The Death and Life of Superman (15 page)

While Superman diplomatically parried Cat Grant’s questions, a big bear of a man lay sprawled facedown across an old, swaybacked bed in a second-floor walk-up over a Suicide Slum tavern known as the Ace o’ Clubs. His last name was Bibbowski, and his first name was known only to a handful of police officers who had required it for their reports. To friends and acquaintances, he was simply Bibbo.

A fly settled tentatively on Bibbo’s puffy left ear, causing it to twitch involuntarily. Still asleep, Bibbo rolled onto his back, his mouth flew open, and a window-rattling snore filled the room. His close-cropped gray hair and prominent beer gut suggested a man on the far side of fifty, but just how far was uncertain. His cauliflower ears and battered nose were mute evidence that Bibbo had once supported himself as a boxer.

To hear some people talk, Bibbo might have once been a serious heavyweight contender. Others dismissed him as just another lowlife, the veteran of too many barroom brawls. Bibbo had a reputation as a man who could clear a saloon in a matter of minutes. And it was rumored that on one occasion it had taken a dozen burly policemen to hold him down.

Bibbo had supported himself by working the docks as a longshoreman until the day when a gust of wind literally blew a lottery ticket into his face. The ticket won him a fourteen-million-dollar jackpot. Others might have taken the money and run as far from Suicide Slum as they could, but not Bibbo. With the first year’s worth of his winnings, Bibbo bought the Ace o’ Clubs and set about silently helping his more down-and-out buddies.

“Yo, Bibbo! You in there, man?” A knock came at the door of the apartment, answered only by a loud, beery snore. The pounding on the door became more insistent. “Bibbo? Hey, man, it’s me . . . Lamarr! Hey, wake up! The beer truck’s here!”

Bibbo awoke with a snort. “Beer truck? Oh, yeah . . . mus’ be delivery day.” He stumbled to the door and yanked it open so suddenly that Lamarr Powell all but fell into the room.

“Bibbo, are you—? Hooeee!” Lamarr pulled back from his friend, his nose wrinkling so that it appeared to bury itself deeper into his face. “Man, you smell like a sour keg!”

“Hey, your breat’ ain’t exactly daisies! What time is it?”

“I dunno. ’Bout a quarter to eleven, I guess.”

“Quarter to ’leven?!” Bibbo came fully awake, his eyes fairly popping out of his head. “Oh, no! I’m missin’ it!”

Bibbo shoved past Lamarr and bolted down the stairs, two steps at a time. He sprinted down the back hall like a crazed bull, knocking over the man from the beer truck. “Outta my way! I’m missin’ my fav’rit!”

Following in his friend’s wake, Lamarr helped the delivery man to his feet. “You all right?”

“Yeah, I think so. What got into him?”

“Beats me. I ain’t seen Bibbo so agitated since the night Milwaukee was down two runs to Seattle in the bottom of the ninth.”

Cautiously, they entered the back of the tavern to find Bibbo up on a stool hastily changing channels on the bar’s old television.

“Yo, Bib. You won’t find any game on this time o’ day.”

“Ain’t lookin’ for a game. What channel’s the
Cat Grant Show
on?”

“Channel two. Since when do you follow talk shows?”

“I don’t. But my fav’rit’s s’posed to be on today! An’ I been missin’ ’im!” Bibbo hopped down from the stool.

“His favorite?” The delivery man regarded Bibbo with a fishy stare. “His favorite what?”

“Oh, I get it now!” Lamarr gave the delivery man a reassuring grin. “Superman must be on.”

“Superman? But he doesn’t do talk shows!”

“Well, he’s doin’ this one!” Bibbo glanced impatiently at the screen, waiting for the commercial break to end. “It said so, right in yesterday’s
Planet
!”

“Okay. Whatever you say. But in the meantime, can I get you to sign for this delivery?”

“Yeah, sure.” Bibbo scribbled his name on the proffered bill.

“Thanks. So . . . you like Superman, eh? Ever see him? Up close, I mean?”

“See ’im?” Bibbo let out a raspy laugh. “I almos’ busted my knuckles on ’im once!”

