Legal disclaimer: I tend to liberally "borrow" character profiles and art from the Earth-27 wikia created by Roy Westerman with principle art coming from digital artist Phil Cho. Other creators and artists are found there as well and I will specifically list any creations with creator citations as I utilize them. In short, this is the single most comprehensive retelling of all things DC and beyond I have encountered. It's worth your time to explore.
That having been said, the properties, and their variations belong to DC Comics through WarnerMediaand its former parent, AT&T, with notable exceptions. More on that in the footnote. I do not own DC characters or their interpretations and reimaginings. My own characters are implied Public Domain since I have not included a copyright notice as required by the 1974 revisions of the copyright statutes and regulations. While an intellectual copyright is implied without the due symbols and language, all such considerations are generally voided under CC-BY-SA, which governs this site, unless duly noted otherwise.
Open Source attributionsare listed after the story concluded to satisfy legalese requirements. And all "super" characters other than Open Source have been seen in comic books before barring any original characters coming from the Earth-27 Wiki or myself. You can look into Public Domain Superheroes Wiki and the DC Database Wiki's own vaults to verify this.
Although this is primarily set in the DCAU, I incorporate attributes of dozens of interpretations of each character, comic telling era, and medium into the telling.
And it should be noted that this all began in Jan. 10, 2010 with the Justice League New Beginning: a DCAU Series Part 1 carried through Part 26 and then throughout the assorted Justice League: DCAU series Anthology stories. Which those stories are still a work in progress so they will interlace with this new Justice League Beyond: a DCAU Series Parts 0-?. My original goal was to produce 32 of the original Justice League DCAU Series. Obviously I failed when I lost interest in continuing to write 100K – 200K word length stories. And if it isn't fun anymore, why bother?
But the original DCAU series I wrote, the DCAU Anthology series I'm writing, and this one all are intended to bridge that gap between the last season of Justice League Unlimited and Batman Beyond. We'll see how that goes...
Alice the Mad Hatter desperately wanted to take Tinker Bell out for a romantic evening to celebrate their seventy-year anniversary and since they were wanted fugitives in nearly every single Realm of Existence, it was safer to stay on the New Earth that resulted from the tiered change in this Realm of Existence. The Crisis of the Multiverse had destroyed the matter universes to make way for the antimatter. But the Anti Monitor discovered matter couldn't exist without antimatter to balance it just as the reverse were true. So the Crisis destroyed all of that Realm of Existence.
Zero Hour followed the Crisis and erased all of its history. But Creation began again and the new Rebirth of matter, antimatter, and the flow of time was sculpted and shaped by Glorith and Dr. Manhattan after destroying the Evil Queen's Zero Hour Rose which had entitled her to shape the past, present, and future after Zero Hour and Renfri hadn't gone down without a fight.
But the Rebirth only recreated a single Universe, the New Universe with its New Earth, some of which was dimly recalled by those who had been thrust back into their lives but lived on as the vague memory of the Near Apocalypse of 2009.
Alice's odd rhyming speech drew as much attention as Tinker Bell's bell ringing voice. So the couple played deaf mutes in public. They made up their own signing language so even those trained in ASL couldn't eavesdrop. They'd spent months dictating and determining what would mean what. A raid into Neverland had restored some of Tinker Bell's pixie dust driven magic. Her glamour spells on Earth literally altered her appearance, which was a broadly unexpected side effect.
So Tink's pointed ears were how humanly rounded. But still, she could reach a maximum height of 4' 8" no matter how she cast the spell and replenishment stores of pixie dust were hard to come by. She could tap lay lines to boost her powers but they were still weakened by her leaving Neverland. There were few unpilfered faery mounds left on Earth. They were now rarer than Lazarus Pits. Which was why Nyssa Raatko had spent so munch blood, money, and time developing artificial Lazarus Pits. And also why Black Canary was still alive today after her first death.
Alice and Tink amused themselves at a children's play depicting Peter Pan before retiring to a favorite restaurant to continue the festivities. Tinker Bell was still amazed at how wrong humanity had it towards Peter Pan. They depicted him as a mirthful imp who delighted in tormenting his enemies whilst staying sane and youthful.
None of that was true. Peter's fear of aging and being an adult was real enough but he was tyrannical, vengeful, and blatantly homicidal. Which why the pixies bound his soul to Neverland and no blood could be drawn in Neverland. When he hacked off Hook's hand and fed it to the Crocodile, it had been outside Neverland and inspired James Hook to pursue Peter's escape back into Neverland and thus trapping his own crew in that ageless Realm of Existence. In a Realm no one could die in no matter how depraved a death it had been. Peter took delight in the tortures he could inflict on Hook and his pirate crew and they could never die.
The pixies had allowed a Native American tribe to leave their coastal waters as the European conquerors approached and they gained safety in Neverland or so they thought until Peter came. The Lost Boys, everyone a sadist at heart, were as vile as Peter himself.
Yet in their effort to tame Peter, the pixies inadvertently created the monster they now had to wrestle with. Tinker Bell had been assigned as Peter's mentor and guardian ie. chaperon but she fell in love with the strange boy. Maimie Mannering had been his firs human love regarding heartfelt emotions and his barely awoken thirteen year old sexual lusts. Peter searched for Maimie for decades after her disappearance until he came upon Wendy Darling and her brothers, John and Michael.
Peter bored of Tink's sexual ministrations because her growth to his stature was finite in Neverland. Wendy proved a perfect plaything until she demanded to go back to London. Peter would never age and he was sterile in Neverland so she would never bear children of her own and like Maimie's return to London, decades had passed since Wendy and her brothers had left.
They found their aged parents no longer believed the assumedly resurrected children were really their own but their fully grown "miracle" sister took them in. unlike Maimie, who'd undergone the same transformation as Peter, the Darlings had not and they grew and aged.
Until Hook captured Wendy's daughter during World War II, Jane and she became Peter's toy. At least until she betrayed him to Hook. Wendy knew full well who and what her daughter was when she returned years later. Wendy had prepared, and when Jane's feral nature ran rampant, Michael, and John subdued her and committed her to an asylum.
Tink tired of the human rivals and spent weeks and then months apart from Peter. When she returned to London one day, she encountered a "lost girl" only to find it was the Lost Girl, Maimie herself. Still as youthful as they day she'd secretly departed from Neverland to say farewell to her parents and siblings forever. But she'd been gone twenty years and remained unchanged. So she was the first to return and be locked away and studied like a specimen in a Petri dish.
Maimie remembered Neverland but not the route to there and she spotted Tink before Tinker Bell spotted her. Racing back across Realms in a mad flight to evade Maimie, Tinker Bell led her straight back home with a divergence into Wonderland and then Oz.
While Maimie sought the portal to Neverland and an escape from Wonderland via through Oz, Tinker Bell returned in a fright to Neverland and found emissaries from the Realm of Fables negotiating terms of service to the Evil Queen. Renfri had ended the warfare between Pirates, Lost Boys, the Amerinds, and even the personal hostilities between the Pan and Hook. Only most of the pixies had died of sheer fright at the coming of the Evil Queen's negotiators.
And Alice the Mad Hatter had come as well but through a backdoor found in Wonderland to Neverland. A secret the White Queen had kept and shared only with her eldest illegitimate daughter. The Evil Queen was vanquishing Realm after Realm and the White Queen had weapons in the form of her daughters from the Mad Hatter.
