The New Super Friends

Volume 2, Issue 5 (April, 2005)

Story by: Christopher W. Blaine The New Super Friends is an original concept of Christopher W. Blaine that incorporates characters, situations and ideas published by DC Comics Inc. and are used without permission for fan-related entertainment purposes only. This original work is ©2004 by Christopher W. Blaine.

In an attempt to recreate the universe, the Time-Guardian murdered an innocent man. From the ashes of that crime rose a group of heroes from ages that never were to ensure there was justice for all. Now, those heroes protect their new world, banded together as comrades and as a family. They are the Super Friends!

"Emerald Rebirth"

"Lois, get your pretty little can in here," Perry White called from his office. The dark-haired reporter looked up from her computer and called out. "Coming, Perry," she said.

Perry White, a large man with hair that was now more gray than brown, stood at his door, an unlit cigar in his mouth. His eyes darted to the "No Smoking" sign that was glued to the wall and he inwardly cursed. Back in his day, he reminded himself, a man could enjoy a smoke whenever he wanted.

Lois grabbed a stenographer's note pad, foregoing a palm computer that many reporters were now using, and made her way to her boss. Ever since her dramatic return a few weeks before, Lois had been buried with requests to do interviews from all of the local news shows and even the rival papers. She had confided to Perry recently that she was really interested in getting back on the beat. "After all," she had said, "I'm a reporter, not a super model."

It was an ironic statement since it was her beauty that had attracted the Man of Steel, Superman, when he had first appeared in Metropolis so many years before. Nobody at that time had known that he had been Clark Kent and Lois had only found out after the two of them had married. It was rumored that she was thinking of writing a book about their life together, but she had done nothing to confirm the stories.

Inside the office, Perry closed the door and took his customary position behind his desk. "Lois, with you back, I think the Planet has a chance of becoming the number one newspaper again. We've suffered over the last two years, especially with Clark and Jimmy dying on us." He expected to see some concern in her eyes, but was surprised not to see any. Always an observant man, Perry had noted that Lois talked very little about her lost husband, which was strange considering who he had been. "I tried to lure Lana away from WGBS, but that fell through."

"Well, Lana has been through a lot," Lois said with a faint smile. Perry wanted to say something, to open a conversation, but he knew Lois would say nothing. She had been gone for two years, claiming that she had amnesia, and had been lost in the bad parts of the city. Perry had a hard time believing that Lois Lane stumbling around an alleyway would not be recognized. How had she survived? Her body, her skin...everything about her indicated a woman who had been pampered and who had taken care of herself. Women who lived on the streets bore the scars of that life.

It was almost as if she were not the same Lois Lane that he remembered.

"Yes she has, which means that I really need you to get a scoop for me," he said as he leaned forward. "You've heard of the new Green Lantern?"

"There have been so many of them Perry, I can't really begin to say which one is new. I have heard that one has been spotted in Houston, though."

He nodded. "Exactly. I want you to go down there and get his story, just like you did with Clark...I mean Superman." Again there was no reaction. "The Super Friends are probably going to recruit him and then all of the information about him will come through their official news agency. I want the real story. Is he one of the originals? If not, where did he get his power ring?"

"What if he is one of these alternate world types that the Super Friends claim are out there?"

Perry pulled the cigar out of his mouth and pointed at Lois with it. "Hogwash! They try to cover up everything with confusion and misdirection. You know I don't trust these new heroes. They say Speedy...Speedy of all people, was behind a plot to rule the world? That he was the mastermind behind the Legion of Doom. Hell, we all know it has been Luthor pulling the strings all along. That master criminal genius finally was able to pull off his revenge against the heroes of this world, like poor Clark, and that's that!"

"So, you don't think the Super Friends are legitimate?" Lois asked, suddenly interested.

He shook his head. "No! Jimmy was one of them when they called themselves the Time Wardens and he ended up dead in a warehouse fire. Then they try to shove this new Super-Woman down our throats when we all know she was once a member of the Legion, back when she called herself Shyla!"

