Moon Knight: Men and Myth
(Earth-1220)
By Orion Petitclerc
Midnight Man Journal Entry, June 8, 2010:
Superheroes don't really exist, right? There aren't really people running around with legitimate superpowers, are there? Does super-awesome tae-kwon-do slash urban warfare slash mercenary combat count as a superpower? 'Cause I totally saw a real, live superhero today, swear to Zod!
Okay, that's unfair I admit. I (Midnight Man) can be considered a real-life superhero (RLSH), along with Bladehawk, Ghost, Watchwoman, and the rest of the Great Lakes Avengers Guild (GLAG). We're the response to our comic book idols, alive and in practice (somewhat). We may not have powers like Superman or fight crime like Spider-Man, but at least we're real and taking to heart the messages and morals our idols represent. We real-life superheroes give to charity, volunteer at the homeless shelters, and strongly discourage participation in – even sometimes drive off and assist the police with – gangs and drug dealers, all the while staying true to the tradition of doing these good deeds in costume and character. But this guy…he's something right out of the pages of comic books!
I was doing my usual patrol around Loring Park, the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, and the area around the Convention Center…you know, donating food and old clothing I had gathered up to the homeless and chasing off delinquents vandalizing city property. According to my iPhone it was about a quarter 'til 7 in the evening when I heard a commotion in an alley a couple blocks from the Convention Center. When I checked it out I found one of the frequent haunts from the corner of 12th and 2nd at the business end of a beating. Trust me, that scumbag deserved two black eyes for hooking a bunch of my neighbors' kids on drugs. Anyways that wasn't what caught my eye; it was who was flogging Jimmy Jack.
The guy was wearing a white hood-and-cape (which had seen better days) and a black mask and beating up Jimmy with some sort of metal baton. I figured it was some newbie RLSH who was looking for a death sentence from Jimmy's cartel, but that's when I noticed the guy's armor. I swear it looked like some sort of tight-skinned, lightweight plated armor for paintballing or spelunking…kinda reminded me of Batman's costume in Dark Knight, except it was all white-ish and had a crescent smack-dab in the middle of his chest. When I looked a second time to his mask, I also noticed his eyes were abnormally large, round, and dark with glowing blue slits (upon closer observation after the fact he seemed to be wearing a new type of night-vision goggles). This guy was no newbie, 'cause he moved so fast and brought Jimmy down so hard he reminded me of Jackie Chan movies and his body language spoke "ex-Marine" (I should know, my cousin is a Marine).
The white hero brought Jimmy to his knees and started drilling him questions about Jimmy's supplier and some guy he called "Bushman." As everybody knows, Jimmy wouldn't give up his supplier's name or location even though it's basically public knowledge. Guess he hasn't figured out that his loyalty to Diego had been compromised by Diego himself (Diego liked to be known and "feared" by all, stupid bloke). Before the white hero bloodied up the poor sap any more, I made myself known and generously gave him some of the info he wanted. Before I could ask him who he was or warn him about getting in too deep with the cartel, the hero took off, leaving me to clean up after him. So I zip-tied Jimmy to a pipe and put in a call to the police…poor guy, this is probably his last strike.
I'll keep an open ear for any news about our new lethal avenger, maybe give some of my GLAG friends a call about him. Someone is bound to know about him.
