Phil RedBeard

League of Justice #0.9: “The Pangs of Despised Love”

I like girls. I always have. I like everything about them. I love the female body, that is just the most obvious part of their loveliness. And I don’t just love the bits that seem obvious to love: of course perky, round, bouncy breasts are enticing. Of course a firm butt is adorable. Of course smirky smiles and smokey eyes are dreamy, but you know, guys have those things too. When it comes right down to it, girls are just rounder more attractive guys. Men are the half finished, flat and hard precursor to humanity perfected: the woman. The one thing that sets us apart are our particularly naughty bits down below. I mean, hello! guys have nipples (it just is an unfair society that let’s them show them off whenever they feel like it). But girls have the sweet, magical, confusing, mysterious, lovely, and quite controversial (to some old white men) baby dispensers. Give a woman a little genetic material, nine months, and bam! a brand new human ready to be molded by society.

So do I love women only because they can make little humans? Please, I am not that simple. Besides, I love vaginas even when they aren’t birthing babies. I even love vaginas when once a month the machinery goes completely haywire, chemicals burst out of their containment fields, and the resulting blown fuses make a girl weep, laugh, rage, and whimper like the world has ended in the same ten seconds. How much fun is that? A girl gets to be a colossal bitch or cry about anything and get away with it because PERIOD: the do-anything-and-get-away-with-it badge of humanity. To make it even better, girls usually get chocolate and wine and space when this monthly meltdown occurs. Be crazy and get gifts? why don’t more girls enjoy their periods?

Anyway, I caused a little bit of turmoil in my house even before I got a body that went nuts for no reason on a regularly scheduled cycle because I told my parents that I liked girls. I wasn’t supposed to do that, but I didn’t know that then. My parents were these religious, buttoned up, southern Protestants. So to have their seven year old daughter walk up to them one Sunday afternoon after church and announce: “I love girls” and then flounce away to play Barbies was a little shock to them. My parent’s Bible told them that boys loved girls and girls loved boys but not any other combination. Carefully, over the next few days, my parents pried out what exactly I meant by what I said and when it became clear that this wasn’t the normal “eww, boys/girls have cooties” thing that every kid has at that age, they freaked out. But, because I was not a “butch” (what a stupid description) girl, they didn’t know how to “fix” me. I already loved dress up and make up and Barbies and pink so thankfully they just sort of let it go. They never acknowledged that the girls I started bringing home when I got to middle school and high school were anything other than “playmates” (hehehe) or friends, but I guess since a lot of my other gay friends were being disowned or worse by their parents, indifference wasn’t that bad.

What? Am I a lesbian? Well first: duh. And second: what the hell is up with labels? I happen to think there are some gorgeous men out there, and dicks don’t bother me, I just prefer playing with girls. It’s inborn, it’s a choice, it’s a sliding scale and a fluctuating identity. Boys don’t like girls until they do. Otherwise no one would have cooties. I am who I am.

It is like me being a military aviator. Does that make me a soldier? Well, yes, I suppose it does. But I don’t really feel like a soldier. I just love to fly, and Uncle Sam lets me fly as much as I want. In some ways I had more of an issue with “being a lesbian” once I enlisted. My recruitment officer didn’t ask, I didn’t tell, but everyone knew. In my experience, gay guys in the military have it slightly easier than gay girls. For one thing, the overzealous frat boy bro culture of the military allows for male bonding and affection that gives a homosexual soldier the opportunity to express his feelings but not get caught doing so. But girls are relatively rare in the military, and thus are the object of every non-gay soldier’s affection. The girl that doesn’t respond so well to such affection is noticed immediately. Also, I tend to catch the eye of straight chicks, too, so I narrow the available dating pool and that isn’t preferred either.

But I do what I’ve done my whole life: I do my thing, I live my life, and I don’t care. Besides, who I love or what I’m labeled doesn’t matter when I am cruising at 30,000 ft at twice the speed of sound. When that is happening, nothing else matters. Oh, and by the way, that is one time I absolutely love having a hard stick between my legs.

Anyway, my name is Hallie Jordan, United States Air Force test pilot. But you can call me Hal.

Who are you and where am I? What?

Last thing I knew I was in an inverted dive over the North Atlantic, having taken off from the U.S.S. Enterprise twenty minutes earlier. My avionics went crazy, the stick went dead and I was diving towards the deck about to be crumpled like a tin can. I see wreckage over there, which apparently means that part of my aircraft survived the impact with planet earth and given my parachute and everything I must have ejected, but I didn’t see any island when I was up there.

What? Invisible? We’ll just move right past the part where the whole island is invisible, are you telling me that the NAVY has no way to locate me? Great. So how am I supposed to tell that pompous design nerd that his plane can’t fly worth a damn? I had $20 that said the altimeter would fritz first and I can’t wait to make him pay up.

Anyway. Hi, Diana. Thanks for saving my life. You got anything to eat around here? I’m starving and I’d rather not eat my rations unless I have to. Great. Lead the way…

Enter Sandman

The ear crunching chords of heavy metal music shattered the quiet, Kansas evening. The music crackled a bit, coming as it did from old, creaky speakers. When these speakers were designed, heavy metal hadn’t yet been invented. It was no wonder the rhythmic bass and electric guitars strained their mechanical limits.

Karin jerked awake and sat up straight in bed. From her bedroom on the second floor of the farm house, the music roared into the dark corners and echoed off the walls.

Say your prayers little one,

Don’t forget my son
To include everyone

Karin threw back her covers. A faint light was filtering in through her bedroom windows. The ballpark! Karin grabbed her bathrobe from the chair by her bed and shrugged it over her shoulders as she ran down the stairs.

I tuck you in
Warm within

Keep you free from sin

‘Til the sandman he comes

When she was a little girl, Karin’s father Ray plowed a corner of his cornfield and built a ballpark. At first it was a left field only, finely manicured Bermuda grass and a rickety old section of grandstand. Over the summer he labored and tilled and planted and painstakingly built a baseball diamond. Just across sagging chain link fences and creaking bleachers, tall ears of Iowa corn reached to the starry skies.

