The invitation read:

Party at my house

I am having a birthday

August 23

I'm turning sixteen

Dress up as superhero

Please BYOB

Starts 7:30

42 Kavalier Road

Please RSVP

Joan got there a little early.

"WHAT have you been telling Clark?" Her voice echoed throughout the house.

Elena emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishrag. "Nothing. Why? Come on in, you can help me set up."

Seething slightly, Joan followed her. Elena's house was large, airy, and mostly white, and obviously designed by someone who had much better taste than any of the residents. If you want to be bothered with the details, just visit any house in any West Bloomfield suburban development, as they all look the same.

Elena eyed Joan. "Bit of a departure from your usual wardrobe."

"You said to come as a superhero," Joan reminded her. "I'm Jubilee. From the X-Men."

"I know who the X-Men are. Wait—I said to what?"

"Dress up. As a superhero."

Elena dashed upstairs. There were a few thumps and a shrill scraping sound. When she came back downstairs, she had on a paisley cape, an oversized pair of sequined sunglasses, a piece of cardboard with the number 42 written in crayon on it pinned to her chest, and a dead cicada stuck in her hair.

Joan removed the cicada. "I don't get it."

"I am Bizarro Woman." Elena twirled around, making her paisley cape billow out behind her. "Look! Up in the sky! It's a nerd! It's insane! It's…"

"Superman, right?"

Elena stopped in her tracks. Her cape came to a halt a few seconds later. "Oh, that."

"Oh, that," Joan mimicked. "Oh, that. Just what have you been telling Clark, anyway?"

Elena shrugged. "Just, you know, things. That he'll need to know."

"Specifically, that he's going to be a friggin' superhero! And now he's bugging me to go fly around with him!" By this time, Joan was holding on to Elena's collar and was shaking her as a terrier shakes a rat.

Elena gently removed Joan's fist from her shirt. "He shouldn't; I told him he isn't going to have a sidekick."

"Mmrgmph," Joan fumed.

"What?"

"I asked you why the hell you told him anything in the first place. Shouldn't he be discovering his powers and heritage and everything for himself?"

"That's how the story goes, yes," Elena admitted.

"Well, then why aren't you letting him do that?"

Elena bit her lip. "Um. No reason."

"Elena," Joan growled softly, "what is going to happen and why are you helping it along?"

"I am not!" Elena protested.

Joan seized on her statement. "So you're trying to prevent it!"

Elena groaned and fell back into a recliner. "I can tell you the whole story, but it's going to take a while."

"We have an hour. Start."

The crash course that Elena gave Joan was nowhere nearly as exhaustive as the one she had given Clark, but she did explain a few things that Clark didn't know. She told her about Fredric Wertham and George Reeves, and was almost able to satisfactorily explain Crisis on Infinite Earths. She elaborated on the Death of Superman and General Zod and Lex Luthor for President.

"And then comes New Superman, which is about as big a hit as New Coke was. See, the guys at DC decided it was time for a bit of a change, so they engineer this really weird radiation trick that basically turns Supes into a human electron. Now, here's the good part." She lowered her voice. "Poor Superman over here cannot keep his powers contained, and this is threatening to kill him. Guess what Luthor does?"

"Sits back and relaxes, secure in the knowledge that his enemy will soon be dead," Joan suggested.

"Nope." Elena grinned. "He designs a suit that helps Superman contain his powers. Basically saves his life. The drawback is that when the suit's off, Clark Kent cannot use his powers, but it's a small price to pay, yeah?"

"Wait. Why did he do that?"

"God only knows. And by 'God', I mean 'whoever was in charge of that particular storyline.' Of course, the change doesn't last long, but it's remembered. Eventually Lex runs for President. And then…"

"And then?"

"And then he figures out the truth. Why Clark Kent and Superman are never seen in a room together. It's a very big event."

She even told Joan how it all ended again.

"In the, um…well, in the place where comics are read and not lived, this is only the second incarnation. But from where I'm watching it all, it's happened more times than I can count.

"Of course, they never really stop the series, they just make up a new world. They put in the same characters and relationships. Clark Kent is always Superman, always Kal-El from Krypton, son of Jor-el and Lara-El, found by Jon and Martha, raised in Smallville. Lana Lang is always his childhood crush. Lois Lane is always his girlfriend. Sometimes she knows it's him and sometimes she doesn't. Jimmy Olsen is always his little friend and they always all work at the Daily Planet, with Perry White as editor. Green Kryptonite always hurts him, gold Kryptonite always takes away his powers, and Red Kryptonite always has a really weird effect on him.

"Lex is the one thing that can change."

Joan leaned forward. "But isn't he always the bad guy?"

"In one form or another, yeah," Elena said. "Superman always has his Lex Luthor to fight. Pre-Crisis, he was a mad scientist. Post-Crisis, he was a multimillionaire corporate type and then President. In one incarnation, his mother was a witch and he can do magic. In another, he's a disembodied mind that can go anywhere and see anything, and can control anything whose mind he can get into. Then there's one where he's the last survivor of a race of aliens that were enemies of the Kryptonians. But he's always there."

Joan considered this. "But he's a multimillionaire corporate type now. So is this Post-Crisis?"

Elena shook her head. "I thought so in the beginning, but no. It's different. They're building on the same theme, but it's clearly changing. This is a new incarnation, but it's not comics. It's another medium. Since it's not comics, it doesn't have to play by the rules. They can change whatever they want.

"Which means," she added, "that I can change whatever I want. And I think I may be able to head off…what I told you about."

Joan nodded. "So you're making sure they're not enemies?"

"Yeah. Like I said, it's different every time. But they're always enemies—that's the part I can't figure out how to get around.

"But," she added, "I think I may already be making a big change. Clark's aware of his destiny now."

"And that helps how?"

"He'll struggle against his destiny." Elena smiled enigmatically.

"How do you know he will? Clark's not a rebel type."

"I'll make sure he struggles. I'll call in favors. If needs be, I can always just bring in a new flavor of Kryptonite."