Good Men Die, Too
By the Mighty Floyd
My name is Clark Kent. It is also Kal-L. I am known best to this world as Superman.
When I was a newborn, my planet was destroyed by a massive cataclysm. To this day, no one is sure what caused the earthquakes, floods, and eventual explosion of the planet's core. All we know is that there was something, and that it destroyed my world.
My father, a leading scientist named Jor-L, sent me away from our dying world in a prototype interstellar space ship. It is only because of his actions that I survived.
I am the last son of Krypton.
When I reached Earth, an unknown amount of time later, I was discovered and adopted by Jon and Martha Kent. They raised me to become a hero. Not the super-powered man in the news; no, they raised me to choose good over evil, to help other people if it was in my power, to become the best man I could be. I am eternally in their debt.
I became a super-hero because that was how I could best help people. There are few problems that can't be stopped by a man who is faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. And as I grew, so too did my powers, until I was as fast as the Flash, more powerful than a sun, and able to fly thousands of miles with no more than a thought.
This may sound as though I became omnipotent. I certainly thought so.
I took it as my sacred duty to protect my adoptive planet. I battled alien menaces. I battled villains native to it. I battled monsters who had no thoughts other than destruction.
I always battled.
And then, one day, in one place, at one time, I wasn't there. I was half a world away when it happened, battling... someone or other.
I didn't find out until it was too late to do anything. Ma had called for the ambulance as soon as she found him, but no one knew how long he had been down.
A heart attack, the doctor said. There was no way we could have saved him. He was truly sorry.
But I couldn't help but think that I could have saved him. If I'd just used my ears a little more. If I had just finished a little faster. If. If.
Now my Pa is gone. The man who took in a strange child from a strange world is dead. And I couldn't stop it. For all my power, I couldn't save the man who meant more to me than any other.
What do you do when your power isn't enough?
What do you do?