Superman#5: If I only had a brain...
by the firstbornson
They stood outside the enormous mansion, gazing in silence
up at the pinnacles that clashed with the sky and clouds above,
taking in its awesome beauty now charred by cracks along its
walls, and broken panes on windows overhead. For a moment
they were content to look on it and wonder at the supposed
philanthropy of the individual inside and the capability of this
person to act upon her tremendous promise. Then the red
coated woman headed to the entrance of the building, stopping
only for her companion, a tall man with prodigious glasses
thrust forward from his face, to open the door for her with a grand
gesture of the hand.
"Aprez vous, mademoiselle." He smiled as he said this.
For a moment an amused smile crossed her face as she
passed him, "Some times you can be downright, tolerable,
Clark," she said. But then the thought popped into mind of what
she had been trying so hard to suppress all the way here. He
should not be here. Clark was heaven or hell's own little way of
making sure she never got the Pulitzer and she resented that.
The smile faded and she stormed in, the chivalrous grin on her
associate's face freezing as he saw that once again Lois had
thought of something for which she hated him.
"Lois�"
She turned her head and nearly snarled. "What?"
"I'm sorry. If Perry hadn't told me too I wouldn't have.."
"Save it Clark. I know. Tis not mine to reason why�and all that
crap."
"Well if there's anything I can do," Clark said. "Anything. Just say
the word and I'll�"
She practically bit his head off with her eagerness. "Yes! There
is! There definitely is! Something I've wanted you to do ever since
I saw your mug that day at the Planet. Something that would
make me very happy."
He knew that look in her eyes and foretold what was coming
next, but he asked anyway, " And what can I do for you, Lois?"
"Walk down two miles that way for me�"
"Yes�"
"There will be this little store. It serves bagels. Great bagels.
Lots and lots of butter is always smeared on them and they're
toasted brown. Golden brown. Matches my eyes."
"You want one?"
"Hold on Clark let me finish," behind the store there is a deli.
Antiono's place. Everybody's heard of it. I want you to go past
Antonio's, stroll past the white houses on the left, and when you
reach this bridge stretching 2000 feet above the Falkland
Rapids,"
Clark sighed, "Go on."
"I WANT YOU TO JUMP OFF YOU, TURKEY! JUMP OFF!"
"You word is law, Miss Lane. Just right after the interview."
"Oh shut up."
She turned and raised her fist to pound on the second door
separating the outer room from the rest of the house, it opened
before she had a chance to knock and her hand fell on empty
space. Smiling back at them was a man whose handsome
features had been plastered on a hundred different papers in his
lifetime. Standing well over six feet his hair fell tousled over his
face, a slender spit curl dangling over his head as he said,
"Hello Lois. Clark. Won't you come in?"
Clark smiled and shook the hand offered him, "Greg."
The man who had portrayed superman in over seven films and
various television shows allowed them entrance, and they came
into the spacious room that yawned overhead, its width awing
Lois with its faded glory, and she raised her head back to take in
the painted pictures on the ceiling. "Wow."
The actor grinned. "Pretty impressive, isn't it. I've spent years
trying to convince the old lady to restore this place, but even in its
dilapidated state its still something to the newcomer."
"Must have been a heck of a job for the architect," said Clark.
Greg laughed. "I'll bet. Well we can't keep the old lady waiting.
One of you will interview her in the library while I'll be doing my
interview out here. Now who is interviewing me?"
"I am." The reporters spoke simultaneously.
"Clark gave Lois a sideways glance. She looked into his eyes
with all the heat of a flaming brand and he sighed. Greg only
continued to smile, "Can't make up your minds, eh? Well I'll go
tell the old lady that you're here and you can have a sit by that big
mirror over there."
He left, slamming the door as Lois reached out her hand and
pulled Clark close, whispering with a flat edge, "Listen, buddy.
Greg is mine."
"Lois, you well know that Perry specifically said that you were to
interview Miss Winters. `Clark, you interview, Greg, and Lois talk
to Dolores.' Remember?"