Perry was surprised at the bitterness in his heart, but it did not stop his tongue. He had held in his feelings for a long time, not having a confidant to tell them to. All of his friends, his close friends, were dead, as was his family, all killed during the Hero Wars, the time period in which the Legion of Doom launched its powerful offensive against the Justice Society. Superman and his comrades had been real heroes, betrayed from within, he was sure, but the blame was always being laid at Speedy's feet. "Great Caesar's Ghost, Jay Garrick is the real traitor! He was a hero who joined the Legion!" he said out loud.

Lois only nodded and continued to write some notes down. Perry didn't care. She would never quote him by name if she ever used anything he said and his editorials were just as bad. He wanted to see the fake heroes brought down. Obviously, he wanted to find out if the new Green Lantern was the real deal.

"Okay, Perry," she said, taping a pencil against her perfect teeth. "I'll head down there and use my feminine wiles and reporter's instinct to get the story. But, if I get a scoop..."

"Yes?" he asked.

"Then I want something in return."

"What? A promotion?"

She nodded. "I want my contract renegotiated so that I can do television news as well. I want to work for WGBS and the Daily Planet."

He thought about it for only a moment. It was not unheard of and Lois had worked that way before the Hero Wars. Her new contract had strictly forbidden it because Perry and Morgan Edge, who ran WGBS, were at odds over the entire super-hero issue. "Fine, but your newspaper work better not suffer."

"It won't, Perry darling, in fact, with a larger audience, I'm sure that I can do a lot more...good," she said with a wink.

Dawnstar had seen the battle from several miles away. "I see Major Disaster gesturing towards the oil field and making motions indicating an earthquake," she said. Next to her, the Flash nodded.

"You want me to run in there and scoop him up?" he asked.

"No, let this Green Lantern handle it. If it starts to get out of control, then you can step in," she ordered. He said nothing but instead moved over to sit down on a large brown rock. "You don't like it here, do you?" she asked with a smile.

"I like my heat to be in the tropics, someplace with a lot of water so my wife can run around naked," he said, referring to fellow teammate Tsunami. "It isn't that I don't like Texas or anything like that, I just miss my wife. I was raised in Arizona until Barry Allen took me as his ward."

"On a Navajo reservation, wasn't it?" she asked, still watching the far away battle with her hawk-like vision.

"Yeah, thought about taking up archery...guess every other Roy Harper in Hypertime did, but it just never felt right. On my world, I sat around reading comic books, what ones we could get out there." He picked up a rock and threw it. "Have you ever spent any time with real Native Americans?"

She laughed. "Yes, my family! The world I came from in the 30th century was populated with the descendants of American Indians. When space travel became a reality, my people wandered the stars, looking for a home that would not be taken away from them."

"Sounds nice," he said with a sigh. She realized he was propbably thinking about his home, a planet in another timeline that had been destroyed by the Time-Guardian. "But I suppose it is not so bad here."

"No, but..." she let the sentence drift off as her thoughts moved away from the present and into the past. Only a year before she had been very happy. A fellow member of the Wardens, Hawkman, had taken a romantic liking to her and for the first time in what had seemed forever, she had felt content and complete.

But then the truth about Hawkman started to become apparent, that he was not all that he appeared to be. He had murdered a man during a mission to another world, but it had been forgiven because of the circumstances.

That had been a mistake.

She shoved the images from her mind, telling herself that Hawkman was now imprisoned and no longer a danger to her or anyone else.

She hoped.

"What's going on now," he asked her.

She looked. "Green Lantern is shaking his head and shouting something. He seems to be really angry. I would say that Major Disaster is threatening to follow through on his threat to destroy the oil fields if his demands aren't met."

"I can't understand why he asked for only one million dollars," the Flash said with a giggle. "Has he been in prison that long?"