Sleep with one eye open

Gripping your pillow tight

The screen door banged against the door frame as Karin breezed out of the house. Her bare feet slapped against the brown dirt path that led from the front door to the left field seats. Though her father had long ago completed other sections of the grandstands for spectators, she always sat in left field. It was where the magic had first manifested, and though it had spread, it still always seemed strongest there.

Exit light

Enter night
Take my hand
We’re off to never never-land

Karen stomped up the bleacher stairs and sat down, out of breath and staring into the night. Her breasts were heaving as she gulped air. Her flaming red hair was unkept and tangled from sleep and the midnight wind. There, in the centre field wall where on enchanted nights the ghost men walked in to play baseball and out to rest until the next mystical “Play ball!”, a new shimmering baseball player was entering. His cleats shifted from translucent and grey to solid and black as they crunched the dirt of the warning track. Head down, he tucked his glove under his arm, and began to jog from centre field towards the pitcher’s mound.

At first, Karin didn’t know who he was. His pinstripe uniform wasn’t immediately distinct, but then she saw the bold big numbers on his back. 42. Karin gasped. Could it be?

Her gaze remained locked on the new pitcher emerging from the cornfield, but she acknowledged the arrival of her parents with a distracted wave of her hand. Annie, her mother, was an aged, mirror image of her daughter, though her red hair had faded and was streaked with the silver of age. Her father moved with the slow, creaking joints of a lifelong farmer. Though his face was deeply grooved from long days under the summer sun, his smile was still bright.

“Did I hear ‘Enter Sandman’?” he asked, a slight rasp in his voice.
“Yep. I wonder what Joe thinks of ‘modern music’?” Karin replied.
“Is it…?” Ray let the question tail off into a whisper.

Karin just pointed to the pitcher warming up on the mound. He was focused, quick, deliberate in his delivery to the catcher. His number was clearly visible, and though there was no name on the jersey, Ray immediately knew who was making warm-up tosses on his cornfield ballpark mound.

“Mariano Rivera.”

He didn’t so much say the name as breathe it with a holy reverence. From left field, Shoeless Joe lobbed a toss to the centre fielder, and turned to throw the Kinsella family a wink. He had heard Ray’s whisper. Joe enjoyed introducing new players to his magical baseball fans.

Rivera, the greatest closer to ever pitch in organized baseball, was warming up for the 1918 Chicago White Sox in a cornfield in Iowa.

“Watch this, Karin,” Ray said, leaning down from his seat to whisper in his daughter’s ear. “Mariano Rivera is the greatest pitcher to ever close a game. He throws a cutter, primarily. It comes in hard and straight like a fastball and at the last moment cuts hard. He discovered it by accident, they say. Chipper Jones, he played third base for the Atlanta Braves in Mariano’s time, called the pitch a buzz saw. They said Rivera broke more bats in a single season than any pitcher before him.”

Karin listened and watched with rapt attention as Mariano Rivera stood tall on the mound. He stared into the catcher for a brief moment before turning, and hurling a pitch towards home plate. Even from left field, above the crickets and the leathery flapping of corn husks, Karin heard the zip of a baseball, and the loud *snap* of the baseball smacking into the catcher’s mitt.

“Striiiiike one!” the umpire yelled. Mariano simply caught the ball from his catcher, kicked the dirt on the mound, and stood, foot pressed against the rubber, ready to go again.

“If you build it, he will come,” a ghostly announcer once said. Then “he” was Shoeless Joe Jackson. Tonight it was Mariano Rivera, the last ball player to ever wear number forty-two, and the greatest to ever pitch the ninth inning.

Karin smiled. The magic was still alive in the Iowa cornfield.

League of Justice 0.8: “What Dreams May Come”

Smallville, Kansas

The spacecraft was easy enough to hide. Jonathan Kent merely dug a bunker beneath the barn, and concealed the capsule within. But a baby was harder to contain. Martha Kent was determined to keep the child, and wouldn’t hear of any other strategy.

“What does a space baby eat?” She wondered aloud. She was rocking him, that much was easy enough to determine as he had been placed in his capsule naked. She had since wrapped him in a red blanket she found in the hall closet. Surprisingly the child wasn’t crying. He was staring around curiously, and Martha was struck with the feeling that he was more aware than any other babe she had been around. His age was hard to determine. His size made him to be a few weeks old, but his manner was that of an older baby. He had a handsome, chubby face, and thick black hair.

“Well, same as any other baby, I suppose. Give em milk, don’t you?” Jonathan was practical, as ever. That the baby had apparently come from outer space either didn’t register or didn’t perturb him in the least. Martha snorted from the rocking chair. “You do if you have mother’s milk. I guess we need some formula. Look in the cupboard. I think Mary left some the last time she was here.” Mary was Martha’s older sister who had six children of her own. They hadn’t visited in a few months, but when she had she was bouncing a fat new addition to the family. Martha walked into the kitchen, cradling the baby. Jonathan had found the formula, a powdered blend, and was mixing it according to the directions. “Oh! Goodness!” Martha exclaimed. “We don’t have a bottle.” “Yes we do.” Jonathan replied calmly. He walked over the corner and lifted a bottle out of a tattered cardboard box that was sitting by the door. “Just bought them. I was thinking of breeding a few calves this fall, maybe starting a herd.” The bottle was a little larger than the typical human infant bottle, but it would serve.

Martha sat back down, and introduced the bottle to the baby. Without hesitation he started sucking and drinking the milk with gusto. “Well, he certainly seems hungry. What did you do with his spaceship?” “I threw a tarp over it for now. What do you think, should we contact the government? Do you suppose they saw this thing come down?” Martha was cooing at her new charge, and didn’t answer right away.

“Well, I figure if they knew it had come down, they would be here by now to check it out.” “Maybe.” “And all they will do is take him away and study him. I doubt whoever placed him in that thing and sent him our way meant for him to live in a lab like a mouse and be studied. He needs a family.”