The Evil Queen hadn't taken Wonderland yet because the White Queen, the Red Queen, and the Mad Hatter all united in their revulsion of Renfri and her forces. But the future Blood Queen had tricked her cousin into killing her aunt. So Alice was officially banished from Wonderland. The troika of power was broken as the Blood Queen sold herself cheaply to the Evil Queen.
Lily White, Alice's half-sister and heir to the throne assumed her post as the Silver Duchess by overthrowing her mother and swearing allegiance and loyalty to her cousin, the Blood Queen. The White Queen tasked Alice with hiding the Mad Hatter at her departure seemingly forever.
But Alice went further. Recruiting Tinker Bell, they decimated Neverland's betrayers. The surviving pixies, only a dozen or so, hid the Mad Hatter and themselves from even the power of the Evil Queen's vision. And word came that the dreaded Dark Lord Saron had vanquished and slain the Evil Queen only to take her place.
Tink was in love and it was finally reciprocated. Alice and Tinker Bell went on a whirlwind tour of the Realms of Existence. Inciting riots and warfare at every turn. But with a strategic purpose. They didn't crush their opposition but rather left them at a war footing just days or weeks before the Evil Queen's stolen armies invaded.
Renfri's most gifted general, the Dark Lady Saris, pointed to Alice and Tinker Bell as her new lord's greatest foes. Unaware that the White Queen survived in exile as did the Mad Hatter and Illyria, the second daughter of the White Queen and the Mad Hatter, who also had the powers over the mind. Alice controlled minds after making physical contact. Illyria destroyed minds with the same touch and despite their treachery and blood lust, the Blood Queen and the Silver Duchess were pale imitations of their parents.
Though, the Silver Duchess did have her father, the White Knight, executed as a threat to her uneasy throne but everyone, unaware of Illyria's growing power, feared Alice and soon Tinker Bell's name would be a curse to the Dark Lord's minions.
Maimie arrived at Neverland just hours after Alice had the forces arrayed against her kill one another. Tinker Bell herself dealt with Peter, no longer the Pan. With the pixies decimated, their bond to Neverland was broken and blood could be spilled. Alice barely had to nudge anyone into a homicidal rage. Neverland was bristling with unrequited homicidal impulses and finally they were released for real.
Maimie herself, her hope of reuniting with Peter for over a century, heard the last accusation he ever made as his death rattled lungs powered one last utterance to tell her the name of his murderer. And Maimie swore to herself she would never rest again until Tinker Bell was killed. Which was the beginning of a hunt filled with disappointments and near misses. But Alice and Tink reached the Multiverse as it was undergoing the thrall of the Crisis.
They watched with great amusement as the Crisis of the Multiverse evolved into the Final Crisis of the Prime Universe, the Zero Hour erased history, Rebirth rewrote and shaped a new creation, the New Universe was born devoid of a multiverse and only a single Antimatter Universe. As Rebirth reworked memories, Alice and Tink sought a human patsy to do their work for them. It had been a well proven tactic in their hurtle through the Realms so they chose Goldilocks as their proxy.
Only to discover Goldilocks was the first human or mortal being to ever prove immune to Alice's magical touch. Oh, the Mad Hatter's daughter could access Goldilocks' mind but she couldn't warp it. Which admittedly, it was about the most warped mind already that Alice had ever encountered. So the couple reached out to Goldilocks and explained their mission. Despite their oddities by human standards, Goldilocks embraced them as equals and dedicated the Injustice Society's aid in the coming struggle against the Evil Queen or Dark Lord or whomever arrived, be it Silver Duchess or Blood Queen.
Alice made certain no one would ever say 'no' to the calling. Oddly enough, Music Meister and her understudy, Upbeat, also volunteered to assist but in their own unique fashion. And then the day came when the Evil Queen herself undertook a role in scouting the New Earth.
She was repulsed from a Realm for the first time in fourteen billion years. No one but her own people, both the Seelie and Unseelie Courts of Faery had ever banished her from a territory. It took all of the Seelie and all of her fellow Unseelie to banish her and place the death mark on her name. Every time in any Realm when Renfri's true name was spoken, the powers of the Wild Hunt would unleashed as they sought her to end her existence.
So it was little surprise when Renfri executed every Seelie and Unseelie in existence to free her name and access her core magic once again. But human agents, accompanied by Alice and Tink, attacked Renfri in the Realm of Fables shortly after her genocidal conquest of her own kind was finished. Even with her strongest magic, her very core magic, was finally unleashed for the first time ever, she still was forced to flee the Realm of Fables and abandon the Realm of Courts to the lesser fey. So the Evil Queen pulled her greatest trick ever. She retreated into the New Universe, the only Realm to ever defeat her.
She'd earned a new and even deadlier adversary than she'd known before in the form of Dorothy Gale the Wicked Witch of Oz. Again a story that humanity had bollocksed straight up. But the Evil Queen and the Wicked Witch were mutually ignoring one another right now.
Dorothy had met Maimie while Mannering searched Oz looking for Tinker Bell. Two things regarding Maime reminded the Wicked Witch of herself. Her finely tuned sense of murderous desire and the length and breadth she'd go to to achieve her vengeance. So Dorothy adopted the waif herself to prove to be Maimie's mentor and accomplice and now they were joined by Pan's Shadow. A sentient creature all its own and randomly searching for Tinker Bell since Maimie abandoned Neverland. For the second time.
The Wicked Witch was exploring options of what to do in Earth 2010 after leaving it for presumably forever back in 1905. She'd paroled by the not-so Wonderful Wizard and Glinda the Good Witch of the North to hunt down and destroy the apparent "imminent" threat of Alice and Tinker Bell. But as fortune had it, the couple weren't the real threat. The the very real threat overran Oz and killed everyone Dorothy hadn't managed to do the job on herself. In the meantime, while she ruminated, the children ran amok.
Alice and Tink knew better than to travel abroad outside of Superior City. The Injustice Society was contracted by the city to defend it from threats of a meta-human nature and to simplify street crime. When Knightfall sent Jaina Hudson and the White Rabbit to offer her vision of licensing criminal activity and certain classifications of "virtuous" activities such as vigilantism, Goldilocks had sat in on the presentation and her laughter had actually perplexed both Jaina and her other self.
"Luv," Goldilocks finally took a breath and Jaina noted the council's mirth as well, "we're doing that here."
But Goldilocks and the city council felt generous and agreed to cut Knightfall in for a symbolic 1% monthly commission on revenues stemming from the licensing efforts. Goldilocks argued that Superior City was a showcase of how the system could effectively work so therefore why kill good press by arguing monetary numbers?
Charise Carnes wasn't happy but seriously, how did the richest woman on the planet really need an additional 11%? The pact was forged and Gotham City, Metropolis, NYC, Boston, Atlanta, Miami, Central City, Coast City, Starling City, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Colorado, Dallas, Austin, El Paso, and dozens more major metropolitan areas all signed on.
The single most resistant metropolis was Dakota City. Fawcett City and Keystone City also balked. But most notable resistant areas were Reno, Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Coral City, and Hub City. Anywhere the mob or Donald Trump had considerable assets. In all its forms, organized crime strongly held the purse strings despite Knightfall's well recorded membership in Intergang's 100.
But Intergang was undergoing a quiet un-civil war. The Acting Intergang Director, Julianne "Julie" Sazia was embattled and barely keeping her position secured. Knightfall was counted amongst the opposition forces led by Brains and the Gang. The Syndicate Underground was collapsing under the weight as Pirate Blue abandoned her post as Director of the Board and returned to a life of simpler crimes and times.