"Clark," she said. "Listen. I realize that I haven't been very nice to
you in the past but I need to do this. Clark, please."
"Lois."
"Please, Clark!"
"Does the fact that that man looks like the spittin' image of
Superman have anything to do with this?"
She paused. "No! No of course not! Why would I base an
interview on a silly thing like that?"
"Because you're crazy over Superman?"
Those dark eyes darkened and she said, "You sayin' what I'm
trying to do for the good of the paper is anything other than
unprofessional?"
He saw the danger signals and backed down. "Go ahead."
She brightened. "Thanks, Clark. You're a sweetheart. I knew I
always liked you."
"You're welcome."
They heard treading on the stone tiles and turned, arm in arm
they stood, the actor and the actress. Each in their own right the
nexus of their genre. One had stunned the world with that angelic
voice that rang with all the tortured tones and emotions
possessed within the human spirit, the other had taken on the
guise of a living legend, and though he had suffered tremendous
ridicule for this was respected none the less by that legend
whom he impersonated, for in his own life as well it had seemed
that Greg Reed had been one to extend his hand to one in
trouble, or to give his last penny to a beggar on the street. Now
both Dolores Winters, the golden girl of cinema in the 1940's,
and Gregory Reed, the wannabe Man of Tomorrow stepped
forward.
"Lois," said the elderly woman blinking rapidly in the sunlight.
"Which one of you is Lois?"
"You're welcome to two guesses," said Lois drily.
Clark shot her a glance. "I covered your eye surgery a while
back, Miss Winters. I trust you are recovering suitably?"
"Eye surgery!" Lois nearly jumped. "I'm sorry, I had no idea�"
"Quite allright, my dear," the elderly woman replied. "I've been
looking forward to this interview for quite some time now. I asked
specifically that you be the one I interviewed. Take my arm, dear,
and I'll take you to the library."
To refuse would have been incredible rudness, she had no
choice but to take the arm offered her as Clark gave her an
apologetic glance and turned to speak with Greg. Behind them
the duo shuffled through large doors that reached high up and
nearly to the spacious domed ceiling over-head, and then Greg
showed Clark the way to the sitting room where he draped rather
lazily over an armchair. "Won't you sit down, Mr. Kent?"
"Thanks." Clark did so and as he did then he first noticed the
large burlesque butler a giant standing over seven and a half
feet with enough muscle compact into that tremendous frame to
make a bodybuilder blush like a 20 pound weakling. He said
nothing merely watching them, his bald head shining with the
light of the lamp upon his face and only a slight breathing sound
came out of his nose to show that he was even living. A minute
colossus, his eyes seemed to glaze over as his head looked out
in the direction of the outer window.
"That's quite a butler you have there," Clark said.
"You mean Bunny?" Greg laughed. "He's as harmless as a
newborn puppy. Dolores is quite attached to him."
"He's a�mammoth." Clark then flinched at his own choice of
words causing Greg to raise his eyes in curiosity."
"Something wrong, Clark?"
"I�" A thought flashed into his mind. Fists slamming into the
body of a fur skinned giant, cars slapping from the tremors,
craters forming in his wake. Again and again and again and
again he hit Mammoth, criminal strong man of the group of
juvenile super villains known to the world chiefly as the
Fearsome Five. Then he recalled the headline: Superman Beats
Mammoth into Intensive Care: City Shocked. He smiled slightly
at the puzzled Greg and said, "Nothing. I just remembered
something. I made a mistake a while back and I'm still
wondering how to rectify it."
"Mistakes," Greg grinned, "Annoying little things. Hate `em?
Don't we all!"
Clark pushed his glasses further back on his head and turned
on the camcorder. He cleared his voice and began the interview:
"What is your opinion of the claims that giving this home to
charity is but a little scheme on Dolores' part to once again crack
her way back into that elusive circle known to so many as `The
Hollywood Limelight?'"