It was Jonathan’s turn to be quiet awhile. The baby had finished his milk and Martha was burping him against her shoulder. Jonathan stared into the child’s eyes for a moment. Then, in a moment, he came to a decision. He knew the right thing to do, and he knew what he had to do, and there was no contest between the two.

“How are we going to explain a baby? People tend to notice when you ain’t been pregnant and then have a baby.”

Martha stood up, love and joy shining from her eyes. Hiding an alien baby was not something done lightly, and her husband had done it for her. She blinked back tears and she bounced the babe in a rhythmic whole body bounce and thought. Jonathan was amazed at how nurturing was something women seemed to know instinctively. He was of course forgetting about the many children that Martha had practically raised, being the caregiver of the community that she was.

“We found him on our doorstep, didn’t we? My daddy always did say that honesty was the best policy. He just came in a big, shiny basket from out beyond the stars. But we can leave out that last bit. I never saw the need for total honesty.” Martha said this with a smirk and twinkle in her eye. It was Jonathan’s turn to feel a swell of love. “Works for me,” he said. “What are you going to do with the big, shiny basket?” Martha asked. Jonathan shrugged. “Always been meaning to dig a bunker under the barn for an additional tornado shelter. No time like the present, my dad always said.”

The baby had fallen asleep in Martha’s arms. She sat down again in the rocker and glided gently back and forth.

“What do we call him?” She whispered.

“You know, I’ve always liked your maiden name. It’s suitable for a boy, isn’t it? And then we give him our name.”

Martha patted her new son on the back.

“Welcome to earth, Clark Kent.”

All of Martha’s dreams came true, in an instant, when a mysterious capsule crashed to earth from the heavens.

League of Justice #0.7: “Sea of Troubles”

Bermuda, September 1941

Once upon a time, in a mysterious triangle of the Atlantic Ocean, on a hurricane battered bit of rock, a boy was born. The island has many names, and isn’t terribly large, but it is part of the Bermuda archipelago. The baby was born to a British submariner and an island beauty. Her skin was dark and beautiful, a blend of many hues and shades, like her heritage, a deep blend of the many strains of humanity that at one time or another had made The Islands of Bermuda their home. The young sailor grew up on the shores of the Thames and dreamed of an endless expanse of ocean. The girl grew up on shores of sand, always waiting for what the tides would bring. Their love was every bit as wild and tumultuous as the sea, but every bit as deep.

Their love was not to last. After surviving many daring underwater raids and sneak attacks, the sailor’s sub was caught in open water surrounded by German u-boats. The battle was valiant but futile, and the sailor and his mates never rose above the ocean waves again. Unknown to him, back on the shores of Bermuda, his wife was pregnant with their unborn son. When the commander of the base delivered the sad news, she wept for the brave father who would never know his son.

That fall, an ordinary healthy baby boy was born and took his first breath of salt tinged air. His first cries echoed across a stormy sea. He was a striking newborn: not overly large, but well formed and possessed of the same gorgeous skin of his mother. But atop his head was a wild tuft of golden hair. One of his eyes was dark, deep brown, the other was grey and blue, like the shades of the ocean, tossed together. His mother named him Arthur Curry, after his father.

Little Artie grew and thrived on the ocean, only dimly aware of the larger conflict that spanned the world around him. He was as often under the waves as on them, diving and swimming as strongly as any fish. However, as he grew into a bigger boy, he often grew sick and weak. His muscles failed him, and soon he could neither swim nor walk. The military doctors could not discern the cause of his affliction, and flew in experts from around the world. Never had a little boy had more love and attention, growing up among sailors he had more uncles and big brothers than most boys could ask for. He became their little mascot, and given how much time he spent in the water, the sailors had nicknamed him AquaBoy. The origins of his condition was never conclusively identified, but the result was clear. Artie’s muscle mass, and most of his bone structure, had partially liquified. He could not move or stand simply because he had nothing to stand on or move with. It was a grizzled old salt who proposed what would be Artie’s salvation: an aquatic environment. To protect his skin from over saturation, Artie was fitted with a suit. He was placed in a pool of water. Buoyed by the water, Artie could move with only the barest of movements, and the water held him up in a constant embrace. AquaBoy swam again, and the water became his forever home.

The old salt continued to look after Artie, who learned and grew like any other child. The salt, having a keen mind, devised an exoskeleton for Artie to help support his soft frame and to amplify his movements so that he could swim and move with greater ease. Living in an aquarium was a lonely existence for a boy, though the sailors joined him whenever they could. One day a orphaned dolphin wandered into a Bermuda bay. Worried that without a mother she would die, the sailors placed the dolphin in a tank and fed her. Someone then had the idea to bring Artie to the dolphin, and from then on they were never parted. He named her Sula. She would would propel him around and gently float beside him when he slept, and they played together. Spending every second in each other’s company gave them a bond and a communication that few companions of a single species could ever hope to replicate, let alone one aquatic, one terrestrial.

Arthur, on achieving his teenage years, not only surprised every medical professional by being alive, but astounded everyone with his brilliance and his mental agility. Being unable to travel, the experts in many subjects and fields came to him. By the time the AquaBoy became a man, he was one of the best minds in the world. He had been relocated from a small pool in a small building to a large complex with many areas and with outlets to the sea. Sula, herself only in her young adult years, had an passageway that led into the open ocean from the main aquarium in which they both lived. This was added after Arthur’s insistence, his caretakers feared she would leave and either be killed or never return. But Sula showed no signs of ever wanting to abandon Arthur and into adult life, they remain inseparable.