Even Malik al Thaka, the Brain Emperor, abandoned his one time pawns and allies. The Global Concern also withdrew their support as Domino saw no point in propping up a failing institution. Ariel Pryde would've had to invest all of her time into administrating the Syndicate Underground at the expense of her role with the Global Concern's supposedly non-existent Thirteenth Floor. And Dr. Zadar would never let her walk away and live.
But no rat scurrying from the ship would easily allow Intergang to seize control of the earmarked territories opening up for contentious debate. So the Court of Owls was enlisted to take over the global franchises and reclaim some of their lost luster and stature after the League of Shadows had orchestrated their defeat and Owlman's death at the hands of the League of Assassins.
The operation had crippled a rival, set Black Canary firmly on the throne as Ra's al Ghul, and sent Nyssa Raatko's sister Talia al Ghul, whose mind was vacant and her father controlling everything about her body, the single firmest message s/he would ever receive about abandoning all hope regarding retaking the League of Shadows back.
Dinah Laurel Drake Lance had walked many paths but all of her destiny seemed to be fulfilled in becoming Ra's al Ghul and in the most unprecedented League fashion, Ra's the Demon's Head, took her Bride of the Demon, Nyssa the Demon's Hand, and consolidated power within the Leagues in such a fashion that hadn't been seen since before Babylon fell.
Alice and Tink were very visible members of the Injustice Society of America. Even when they didn't speak, Alice's skin was bone white as was her hair, and her eyes were the eeriest argent. Tinker Bell's perennial updo and golden locks were laced with the pastel colors of the rainbow.
"Our compliments," the manager came out to greet her honored guests. Tink arched an eyebrow.
"For saving the city…again. This last go around with the Legion of Doom really established all of you in our hearts. Even though Secretary-General Luthor officially has no part with the Legion, we know he still controls it through the Immortal Dr. Fu Manchu. And you beat them down," the manager was ecstatic, "And you're the favorite Injusticers to most of us in this room."
Alice and Tinker Bell had started coming to the higher rent restaurant as a favorite part of "date night". The gender rules had been different then. But Alice's mind control worked in their favor as the bigoted customers would all walk out into the nearby ocean to drown after sodomizing each other and/or engaging in same sex cunnilingus, and now months afterward, the clientele was mostly gays and lesbians.
"Believe me when I say this isn't jest, but my wife and I wish all of you your very best," Alice broke her silence because the crowd already recognized them and were secretly pining away for autographs and a word to demonstrate their adoration. Tinker Bell's chiming voice filled the room as she fist pumped. And the crowd went wild.
Walking the streets, Alice and Tink were still elated but also pensive. They'd chosen to stay with the Injustice Society of America even after ousting the Evil Queen from her places of power in the Realms of Fables and Courts. But their native Neverland and Wonderland were still warring realities. The White Queen and the Mad Hatter orchestrated an insurgency against their relatives, the Blood Queen and the Silver Duchess But all out warfare was voided by the treaty that also stipulated Alice's banishment. Alice knew Illyria would avenge her and Alice would walk amongst the survivors in Wonderland once more. Or so she prayed to the Source. That insurgency was based out of Neverland. So Tink's surviving kin battled the Evil Queen to this day. Despite no one being aware of where the Queen had vacated to.
Even the Dark Lady Saris had pulled up stakes and abandoned several contested Realms. The War Mistress had never retreated before and might never afterwards. But it was clear the Evil Queen was realigning her priorities.
But from where? everyone concerned had to wonder. A dark shadow passed by and then unexpectedly, probably because the shadow was independent of any shadow caster, attacked Alice. Tinker Bell's chiming voice resounded as mighty cathedral bells but Maimie Mannering's attack was perfectly timed to take advantage of her outraged distraction.
The shadow formed a perfect three-dimensional facsimile of Pan and it carried weapons. But Alice always had a fallback. When Alice released someone from her control, it was only for as long as she didn't need to control them any further. But that control could be reinstated at any time at any moment and from any distance. Except for five beings so far.
Her father, her mother, her younger sister, Tink, and Goldilocks. And she could establish minimal psychic warfare while connected to the Evil Queen. Goldilocks and Tink were the failsafes. If Alice ever went out of control, she'd settled mental "reboot" messages within them so that they could take her down. Although, seeing Pan's Shadow and Maimie assaulting her and her wife, Alice didn't want to be reined in at all.
The Innovative Concepts building was at Upper Superior City North. Superior City was literally divided across a river, which was common, and across state lines, which was completely unheard of. Northern Superior City, which was the Washington state side of the city and across the Columbia River, was largely an urban center with quite a bit of surrounding suburbs.
Max Lord had built his Innovative Concepts foundation there and he'd called Goldilocks in with a "few" guests to discuss the future in the post-Knightfall reality. Dr. Zadar himself attended on behalf of the Global Concern. The Brain Emperor was in attendance as well. Black Adam and Isis represented the International Operations wing of the United Nations and had Luthor's proxy.
Goldilocks still hadn't forgiven Fu Manchu for his incursion but she'd agreed to peace terms while in attendance. Lena Luthor attended as Ultrawoman. Members of the Shadow Seven were in attendance as well. Many of the Legion of Doom's financiers and technical brain trustees also were in attendance despite Fu Manchu's pickled facial expressions.
Deathstroke had enlisted Cinder and Ink to secure the meeting place alongside the contractors that made up the Cabal. The most surprising attendees weren't even from that era. Glorith transported herself, Saturn Queen, the Emerald Empress plus her new Fatal Five, the Crimson Queen and Disco Mummy while guaranteeing safe passage for all. The Chaos Avatars and even members of Cain's court of Vampyr and subject Lycans attended as well.
Goldilocks had members of the Injustice Society on standby. But surprising everyone was the fact Thunder Lord had reunited with Capt. Thunder and taken her away. All to the great disappointment of Dr. Sivana after his last encounter with Capt. Thunder's seemingly unquenchable lust.
Surprising herself as much as Nyssa Raatko and Dazaar the Arch Fiend, Helena Lincoln March, the Court of Owls' Matron, attended with the new Owlman. But Nyssa had thought to bring the new Darkwing. But safe conduct was applied to every person attending. No matter how acrimonious the enmity was.
Surprisingly, everyone was cordial. Accusatory at times but cordial for their type of business interests. Goldilocks got a mental warning flash as Lord's nose began to bleed. Doing so, alerted Goldilocks to Max Lord's long hidden gen factor. He had the power to plant suggestions. Compulsory "suggestions".
L-Ron and J-Lo quickly took over the presentation as Lord tended to his nosebleed. Goldilocks tried to appear as sympatico with Lord's desired enthusiasm as she could. Goldilocks had once wondered what a clone of a clone would resemble. Divine answered that riddle. She was raven haired where Galatea was blonde. She even had a bigger bust and hips to match if Argoanly possible. She also had forty pounds on Power Girl.
Goldilocks had thought Galatea Hamilton/Karen Starr had curves. While the androids droned on, Goldilocks had Lord's undivided attention.
"Well, aren't you the special one," he grinned like a madman.
Alice's blood looked and responded like mercury, the local police and EMTs were discovering. Pan's Shadow was relentlessly beating the crap out of Alice. The true terror for her was that her psychic tethers had all been severed. All her hard work put into establishing a worldwide network of unwilling servants had been snipped and shattered by a...shadow?