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah, before I bought this place . . . Sooperman came in here one night lookin’ for info on some crumbum. I thought ’e was just some jerk wearin’ a phony costume, but ’e was real! An’ ’e was tough! C’mere—!” Bibbo threw an arm around the delivery man and steered him to the middle of the barroom. “See here where we replaced the tile? Y’know why we hadda do that?”

“Uh, look, I really have to be going—!”

“ ’Cause this is where Sooperman pulled me through the floor!”

“He what?!”

“Pulled me through the floor! Me an’ some other guys! See, we was hasslin’ this pal o’ his, Olsen . . . only we din’t know him an’ Sooperman was buddies, see? Anyways, this Olsen kid was askin’ a lotta nosy questions, an’ we din’t know ’im from Adam, so we was givin’ ’im a hard time . . . not really leanin’ on ’im, but lettin’ ’im think we was. When all of a sudden, these hands come smashing up through wood, tiles, an’ everything, an’ pulled us right down through the floor! Haw-haw-haw!” Bibbo merrily slapped the confused delivery man on the back. “Sooperman, ’e’s my fav’rit!”

“Let me get this straight. You nearly broke your hand punching Superman . . . and another time, he pulled you through a floor . . . and now you like him?”

“Like ’im? Ain’t you been payin’ attention? ’E’s—!”

“He’s your favorite . . . yeah, right. But . . . why?”

“Why?!” Bibbo looked at the delivery man in amazement. “ ’Cause ’e’s tough! ’E’s the toughest guy I ever met! Ya gotta respect that!”

“Yo, Bibbo!” Lamarr called for his friend’s attention. “Commercials’re over! The show’s comin’ on!”

Bibbo pointed proudly at the caped figure on the screen. “Ya see? I tolja Sooperman was on!”

“Yeah, I—”

“Shaddup! I wanna hear what he hasta say!”

“Hello! We’re back with Superman and the students of Roosevelt High.” Cat stood in the central aisle of the auditorium bleachers, a wireless microphone in hand. “And I think it’s high time that we let these students ask a few questions.” She nodded to one young man who rose uncertainly from his seat. “And your name is—?”

“Kenny. I was wonderin’ what you super-heroes do when you’re not bashing the bad guys. I mean, do you get together and party all the time or what?”

“The members of the Justice League have a variety of interests, Ken, just as you and your friends do. The Blue Beetle, for example, is an inventor who enjoys spending his free time in the lab. Ice grew up in an isolated section of Norway and as a result likes to travel and learn about other cultures. Booster Gold is a sports buff. Maxima is busy adjusting to life on Earth. And Guy Gardner . . . well, Guy tends to be a bit more private with his free time. We don’t see him much when he’s on his own.”

A freckle-faced boy approached the mike. His hair was an unruly mop that had been cut close on the sides. “Yeah, I have a question for Superman about Guy Gardner. Why won’t you let him be a Green Lantern anymore? Why did you fire him?”

Superman cleared his throat.
Be diplomatic, Clark. The boy obviously idolizes Gardner enough to have his hair cut the same way.
“I can assure you that we didn’t ‘fire’ Guy.”
Much as we might like to.
“We really had no say regarding his status as a Green Lantern. You may not be aware of it, but all the many Green Lanterns are part of a much larger Green Lantern Corps. Guy’s retirement as a Green Lantern was an internal matter of the corps . . . and I’m not qualified to speak on their behalf. Nor would I wish to second-guess them.”

Three hundred miles away, students in Noah Swanson’s third-period history class sat fidgeting in their seats as the interview played out on a classroom monitor. Noah himself was getting annoyed. “Look, this interview is taking place in Metropolis for the benefit of high school students nationwide. I want you kids to pay attention!”

Daryl Warner rolled his eyes and held his voice down to a whisper. “If you ask me, Mitch, this is turning into a real yawner.”

Across the aisle, Mitch Andersen nodded wearily. “No kiddin’! If they’re going to talk about Guy Gardner, why don’t they get Guy Gardner on there with that Boy Scout? But no . . . they wouldn’t do that! Besides, Guy wouldn’t waste his time with some stupid talk show!”

“Mr. Andersen? Mr. Warner?”

Nuts! Old Man Swanson caught us.

“Is there something you wish to share with the class?”

“Uh . . . no, sir.”

“No.”