Into the 1980s, Arthur continued to astound those who cared for him. At this time chronologically in his forties, he still resembled a young man. Some attributed this to his lifestyle, but using the newest medical technology, his genes were sequenced and examined. Arthur’s main condition, a gelatinous skeleton, remained a mystery and was blamed on a mutation. But a side effect was discovered: Arthur aged at almost half the rate of a normal human. By fifty he was genetically closer to twenty five. Sula, however, remained a completely ordinary dolphin. Though well into her sixties, she was nothing more than a prime example of the species. Sometime around their combined sixty-second birthday, she defied some odds of her own by finding a love of a dolphin kind and later that year she gave birth to pair of calves, one male and one female. She had apparently mated with a false killer whale as her offspring were identified as wolphins. Arthur named them George and Gracie. As they grew, they formed the same strong bond with Arthur that their mother had. Aquaman seemed as happy with his aquatic family as they were their human companion.

As the world entered the 21st century, Sula died at the old, even for a dolphin, age of 70. Arthur, meanwhile, was still in his thirties and was becoming extremely interested in current events on the American mainland, mostly in the dark, crime filled Gotham City and just outside of Metropolis, in a small town called Smallville.

A Thousand Cuts

My name is Phil, and I have clinical depression.

Last night I tweeted this:

“Life is a death of a thousand cuts. The question is: can you find meaning before you bleed to death all over the carpet? Me, I don’t know.”

A twitter friend, a fellow nerd and author, asked his followers to tweet to a woman who truly believed she was ugly and to tell her the truth. I perused this woman’s feed, and was deeply saddened to see that her voice was almost gone. Most of her recent posts were retweets from suicidal accounts. [Author’s note: A suicidal account is an account on social media that is almost entirely thoughts, pictures, and poetry about suicide. They are everywhere on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Most are run by truly desperate people. Take a break from kittens sometime and read the pain that no one sees. It will sober you up in a hurry.] I felt so lost and so small. I had nothing to say to this woman that would ease her pain in the least. But I couldn’t back away, I couldn’t just be silent. So I said this:

“You are beautiful and you are not alone. I know your pain and it can get better.”

It was as honest as I could get. Every woman is truly beautiful. Depression is not something you suffer as the only depressed person on the planet. I do know that pain. And it can get better. Why didn’t I say “it will get better”? Because I do not know that to be true. I have been in therapy for nearly two years now. I am on medication. I have worked through so much pain and childhood trauma. But I still don’t feel much different than I did when it all began. I don’t have the black fog, but I am rarely happy or positive or upbeat. I certainly believe that things can get better. I simply lack convincing evidence that things will get better. I was frustrated that such a small truth was all I had to offer a woman in pain.

I am starting to refer to this year in particular as the year from hell. Ever since Christmas, when some things went horribly wrong and got very, very black, this year has been trending downwards. Me and my wife stopped drifting apart and started racing apart. Then she left, and at the time, I was glad to see her go. I got a job and lost it. I have been unemployed since July. I have sold half of anything I owned of value to simply pay bills. Only recently did I force myself to use a little to buy groceries. I lived for a month on hot dogs and microwave popcorn because the last time I afforded food both were on sale. Last night at my brother’s house was the first time I had a substantially healthy meal in months. I am so lonely I want my wife and my miserable marriage back just so I will no longer be alone. I have lost the ability to hope, to imagine a better future, or to dream of anything beyond my current daily misery. I don’t exaggerate and I don’t sensationalize any of that. I try to present it as mundane and boring, because that is what pain has become to me.

So you can see how that can resemble a year from hell.

Most days I do not know how I will endure until evening. Bedtime is a weariness. I toss and turn most every night and sleep badly.

At this exact moment, I have no idea how I will pay the next two bills that are due soon. It is hard to focus on anything else at the moment. If you are a friend and have been following any part of my social media life lately, you will see that on this blog I have been writing a little, and on Facebook I have been posting lots of Lego Portraits. I have no idea where the creative spark is coming from these days, but I jump into it whenever I feel the slightest twinge because it is all I have. I barely enjoy it, I certainly should, I love Lego, but enjoyment isn’t something I have much control over. I try my damnedest, but usually I only manage a lukewarm enthusiasm. But when you are freezing, lukewarm feels very hot.

This is turning into a bit of a ramble, so I think I will end it soon. The rambling fits, anyway. I’ve hit half of tank of gas and have no idea if I’ll be able to afford to fill the tank when it runs empty, but I’ve started to obsess again over how far I need to travel to do anything. I just want this all to end. Not in a slash-the-arteries and swallow-the-pills suicide ending, necessarily. I’d be happy if there was no tomorrow. If everything just ended. No fanfare, no heaven, no hell, no afterlife, just an end to existence. That wouldn’t bother me right now. I don’t want to die, I don’t want to miss the upcoming Ender’s Game or Hobbit films, but right now, I wouldn’t care if I did. I might even prefer a nothingness because nothingness isn’t pain and frustration and misery.

I’m living a death
of a thousand cuts
my blood spills slowly

I watch each drip
drop into the carpet
soaking microfibers and dust
dead skin cell fossils
splashed with the facade of life

given proper suction
you can drain the body of blood
in 8.6 seconds
so why has eternity
come and gone and I still bleed?

I guess that’s life
with blood and pain and carpet
stained corpses of a million dead cells
each having expended purpose, exfoliated

my purpose remains, I’ve yet to be scrubbed
from the skin of the world
so I endure the thousand cuts
seeking my purpose
and my dessication

That’s not very good, but I do get so poetical and more than a bit macabre during these times. Forgive me.

League of Justice #0.6: “That Flesh Is Heir To”

Near Smallville, Kansas

Thursday, August 12th

The hot summer night would have been oppressive were it not for the sweeping breezes that swooshed back and forth across the prairies. Kansas was beautiful in the summer: stalks of corn growing to the sky, thousands of stars lighting that sky at deep midnight when the summer sun finally set. The grass grew green under the summer rains, and the dirt turned deep red, rich with clay. One could smell the living earth and hear the countless souls that lived on the prairie: the endless cricks of crickets, the racketing of cicadas on the trees, the singing of the birds, the buzz of lazy flies.

