Author's Note: It's official. Anything produced by my overtaxed brain coming off an adrenaline rush waiting in line to ride Superman at Six Flags after a greuling day of Physics and discovering that I am not, in fact, all that afraid of rollercoasters should never be made into a story. But somehow it happened anyway, and this is the result. All I can do is plead temorary (or perhaps permanent) insanity. I don't even know that much about Superman—my knowledge is limited to two hours of half-assed research online, the informative signs decorating the waiting line for the ride at Six Flags, and a dozen-odd episodes of Smallville. But somehow I saw fit to write about it anyway. Ah well. My creative writing teacher liked it…
Superzombie to the Rescue!
Most people have heard of Superman, and Supergirl, and even Superboy. But they haven't heard of the fourth member of the Supergang—me.
In all honesty, I think the others are a little ashamed of me. But it isn't my fault. I was respectable once, you know. I was the cultivated son of the head of the world's largest oil company.
All right, perhaps that's a little more disreputable than respectable. But the point is, I was refined. I could dance and play chess and converse in seven languages.
Now I'm just Superzombie. The story of my creation is long and convoluted, as superheroes' histories are wont to be, but here it is: the birth of Superzombie.
It was the fifth of April, and my father, James Springwell, was hosting a gala at one of our properties in Metropolis. All of the usual suspects were present—oil tycoons, congressmen, leaders of countries whose names even I could barely pronounce—with a few notable additions. Among the distinguished guests that night were none other than Lex Luthor and Clark Kent.
I see you recognize the names. Well, there are very few who haven't heard of Metropolis' most infamous men. Given the strange occurrences that abound whenever the two meet, it will come as no surprise to you to know that both had a hand in my transformation.
I was mingling with the guests, chatting and conversing in my seven languages, and the evening was going quite well, I thought. Until I bumped into one of Mr. Luthor's deputies. Or rather, until she bumped into me.
"Oh! Mr. Springwell, I'm so sorry!" the woman cried, staring in horror at the front of my tuxedo.
I let my own eyes drop to my white dress shirt, now stained with something that smelled suspiciously like tomato juice, and sighed. "Please don't worry, Ms.—"
"Lao. Laura Lao. I'm so sorry—please, you must let me help you clean this up," she said, tugging me towards a bathroom.
"That's quite all right, Ms. Lao. I'll just slip upstairs and change—" I planted my feet, resisting her attempts to haul me into the bathroom. For such a small woman, she was surprisingly strong.
"No, no, Mr. Springwell, I insist. You simply must—"
And after that I honestly can't remember a thing. Another of Luthor's goons must have hit me from behind; it's the only thing that can explain how I woke up several hours later chained to an operating table halfway across town.
My head was pounding quite horribly, which supported my half-formed goon-from-behind theory, and my limbs lay heavily on the table. I raised my head slowly and found myself face-to-face with none other than Mr. Luthor himself.
"Back among the conscious, I see, Mr. Springwell."
"What am I doing here?" I said thickly.
"Ah. I've been developing a new serum recently to help combat that dastardly nuisance, Superman. If we've done our work correctly, the chemical which I am about to dose you with will grant you some of his known abilities—super strength and x-ray vision, to name a few. If it doesn't—well, if it doesn't, it's likely you won't be alive to care anymore."
"Bu—wh—why do you want me?" I said at last. My tongue felt too large for my mouth.
"It was your father's idea, actually," Luthor said with an unpleasant smile. "Something about 'finally making a man out of you.' I'd have to say I agree; you are something of a fop, after all."
I began to protest that I was not a fop, and that if I was, it was only my father's fault, and that he couldn't possibly expect to get away with kidnapping and killing me without somebody causing a fuss. Unfortunately it took rather a long time to say all of this, and before I was halfway through my first point he'd injected me again and I slid into darkness.
When I awoke, my headache was gone. In fact, I felt no sensation at all, other than a strange craving for brains.
Brains? Now where had that thought come from? All the same, it did sound rather appetizing…
I sat up, barely noticing as the chains snapped like threads, stood, and shuffled over to the door. Whatever Luthor had done to me, he was gone now, and I wasn't going to stay around waiting for him to come back.
The door stuck for a moment, and at first I thought it was locked, but when I tugged lightly it came free.
I should say, the knob came free. In my hand.
It was about then that I began to realize that something was most definitely not right with the situation. I looked down at the doorknob in my hand and staggered backwards in shock.
My skin was blue. Well, it was more of a pasty blueish-gray, really, with bits of green flaking off. But still. Skin is not meant to be any of those colors.
I stumbled over to a cracked mirror on the opposite wall and stared at my reflection. The blue-gray continued up over my face, and there were more of the green flaky bits along my hairline. The hair itself was lank and had fallen out in large clumps. My brown eyes had shifted to a murky, bloodshot yellow, and half my nose had fallen off. I looked like—like I didn't know what, like—
My stomach gurgled and I had another craving for brains. Then it hit me.
I was a zombie.
But how could that be? Zombies were mindless, soulless, and I still had all my memories. My mind was still able (I went through my times tables just to be sure). How could—
"I see you're awake."
I spun around as quickly as my decaying body would allow. "S…suh…pr…mahn," I forced through my clumsy lips.
He acknowledged my fumbling statement with a nod. "Henry Springwell, I presume. Or what's left of him. What did Luthor do to you?"
"Sommm…thinn…k…chemmmmmmmicccc'le," I replied as best I could. "S'psssd…t'mmmmake…lik…k…you."
"You've already exhibited super strength," he mused, glancing at the fallen door handle. "No doubt there are other abilities you have yet to discover. Have you—"
There was a thunderous noise from the stairwell behind the door I'd broken, and we both (Superman rather more gracefully than I) turned. A veritable hoard of men and women in Lexcorp security uniforms flooded through the doorway.
Superman seized me around the waist and crashed through the window, flying us to safety at the top of a skyscraper several blocks away. It was a much more efficient—not to mention dramatic—exit than I would have been able to manage on my own.
"So, what do I do with you now?" he wondered aloud, studying me with an expression of distaste.
"Aaaaah….c…cannnnnn…" I gave up and shook my head. It wasn't practical to try to communicate that way.
"I suppose I'll have to take you back to the Fortress and see just what powers Luthor has given you," he proposed, though he didn't seem exceptionally pleased with the idea.
I nodded and sighed, exhaling a cloud of ice crystals. Superman blinked in surprise. "Well, there's one power we won't have to test. Come on. You just might be useful after all." He seized my waist once more and we flew off into the night.
We later discovered that the lab in which Luthor had imprisoned me had been contaminated by some kind of kryptonite-related radiation that had first killed me, then mutated the chemical he had injected into my veins and brought me back to "life," complete with all the superpowers he had intended.
Superman, being a practical sort, decided it would be silly to waste my super powers, even if they weren't quite so strong as his. And thus I became the little-known fourth member of the Supergang, the hidden member behind the scenes most often left to mop up the aftermath of the battle. Supergirl has made it quite clear that she does not enjoy fighting with me. And I must say, I can understand her position.
After all, what kind of superhero goes into battle crying, "Bleh…bleh…bleh…"?