them were catapulting toward the tourists. Unfortunately, either the wake of their trails, or maybe their scents, alerted Doomsday to their presence.

Superwoman dove under one of the jeeps and lifted it through the air. She was sorry to hear its occupants screaming. There had been no time to warn them. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Superman shouldering a second jeep. After depositing them miles out of Doomsday’s presumed path, father and daughter returned to seize the remaining jeeps. As they soared over the horizon, they heard the passengers in these vehicles screaming. They had seen Doomsday and he had seen them.

Flash had already thrown himself into the monster’s way, circling him at near the speed of sound and weaving in his wake a small, but formidable man-made twister. Superwoman saw Doomsday’s elephantine foot protruding from the whirlwind of dirt and brush. The force of Flash’s momentum had forced him fifteen feet in the air. Have to hand it to Wally, Superwoman thought. He has balls. Fast as he was, he was as vulnerable as any ordinary human being. One punch from Doomsday would kill him. Yet, he threw himself between Doomsday and the tourists without a second of hesitation.

It was quick enough to re-unite the tourists. Superman gave the shaken safari guides directions to head east immediately. The plan would be to force Doomsday in the opposite direction.

Flash was running out of steam by the time they returned, and Doomsday’s upside-down arm could be seen sticking out of the fading twister. He seemed to be just a foot or two off the ground. Knowing Flash would need a few seconds to get out of the way, Superman took a deep breath and cannonballed into his longtime adversary.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Having announced the existence of a plan, Arsenal turned the meeting over to Midori. All eyes had locked on her. Emerald-faced with embarrassment, she swallowed and slipped on a glove similar to Roy’s.

“First of all, we thought about his origins,” she said. “Kryptonian. Not traditionally humanoid, but still indigenous to the planet. Our first thought was Kryptonite.” Midori looked at Superman expectantly.

“Your first thought,” Roy said. “It never would have occurred to me.”

Superman said politely, “It is a good thought. But I’m afraid not an original one. We’ve tried Kryptonite bullets, arrows… Doomsday’s skin is impenetrable.”

Midori nodded enthusiastically. “Right,” she said. “But what about saturation on a molecular level?”

Superman squinted at her quizzically. Everyone else just stared.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

The effect of Superman’s attack on Doomsday reminded his daughter of recess wall ball games at her old elementary school. He shot forward, then, almost immediately, came flying back with greater force and less control. Superwoman felt as if something were squeezing her heart. Dad, please be OK, she thought. And with a clenched jaw, she hurtled toward the brutal creature that had once killed her father.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

“Liquid penetrates the body on a cellular level – so do gases,” Midori had explained. “And we know Doomsday can be compromised on the cellular level because he has been in the past. If his cells are permeated with what amounts to poison for any Kryptonian life form, he should be impaired enough for us to stop him.”

“So we… submerge him in a tank of Kryptonite?” Superwoman asked skeptically.

“Not you, sweetheart,” said Roy. “Or your dad. You stay away from the Kryptonite.”

“I’ll remind you,” Martha had said coldly, “that Kryptonite just makes me break out. To Superman, it’s a poison. To me it’s an allergen.”

“Ever hear of anaphylactic shock, Doctor?” Batman asked.

Superwoman glared at him.

“Keeping to the point,” said Superman, “how would we do this, Midori?”

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Unlike her father, Superwoman had not been attempting a direct hit on Doomsday. She knew she could be stubborn and sometimes reckless, but she was not stupid. She shot about a hundred feet past the monster, then whipped around and taunted him. She did not bother with words – he probably would not understand them – but she made sure he could see her costume. Arsenal had called it right – the sight of a flyer in red and blue – one who clearly had modeled herself after the creature’s greatest foe – inspired a roar of rage from the rampaging colossus. Her satisfaction in drawing Doomsday away from her father and Flash was short-lived: She had never fought him before and in her inexperience she had miscalculated his recovery time and his speed. Superwoman was never quite sure what he hit her with – a hand, a foot, his head – but the blow sent her flying backward into the hard Tanzanian earth. Doomsday was upon her before she struck the ground.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

“Cadmus has stores of Kryptonite?” Midori had asked.