"As I understand it, Disaster is something of a reluctant villain. He steals to get enough money to pay for medical treatments for himself or a relative or something like that." She sighed and spread her wings out in the warm southern sun. Her thoughts about Hawkman had her thinking about how lonely she was.

Because of her wings, there was no way she could have a secret identity, a life outside being a super-hero. It was that isolation that had led her to form the Super Friends. What else could she do? She was a 30th century mutant lost in a 21st century world.

She noted a brief flash of green light. "Looks like he's had enough; a big green fist just punched Major Disaster across the oil field and an even bigger catcher's mitt has hiim trapped."

The Flash stood up. "Can I go talk to him now?"

She nodded. "Just be diplomatic, Roy. We sent out a call for members and nobody responded. People, even super people, may not trust us yet. The world may believe one thing about the Hero Wars, but the rest of us know the truth. Trust is a commodity that is in short supply right now.

He nodded and then took running, arriving next to Green Lantern faster than thought. The ring-slinger jumped back at the sight of the scarlet-clad speedster. "What the hell?" he shouted, his ring suddenly reacting.

A brilliant beam of emerald energy reached out from the power ring and impacted against the chest of the Flash. Totally unprepared, the Flash was sent flying back into a cactus.

Green Lantern turned to ensure that Major Disaster was not taking an opportunity to get away and saw that he was out cold. Satisfied, he turned his attention back to the Flash. "What the hell are you doing in my state?" Green Lantern asked.

The Flash walked forward, his hand rubbing his butt. "Getting poked in the behind," he said sarcastically. "No thanks to you! I'm one of the good guys!"

"Next time announce when you're showing up!"

"Hey," the Flash began, shaking a finger at the Emerald Gladiator, "I didn't come here to be lectured to by some newbie..."

"'Newbie'? Listen here, junior, just because you have your super-hero glee club membership card doesn't make you a professional. Seems to me that you were called 'Kid Flash' for quite a while there," was the quick response. Green Lantern folded his arms over his chest and gave the other hero a hard stare. "You still haven't answer my question, junior."

"Excuse me? You look like your not much older than me," the Flash countered. "And at least I have some experience. What happened, a power ring magically appear to you while you were peeing in an alleyway?"

"This is the best the Super Friends have to offer? A wise-cracking pup of hero? You better learn your history little boy; I was in the game a long time before you came along with your little group. I was here when there were real heroes that patrolled the skies, not a bunch of freaks that claim to come from other worlds." Green Lantern then laughed.

"Oh, yeah? Who were you? Little Boy Blue?"

"Try Air-Wave."

It was Flash's turn to laugh and he doubled over as he did so. "Air-Wave? Well whoop-dee-do! Look at me, I can skate on power lines!"

"Shut up!" Green Lantern took a step forward, bringing his fist up. His power ring flashed once. "I'm a Green Lantern now."

"I can only imagine the interview for that job!" the Flash joked, wiping tears from his eyes. "'I don't have any real skills or abilities, but I took first place at the roller disco contest'!"

"Go to hell!"

"Bite me, Air-Wave..."

"Green Lantern!"

"Can you still travel through closed-circuit television lines? That was really impressive!"

"I would think that moving at the speed of light would impress someone like you, Kid Flash," Green Lantern told him, feeling he finally was getting the upper hand.

"I move faster than the speed of light; you're a tortoise to my hare, Green Air-Wave...ack!"

The Flash reeled under the blow and Green Lantern allowed a large smile to cross his face. "Guess the tortoise just beat the crap out of the hare."

"You so don't want to do this," the Flash told him, cracking his knuckles and then rubbing his jaw. "I can hit you over a thousand times a second."

"If you can get to me; my ring protects me from everything from nuclear bombs to idiots in red costumes." A green glow enveloped him and he slowly began to rise in the air. "I'm betting you're here to offer me a spot on your team. Well, tell Super-Woman and the rest of the them that Green Lantern isn't interested. I saw what being on a team can do firsthand. Green Lantern works alone!"