Everyone knew Pan could detach his shadow. But it was an elemntal force that pursued what he desired and not what he consciously thought. It was how he'd held his captives and Lost Boys down while he raped them. His shadow itself had raped them and the last desire Pan had was that Alice and Tink would die, literally sexually assaulted to death. But as the shadow's groin grew and took shape, Alice knew what manner of death this construct of last moment hate had for her. And she'd really would rather die.
Tinker Bell's blood was golden as sunlight. It glowed just her glamour charmed skin hadn't until the spell been broken. In this Realm of Existence, those in the knowing referred to as the New Universe, most of Tink's powers had significantly faded since she had to tightly ration her use of pixie dust. But Maimie held a curable advantage as she flew in for aerial assaults and flew away to avoid repercussions.
So Tinker Bell did the insane: she ingested the pixie dust. It wasn't a common practice amongst her people. It supercharged pixies and other fey. But it could also kill them and if it didn't, it could addict them to the rush of power they received. A kind of a 1st Gen Miraclo for pixies.
Maimie was horrified to watch, with the inability to interfere, as Tink downed her holdout of dust. Her worst nightmares became absolute as Tinker Bell's muscles swelled and her glow became red as she became a focal point for a single emotion. Her rage dominated every aspect of Tink's mind now.
Maimie, like Peter Pan before, had always underestimated Tinker Bell's rage. Now, as Tink's augmented strengths, magical and literal, slammed into Maimie, Ms. Mannering was finally afraid as Tinker Bell's merest touch caused burns from the fires burning within her.
"You finally realized my hidden power is real. Just as I knew that you're immune to Alice's persuasive ways so that you'd be immune to mine. But, as I hoped, she isn't immune to my power. I've severed all of her psychic tethers and persuaded, the old fashioned way, Maimie Mannering and Pan's Shadow to take their revenge tonight," Max Lord was ecstatic, "The effort nearly killed me but I was backstage protected by Divine should you prove too obnoxiously curious to sit still. Yet, here you are, still sitting on your ass while I conquer the known world."
"Really? Is that all you have to say?" Goldilocks wondered, "Black Adam, Isis, Slade, Vandal Savage, what have you to say?"
"Don't forget Dazaar, I-Ching, and I," Nyssa Raatko volunteered to intervene.
"Yes, these moments are preciously few and far between," Fu Manchu also agreed. His treaty with Goldilocks confirmed days ago should Lord reveal himself and his true purposes and ambitions.
"And not all of us are human," Devon and Void seemed oblivious to his power as did Pike. Aether Non-Ul also was proving immune to Lord's power. Kestrel, Swan, and Condor, the Avatars of Chaos also joined the Vampyr ranks in being immune to his power.
Blackfire and Blackstarr also proved to be immune as well. Still, the Tamaranian princess-in-exile and the improbably Jewish Nazi seemed dazed. Backlash, Taboo, and Crimson were numb as though drugged thanks to their half-alien status and not just boredom from being IO's other reps. But worst of all, Glorith, Saturn Queen, and the Emerald Empress were all livid
"Forget," Saturn Queen commanded and Max Lord's mind shut down
"Away with you," Glorith hurled him through time. Months from now, the amnesiac and derelict Lord would find himself in a loop where he always neared discovering who he was and the hint that he had a gen factor. But he would never recover.
"Would you lovely ladies be requiring a major domo and devoted other half?" L-Ron asked on his and J-Lo's behalf.
"Actually I could," Glorith decided before Saturn Queen or Sarya could speak up. They all vanished through time and space.
"Now, let's really come to terms," Nyssa implored them all.
"Is this another trick, Raatko?" Helena Lincoln March demanded to know.
"No tricks, Matron. But we're already here. Why not come to terms while we still can?" Dazaar answered.
"I believe we can," Vandal Savage broke the tension.
"Someone owes us a paycheck," Deathstroke advised everyone.
"Why you?" Fu Manchu asked.
"Because I believe that you, like I, can see the Light," Vandal Savage stated, "You see, five thousand years ago I made a bargain with Darkseid regarding the future state of the emerging Meta-Humans, Homo Superior, Homo Magi, and Homo Mermanus. His daughter, Grail, has struck him down but I believe he reemerges a thousand from now."
Saturn Queen and Emerald Empress looked guilty enough to confirm it.
"Although small minded people blamed M'Onel for that fact it was Glorith's handiwork that raised the monster from the deep slumber that had been inflicted on him. Rising to find a barren Apokolips, a destroyed New Genesis and complete lack of his fellow New Gods regardless of association was enough to propel Darkseid into the shadows from whence he would strike. Correct me if I'm assuming far too much."
"...go on," Saturn Queen uncharacteristically hesitated.
"I don't care to know the gory details but I know it was a combination of varied kinds of humanity that defeats Darkseid. The Dominators brought my peoples into conflict with the galaxy. We need to control the source. We need to control the applications of power. And most of all, we need the Light to combat and eradicate the Darkness that is coming back," Vandal Savage concluded his remarks.
"And the so-called 'champions' and 'defenders' of humanity?" Black Adam asked.
"Will serve us well without their ever knowing it," Vandal Savage promised, "Two out of three of their most dangerous and capable soldiers have retreated into seclusion. Superman need only lose his precious wife and he too will retreat into nothingness. That trinity is broken, never to heal."
"Shazam and his lieutenants are fodder. Batson is a child with a child's sensibilities. Captain Marvel has awoken to his capabilities and his passions are aroused. And Lady Marvel will join us. She craves power above all else," Isis determined.
"And us?" Cain interrupted the flow of thought, "We are creatures of the night and not the Light. Light weakens us and it is our constant nemesis."
"This is an Age of Chaos," Condor spoke as well, "Will you hamper our pleasures?"
"The Light illuminates and yet is invisible to most and creates night and darkness. So be it a controlled darkness with established framework and laws that govern it," Vandal Savage assured Cain, "As for Chaos, this is in all measures supposed to be a new Age of Balance. If you can react and act accordingly in such a balance, then you are permitted to remain on this world. But, only if you surrender to the Balance."
"We have a great deal to discuss with our masters and mistresses," Swan intervened before Condor's stubborness provoked another conflict in which they were badly outnumbered.
"I can guarantee the Shadowmages will applaud your proposal," Damien Darhk clapped alone. His daughter, Nora, lamely added an unenthusiastic second to his effort to rouse everyone's spirit.
"I approve," Ultrawoman voiced, garnering the matter more serious attention.
"I speak on behalf of many of the IO agents, and I approve as well," Backlash had never been one for applying a villain's label to his covert governmental activities.
"Nice to see you emerge from your stupor," Black Adam sniffed at having his authority undermined, "But of course International Operations will comply with a global peace initiative."
"I speak on behalf of the League of Shadows when I say we wish to hear more specifics about your proposal, Savage," Nyssa admitted. Dazaar and I-Ching were obviously intrigued.
"I can resist throwing the gauntlet for a while yet," Matron also endorsed learning more. Especially at seeing that the Court of Owls, assuming control over most of the abandoned Syndicate Underground's criminal empire after its dissolution was not equally burdened with Intergang's being present. It was hard enough to endure the Shadow Seven's representatives.
"The Legion of Doom will hear you out," Fu Manchu was getting silent pressure from the Legion's Brain Trust.