Superman nodded.

“I’ll need as much as they can spare. I’m hoping it reduces to gas better than it liquefies. It’ll go a lot farther that way.”

Quiver asked, “How long will all this take?”

“Midori thinks most of a day,” Arsenal said. “Meanwhile, there’s a big, ugly troll out there demolishing half of Kenya. So Supes – and Supes” he nodded to each of them, “you’re going to have to distract him. Prevent additional civilian casualties – or minimize them, at least. Flash will go with you.

“And Martha – don’t do anything stupid,” Roy said forcefully. “You are not to fight this bruiser head-on. Just bait and run.”

“Right,” said Superwoman. “Know my limitations.”

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

At first she thought the explosion was the sound of Doomsday’s fist smashing through her skull, but then Superwoman realized her head was still intact and the rampant gray giant was no longer straddling her. Flash had zoomed past his besieged teammate, producing a perfectly placed sonic boom. The noise hadn’t dislodged Doomsday, but it had startled him, at which point Superman slammed into his bony head. This had sent Kryptonian man and monster tumbling.

Superman was a better street fighter than most people knew, primarily because most of his battles never had to come to that, but now he was fighting for his life – and his daughter’s. He blasted laser-fine columns of heat right into Doomsday’s eyes. The creature blinked as if an eyelash had fallen between his lids, then rammed his fist into Superman’s chest, barely missing his solar plexus. The Man of Steel followed up with a double open-hand palm smash to Doomsday’s ears, but this attack was equally ineffective and the monster’s answering blow to his ribs more painful.

Flash was shouting something at Superwoman, but her focus was on her father now and when she saw him double over, she reacted without thinking. She flew low and fast towards Doomsday, her fists doubled over her head like a battering ram. Pure momentum was on her side: She plowed into the creature’s knees, knocking him clear over her shoulders and onto his back. As he howled in rage, all three Justice Leaguers moved out of range.

“They’re coming,” Flash yelled to his teammates. “We’ve just got to hold him a little longer.”

“How long?” gasped Superwoman.

Flash shook his head, his eyes locked on Doomsday, now on his feet and angrier than ever.

Superman was having trouble breathing. His ribs were probably broken, yet he was bracing for another round of punishment.

Doomsday sensed that his oldest enemy was the most vulnerable of his three targets. He rushed at Superman with a speed that rivaled the Flash. Superwoman, emboldened by her successful unbalancing of the creature, attempted the low-flying body sweep a second time. This time Doomsday was ready for her. Had he not been focusing most of his momentum on attacking her father; the kick he aimed at Superwoman’s chest would have killed her. As it was, she went soaring skyward like a football, unable to control her excruciating tumble towards the stratosphere.

An immense green hand caught her.

As Gren Gardner used his ring-powered light energy to drag her back down to Earth, Superwoman saw the Javelin-11 tear across the African sky.

So much for the warm-up act, she thought, wiping blood from her mouth. It’s showtime.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Superman would have been ready for Doomsday’s charge even if his daughter hadn’t tried to run interference for him. Having disengaged from the murderous monstrosity, Superman had no intention of resuming physical contact with him again. Doomsday wasn’t a thinking fighter. He blundered and charged and swung and roared, but there was neither strategy nor art to his fighting. Even with his ribs broken – and they were already healing – Superman could dodge him for a while, just as long as Martha and Wally remained out of danger.

He could not look away from Doomsday to see what happened to Superwoman, but Superman knew the behemoth had knocked her a considerable distance. In seconds, he would be able to help her. Right now, he had to concentrate on his monomaniacal attacker. One, two, three… A second before Doomsday could ram into Superman, the Man of Steel shot straight upward. Doomsday went staggering into a tree. The tree did not survive.

