I don't own the Teen Titans, if I did I'd treat them a hell of a lot better.
Beating the game Ch7 – Distance
Despite what numerous space operas and movies would have you think there's no such thing as a sound in space. Its silence is all-encompassing and absolute. It's something that few can comprehend and even fewer experience. The Man of Steel is one of those few. He floats in an orbit near the Earth's apogee.
Most think that he's there monitoring the planet, listening to everything to find the most urgent cry for help. The reality couldn't be further from the truth, he goes here for peace, silence, and an always too brief escape from the constant cacophony of billions of people going about their daily lives.
Ever since the death of Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and others after the Joker bombed the Daily Planet and subsequently the Joker's murderer, a new hero named Magog, being acquitted of any wrongdoing he's becoming further isolated from Mankind. He spends more and more time at his Fortress of Solitude surrounded by the memories of Krypton and thinks of himself as Kal-El with Clark Kent quickly becoming a tiresome distraction.
'I've always been apart from them. Always above them no matter how hard I tried not to be. Bruce used to call me a Boy Scout, first in derision and then in camaraderie, yet I was still separate from the original founders. Diana did understand though and while we gave it a go we just weren't meant to be. Maybe I should strike out into the galaxy and find something, someone, out there?' Mused Kal-El as he hung seeming motionless in space despite moving at thousands of kilometers a second in perfect synchronization with Earth.
A lifetime of Sol's beautiful yellow radiation had left him more powerful than ever despite the greying hair on his head. Something he actually regretted as with it came a near invulnerability to all but the strongest Kryptonite. Something the further distanced him from both the League and humanity at large. With no weaknesses, save for magic which was still a remarkably well-kept secret, by some he was being worshipped, despite all of his efforts to the contrary, as a living god. How he truly hated that. The idolatry and sycophancy of those worshipers, while initially flattering and in some ways enjoyed, was beyond anything he'd ever experienced as a hero and quickly drove him into hiding, only emerging for the direst situations.
Without Superman's example and moral guidance the League changed into more of a guiding than helping hand. This further splintered the once united front of superheroes into smaller and independent, sometimes clashing, groups of metahumans. Though untied against villainy in general the approach varied from defeating them and handing them over to the authorities to outright killing them and bystanders or collateral damage be damned. The looming threat of open war between metahumans, as the lines between hero and villain blurred and all but disappeared.
This was the threat that forced Mankind into making a choice, believing in the gods on high in the Watchtower or the devils under a society of villainy that pulled the strings.
In the end was there really a choice between the devil you know and the one you don't?
The die was cast with a young heroine unknowingly being the fulcrum upon which everything was balanced.
All as a young hero felt a nudge in the back of his mind at the world's growing wrongness.
All as a man watched things fall into place as he intended over the years despite numerous setbacks.
AN: As has already been noted I pull from the original source material when and where ever possible. I believe that adding depth to these events and tying them into my own story not only makes them larger but resonate better as if you know the comic book history, in this case, Kingdom Come, then you get a feel for what was happening.
I'm done with the short chapters.
The stage has been set.
Stay with me and let's see where this goes…