"I and Sarya have things to do. But good luck," Saturn Queen's flight ring lifted her off of the ground. The Emerald Eyes did the same for the Emerald Empress.
"You doubt our calling?" Vandal Savage asked.
"No. Not at all," Saturn Queen laughed, "But my time in this era is quite limited this go around and I have chores to do. But, the Light's ultimate goal is a good one and shapes my reality in my era. But a little advice? Don't harm Lois Lane. Rather, turn her to your side and she will become your greatest ally and asset combined."
"Mmm..."Vandal Savage considered it. Unlike most present, he remembered the former Multiverse and that the surviving Lois had become Superwoman alongside Lana Lang to kill Lord Superman. A job Galatea completed for them. But Glorith had neutered Lois and "Linda" Lang's powers as well as Rebirth rewrote their histories. They no longer recalled Earth-2 or the Justice Lords.
But...what if the memory block also is what blocked them from their Kryptonian DNA splices' powers? Genetic splicing had created Superwoman and who was to say that gene splicing had vanished alongside their knowledge of having the power in the first place?
Glorith was powerful but not infinitely so when she halted Lois and Lana from accessing their Mercy Corp derived abilities. Even Rebirth twisted out of her control when she had the power of a goddess to rewrite history employing Dr. Manhattan's power that he'd sacrificed his life to offer up a new Creation event. The New Universe was unavoidably a tapestry woven by Glorith, Dr. Manhattan, and even the Heckler because of his involvement in shaping events. Notedly being the one to cleave Dr. Manhattan from head to toe. The Heckler being the one point fixed in history that couldn't be deleted even by the Zero Hour that threatened his co-conspirators.
"Well, Ms. Locks? What is your position?" Vandal Savage seemed keen for some opposition.
So Goldilocks decided to oblige him, "I may be leading the Injustice Society but that doesn't mean I want to be part of a global conspiracy. Spare me the shite and get to the point."
Vandal Savage managed a smile and a chuckle, "Well played. None of you will still be here when Darkseid reawakens. But you have a thousand years at most to put this world in your favor. Be heralded as the saviors rather than the scum."
Saturn Queen and Emerald Empress made a grand re-entrance.
"Let me show them what they've lost," Saturn Queen offered. Vandal looked intrigued. Saturn Queen's eyes looked a little pinpointed and glazed as everyone clutched their heads as "lost" knowledge filled gaps they didn't know they'd even had.
"Call me in the future," Saturn Queen blew a kiss at Vandal Savage before she and Emerald Empress did vanish over the Pacific coastline. They took the Fatal Five with them.
"A Multiverse...it was real," Fu Manchu was the first to speak.
"And our alternate history fused together out of spare parts," Deathstroke mused.
"The only history left I would wager," Black Adam touted.
"Yet, you're surprisingly adjusted to these raw facts," Vandal Savage spoke to Goldilocks.
"Yeah, well, I read the book. Full of spoilers, that lot," she grimaced.
"And the lovely Eve Aries and Empress Sarya only knew this history growing up," Vandal Savage, "Yet their separate internments in that before era also didn't surprise them."
"Falling glass houses. That's all I'll tell ya," Goldilocks added.
"Too true. As I recall, you met a version of yourself from a possible future," Savage recalled.
"And you created alternate timelines on multiple occasions. So let's cut the deucing about and get right to it then," Goldilocks suggested.
"What are you future intentions?" Vandal Savage inquired sharply.
"I was think of putting the kettle on and curling up with a good book," Goldilocks told him honestly.
"You don't intend to interfere?" he was surprised.
"Why bother. We have a good thing here and are respected by the good citizens that are largely unaware we're fleecing good citizens in other areas. These people will literally defend us to the death. And they're ready cash is a source of comfort and stability most of my lot have always lacked," Goldilocks explained.
"So...no knee jerk reactions to running off and informing the Justice League?" he pinpointed his concerns.
"The League and I are done. Only Luthor and the United Nations shelter me right now," Goldilocks shrugged, "Let them believe otherwise."
"But that wasn't your original intention," he knew. Of course he did. He was Vandal futzin' Savage.
"Intentions change in bad weather," Goldilocks assured him.
"So you're declaring neutrality then?" Vandal Savage asked.
"At the very least. With a clearer weather eye to see if a future accord is warranted," Goldilocks offered.
"That's enough then," he conceded, "Glorith got what she wanted and left. The same for Saturn Queen and Emerald Empress. Now you. But the rest of us will abide by our agreed upon terms and carefully discuss the rationale behind the Light. And a sharing of plans made and enacted millennia ago. There is a reason Darkseid will reawaken to find himself utterly alone of all his kind. The first and only concern of the Light is to destroy the Disciples of Darkness and then own our hegemony."
"You're suggesting we entrap the New Gods," Nyssa was intrigued by the notion.
"No, I say we exterminate them," Vandal Savage stated as Goldilocks left the conference amphitheater. She'd given her word and now she wished she hadn't. Barda Free was a New God but and Scott had just been made obsolete. Too bad, the poor sods.
"Rawr!" Alice screamed as her fist finally made a decent connection with the Shadow's jaw. It actually increased in definition rather than evaporate. Whatever power that had freed Alice's victims also made it so she couldn't summon them as assistants and the foolhardy police had already emptied their pistols at least once to no effect. But the crossbow that Pan's Shadows had tucked away sometime earlier had made handy work of two of the humans.
Alice wasn't vaguely human despite appearances notwithstanding. And she wasn't mortal.
"You dare, you dare without a seeming care. Yet this bout isn't done because when it ends there will only be the one. You think you can kill me? Others mightier than you before have tried and still regret meeting me," Alice snarled. the shadow waved its finger tsking her.
"Let us see who will the triumphant shall be, shall we?" Alice egged it on further
more police arrived and she noticed that the shadow involuntarily flinched as strobe light passed through.
"What a dunce!" she'd pulled a "Hello, Megan".
"Shine all the lights on him at once!" she demanded. The officers stared at her as though she'd grown an extra limb.
"Oh drat and bother!" she stamped her foot, "None of you, hopefully, is a father! Such a child of woe and a father's brain that cannot flow!"
They all swung their lamps at Pan's Shadow. An unearthly shriek lifted into the air.
"That's it and that's right! Shine him on with all your might!" Alice commanded. The shadow dissolved and its crossbow was left behind. Alice lifted a quarrel from the bandolier also left behind and expertly loaded the bolt and cocked the crossbow with its intended lever. Showing at once that Alice was both the daughter of a queen and of a rogue.
"Hear what I say! Get out of the way!" Alice definitely reverted to her childhood pretending she was a legitimate heir to throne. Tinker Bell paused for just a moment, and then her dust lost cohesion and reverted back to a silvery state indicating her love and adoration for Alice...and it earned a right cross to the eye. Tink fell away and Alice's rage mounted.
"Mark this day for on it it you shall dearly pay!" the bolt flew and only an involuntary reflexive jerk spared Maimie from getting shot in the heart. She too collapsed as the searing pain broke her concentration. Alice glibly tossed the crossbow aside.
"I've been tellin' ya, Murph. We need ta get somma those," she heard a uniformed officer say to his partner. Alice rolled Maimie over and took hold of opposing sides of her head and prepared to snap the neck.
"Uh…ma'am? You can't just do that," Murph told her.
"Who are you to question me?" Alice's body reversed from bone white to a negative print of white infusing the edges of pure darkness and her voice echoed through the streets around, "Shall we play a game for it, just you and me?"