"That's preposterous," Greg answered. "I've known the woman
all my life. She'd give away her car to a stranded person if she
ever saw the need. I know it. I've seen it. Of all the people I've
known she is the kindest, the most sensitive, the most unselfish,
caring�"
Their conversation was as a dwindling candle in comparison to
the awesome hush that descended on the conversationalists,
through it all the man mountain that served as butler to the
elderly woman only staring blankly forward, his powerful body not
budging as that strange uncanny sound continued to pass
through his lips. A fly buzzed through the air and landed on his
lips, its filthy legs stepping on the dry, acrid surface and flitted
about on it, rubbing its filth of its legs onto the bottom lip before
scampering about once more, the goliath not even bothering to
flick it away, not even acknowledging its presence. The man
simply stared forward with a hollowness protruding from his
eyes, a soulnessness. He did not fidget, he did not turn his head
in boredom, he did not even blink. He simply looked forward to a
little clock that ticked backwards and forwards constantly, its
mechanics tocking rapidly in a way like a bell telling the death of
an unfortunate individual. This was not far from the case.
The library:
"This is a very old house, Miss Lane," the old woman said,
discontent to sit she walked about the reporter continuously, her
cane tapping again and again like sparks upon a firecracker on
the stone floor. "So much history within these walls."
"And I'm sure the orphans will appreciate it," said Lois. "You're
home is lovely."
"Did you know that some of the first slavers owned this house,
Miss Lane?" said the old woman ignoring the well meaning
compliment. That the blood of black men, women, and children,
dye the walls of granite in the basement, their stench still
sticking to the surface as it makes one think their phantasms
linger in the cold nights, beating their fists in uproar that they had
died in silence, unaware of the kiss of your freedom on your skin
as you run upon the grassy slopes unreigned or unchecked by
any person that would call you `property'?"
"No�" Lois' voice trailed off. "I can't say I have known this,
though the history of the house would make a fascinating article
for the Planet's history page. I know Jimmy's been trying to land
a good story for some time know and he'd love to�"
"Miss Lane." The old woman's wrinkled visage twisted further
as she looked at Lois, her faded golden hair now menaced by
thick wisps of white, her lips wrinkled beyond repair, her eyes
and cheeks deeply sunk and twisting with decay. "That is
besides the point. I am telling you of a lack of freedom. There is
a sense of slavery existing even this day, orphans are slaves of
the state until they are adults. And what then? When you are
eighteen and penniless and kicked right out of the doors of this
house, my house, that I have generously donated as a haven to
the wandering children? Then you are slave to society. Slave to
whatever little job, you the little more than child can pick up and
struggle very hard to keep. Slave to the boss that demeans you,
the government that bleeds you dry to put more pennies into the
pockets of the fat old men who run them, and the system that
makes it so very difficult to rise above without the proper intuition
and the chance to rise. To fly. To soar like Superman over the
lowly mortals whose feet are shackled to the dirt and water of the
great blue Earth? To soar is freedom. Now we are slaves."
"That's intense," the reporter answered.
"Yes," said Miss Winters. "It is `intense.' It is also heartbreaking.
The slavery of orphans. The slavery of common man. And the
slavery of dreams. I am a slave Lois, a slave to this body which
is my prison and yet my only escape from the society that hunts
me, dried and shriveled to the extant that I live no longer. Now I
feel death's breath upon my neck as the Grim Reaper smiles at
me and I am not content to simply smile back. I want to punch
him in the face. To mangle him. To throw him back to hell. I want
to be immortal."
"Say what?" said Lois sitting up straighter in her seat.
"I am no elderly woman, Lois. I�beneath the skin I am a man."
Lois blinked. " Can I quote you on that?'
"My dear Miss Lane society is a slave in and of itself. You are a
slave, your friend Clark out there is a slave. That bumbling idiot
second cousin of mine that is content to donate the occasional
check to Goodwill and all the other insufferable do gooder
organizations, they are slaves as well. It takes the free minds to
liberate the other ones. It takes minds such as mine, such as
others, brothers and sisters, in a way who are in bondage for
voicing this fact. It takes resources. "
"Oh yeah?" She turned up the recorder. "You don't say."