Martha Kent relaxed on the porch of the Kent house, a low modest farmhouse rising out of a Kansas plain. Rocking back and forth in her rocking chair, she sipped on a lemonade, the glass slick with rivulets of sweat as the cool glass condensed the humid air around it. From inside she could hear the gentle clinking of dishes as her husband Jonathan cleaned up from dinner. The steak from last fall’s slaughter was tender and juicy, the corn from last harvest rich, and the greens from the spring garden were crisp. Martha loved eating what Kansas gave her, and what she and her husband had cultivated from Kansas’ bosom. If ever there was a woman of the earth, of simple things, it was Martha Kent.

She had loved her husband from the moment she saw him, an awkward gangly teenager just entering the ninth grade at Smallville High School. He and his family had moved from Metropolis, the midwest’s bustling city. Larger than New York and Gotham, the East Coast’s metropolitan jewels, Metropolis was a shining example of the American dream and prosperity. But things hadn’t worked out so well for the Kent family, and they moved into the country seeking a harder, but more rewarding, life. For his part, Johnny Kent noticed Martha Clark almost immediately: a wispy, but hard prairie girl. Lovely, but not beautiful, graceful, but not delicate. However it took a few years before his big city swagger turned into a country lope. John worked his way through almost every cheerleader and prom princess at the school before his city charms failed him completely. When he came back down to earth, Martha was there, as always, waiting. The two were passionate lovers throughout their final year of high school and married soon after graduation.

Jonathan and Martha moved onto the Clark family farm, at that point overgrown with weeds and neglect as her grandfather could no longer till the large fields. The newlyweds brought a breath of fresh air and blew off the dust of the plains. Soon the fences were mended, the barn painted, and new crops growing. Martha envisioned children, a large family, and a happy ever after. She got everything but the children.

Now nearing her 50s, Martha was content. She and Jonathan had lived a full life, and she loved only him more than Kansas herself. She missed the opportunity to raise her own children, but she became a surrogate mother in Smallville. Active in the community, at the schools, and in church, she always seemed to attract the kids that others didn’t know how to deal with. With the gentle love and persistent care of a farmer, she watered and tended those children until they grew into well-adjusted adults. Living on the plains was a hard life in more ways than one, but the honest labor and consistent love of the Kents softened many a growing heart.

The screen door creaked open and slammed shut behind Jonathan as he joined his wife on the porch. Leaning against the railing, back to the darkening fields, he sighed. He turned his head into the breeze and breathed deep.

“Kitchen’s all cleaned up.” He said just for something to say. That much was obvious.

Martha smiled. “Thank you, dear. It was nice to get off my feet.” John didn’t smile, but his eyes twinkled. To Martha it was the same.

“Beautiful evening.” He said, again to break the air. Martha giggled.

“I know it’s a nice evening. I’m out here enjoying it.” She teased. John wasn’t much for conversation, but he tried and that made Martha feel loved. She set her glass down, now mostly empty, and stood up. In a stride she was in John’s embrace. She relaxed into his chest, and stared off into the corn. As one, they breathed the warm Kansas air. There was no longer any need of conversation. John was relieved, as he had run out of things to say, and Martha was glad to communicate with love instead of awkward words. Some languages said things no words could convey.

*BOOM*

*crack*

Something flashed brightly in the sky before streaking behind the barn. Seconds later a fireball snapped into the blackness and a rumble shook the ground.

“What the hell?” John was already off the porch, running for the barn. A warm glow warned of fire. Martha went the other way, for the farm truck. She opened the door, jumped in, and twisted the spoon. The truck was old and beat to hell. Many years ago the key had broken off in the lock, and rather than fix it, Jonathan had welded an old spoon onto the ignition. The engine was worn, but it roared to life. Martha threw it in gear and sped off towards the glowing night.

She got there just as Jonathan was slapping out the last of the embers with an old blanket. Martha pulled a fire extinguisher from the truck bed and hosed down the grass, just to be sure. Fires weren’t anything to play with on an open field of dry grass and young corn. So intent was she with the putting the fire out, she failed to notice the shining capsule half buried in the dirt twenty yards away until she was returning the fire extinguisher to the truck.

“John: what is that?” Her voice was matter of fact. Being a solid woman of the earth, even the wildly unexpected didn’t usually faze her all that much. What John said next certainly fazed her.

“I don’t know. But there’s a baby inside.”

League of Justice #0.5: “By Opposing, End Them”

Gotham City, November the 15th

“Hahahaha! Eat it, suckers!”

The playground doors opened, and a bunch of middle school students ran out into the winter snow. Frigid temperatures and icy precipitation had come early to Gotham, dusting the usually dreary city in a covering of white fluff. For a time, the grit and filth of Gotham was buried. The pupils of St. Joseph the Apostle didn’t much care about anything but the snow. Recess was a chance to burn off scholastic boredom in a flurry of snow angels, snow men, and winter frivolity. Except today, a few high school students had remained outside during a free period following lunch.

Among the school’s bullies, they had carefully planned their afternoon torment of the smaller kids. They had built a wall of snow across the playground doors. Stockpiling snowballs, into which they had placed shards of ice, they lay in wait. The minute the recess bells rang, shrill in chill air, they armed themselves. Seconds later, the doors opened and kids ran out, expecting fun.

The first few, instead, got pelted. A snowball caught a girl in the eye. She stumbled and slipped on the ice, moaning. Two missiles of snow smacked into a young boy’s face. He screamed, and wiped away snow and blood. The ice inside the snowballs had cut into his face. A few more students ducked and weaved, but were assailed all the same. By now the front running children had scrambled to a stop, forcing the ones behind to run into them. The first wave of students tried to turn and run back into the school but were barred by those behind.

“I am Mr. Freeze!” shouted one of the bullies, standing up from behind the snow wall. He was unidentifiable behind ski goggles and a heavy white parka. “Die, sissies!” He threw more snowballs, most with cruelly accurate aim. He laughed as each snow bomb struck another small kid, forcing a whimper, a wail, or a shout of rage. His cohorts lay in the snow, mostly watching their leader, and lobbing the occasional snowball.