"Alice! No!" Goldilocks had long feared the arrival of this moment. Tinker Bell was still semiconscious and her condition wasn't helping the situation. Besides the fact Alice had planted the mental fail safes in both of them. She didn't know if her half was enough to knock Alice of balance long enough for Goldilocks to spare Maimie. The damnable part was she wasn't even sure how to activate it.
But her situational awareness came down to the sounds of Alice, Tinker Bell, and Maimie breathing as well as Goldilocks' accelerating heartbeat and then Alice staggered back and Goldilocks hair flowed to new lengths to snatch away Maimie.
"Well, I suppose that means the kids' fun is over for the night," Dorothy Gale, the Wicked Witch of Kansas and of Oz, pouted.
"I'm certain she'll appreciate knowing you ready to sacrifice her to determine which internal wager won," Goldilocks sassed Dorothy.
"Oh, please. She'll never recall these final moments. I'll give a happy memory. Where she at least stood a chance," Dorothy snapped a finger as green flames fluttered in the air as the memory charm rewrote portions of Maimie's memories, "Learned that trick from Anna Fortune herself."
"I shouldn't wonder," Goldilocks sighed in earnest.
"Can I have my brat now?" Dorothy asked.
"End this. Now," Goldilocks didn't merely request.
"Seems you know another way out `cause the kid ain't quittin'," the Wicked Witch smirked.
"Have you ever had your sinus cavity opened just enough for strands of hair to crush your useless noggin'?" Goldilocks asked with sheer menace.
"Uh,...no?" Dorothy was uncertain seeing as how the usual talents for knocking down Alice weren't evident in Goldilocks. Which meant she had hidden resources available to her that Dorothy might be able to steal some day.
But not today, "Sounds like fun?"
"You're hopeless," Goldilocks sighed.
"I prefer 'opportunistic' or 'incorrigible'," Dorothy grinned, "No? Well, I hadda try. Gimme the brat. Please?"
Even Goldilocks' glare had power behind it she decided.
"Fine," she huffed, "I'll fine tune her aggression. But anyone ever pops her cork I won't be held responsible because my hands will metaphorically unable to restrain her again. Although, I guess you could tie my hands and see what happens next?"
The glare never wavered, "No...gotcha. C'mon, kiddo. We're catching a ride."
A green tornado formed up and sucked Maimie away as Goldilocks released her.
Dorothy cast one hesitant gaze back, "And what about if my hands weren't tied?"
Goldilocks just pointed at the tornado.
"Yeah. Thought so," the Wicked Witch vanished into the wind storm and it vanished from the Earth. To reappear in Kansas and to deposit Dorothy beside Maimie and the reforming Pan's Shadow, "Didn't think so."
Meanwhile Goldilocks thought it wasn't the worst offer ever but seriously out of her sexual orientation. Tink's hopeless sounding jingles snapped Goldilocks back into the developing scene. Tink bawled as she cradled Alice
"What the hell did she plant in our brains?" Goldilocks asked despite it being utterly rhetorical owing to the pixie's inability to form words. Alice snapped back into reality with a gasp. Tink's over radiant response nearly blinded Goldilocks as she smothered her wife with kisses.
"Oh, look at the time. Some things should be a crime," Alice croaked.
"Okay, can we just skip to the part where your coloring inverted and you suddenly pulled a Galadriel on our asses?" Goldilocks contented herself with just tapping her toe rather than Alice's head off of the sidewalk.
"Let it go for it is only a tale of woe," Alice begged.
"I know tales of woe. They lead to this," Goldilocks' hair gently lifted Tinker Bell and Alice to their feet.
"Some other day you shall have your way. The tale is slight but full of cautionary might," Alice was uncertain now but back in her senses at least.
"Alice," Goldilocks literally growled.
"Save it, store it, and let us go before it becomes too real, bit by bit," Alice kindly requested, "I need to time to heal before I reveal it."
"That barely qualifies as a rhyme," Goldilocks relented with the accusation sighed.
"So sue me," Alice shrugged.
"Did you… Did you just skip the whole rhyming motif? Is that even a real speech impediment?" Goldilocks nearly stammered.
"My father rhymes. My wife chimes. And my mother commits crimes. Only no one knows or they would behead her before the cock crows," Alice warned, "I am part of each and none are beyond my reach."
"So, you're just getting warmed up, aren't you?" Goldilocks groaned.
"Dear helpmate, you do not even know what you facilitate," Alice gave her a wan smile, "My power feeds, my power grows, and with each victim a little more of my soul sloughs. It is only a glimmer thread that keeps me from becoming the Evil Queen and deserving to be dead."
"You're stretching the boundaries of verse again," Goldilocks warned, "So you're saying you have a monster inside clawing to get out?" Goldilocks asked.
"Yes," was all Alice would whisper.
"Welcome to my reality," Goldilocks sighed once again, "And this thing put in my head hits the brakes?"
"Too well it would seem. I feel like you hit me with a beam," Alice was noticeably feeling her injuries now.
For the first time it seemed or at least in a long while, "You didn't summon anyone to help. Care to share why?"
She really, really hoped Lord had been lying.
"My tethers are all snapped. And in such a way they can't be simply recapped," Alice bemoaned, "All that effort for naught. Everyone I had sought, and with my soul I'd bought."
"Then let's keep that a secret," Goldilocks recommended, "At least for now."
Clock Queen phased back into sync with the local time, "Well, well. Seems Ms. Alice's wings are clipped at long last."
Clock Queen had been told that Alice had invaded her mind and still resented the hell out of her for it.
"Can we just go now?" Mist had been the covert secondary option.
"You'll never get a second shot like this. She's as weak as a kitten right now," Shadow Thief also emerged from the deep shadows, taking shape and substance once again. Goldilocks paused and stared right at them.
"Crap!" Mist hid behind Clock Queen.
"It's good she knows," Shadow Thief decided, "She can make on honest choice now."
"She's the weapon we need if Alice's powers grow again," Mist surmised, "I mean, look what she did just staring at her?"
"Which she probably got from Alice herself. What gave she can take back," Shadow Thief warned.
"Um...not quite. It's a fail safe the White Queen devised in case Alice went out of control," Wizard told them as she approached.
"What are you doing here, Nat?" Mist happily asked.
"I heard there was trouble and found out Alice was the greatest threat of them all," Wizard told them.
"And how do you know that, Natalie?" Mist was almost offended.
"I overheard them talking about it," the Wizard explained, "Tink wouldn't shut up about it feeling pretty cocky that no one understands her but Alice."
"And you can?" Shadow Thief hung on that possibility.
"`Course. Magical Languages 101. I keep telling you, the Wizard was my dad despite all your pretentious efforts to dismiss me," Natalie Tool explained.
"Nat, my dear, you just became our greatest weapon," Tempest Fugit promised her.
"I already knew that," the Wizard softly laughed, "Here's a few more favorite conversations between Tinker Bell and her lovely wife."
They all listened in. Attentively for the very first time.
Sue Dibney was watching with glee, and coffee to amp the buzz, as her husband Ralph, the Elongated Man, stretched into a series of slides for their daughter Alyssa to play on. John Stewart and Shayera Hol had already left with their baby daughter, Kenra, between them. They play acted a race as John drove an Orb-14 and Shayera flew under her own winged power. Some races were fixed and others actual as they winner escaped from certain nightly chores. It seemed Kenra was as a much a creature of the air as her mother despite her recessive gene wings not developing. And John, former Green Lantern and cosmic enforcer, was learning that terrestrial flight could be just as challenging as navigating and patrolling the space ways.
