The next morning, I opened my door to see a copy of the Daily Planet lying at my feet before the door. I picked it up and slid the binding rubber band off. It fell to the ground harmlessly, and I opened the paper.
On the right side of the page, under the section marked 'In this Issue', the first item listed:
Dirk Armstrong opines on the gay situation in Metropolis.
What the fuck? Who is this Armstrong and what does he think he's doing? I blitzed through Armstrong's editorial. By the end of it, I was ready to rip the paper in two and burn it in effigy.
Oh gee, Allen. Way to overreact.
I burst into Jesse's room to find him lying on his bed, half asleep. His arms were folded across his chest and he watched the television with focused intensity.
"Did you see this, Jess?" I asked, my voice projecting across the room, and jolting Jesse from his half-slumber.
"What?" He asked innocently.
"This," I said bluntly as I opened the Planet to the Op-Ed page and threw Dirk Armstrong's article on the bed in front of Jesse. He glanced over it for a moment and then looked back at me.
"What about it?"
"What about it?!" I responded outraged. "This guy is implying we oughta put a radio collar on every gay inside city limits.
"You'll have that," Jesse said dryly as he cruised the article.
"What do you…?"
"It's a fact of life, Allen. Gays get that kind of treatment. It's just…the way it is."
"So it doesn't bother you that this nut job is saying gays are undermining the social order of this town?"
"No," Jesse said lightly.
"Come on, Jess," I said pressingly.
"No, Allen!" Jesse said, righting himself, his voice becoming angrier.. "Don't you get it? This is the sort of shit I have to deal with all the God-damned time. I've gotten used to it. I'm not you, and I never will be, so I won't say you should think like I do…but at least have the common sense to realize how I feel about it. This Armstrong character is just another crackpot who's got nothing better to do. So don't worry about it."
I did some online research about this Dirk Armstrong fellow. He was the conservative voice in an otherwise liberal newspaper—the Planet—with militant liberal Perry White at its head. Deep down, I assumed Armstrong had his reasons for writing his piece. He was just a simple man trying to make his living—admirable—but there was definitely something shady about it.
Lex called me from Philadelphia the following night.
"I read Armstrong's article too, Allen."
"And…?"
"I wouldn't worry about it. As being full of hot air goes, Armstrong is in orbit."
"And what about Morgan Edge?"
"I've known Edge for years. He doesn't seem to get any smarter," Lex said confidently. "He's…nonessential. A churlish spotlight-craver who wants nothing more than to destroy me, based on baseless accusations that are ten years old. Now what is that? I ask you…what kind of world do we live in where hearsay is the governing thought of man's rationale?"
"A shitty one, to put it crudely."
"Yes," Lex said long-windedly. "Now…don't worry about this business with Edge."
"But he said you couldn't be there to help me out, should it happen again."
"Morgan Edge doesn't scare me, Allen."
Snickering, I replied, "I don't think anyone does."
A pause.
"Lex…what does he have against you?"
"Years ago, Lois Lane exposed Edge for something he did. Something very illegal, involving some…foreign terrorists. He was put away for that crime, but recently got out and took back control of Galaxy Broadcasting."
"So…why does he hate you?" I asked uncomprehendingly.
"I was…affiliated with Lois at the time," Lex said, looking away. "He blames me…Lois and I…for everything."
"Oh," I said, still in the dark. "But…I don't know. Couldn't you just, like, buy out Galaxy?"
"I could…if I would."
"Uh-huh…"
"So you see," Lex said pressingly. "It seems my problem has become your problem."
"I don't follow."
"I hate Morgan Edge, Allen," Lex replied plainly. "And, if you believe the rumors, he's worse than me."
I scoffed and said, "That's fine, but what do you want me to do about it? I'm not exactly the Mayor or anything, you know."
"I know. That's exactly why I'm going to take Edge on my own terms."
I decided to take his words with one, big, stinking grain of salt. "Well, if you're interested, you could come to my class Monday morning. 11:00."
"We'll see," Lex said.
Privately, I felt Edge hated me because of my ties to Lex. Whatever power struggle was going on between the two of them was now boiling over to my life. Sooner or later, I feared one of them would bring me into it for their own personal gain.
They were going to carve things up, and they were going to want to take sides.
Question was: which side to take?
I went into Edge's class Monday morning to see a stack of green-colored papers lying on the table next to the lecturn. Bold black print on the PowerPoint overhead told the students to pick up a copy.
Edge came trouncing in at ten minutes after class was supposed to start, wearing a supremely confident grin. He heaved his briefcase up on a nearby lab table, and tried to open it. When it wouldn't open, he screamed, "God DAMN IT!" and brought his closed fist down on it hard. It sprung open and he pulled his files out.
No one in the class thought any less of him for using some rather choice language. All the girls—who were permanently camped out in the front row, that they might be at optimum Edge-viewing at all times—swooned and let out a collective sigh. Sweet clichés of Babylon .
"Now," Edge said, facing the class. "If you'll look at the handout in front of you, you'll see the required reading for the next month."
I glanced dubiously down at the green paper. My eyes froze when I read the assignment: Simply Brilliant, by Lex Luthor. It was the man's autobiography.
"You're gonna be reading this for the next month or so. We'll have discussion groups every Thursday, followed by a circuitous test at the end of the month, covering the breadth of knowledge in the book."
Maybe Morgan didn't hate Lex so much after all. I mean…why read a book about the man unless you're trying to get inside his head? Trying to understand him.
"Now," Edge went on. "In order for this study to go smoothly, I want you to disband whatever notions you have about Luthor. I'm well aware that many of you are enrolled in this college simply because of corporate scholarships that his company or he himself personally provided."
Edge's gaze centered on me and I sank back in my chair. "I don't want you to read this book and take everything as the Gospel; it isn't. As critical thinkers, your job is to objectively study this book and take from it what you will. Now…you're dismissed."
He let us go early, which almost never happened. I was, nevertheless, glad he let us go early; it gave me a change to run to the bookstore and snag a copy of Luthor's book.
Next: Revelation
Author's Note: The title of Lex Luthor's autobiography Simply Brilliant comes from the 1989 Graphic Novel "Lex Luthor: the Unauthorized Biography" by James Hudnall and Eduardo Barreto.
Dirk Armstrong, the decidedly right-wing Op-Ed columnist for the Daily Planet, first appeared in 1996's "Man of Tomorrow #6". Morgan Edge, head of the GBS conglomerate, first appeared in 1988's "Superman #16".