Seemingly from nowhere, a dark figure tore through the crowd and leapt across the snow wall. A blur of action, his long black coat swept behind his furious motion like a gigantic cape. Arms that ended in thick, black leather gloves were clenched into hard fists.

“Fuck you, Freeze!” The specter growled. A flying kick caught one bully in the chin. Kneeling in the ground, he spun and threw a punch into another antagonist’s groin, followed swiftly by a jab to the solar plexus. The boy crumpled into a whimpering ball. Standing up, the fighter faced the kid calling himself Freeze.

“Run!” The kid in black snarled at the kid in white.

“Not a chance, Wayne. Come and get it.” Freeze put up his hands in a mock boxer stance.

Bruce Wayne closed the gap in seconds. His fists blurred as he pummeled Freeze. The kid’s ski goggles cracked, and then were torn from his face. Soon bright red blood spurted from his nose, trickled from his lip, and gushed from a cut above his eye. He went down into the snow. Bruce didn’t let up. He slammed his knee into Freeze’s gut, and continued to smash him in the face. Freeze’s blood smeared across his leather gloves.

Fortunately for Freeze, teachers alerted by the middle school kids had pushed their way through the crowd. They rushed toward the fighting boys, and hauled Bruce away from Freeze.

“Bruce! Stop!” Two of them had to restrain the flailing Wayne. Three more knelt down over Freeze. “Better call an ambulance. This kid’s gonna need stitches.”

Twenty minutes later, Bruce Wayne was standing on the school steps, hunched in his black coat against the winter wind. A large Bentley turned into the school parking lot and pulled up to the front door. Bruce waited for a few seconds, but it soon became obvious that he had to let himself into the car. He walked down the steps and yanked open the back seat door. Swiftly he got in and slammed the door. He didn’t look up to see Alfred Pennyworth’s stern glare in the rearview mirror.

“Early release today, Master Wayne?” Somehow the old butler managed to make the casual observation into a sarcastic joke. Obviously he knew that his charge had been expelled for bad behavior.

“Yeah, snow day, Alfred.” Bruce still didn’t look up. After a few moments silence, during which the car remained motionless, Bruce looked up. His eyes met those of his butler’s. Alfred always appeared refined and gentle, but today there was a fire smoldering behind those eyes.

“You’re better than this, Master Wayne. Your father would be ashamed to have his son expelled for brawling.”

“I had to do something, Alfred. There were bullies -”

“There will always be bullies, Master Wayne. The trick is to stop them without being a bully yourself. Today you were no better than he was.”

Alfred turned back to the steering wheel. His foot pressed the accelerator, and the Bentley crunched snow and sidewalk salt as it pulled away from the school.

Bruce hung his head in shame. He’d beaten Freeze, but had lost the battle.

League of Justice #0.4: “Slings and Arrows”

A streak of green light flashed across Krypton’s dark sky. Jor-El, head bowed in thought as he walked, did not see it. He did, however, hear the gentle whumph behind him. Slowly he turned. Standing before him, clad in green robes and a darker green cloak, was Maskill, of the Green Corps. Maskill was the Lantern whose jurisdiction included Krypton. Like the Kryptonians, he was humanoid. He was an old man, worn and tired.

Jor-El bowed to him. “Hail, Lantern.”

Maskill bowed back. “Hail, Jor of the House of El.”

Pleasantries aside, the confrontation began. Jor-El exploded quietly.

“What the hell are you doing, Maskill? The Black Corps stands ready to destroy Krypton! Is this justice? You know I don’t agree with the expansion, not in the way it was handled, but Krypton is a democratic society. I was overruled! Certainly there are many millions more who are innocent of the havoc our emissaries visited on the galaxy. Should they die to pay for the injustice of a few?”

Maskill stood quietly, absorbing Jor-El’s anger.

“Perhaps General Zod was wrong to refuse the Green Corps’ overture of peace, but is it a crime to fight for one’s sovereignty? Now that the Black Corps has forced us back to our own planet, have we not felt our punishment? You know the Black Corps will only stop once every last Kryptonian is dead. Where is the justice of the Lanterns?”

Maskill waited for the fury to dissipate into the night.

“The White Lantern has spoken. The crimes of Krypton’s children are too great to be pardoned. You stole what was not yours to steal. Your excessive mining operations severely damaged the progress of many worlds. Who can say how long you have doomed them to primitive dwelling in your lust for consumption?”

“The time for that argument is long past, Maskill! Your White Lantern is a fool if he cannot see that wiping out an entire planet for its sins is not justice. It is genocide.”

Jor-El had unconsciously strode forward, closing the distance between himself and Maskill.

“Regardless of what was decided, our end is at hand. The Black Corps will destroy us! Will you stand by and let it happen?”

Maskill regarded Jor-El silently.

“It is not for the Green Corps to interfere once the White Lantern has ruled. What was decreed shall be.”

“Damn the White Lantern! Damn his decree! My wife is with child, yet unborn. Shall he die without tasting life to satisfy the justice of the Lantern?”

For the first time, Maskill betrayed emotion. A flicker of sorrow tightened his brow, if only for an instant.

“I did not know your wife was pregnant. But the White Lantern will not relent over one life. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one, especially one who is unborn. The unborn die on countless worlds in countless numbers. This is the way of life. Even those who taste the air of their spheres do not often taste it for long.”

“Dammit, Maskill. Will you do nothing? You have been my friend and mentor since I was a young lad. I’ve always heeded your advice, your counsel. Will you abandon me now?”

“I have already spoken, Jor. The Green Corps cannot interfere. One lantern does not assail another. To invite infighting is to invite chaos.”

Jor-El whirled suddenly, pacing back up the street, then down towards Maskill. He grabbed the Green Lantern by the shoulder and stared into his eyes.

“Will you do nothing? Not the Green Corps, you. Will you allow an evil thing to pass because another has deemed it in a greater good?”

Maskill said nothing. He stared back into Jor-El’s eyes. Moments passed, the air charged with emotion as the two men waged silent war. At long last, Maskill spoke, putting a hand or Jor-El’s shoulder.