Then, with a single thought, he rocketed into the sky and out of site.

"Pretty original way to contact someone," Green Lantern said as he dropped onto the balcony. It had been some eight hours since his confrontation with the Flash and his mood had considerably brightened. An invitation to dinner had been left for him in the form of a large billboard in downtown Houston. On it, Lois Lane, pointing out like in the old recruiting posters of World War 2 of Uncle Sam, was quoted as saying "Green Lantern, I want you!"

His investigations into it revealed, from the person who actually rented out the sign, that Miss Lois Lane of the Metropolis Daily Planet, and the widow of Superman, wanted to meet him at the most expensive hotel in the city for dinner.

As Hal Jordan, Green Lantern was able to use his FBI influence and connections to pull the file on Miss Lane. The information was mostly from before the Hero Wars, where Miss Lane had been well-respected by the government for her no-nonsense approach to journalism. A staunch liberal, she had never allowed her politics to cloud her reporting which made her popular on both side of the congressional aisle.

Her ties to Superman, which were revealed only after his death, offered no real peak into the lives of the heroes under the control of the Time-Guardian. Hal had even suspected that neither Superman or his wife had known that they were being controlled by the Time-Guardian all of those years.

Lois Lane stepped out from the apartment, clad in a dress that had a deep plunging neckline and a side cut that seemed to go up to her armpit. "I've never been known for being shy," she said, stepping into the light being cast by his power ring. "You're younger than I thought, but not by much."

He nodded and tried to guess her age. He knew from her file she was supposed ot be in her mid-thirties, but it was impossible to tell. Her form indicated someone very athletic and she seemed absolutely flawless. He steadied himself, thinking that perhaps he was looking at her with rose-colored glasses. How long had it been since he had even kissed a girl? Years? Had he been so engrossed with his work that he had simply forgotten about the fairer sex?

Still, he could not detect any flaws on her and as he scanned her skin, it became apparent that she was...different. She had no moles or birthmarks; there was no droop to her chest that would normally come with age. It was almost like she had been built to perfection. "My eyes are up here," she said with a smile.

He blushed, realizing that he had been concentrating on her skin, but it had appeared that he was gazing at much more. He quickly appologized. She stepped over to the table that had been set and cast him a seductive look. "Don't be sorry, just be interested," she said.

He wondered if it were possible; was Lois Lane coming on to him? Well, she was a widow and he was single. "What did you need to see me about, Miss Lane?" he asked, drawing on his career as an FBI agent to relax.

"Besides dinner? I wanted an interview," she said frankly.

"Oh," he replied, a little dejected. He had been full of other hopes and a smile crept its way across his face as he realized that he had been thinking like a high school freshman.

"And maybe later some dessert," she replied with the same openess.

"That doesn't seem very ethical," he told her, sitting down.

"Please," she laughed as she handed him a bottle of wine. He used his power ring to produce a corkscrew and began to open it. "The fact I'm attracted to you has nothing to do with the story. I came for the story first."

"Been in Houston long?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Long enough to run up a helluva an expense account. My editor is going to go through the roof when he sees this one. I better have a good story for him. You're like a new Superman to the people and he wants...no, the citizens of the world, want to know about you."

It was an odd choice of words, bringing up her dead husband like that. He didn't know whether to be horrified or feel like he had been complimented. "I'm nobody special, just a guy who happens to have a power ring."

"Hal Jordan."

"Excuse me?" he asked, wondering how she had learned his identity.

"Hal Jordan, the second Green Lantern. I interviewed him years ago when they formed the Justice League of America and he said the same thing." She sat down and offered him two empty glasses. "In fact, you remind me a lot of him, only younger."

"And you interviewed him dressed like this?"

She laughed, making slight snorting sound when she did so, putting him somewhat at ease. "I dressed up because...well, because it has been a while since I had an intimate dinner with a man."