“Let’s keep it down, then, shall we? Some of us, at least, want to hear what Superman has to say!”

As Cat came up the aisle, a boy in a battered old leather jacket rose and leaned over the microphone. “Hey, Superman, I got a question about Fire. Does she score as high on the babe-o-meter as she seems?” The boy plopped back into his seat, to the amusement of his friends seated nearby.

Ah, yes. Sophomore, no doubt.
Superman tried to maintain a poker face, but it was a battle not to grin. “Fire is good at her job and a terrific person. You’d like her. Next question?”

Cat stepped down a few rows and held the microphone out to an earnest young girl. “I was, y’know, wondering, Superman, if there’s anything out there that, y’know, really frightens you? I mean, I’d get scared facing all that stuff if I were you.”

“That’s a very good question, miss. One way or another, fear is always part of my job. Mainly, there’s the fear of failure. There are criminals who have eluded me, and there have been people whom I was unable to save.”
Like the crew of the
Excalibur.

Several months before, the space shuttle
Excalibur
had crash-landed outside Metropolis, its crew the victims of an orbital radiation experiment. Of the four crash survivors, Superman had been able to save only one, Terri Henshaw. The Man of Steel had watched helplessly as her husband, shuttle commander Hank Henshaw, succumbed to the radiation. Henshaw’s body had failed, and then—!

Mustn’t dwell on that,
he reminded himself.
Answer the question.

“Aside from that, I’m also afraid of unintentionally hurting innocent people. And, to be candid, there have been times when I have feared for my own life. On numerous occasions, I have encountered forces powerful enough to kill me.” Superman noticed some doubting expressions in the audience.
They wouldn’t look so skeptical if they’d ever met Mongul or Darkseid.

The girl pressed on. “What about all that, y’know, hitting and violence? Don’t you get tired of it? I mean, aren’t there better ways to work things out, other than caving in someone’s head?”

Superman nodded appreciatively.
She sounded a little uncertain at first, but she’s obviously given a lot of thought to this.
“There certainly are better ways, and we must use them whenever possible. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke of the need for humanity ‘to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence.’ That’s a goal that every one of us must strive to meet.” He paused. The school auditorium had grown unnaturally quiet. “I wish that the use of force would never be necessary. But experience has taught me that there are some opponents who cannot be stopped any other way. I have torn apart tanks and planes with my bare hands, and I have used these hands to render other people unconscious. Believe me when I say that I am not proud of that. It is something that I find necessary to do to protect others, to accomplish a greater good, a common good. It is that common good that we choose to protect with our powers . . . and our lives.”

8

The Justice League did not find
the Creature. He found them.

The shadow of the bug-ship passed over the Creature as he stalked through a small wooded glen not far from Canton, Ohio. Intrigued by the odd flying craft, he hurled a good-sized rock through it.

“Everybody assume crash positions!” Beetle frantically fought the controls. “Our hydraulics are shredded! We’re going down!”

Thousands of feet in the air, the bug-ship began to break apart. The seven Justice Leaguers suddenly found themselves in free-fall.

“I’m gonna find the creep who whacked us and sew his eyelids shut!”

“Give us nonfliers a hand first, Guy!” The Beetle’s plea had its hoped-for effect.

Guy swung about and swooped under Ice, while Booster grabbed hold of Beetle and slowed his fall. “Gotcha, ol’ buddy. Nothing to worry about now!”

“There’s plenty to worry about! What’s left of my Bug is about to slam into Route 62! When it hits—!”

“It will not!” Maxima stood in midair, a ripple of energy swirling around her. As she gestured, the ship’s wreckage came to a slow stop.

While Maxima occupied herself with holding the wreckage together and lowering it to Earth, the other members of the League assembled along the shoulder of the highway. No sooner had they caught their breath than the ground shook and a gout of flame roared up beyond the adjoining grove.

“Before we were hit I saw—!” Beetle swallowed hard. “That is, I think . . . there’s a LexOil refinery over there!”

“All right! That does it!” Guy Gardner shot away from the group, headed for the fiery glow. Flying over the grounds of the refinery, he quickly spotted the heavily shrouded figure emerging from the ruin of one huge tower. Ring blazing, Gardner swooped down to confront the Creature.