“I will not abandon you, Jor of the House of El. Long we have been friends. I will plead your case before the White Lantern. It may be that he will relent and recall the Black Corps. Only his word can stop their destruction.”

Jor-El sighed mightily. He pulled Maskill close for an embrace.

“Thank you, my old friend.”

The moment was shattered by the roar of retro-rockets. The men parted to stare up into the sky. A small craft was descending through the sky. It’s markings identified it as belonging to the Kryptonian navy.

“Zod!” Jor-El breathed. Turning to Maskill, he spoke urgently. “You’d better leave before he lands. Zod has no love for any lantern. He will kill you.”

Maskill smiled playfully. “I’d rather like to see him try, actually.”

Jor-El was in no mood for humor. “I do not jest! Lanterns can die. Zod has personally accounted for many Black Lanterns in this war already. One old Green Lantern would not delay his wrath for long.”

Maskill stood his ground, shrugging, but saying nothing.

Before either could act, the descending vessel opened its bay doors, and five dark shapes leaped towards the ground. Commandos. In an instant, Jor-El and Maskill were surrounded. The commandos were encased in armor, the heads hidden behind dark helmets. Jor-El tried to take command of the situation.

“I am Jor of the House of El, an elder on the Council of Free Peoples. What is your business here? You may not accost citizens without charge.”

One of the five stepped forward, his face mask sliding upwards as he did, revealing the scarred visage of Krypton’s greatest warrior: Zod.

“You may be free to wander dark streets alone, but the green one is named a criminal against Krypton and is a mortal enemy of her people. Are you claiming allegiance to an enemy?”

“Zod, Maskill the Green Lantern is guiltless here. It is the Black Corps that threatens us, not the Green.”

Zod roared. “ONE CORPS! ONE THREAT! I care not for colors and shades of morality. THEY attacked US. Their black knife is at our throat. I am charged with defending Krypton to my last breath. Move aside, Jor, or suffer his fate. Decide immediately.”

Zod lunged forward, battle knife drawn.

League of Justice #0.3: “In the Mind to Suffer”

The constant beeping of the medical monitors intruded into what was an otherwise serene hospital room. A young man around 15 years old stood at the foot of a patient bed, watching. The patient was an older gentleman. His features were strong, noble. His dark hair was flecked with grey at the temples, and streaks of grey mottled otherwise uniformly black locks. His eyes were closed. His breathing was regular and strong, which wasn’t surprising as it was machine regulated. The youth was very much a younger version of the man in the bed. His hair hung long around his shoulders, but otherwise their faces could have been mirror images.

The Martha Wayne Long Term Care wing of Gotham General Hospital was named in honor of Gotham’s beloved first lady. Martha Wayne hadn’t been a politician’s wife, or anyone of any royal bloodline. What she had been was nurturing, caring, and completely selfless. While her husband, Thomas Wayne, ran his multi-billion dollar corporation and worked at Gotham General as a surgeon, Martha cared for the gutter dwellers of Gotham. The nation’s most populous city, Gotham was also knee deep in poverty, crime, and suffering. Martha had devoted every second of her time to bringing hope to a destitute population. Her bright light was snapped off in an instant. Everyone in Gotham knew the tragic story: a family caught in a mugging, a nervous and desperate gunman, and Martha was slain. One of the very souls she tried daily to save snatched her away.

Her husband was also cut down that day. But Thomas Wayne hadn’t died. The gunman’s bullet bored a hole straight through his brain, leaving him alive, but in a coma. Thomas rested in his wife’s loving arms as a long term patient in her wing. Bruce, now a teenager, was orphaned that night in the alley. He buried his mother in the ground and his father in the hospital. Neither would see him grow into a man.

Bruce watched his father breathe and thought dark thoughts. As it did every week when he visited, the sight of his father fueled a growing rage in the young man’s heart. In his head, his parents’ murders played on an endless loop. A scraggly beard. A ragged man. Booming gunshots. Blood. The senseless nature of the act stabbed in Bruce’s brain like an ice pick. The violence of the act burned in his soul like a churning volcano. The gunman had never been caught. Alfred told him later that his parents’s murderer ran past him as Alfred sprinted into the alley. Waiting in the car, he had heard the gunshots. But Alfred was more concerned with his charges than running down a fugitive that night. The police response, though rapid, was poorly coordinated. The panic over Gotham’s most prominent family being murdered overshadowed police procedure. The gunman simply disappeared into the overgrown fraternity of crime. Bruce seethed at the law enforcement ineptitude that allowed a killer to escape justice. He cursed them for their failure, their inability to provide safety at the Opera House and their inability to provide legal closure.

It became too much. Bruce turned abruptly and nearly ran out of his father’s hospital room. He ignored nurses and doctors who nodded or offered greetings on his way out. Though the Gotham day was bright and crisp, all Bruce saw was darkness. All he felt was the gnawing bite of injustice.

In his room, at midnight, on the night of his parents’ death, Bruce vowed vengeance. He was only a boy when he left for the Opera, but he returned a man. He promised the world that he would avenge his parents and that he would never let anyone suffer that pain again. But it galled Bruce to wait. He was only a boy, then. He could do nothing. He was powerless, weak, and small. And so he waited. He grew, he aged, and he matured. As a teenager his childish impatience hardened into careful preparation. He studied everything he could. He buried himself in school, in athletics, in the Gotham Central Library stacks.

Bruce knew that the secret to fighting evil lay in forging the perfect weapon. Having nothing but himself, Bruce dedicated every minute to forging himself into the perfect weapon. Outwardly, everyone saw a young man living life for the parents that he lost. They saw a star football player, a gifted baseball player, a devastating wrestler. They watched a master debater, a chess champion, an artistic prodigy. They saw a young Wayne emerging from tragedy to be every inch his father with all the heart of his mother. That Wayne was a lie, a disguise, an alter ego for the monster of anger, rage, and vengeance that was his true self.