>>Superman.<< It was Meera. >>We’re here. Continue to distract Doomsday until the Green Lantern has contained him.<<

“Martha,” said Superman.

>>She’s fine.<<

Superwoman had, in fact, recovered enough to re-join Superman and Flash as they scrambled to occupy Doomsday. Flash, having received the message same as Superman, attempted another whirlwind. Doomsday responded by barreling towards him, his hideous face contorted in rage. Flash had not considered how fast the monster was. For a second, as Doomsday’s brutish face loomed over his, he thought this miscalculation might be his last.

Bam! The noise was almost as loud as the sonic boom Flash had conjured earlier. Superman and Superwoman, one hitting high, the other low, had slammed into Doomsday with all of their might. As all three super beings went crashing to the ground, a green, cell-like cube enveloped Doomsday – and Superwoman.

“Hey!” screamed Superwoman, crawling frantically backward toward the edge of the solid-light construct. Grendel immediately re-adjusted the energy field so that Doomsday alone was contained. The monster roared furiously and started pounding at the barrier. A Green Lantern’s constructs were considered impenetrable, but Doomsday was shaking the walls of his emerald prison.

Seconds later, Batman, Midori and the Harpers glided over the captive gargantuan on what looked like a metallic flying wading pool. Loaded onto the hovercraft were four canisters that stood as tall – and as wide – as Batman.

“Hurry!” Grendel shouted at them.

Arsenal and Batman tipped over the first canister and Grendel began to extend his construct upwards, forming an air-tight funnel around it.

>>Superman and Superwoman, back away,<< Meera ordered.

Superman did so immediately, hanging back about 50 airborne feet from Gren’s makeshift cage.

“Isn’t it airtight?” Superwoman wanted to observe the effects of the Kryptonite gas on Doomsday and she knew she wouldn’t be able to see from that far back. She watched in fascination as the first canister released lime-colored gas into the monster’s cell, lightening the appearance of Gren’s emerald walls. Doomsday, sensing an unpleasant change in his atmosphere, raged against the malleable wall, punching furiously.

As soon as the first canister was depleted, Batman and Quiver positioned a second one. They were tipping the unwieldy container toward the solid light funnel when Doomsday bounded into the air and took a savage swipe at them through the construct. The force of his attack was so strong that the ceiling of the green cell bubbled out and the monster’s huge hand slammed into the hovercraft, knocking both the canister and Batman into the air.

Superwoman swooped forward, seizing Batman neatly about a few meters before he hit the ground. She reached out to grab the receptacle as well, but found no handhold. The container smashed into the earth and exploded.

As her lungs filled with Kryptonite gas, Batman’s snark about anaphylactic shock seemed less unreasonable. Superwoman’s lungs felt like they had locked into the exhale position. She was not merely struggling for breath – she could not breathe at all.

Blacking out, she felt herself being dragged along the hot dry earth. She wondered if she was going to live to hear her teammates say, “I told you so.”

Arsenal watched Batman haul Superwoman out of danger and then helped Quiver position the third canister. Doomsday, apparently suffering a delayed reaction to the first dose of Kryptonite gas, was not able to prevent a successful release of this container or the last one. As the Kryptonian monstrosity thudded to the floor of Gren’s prison, Arsenal flashed Midori an exuberant grin.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Turbulence and the rumble of engines roused Martha from unconsciousness. Her eyes opened directly into Superman’s. He was watching her intently.

“Hey,” she rasped. Her lips and throat were swollen and raw.

A slow grin moved across Superman’s face.

“Where’s Doomsday?”

“Headed for a Kryptonite-infused containment cell at Cadmus,” Superman replied. He continued to examine her bruised face. “You OK?”

She nodded. She looked past her father and realized they were on the Jav, along with the rest of their teammates. Martha dipped her head toward a window and saw that they had just taken off. She looked back at Superman. He was shaking a bemused head.