"Lois�I spoke of the slavery of dreams. In that case I am a
slave Lois, no- I was a slave but am no longer. I am a fighter
battling for my freedom. I once had visions that are dying in my
mind. They're smoking embers that hurt me. My brain rots daily
and I feel it no matter how many times I fight to keep myself alive.
I am old and yet�I can be young again. I wish to bring to the
world my brilliance and tear away this guise of merely a faded
star. I am bright. I burn still. I will prevail."
"Can you specify?" asked Lois.
"Lois�" said the old woman, and a tiny fire lighted in those
faded grey eyes. "I am the Ultra Humanite. I have had power
within another's arms that could tear the steel from vehicles and
rip the flesh from people's frames. I can at one time tear
buildings into rubble, and at another plunge into the depths of
seas and oceans. The bodies of Earth's inhabitants are houses
for which I can rest my consciousness and that is the way I can
and have battled death within the past. And that is the way I shall
battle him now. I need you, Lois."
The reporter stepped back and felt her back against a wall. She
placed her hand upon the door knob and tried to turn it yet it
would not bend before her desperate hand. She felt the sweat
that ran down her face and tried to step back but the door was
fastened by a mechanical device that had activated the moment
she had entered this now chilling room. An aura of menace
descended out of the old lady and her smile revealed decay and
then something else.
"Lois�please. I am not so bad as one might think, it is the
papers that label me as such. As�a super villain," then the
creature (for woman did not accurately describe this thing)
laughed and said, "I realize my mistake. You�you are the
papers."
Lois looked about. A weapon, she needed weapon. The woman
was psycho, no doubt about and needed a slew of therapists but
if she tried to lift a finger against Lois, then so help her
she'd�.
The thought froze within her mind. Fear chilled her marrow as
she saw the elderly woman rubbing the face cream from her
face, the white cover leaving her as now the heavy drenched
perfume that had wrapped her in a stifling smell gave way to the
rotting odor of a fading corpse. Worms wracked the woman's
eyes, maggots tore upon the flesh dipping in and their ugly
heads into the blood dried and sticking to the walls of the
woman's frame and Lois screamed.
"Miss Lane, please," said the woman. "They cannot hear you.
Superman could not hear you even if he was in this very house.
Lead has lined my walls ever since my entry to this place and
these plasters conceal vibrations shifting the noises here to
other pinpoints on the planet due to their electromagnetic
frequencies. Such is my genius. Now I have you. Now I am one
step closer to my goals."
Lois seized a lamp and swished it towards the `woman' rapidly.
The false Dolores merely smiled. "Please Miss Lane," s/he said.
"Do not obligate me to use force."
"To hell with obligations!" Lois screamed. She cracked the
woman upside the head with the pot and the actress crumpled
at the blow. "You can quote me on that."
The library:
The giant in the librairy fidgeted slightly, a hairy eyebrow lifting
from his massive head and slightly rumbled with a growl. Clark
turned his head from the interview and grinned, "Well will you
look at that? He actually moved. Is it possible?"
Greg laughed as he always did. "I guess. Yeah. You should
have seen him last week though. My car wouldn't start after a
visit here and so I heard Dolores say, "Bunny! Go give Mr. Reed a
lift. So he goes to me and what does he do? Does he take the
car out of the garage and drive me home? Does he pull out the
limo and say, `Won't you get in, Mr. Reed?' No! Instead he lifts
me up like I'm nothing and slings me over his shoulder. I was
speechless. Then Dolores says, "No,no Bunny! Put him down.
Give him a lift in the car." So he puts me in the car, I wait for him
to get in beside me, but instead he goes under the car. UNDER.
And he LIFTS IT. It was last Tuesday that this happened. I
remember because I had a cigarette in my mouth and I dropped
when he scared the hell out of me, and it burned a hole in my
pants."
Clark said nothing as he viewed the creature again, "That's
pretty impressive, Greg."
"Impressive, nothing! I play impressive. That's impossible! He's
the strongest guy I've ever seen. Stronger than strong. He's a
freak of nature."