"You must miss your husband," he said.

She shrugged. "The truth is, and this is between me an you, I don't remember very much of it. I remember falling for Superman, but our subsequent romance and marriage is a blank in my mind." She pulled the covers off of the plates of food, revealing a Texas favorite of steak and potatoes. Green Lantern felt his belly rumble at the sight of the food and he tried to remember what he had eaten last.

"Now," she said, putting her elbows on the table and leaning in close. "How did you get your ring?"

He eyed her...bounty and then the steaks. If the wine had been beer he would have sworn he had gone to Heaven. "John Stewart. He died recently and passed on his ring to me."

"He wasn't killed in the Wars?" she asked, surprise in her voice. "He hasn't been seen since."

"He was busy doing other things," he lied. He did not want to taint the memory of the fallen warrior by explaining that he had wasted away from the fear that had gripped him in the wake of the Time-Guardian's grab for power.

"So, will you be revealing your identity to the world at large like your predecessors did?" She poured some dressing onto her salad. "Or would that put your wife or girlfriend in danger?"

He smiled at her thinly-veiled attempt at fishing for information. He decided to bite. "There is nobody special in my life, but I prefer to keep my name to myself."

"A man of mystery, a true super-hero, like Batman?"

"Uh, yeah," he remarked, remembering that Batman had been the Time-Guardian's personal assassin. The world didn't know that, though.

"Will you be joining the Super Friends?"

"No."

She looked up from her food. "That was quick. You have a problem with them?"

He took a long drink from his wine before continuing. "I don't like teams. Teams have too many factors that cannot be controlled. I mean, look what happened to the Wardens last year with Hawkman."

She shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I was sort of out of it at that time and I haven't kept up on everything."

He blushed again. "I'm sorry, Miss Lane..."

"Lois. My close personal friends call me Lois."

He nodded. "All right, Lois, then you should know that Hawkman went insane last year and tried to kill the members of the Wardens. It seems he's a little unstable in the brain. Their official story is that he suffered an emotional breakdown of some sort, but I don't buy it. He's locked up in their special prison out in California."

"The one run by Dr. Zee?"

"Yeah, who used to be Nightwing. He had powers like Superman until Hawkman exposed him to a red solar energy ray that stripped them away. Now he's a normal guy like you and I." He saw her straighten a bit at being called a "guy".

He went to work on his steak, embarrassed at how difficult it was to talk to a woman for him. "But, wouldn't you think that being on the team would be necessary? Aren't you a galactic policeman or something like that?"

"I haven't heard a word from any other Corps members if they are even still alive. The Guardians of the Universe, which controlled the Green Lantern Corps, didn't seem to want to find John," he said, catching himself before he revealed too much. "Why do you care anyway?"

"Well, you know that the Daily Planet has taken the stance that the Super Friends, and the Wardens before them, may have been partially responsible for the Hero Wars?" He indicated that he had read some of the editorials on the Internet. "Well, if that is true, then maybe it is your duty to be there, keeping an eye on things."

He paused in his chewing and considered it. Before he had come to this dinner, he had been quite proud of himself about how he had handled the Flash and his attempts to join the Super Friends. Now, sitting under the stars with a beautiful and flirtatious woman, he was having second thoughts. "I mean, isn't that what super-heroes do?"

He nodded and found himself agreeing with her the more he ran it over in his head. If he were on the Super Friends roster, he would be in a better position to take down any Time-Guardian style conquerers the second they showed their faces. "I don't think they'll take me now. I punched out the Flash today."

"I'm a reporter, I can write a story that will have the people clamoring to have you inducted," she cooed. Then she stood up and sauntered over to him. She had the grace of a dancer in the way she moved and he could not help it when he felt his heart begin to race. "And that," she said as she stopped and bent low to give him a soft kiss on the lips, "is only one of my skills."