“So how’s that allergy?” he asked.

Martha scowled at him. “If I hadn’t been there, Batman would have gone splat,” she said.

Superman could have contested this statement – Batman knew how to fall. But his ability to do so without injury was questionable. Superman wasn’t sure how healed his leg was, or how badly off-balance the six-month recovery period might have put him.

It was a moot point anyway; when Martha assumed her mother’s “stubborn” face, there was no point in arguing with her. As long as she was all right, he was willing to leave it alone. Superman gave her knee a squeeze and moved towards the front of the shuttle. As soon as he left his daughter, Batman was in her face.

“You leave me out of this,” he whispered. “You took a ridiculous risk.” He corrected himself. “Make that ridiculous risks. Didn’t Harper tell you not to try to take on Doomsday?”

Goggling at him, Martha said vehemently, “I didn’t do a thing Roy asked me not to do.”

“Really? I wonder what I was looking at on the Javelin monitor.”

“I don’t know,” said Martha. “You didn’t seem to be looking very carefully when Doomsday knocked you off the hovercraft. Maybe there’s something wrong with your eyes.”

By the time the shuttle docked with the Watchtower, they were shouting at each other.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Flash sniggered happily as soon as the fireworks started, but Roy could tell that Superman was shocked by the heated exchange between Batman and his daughter. Clark almost never worked with the Justice League when Superwoman was available. That was the nature of their “job-sharing” arrangement. The fighting was a new and unpleasant discovery.

Roy watched as Superman’s eyes swept the cabin, doubtlessly noticing the team’s nonchalant response to the vociferous argument in the back of the shuttle. Lian had rolled her eyes, Midori looked nervous. Meera seemed to be napping. And Grendel did not lift his gaze from a martial arts magazine he’d found under one of the seats.

“Do they do this a lot?” Superman asked Roy.

“Sort of.” Arsenal felt embarrassed. As team leader, he should have put a stop to the bickering long ago. But like Wally, he was fascinated by the dynamic that had developed between his squabbling teammates. He had never seen anyone get under Batman’s skin the way Martha Kent could merely by standing in the same room.

“Bad for the team,” Superman said quietly. He watched his daughter glare at the Caped Crusader and added stonily, “I’ll talk to her.”

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Arsenal kept the debriefing short: Cadmus had Doomsday in custody; he was in a Kryptonite coma. They – the scientists at the Project – wanted to “do some things” to him.

Distrust distorted Quiver’s sultry features. “He’s gonna get out.”

“Let’s hope not,” said Arsenal. “Those guys usually know what they’re doing.”

As everyone piled out of the conference room and headed for the shuttle, Superman touched his daughter’s arm. “Hold up,” he said. When they were alone, he walked over to a large porthole and examined the waxing Earth.

“I was surprised to see you and Batman at each other’s throats,” he said. “After the whole Fray thing and all.”

“The ‘me saving his life’ thing?” ask Martha ironically. “Oh yeah, that’s gonna save me from the verbal beatings.”

Superman turned to frown at her. “You were going just as hot and heavy as he was,” he said dubiously. “What’s going on?”

“He starts it,” said Martha hotly.

“You sound like a third grader,” her father said in disbelief. “Who cares who starts it?”

She was silent.

After a moment, Clark added, “Martha, I know the guy is… difficult. Believe me, I know it. But he’s also… I can’t think of a word to describe what his existence has meant to this world.”

Martha gazed sightlessly out of the porthole. She nodded.

“I don’t know what his problem is – this particular problem, I mean. But, if he says something to rile you, just ignore it,” Superman continued. “Disengage. You keep fighting – it could hurt the whole team. We’ve got to be cohesive. A rift could mean someone dies.”

Martha shuddered and Superman could see the goosebumps rise on her forearms. “You’re right,” she said, looking ashamed. “It won’t happen again. This isn’t like me, Dad,” she added earnestly.

“I know it isn’t,” said Clark, smiling.

—