"Strongest you say?" said Clark, and he lowered his glasses
slightly when looking at the hulking creature. "I take it, you've
never met, Superman."
"Oh I've met, Superman," said Greg. "Poor choice of words. I
should have said he's the strongest guy I KNOW. Now if he met
Superman, that would be interesting. Look at him. Judging by
appearances, don't you think he could take Big Blue's head off?"
"He looks very intimidating," said Clark quietly. "But then so did
the Mammoth, or didn't you know?"
"The Mammoth?" said Greg. "Ha! Two bucks says Bunny
reduces the Mammoth to paste in seconds. Dolores says the
guy could bring down the house if he only tried. I believe her. No
reason not too. In our day and age when we live in a city guarded
by a man who can toss planets with a shrug of the shoulders
and with a whiff of the breath extinguish suns, its easy to believe
everything you hear. You follow me?"
Clark nodded.
"Now Bunny however.." said Greg. "I feel safer being around the
guy than Superman. And Bunny can be aggressive in the
protection of Miss Winters. "
Had he looked any closer he would have seen Clark's face
slightly redden but as it was he didn't.
"Safer than around Superman? Why, Greg?" Clark's voice was
oddly cold here.
"Well like I said before, here is Bunny, a guy that just lifted my
car but doesn't do a thing without a word from Dolores. But
Superman. He's so�out there. Untouchable. He has wrestling
matches with intergalactic warlords that can upheave whole
regions while holding back. He's looked Dark Gods in the eye
while probably thinking, "Did I leave the coffee on at home?" and
he reportedly has an intelligence to the degree that can be
labeled hyper intelligent. Super genius. He reads books and
remembers every word. Look the wall and see that picture of
Superman and little girl. Look. Look!"
Clark turned his face slightly, memories of the spectacle flitting
in his mind. "I see it."
"That girl was blind. The best specialists in the world tried to
operate on her but couldn't. A detached retina and all that. Its too
delicate for doctors to do yet and for the victim to regain sight. It
would be a miracle for that to happen. But Superman comes in,
reads thirty volumes on the subject in four minutes (it taking that
long because if he flipped through the pages any faster he'd rip
them), and rolls up his sleeves and takes out the piece of glass
that had cut up her retina and fixes it. My gosh, Clark! Its enough
to make you start believing in Jesus!"
"That's�that's wonderful, Greg. Him looking out for everyone
like that," said Clark. "Makes you think he really loves us, doesn't
he?"
"Sometimes," said Greg, and his hair nearl jostled as he
practically letp from his feet. "But think about it. Think about it!
You have a man who tosses around cosmic baddies without
breaking a sweat, can work miracles, and has such a degree of
intelligence above man's own that he's probably ahead of us by
a millon years, and you'd have us believe he can maintain the
common touch?"
Clark bit down on his lip. "Do you all think this way?" he said
quietly.
"What?" said Greg. "I didn't hear you."
"Never mind," he felt a chill go down his spine so Clark turned
his head and looked at his watch. "Well we've been talking for
some time now�and�.I�I think that I should be going
and�"
He didn't know why he found his words so difficult to say.
"You okay, man?" said Greg. "You look sorta flushed. Can I get
you something?"
"No�no�I'm fine. I'm fine," Clark tried to smile but found
that he couldn't so he abandoned the effort. "I just need to find Lois. We're all done out here and there's a banquet at City Hall that
Perry wants me to cover in half an hour but I'm Lois' ride back to
the Planet. I'd hate to leave her."
"Well�" said Greg. "You can always go and I could have Bunny
give her a lift." His features then widened at the realization of his
own words and he grinned. "Get it? Give her a LIFT?"
Clark smiled. "Heh."
Then they burst out laughing, neither paying attention to the fact
that Bunny had exited the room.
The library:
"Oh no," said Lois. "You stay away from me, buster. I'll whack
you're head off this time if you don't. Get it?"