Col. (Retired) Steve Trevor formerly of the US ARMY and then ARGUS had led hundreds of combat missions even before he'd joined Team 7. He was one of two that hadn't been revealed to have a latent gen factor. But John Lynch and Ivanka Baiul had activated Dinah Lance and Slade Wilson as well as developing Bronski into the first Majestic-class human being.
The original Majestic, Basilisk, and Fairchild were all dead. But the MLJ Initiative's Undercover Man had delved into matters and discovered that the homeless veteran that Sec. Bones of Homeland Security had activated as the second Majestic was surpassed by Dr. Ernest Smalley's new Superman. Another veteran of color that was potentially Kryptonian-class. If the Justice League Outsiders were reporting their encounter accurately.
It seemed the oversexualized Starfire had engaged this Superman in oral sex and his ejaculation had blown the back of Koriand'r's head clean off.
Something that the real Superman had always been cautious about according to the medical staff, Dr. Sharon Santiago and Nurse Practitioner Anne Allen.
Despite his and Lois' somewhat undeniably turbulent relationship he'd always managed to relieve his physical tension through masturbation or impregnating Maxima yet again it seemed. Already an absentee father to his eldest daughter with Maxima, Kal-El seemed equally unconcerned with his toddler age daughter with her named Thara Kal-El. Something that deeply disturbed Lois and the kids but at least he and Kalea-El seemed to be speaking again.
Rebirth had rewritten the Kent Family history from Earth-2 to integrate it into the New Earth's shared experience.
The eldest, Mia, was longer a product of raping Lena Luthor and instead a clone based on splicing Lena's DNA with Superman's. The oldest child of Lois and Clark was Jonathan Lane Kent and he shared a common origin as Mia's original history. Point in fact, every Kent child had been born of Lord Superman raping their mothers. Laura was the tween child. Identical twins, Jane and Carol, were now a precocious five.
In the Earth-2 universe, Maxima had died rather than submit to Lord Superman's predatory actions. Lady Wonder Woman had drowned her daughter by Lord Superman at birth then razed Themiscyra rather than have her shame ever known. Thereby avoiding exile for allowing a man to have his way with her.
Linda Lang, fresh off of a plane from Smallville arrived and introduced everyone to the eldest Luthor, Luna. Luna was severely autistic. But also was probably the world's greatest mechanical engineer.
"Linda" Lana Lang was improbably Lana's Earth-2 doppelganger. Glorith's profound lack of attention had left doppelgangers all over the New Universe. Doppelgangers that had been "resurrected" in some cases as Ted Kord and others, such as Victor Stone, had three versions of himself running around the New Earth at one time. Dakota City had been transferred en masse and thousands of people across the universe had belatedly discovered there were two versions of them with only slightly altered ages or newly implanted memories. Such as Lana Linda Lang and Linda Lana Lang, now products of a highly unlikely pairing between two sets of identical twins.
Fashion diva, Lana, was the product of farmers from Kansas. Engineer and former Superwoman, Linda/Lana, was the child of two college professors and also L Corp's second greatest asset as Luna designed nearly every consumer product that the LuthorCorp subsidiary manufactured and Linda oversaw Luna and double checked the designs.
"Linda?" Lois was delighted. Late for work already but delighted nonetheless. she felt a bond with Linda that she didn't remotely share with Lana. Yet they were nearly identical. Go figure.
"We need to talk," Linda was urgently demanding, "Luna will be fine."
"I don't understand," Lois freely and yet begrudgingly admitted. She hated not knowing things especially since she was, after Batman and the Question, the single greatest detective on Earth.
"We didn't come alone," Linda told her.
"I don't…" Lois' mental block lifted and she saw Eve Aries smirking at her from across the kitchen.
"And it just gets better," Saturn Queen promised.
"What the hell?" Lois roared.
"Spare me," Saturn Queen stopped her cold, and Lois' swing, with a finger pressed against Lois' forehead.
"I don't have to do it this way but it's oh so much more fun," Saturn Queen winked.
"Mom!" the kids yelled unanimously united in confusion.
"Mom?" Mia gasped.
"Whtddudue?" Lois managed to grate through a clenched jaw.
"Oh, very good, Mrs. Kent. You'll need that fire," Saturn Queen chuckled, "But first, I'm giving back something you lost. It's called your mind."
Stars filled the void in Lois' mind where Earth-2 had been. A wave of antimatter consumed it but the being known as the Monitor had saved her and her children along with Lana Linda Lang, the Heckler, and Marian Drews, called the Hellequin. When the stars were finished dying, Lois' memory was intact once again and she looked around for a target and realized she was viewing the neighbors across the street through their apartment building walls.
"Our powers!" Lois gasped even as she realized that Saturn Queen already departed.
"That's right, bitches," Lana smirked as solar energy swirled around her hand, "Superwoman is back."
Mia burst in, "What the hell? What're we gonna do about Dad? And my real mom?"
"Are you and Dad gonna fight again?" Jon worried.
"Here we go," Laura was despondent.
"Heh. Happy family," Luna quipped. Considering she was a Luthor it probably seemed like one to her.
Carol and Jane displayed powers for the first time as they began to float, "Whee!"
"Pack up!" Lois decided, "We're going to the Fortress to gear up. You and Luna are going to London to check in with Kalea. I'm assuming, and correctly so, she still knew anyway."
"Luna's plane should be refueled by now," Lana shrugged.
"Luna has a plane?" Lois was offended.
"She a Luthor. The eldest, in fact," Lana reminded her, "Just don't do...well, anything, until I get back."
"I'll have your armor waiting for you," Lois promised.
"Damn. I was so happy in my ignorance. What're you planning?" Lana asked.
"I...really don't know. This Clark isn't about being Kal-El, the Lord Superman of both Earth and Krypton's ghost," Lois confessed, "I just want to talk but I want a strategic advantage at the same time."
Mia and Jon caught her imploring gaze.
"We're ready," Mia swore, the memories of Lena's murder caustic in her mind.
"We won't hurt him," Jon promised.
"You may have to," Lois warned, "You may have to hurt him very badly. I'll do that part if it comes to it but that doesn't mean I won't need your helpat some time."
"What about Laura?" Mia quietly asked.
"She'll mind the twins. She's too young and technically so are you but others in the hero game began younger than you," Lois shrugged, "It is what it is."
"I need to call Karen in on this. She's the only of us that knows where Hero took Kalea after the incident," Lana reminded Lois. The original Power Girl had been Supergirl's clone on Earth-2. But that Power Girl died in action and Galatea Hamilton took on the name in honor of her.
After her husband, Blackhawk of the Blackhawk Express, died she'd taken a new identity as tech entrepreneur, Karen Starr, CEO of Starrware. Mary Bromfield, formerly Mary Marvel and then Black Mary, was the company's President as well as her being Lady Marvel of the Shazam Family and the Justice Society.
The JSA oversaw the Young Justice training program as well as mentoring adult heroes new to the costumed life. The Justice League International needed to do the same, In Lois and Lana's humble opinion. Something had broken inside the JLI. Only two of the seven Founders were still active. Batman had first gone into seclusion and then vanished. Princess Diana accepted Themiscyra's throne yet banished her mother Hippolyta to be the original Wonder Woman from WWI & II again. Artemis, Nubia, and Donna Troy also becoming Wonder Women.