Only Alfred saw both sides of Bruce. The loyal butler cared for his charge as best he could as surrogate parent, guardian, and caregiver. He heard Bruce’s nightmares. He heard Bruce’s fits of rage. He heard Bruce’s sobs of sorrow. Bruce would never openly betray the depth of his feelings to Alfred, but he did relax a bit of his facade at home. More than anyone, Alfred saw the real Bruce Wayne. As much as Bruce loved the family valet, he kept him and everyone else at a distance. Alfred also understood, to an extent, the depth of Bruce’s feelings. He gave the boy space to find himself again, to remake his life. Alfred saw the opportunity to mold a man out of the boy who suffered, and ever so gently and patiently, Alfred guided Bruce’s evolution. As crudely as Bruce built himself into a weapon, it was Alfred who tempered the process, refined the build, and sharpened the edges.

Bruce exited the hospital through whooshing automatic doors. Across the drop-off circle, Alfred was standing patiently next to the family Bentley.

“How is your father today, Master Bruce?”
“He’s still dead, Alfred.”
“The dead only sleep, Master Bruce.”
“Whatever you say.”

Alfred opened the door for Bruce, and the young man slid into the backseat. Entering the driver’s seat, Alfred regarded his ward in the rearview mirror. Bruce’s eyes flashed behind his hair. His face was grim.

“Where to, Master Bruce?”
“Home. I have work to do.”
“Very well.”

Alfred engaged his turn signal and gently pressed the accelerator. The large luxury car purred and pulled forward into the road.

League of Justice #0.2: “To Take Arms”

In the beginning as the universe coalesced, when all was wild energy and expansion, there arose the Guardians the first beings to inhabit space and time. The Guardians were wise with new wisdom, were strong with new power, and were alive with new life. For the first million years they watched stars and planets and moons and nebulae take shape. Over the next millions of millions of years, they watched life evolve in all its forms and wonders.

Of all peoples and forms of life that sprung from the fertile universe, the Guardians were the eldest and the first to die. Though their civilization endured long, it could not endure forever. When the first sun collapsed into a black hole and began to suck everything into its dark maw, the Guardians knew that they too would pass into darkness. They bent all their will, all their thought, all their knowledge into safeguarding the universe.

With a science that none since has learned, the Guardians manufactured a source of creation which they called a lantern, a caster of light. With this lantern they forged rings, small portals that were linked to the lantern. Each ring, when activated, drew upon the lantern. The function of the rings was to draw energy from the universe, energy that had been consumed by black holes, and make it useful again. The rings could convert the energy into matter, or matter into energy, and thus were unlimited in the scope of their power.

The Guardians long studied the beings of the universe throughout every galaxy and solar system. To those who were deemed worthy they entrusted a ring, that thereby they may guard their corner of the universe.

Each being who received a ring was called a Lantern, symbolizing that as the one great Lantern guarded the universe, they were to be a smaller lantern to guard their space. In the beginning all Lanterns were white, as light that is combined of all other colors and wavelengths is white. As time progressed, Lanterns chose methods of protection that to them seemed more fitting to their race, or their culture, or their strength, and they chose for themselves new colors. As time progressed, the Green Lanterns guarded justice throughout the universe. The Red Lanterns inspired growth and progress in the universe. The Blue Lanterns worked to heal the hurts of the universe. The Black Lanterns guarded the sanctity of death in the universe. Still there remained the White Lanterns, who to all others were looked to as the wisest, and eldest, and in all matters the ones to uphold the tradition of the Guardians.

Thus the Guardians died, content in the knowledge their time was full, and that the universe would be protected for the billions of years yet to come by the Lantern’s light.

The Guardians were wrong.

As eons passed and the universe grew old and worn, the light of the Lantern waned. The purity of its light was corrupted. Its true purpose was forgotten. In dusty corners of distant galaxies legends of the Guardians remained, but few remembered where to look, and even less cared. Science passed into legend and myth and became magic. The Black Lanterns soon courted death and waged wars in her name. The Red Lanterns built to themselves monuments and great halls and honored their own grandiosity. The Blue Lanterns receded into mist, content to heal themselves for eternity. The White Lanterns vanished in the expanding blackness of space. The Green Lanterns endured to their purpose, but each to his own understanding and knowledge of morality. To most they became haughty, self-righteous, and capricious enforcers of galactic law and order. Some were no better than thugs.

As each Lantern, according to their species, died they passed on their ring to a successor. Some chose heirs, some left the rings as heirlooms to be found, others hoarded them in secret places. The light of the Lantern diminished further.

And yet there were a few who organized themselves into the Green Corps. These rebels still remembered the ways of the Guardians and held to the true Lantern’s light. Relentlessly they waged war against their fellow Lanterns, but not a war of death and destruction rather a war of ideals and understanding. Slowly they conquered the wayward factions. Slowly they rebuilt the Lantern’s light.

The eldest of the Green Corps, the leader who first waged war was named the White Lantern and to him it was given the task of governance. He made the Black Lanterns into the Black Corps, an army of last resort when a plague or injury too grievous to heal emerged. As a surgeon amputating a part to save the whole, the Black Corps was to purge the universe. What could yet be saved, the Blue Corps was tasked with restoring. Remaining secluded as monks, they came forth at times of great need. The White Lantern made the Red Corps agents of advancement, tasked with aiding only the most advanced of societies with reaching heights of which they could not yet conceive. They became scholars and masters of knowledge. The Green Corps stayed as they were, guardians of justice and order in the galaxy, mandated to be pure of purpose and will.

Such were the grand designs of the White Lantern. And as man seeks to reach and a child grasps, the various Corps stood to their purpose yet imperfectly. The light of the Lantern shone half brighter than it used to yet still only half as it should.

And yet, to the darkness, even a weak light is a welcome illumination.

To remind themselves of their purpose each Lantern was given an oath to pledge. To this oath they held themselves bound and by this oath were they judged:

In brightest day, in blackest night,
No evil shall escape my sight.
Let those who twist Lantern’s light,
Beware my power…
Great Lantern’s Might!