The head was broken, the corpse of Dolores Winters staggered
forward with a sick grin upon her face. "I fight for freedom Miss
Lane. Freedom. Yet I myself am at this time somewhat a slave.
Of Revenge."
The corpse stepped forward, lifting a hand to block the attack
aimed at its head, coughing worms up all the while. "I possess
no vendetta towards you, Miss Lane. You are merely a pawn in
my game, though I do this, regrettably. I am not a bad man. So
many labeled `super villains' are not bad people. We fight for
what we believe in, just as in a way every person does, whether
on the surface of the mind they truly believe it or not. I am going
to pluck your brain from you're body and use your form as my
own, but it is for a cause. My cause. The Justice Society has
plagued me recently as they have in so m any times past yet I
am not so given over to anger as before. (3) It was something
piecing together this body to be once again for general use after
the humiliating debacle that had occurred over the yellow lands
of china, but I have learned by it. I have grown. I shall not be so
foolish as to give up this one when I possess it. Now
please�put down the vase."
Lois' hair lashed wildly about her face, she clutched the vase `til
her knuckles turned white. "Go to hell," she whispered.
Bunny suddenly materialized in the room behind her. She felt
his hand descending upon her shoulder as she turned and
smashed the vase into him sending it shattering into a million
pieces and then shards of pain coursed throughout her spine
making her scream. As darkness came she heard the Humanite
say, "I asked you to be reasonable. I warned you I'd used force if
forced too. But you should have known by my genius that mine
would not be the hands to administer it to you."
Outside the library:
Clark knocked on the library door. No answer. He put his ear to
the door to see if he could hear anything. Nothing. Not even a
heart beat. Odd. On impulse he turned on his xray vision to see
what he hadn't before. There was enough lead about the place
to make pencils for years. Something was wrong. Why would the
walls be lead lined?
He then thought of something. The basement. Greg had pointed
it out earlier to him as he came in, he was supposed to be
leaving now but instead he snuck down there, a hunch in his
mind that what the bottom of the library wouldn't be as heavily
covered as the top. He was right. He could now hear a voice
speaking. Lois. But there was something about here that
seemed so cold�so distant.
"When you regain consciousness, you will find you have no
sight. No voice. No movement of limbs, only this thought that I
have placed within your brain. You are disembodied and lying on
a table covered with a gelatinous substance of my device that
will allow you to continue to live for a full thirty minutes. Bunny
and I will go leave at which time you will immediately recuperate
and the thought in your mind will instantly play everything I have
just said. In case you're wondering why I'm repeating myself if
the thought is already in your mind the cause is this. Know my
genius. A genius trapped by slavery to its own dreams. I have
been man, woman, child, animal. Many things! But the dreams�
they remain the same. You will help me in this way, Lois, to find
my dreams again that are lost, and bring up to the surface those
that were sinking. With the deaths of the JSA I will once again be
free to bring to fruit plans to shape society. In this role as you I
will have access to so many things. The alliance with Superman
that will gain me access to his Fortress. The Justice League
Watchtower, files revealing identities, hidden secrets, and others
concerning the super hero population. Political friends. And
triumph. Thank you, Lois. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I can
only wonder that I had not thought of this before."
The door shut. Clark placed his hands to his chest to rip his
shirt open, to shed the mortal garments and become the man
beneath the surface but felt a hand descend upon his shoulder.
He turned his head. Bunny. How did he know Clark was there?
The giant slammed his fist into Clark's face, the reporter flew
across the room crunching into a steel oven that bent beneath
the impact. His glasses hung loosely over his face, the wires
bent, the glass cracked, and when he rolled away and stumbled
off into the shadows, he saw that Bunny's left index knuckle was
bleeding. "Shouldn't have hit me so hard, fella," Clark thought.
"Bunnny!" Lois' voice could be heard calling. Yet it sounded
sinister now. Who was she really? What was going on?