No one seemed to notice it but Lois had seen that Diana was expecting when she departed from Man's World. J'onn Jonzz had escaped death but hidden that fact from anyone by M'gann M'orzz and the Martian Manhunter was content to be a sheriff in Arizona now. John had his power ring obliterated by Hal Jordan in a jealous rage and no one else seemed to to realize the Green Lantern Corps had dispatched a power ring to him but Kenra had just been born so he declined. Shayera also stood down and became the intelligence gathering guru for the JLI.
Wally West remain aboard as the third Flash with Jay Garrick still with the Justice Society and Barry Allen returned from the presumed dead and now in the far flung future with Iris and the kids. Barry survival during the "Near-Apocalypse of 2009" was more accurately his surviving the aptly named Crisis of the Multiverse, Final Crisis of the Prime Universe, and remaining pertinent to the future because Glorith transported him and Allen fam to the 29th Century where Barry met Eobard Thawne and sparked the Thawne-Allen-West rivalry that had claimed so many speedsters' lives and Barry inadvertently created a "Flashpoint Paradox" that prevented him from traveling earlier than said 29th Century. Iris convinced to retire in the late 30th Century. His grandchildren, Bart and Nora, represented Earth in the Legion of Superheroes and Justice League Action as Impulse and XS. But his children, Don and Dawn Allen, vanished from his peripheral and internal life.
The Tornado Twins retiring back to the 29th to make an unholy pact with the Reverse Flash. To further travel through time to the 21st Century and personally eliminate Wally West and Linda Park before they could have children. Rival would slay the original Flash leaving him to Reverse Flash's nonexistent mercies.
But two variables from the 29th had appeared. the Torr twins, Bar and Shira, also known within Young Justice circles as Kid Flash and Miss Quick. The 21st had many speedsters stockpiled from different eras. Most of whom qualified as temporary allies at best for the Reverse Flash. Jesse Chambers may have retired from being Jesse Quick but she was still a target.
Max Mercury had not only re-emerged to help train up Young Justice but his great-grandson, Kid Mercury, was a member as well. Alongside the mysterious Blitz. Yet another Russian brought up like Lady Flash and training with Young Justice with the Kremlin and the New People's Heroes' consent.
Lois idly wondered why Saturn Queen had imparted that knowledge. But it revealed to her that Glorith's Rebirth was inflexible and one of those inflexible facts was that Clark would kill her. Only if she didn't kill Superman first. Power Girl and Kalea were the only available assets she had to muster that had killed full-blooded Kryptonians. The dark glower Lana was not sparing the wattage for, told her she knew as well.
Mia knew it as well it seemed, "We need Conner."
"Have him bring Miss Martian and Wonder Girl as well," Lois decided.
"Cassie would never endorse this plan," Mia warned her, "But Yara Flor might if we can find her."
"Oo-kay, skip Cassie Sandsmark," Lois decided, "You and Jon write a list of potential allies."
Mia and Jon also were being tutored in the use of their powers by Young Justice.
"If we can get Jaime to let go and release his Reach Scarab when he's Blue Beetle he'd be potentially one of the best guys we can get," Jon suggested
"Good point," Mia agreed, "Blitz would be cool with what we have to do."
"How can you know?" Lana asked.
"She's an effin' Russian. She's the daughter of a Bratva Captain," Mia informed them, "She's not even supposed to know but Christina clued her in."
Ivanka Christina Borodin Molotova was at once Lady Flash and a Colonel in the FSB. She had personally killed her way through the ranks of Russia's secret service and eliminated the other two members of Blue Trinity when they went insane. She was also an ex- (or so everyone hoped) Velocity-9 addict. Lady Flash had also been a member of the Injustice League, the Justice League Unlimited, and Prime Minister Putin had persuaded President Dmitry Medvedev to appoint her to the domestic New People's Heroes. Lois could only wonder why these facts were relevant.
"Mia, Lena knows now," Lois said softly.
"Yeah well, she hasn't picked up a phone yet has she?" Mia was scornful.
"We're unlisted," Lois reminded her.
"She's Lena futzin' Luthor for God's sake. You don't think she has our numbers on speed dial for Mercy Graves 2.0 to use to triangulate us and kill us?" Mia tiraded, "And don't forget, she is also Ultrawoman!"
Lana's phone rang ominously. She checked the Caller Id, "Helluva thing."
"It's her," Mia already knew.
"`Lo Lena. What's up?" Lana tried sounding casual, "Yeah, we're in town."
she scowled, "Of course I can drop her by,"
Lana had promised, "And yes…that leave me free to fly to London under my own power."
Lana close d her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, "Yes...good luck to you too."
Everyone with super hearing, that is the entire household sparing Luna, Carol, and Jane overheard the conversation.
"Well, we have Lena's blessing," Lana sighed.
"That was greater precision control over her super hearing than she's ever displayed before," Lois said dismally.
"Nope. She bugged my phone and overheard everything the old fashioned way," smoke wisped out of Lana's phone as she melted it.
"So Saturn Queen told her what we were going to be saying?" Lois didn't like that option either.
"Or...Emerald Empress told her to be listening. She and Saturn Queen are BFFs right now," Lana told her.
"Oh, Guwd," Lois groaned.
"Just to be clear….we are going to kill Superman? Right?" Mia glared at Jon, "Conner will become Superman II or III depending on who you listen to. Jon will become the new Superboy. And Linda Danvers had agreed to use her original name: Matrix? And I become Supergirl?"
"It isn't that simple," Lois protested.
"Lo, it might be just that simple," Lana told her, "Maybe this is still why the Monitor brought Team Superwoman to Earth Prime and why Glorith kept us in the New Universe's history."
"Or the skank was just incredibly shortsighted and lazy," Lois scowled at Lana.
"That too," Lana shrugged.
"We all took a vow to stop any Superman from becoming Lord Superman. So we have to be absolutely certain that this Clark, our Clark, isn't on that path already," Lois clarified, "And if he is…"
"If is we do what?" Jon fretted.
"We go full Terminator on his ass," Mia promised. Lois and Lana worried that Mia was avenging a mother she'd never met and who was fully vital and alive in this history and had called Lana's phone just three minutes ago. And a Clark Kent that had never committed the crimes done against his family would perish for them.
"So let's do this without resorting to the blah-blah-blahs," Mia growled, "If he isn't like our actual dad than he lives. But if he gives us a single excuse, we kill his ass. Agreed?"
And everyone did. Even Jonathan. Excepting Laura and the twins.
Laura excused herself and went to the roof to dial in a number she'd memorized but never committed to a phone log or contact list before, "Kalea? They woke up. Dad's in danger."
And so begins the exploration into why the JLU only had four veteran members when Terry became Batman. Superman, Barda, Warhawk and Static were the adults. Aquagirl, Green Lantern, and Micro were just teens it seemed. And why did the future world seem to lack other heroes?
The Justice League Beyond status was begin in the Justice League Anthology story Glorith. The events that shape the New Earth and then the rest of the Twenty-Seven Realms of Existence are explained in the Anthology stories. They're all stand alones connected by a common DCAU thread. Although these works are non-canon I've tried to build an in-canon world that incorporates a fuller DC legacy than even the Justice League Unlimited displayed. And why that legacy seemed to vanish in the future.