Clark saw the giant lumber and then smashed through the floor
to see the brain lie sickeningly on the table, covered by a
gelatinous mass and drowning nearly in its own blood. Oh
Lois�he touched it tenderly. She knew that touch. He felt her
brain move quickly, thoughts forming in her mind. Oh Lois, if I
only knew how you felt, he thought. At times like these I wish I
was J'onn.
He flung himself from the building, crashing out through the top,
seeing the surprised expressions of the Ultra Humanite/Lois,
and Bunny as they looked up to see the building totter. Greg
Reed came rushing out to look but none could see he who
caused this, Clark was gone across the horizon, Clark no longer.
Now Superman.
Metropolis Hospital:
Nearly twelve gallons have sedatives had been used on him, as
of now he couldn't lift a finger if he tried. The gigantic creature
covered in hair and bandages, shackled with enough chains on
each armpit to be unable to even properly breath, and hooked up
to a system that every five minutes pumped yet another pint of
toxin into his systems, groaned. Mammoth was a pitiable wreck
of what he once was, and he knew it and at the moment there
was nothing he could do about it.
"Hi ya, loser."
He tried to open his eyelids at the sound of that familiar voice
but couldn't, so he pretended to be asleep. An act that didn't fool
his sister in the slightest.
"You're such a dummy."
He growled. She didn't care, She knew him.
"One little setback and you're all ready to call it quits and try and
make it on your own. Just cause you lost to a BABE (Mammoth's
face reddened).Well there's nothing entirely wrong with that
except you try and slug it out WITH SUPERMAN?! Genius." (1)
"How did you get in here?" he wondered.
"I snuck in."
His eyes lifted in shock, now he forced them open as he looked
at her face. How had she read his mind?
"The Boss," Shimmer said. "He did it. Got us all fixed up with
these little thingies that send our thoughts along this wave
length of some sort into each other's minds. We can
communicate that way. Read the thoughts of others without them
knowing our own. If you had stuck around he would have given
you one but being the chump that you are now you can't have
one. That's one of your punishments for leaving." (2)
THEN WHY ARE YOU BOTHERING ME?
BECAUSE YOU'RE MY BROTHER, she thought back. AND
BECAUSE I CARE ABOUT YOU SORTA. YOU'RE A
KNUCKLEHEAD BUT YOU'E FAMILY. SO I'M HERE TO BAIL YOU
OUT. YOU COMING?
I'M IN NO SHAPE TO DO ANYTHING, Mammoth thought. AND I'd
REFUSE TO GO BACK EVEN IF I COULD. I WONT BE MOCKED.
HUMILIATED. MADE FUN OF `CAUSE PEOPLE THINK I'M DUMB.
NO MORE. I'VE HAD ENOUGH.
HE CAN MAKE YOU STRONG, BARAN. STRONGER THAN
YOU'VE EVER BEEN BEFORE. STRONG ENOUGH TO KILL
SUPERMAN. YOU'D LIKE THAT WOULDN'T YOU?
Mammoth snickered. Its impossible.
"No, Baran. He can. You know his power, his strength. There is
hardly any like him. He's a genius among geniuses among
geniuses. He wants your help. So he's freeing you. Now."
At that moment the sedative rubbed off. He felt cold hands, his
sister's touch as she placed an electronic device upon his face
and a vibrant hum in his skull. Its soothing radiation resounded
in his brain and Mammoth's eyes opened. He stood up. He
smiled. The chains cracked.
And then all the killing, mangling and beatings that followed as
he tore his way out of the joint with his sister tossed on one arm
was like�music.
1)Mammoth was beaten by Superman last issue, in a fit of rage
when Superman saw Mammoth kill people.
2) Check out Slick Mick's Outsiders to have a better idea who
'The Boss' is, the 'babe' that beat mammoth in that run is Grace
3) The Ultra Humanite was in Slick Mick's JSA#1-6 and is sore
about it.,
4) Bunny is also a character from the above mentioned JSA arc
but not even Mick knows who
Next issue: Finding a body for Lois, Superman leaves her in this
state causing Lois to be pretty darn annoyed with him. Jimmy
makes moves on Perry's wife...and what about the Humanite?
