Lexcorp Tower, Metropolis, a world far away.
Lex Luthor poured himself a glass of whiskey, and glanced at a shadowy corner of his grand office.
"Care for a drink?" He asked. "No, detectives aren't allowed to drink on the job, are they?"
Batman stepped out of the shadows, cloaked in his cape, a giant scowl on his face.
"Out of professional curiosity," Lex asked. "How long did it take you to breach my office?"
"Five minutes." The Dark Knight said curtly.
"Well, I suppose that's better than expected." Lex said with a shrug, then he took a sip of his whiskey. "To what do I owe this dubious honor?"
"Superman disappeared yesterday." Batman said. If looks could kill, Batman's eyes would've bored right through Lex and the wall behind him. "The creature that took him had Kryptonite and wanted more. I've verified the location of every sample of Kryptonite except the one in the Lexcorp archives."
Lex scoffed. "You're really trying to maintain your title, aren't you?" He set the glass down on his desk. "I suppose the League has decided that I must have had something to do with that monster, right?"
"I checked the containment box in section K-36." Batman said as he approached Lex. The Dark Knight's cape made it appear as if he glided across the floor. "The sample was missing."
"Hm." Lex said as he struck the spacebar on his keyboad. "Quite a funny story, actually."
The viewscreen behind Lex's desk lit up with a video of a shadowy, three-fingered figure opening the box and stealing the green crystal, then disappearing through a sickly yellow portal. The video was time-stamped two days prior.
"This thing is no friend of mine, if that's what you were thinking." Lex proclaimed, smugly.
"Then why didn't you report the theft when it happened?!" Batman demanded, loudly.
Lex smirked as he raised his whiskey glass from the desk. "I have no obligation to inform the Justice League of everything, or anything, regarding the status of my property."
When Lex looked up from his glass, he was alone in his office.
Believe Expo, a world far away...
"Make no mistake!" Homelander all but screamed into his microphone. "We were attacked! A creature from hell itself found its' way onto God's green earth, and nobody wants to let us find out where it is!"
The crowd roared in approval.
"America was attacked! All of God's creations on this beautiful little planet were attacked by this demon!" The roar grew louder. "Some people..." Homelander trailed off and glanced directly at the nearest camera. "Want me to come out here and speak empty platitudes to you all." He mimed someone flapping their jaws with his hand. "Give you a little bit of corporate talk! I don't want to do that. I can't do that! Know why?"
"Why?!" The crowd demanded.
"Because I believe that what God wants me to do is scour the globe! Leave no stone unturned! Hunt through every nook and cranny there is until I find this damned thing, and introduce it to a little thing called 'God's Judgement!'" The crowd lit up in approval. "But no!" Homelander continued, with a dismissive gesture. "Apparently, I got to wait for Congress to say it's okay!" John shook his head with a feigned grimace. "I say, I answer to a higher law!" He said, pointing at the sky. The crowd kicked up a furor. "Wasn't I chosen to save you?! Is it not my God-given purpose to protect the United States of America?!"
The crowd began to chant "HOMELANDER! HOMELANDER! HOMELANDER!"
Homelander levitated above the stage. "PSALM 58:10! The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance!" John glided across the top of the crowd as they grasped at his boots. "And he will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked!"
Later...
"Excuse me, Mister Homelander?" An large, but otherwise unassuming man asked John. The man had a brown leather jacket over top a thin, grey T-shirt and dark bluejeans, and thick glasses with a black frame and horned rims.
Homelander scoffed. "Please, there's no need to be so formal." He said with a grin. "Just call me Homelander."
"Homelander." The man said, returning the grin. "That was a hell of a speech you gave."
"Well, it came straight from the heart."
"The best speeches do." The man said with a nod. "My name is Clark Kent, I'm writing a piece on superheroes and faith for the New York Post, I was wondering if you'd be willing to give me a few moments of your time."
Homelander looked the man over. He seemed somewhat abnormally calm for a member of the adoring public, but John could never resist a chance to talk about himself, and allowed his grin to spread wider, more genuinely. "Well, I'm always happy to talk to a member of the press! Do you mind?" John asked, gesturing back-stage.
Kent nodded, and followed Homelander to his dressing room behind the stage. The two of them took seats across from each other. John in his makeup chair, Kent in a chair against the wall.
"Feel free to ask away!" Homelander proclaimed. "I'm an open book."
Kent nodded, and pulled out a smartphone with a questioning look. John nodded his approval, and the reporter pressed "record" and placed the phone on the ledge of a nearby mirror.
"What's your favorite part about being a hero?" Kent asked.
"Well, it's got to be the looks on everyone's faces when you've done a good deed, doesn't it?" Homelander said. "Nothing compares to that feeling."
Kent nodded. "What would you say your primary driving motivation is for what you do?"
John shrugged. "That's a good question. I guess I'd have a few. I want to keep Earth from winding up the way my home planet did, I want to help anyone who needs it, and... It might sound selfish, but I want to..." Homelander's face twitched. "I want to feel like I've made a difference, you know?"
Kent raised an eyebrow.
"What?" Homelander asked, flatly. "Is it..." He shrugged, stiffly. "Is that such a horrible wish?"
"No," Kent said, shaking his head. "Perfectly understandable. What happened to your planet?"
"Oh!" Homelander said, and thought back to his made-up backstory. "Uh, well, classic hubris. My people flew too close to the sun, let injustice and arrogance run rampant on the planet until someone set off a chain of events that destroyed the world. My parents sent me here. As far as I know, I'm the only survivor. I thought everyone knew that. It should be in my bio on the website."
Kent nodded. "I saw, I just wanted to hear it from you. When my father was a boy, the idea of... Aliens, other worlds, it was..." The reporter shrugged. "Science-fiction. They didn't believe it was possible..."
"So your old man didn't believe in other worlds beyond the stars?" Homelander asked. "Did you ask that question to... Win a bet with him or something?"
Kent shrugged. "He came around to the idea a while ago. I just wanted to get a few background questions in, just in case one of your fans without internet access reads it and doesn't know."
John perked up at that. "Of course! These days, we take the internet for granted, sometimes I forget people don't have access to it in some places."
Kent nodded. "So, what makes you so..." He gestured to Homelander's outfit. "Rabidly patriotic?"
Homelander raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?" He all but demanded. "You think there's something wrong with that?"
"No!" Kent interjected. "No, not at all."
"Good. Glad I'm not talking with someone who hates America."
Kent smirked. "Believe me, there's nothing funny about truth, justice, and the American way."
"I mean... You're right. There's- Nobody knows." Hughie stammered out. "And that's the only fucking thing I've heard all day that's made any sense at. And that is the God's honest truth."
Annie almost burst into tears. "I'm sor-"
A sickly yellow line appeared in the air, accompanied by an unearthly humming noise. Then, it split wide... And something poured out of it.
As Homelander wrapped up his interview with Kent, both of them turned their heads toward a cacophony of screaming outside.
John turned to Kent and flashed him a thousand-watt smile. "Sorry to cut this short, but duty calls." And with that, Homelander dashed away.
The monster slammed an untipped tentacle on the ground, sending people flying.
"WHERE IS IT?!" It shouted in a booming, guttural voice. "WHERE IS MY ARM?!"
Homelander slammed into the monster, punching it in the head, sending it flying into the stage.
"I don't know where your damn arm is, demon!" Homelander declared. "But I'm glad you came to me! I've been looking for you!" Homelander unleashed his heat-vision on the monster, but the creature nimbly dodged away and shot a green-tipped tentacle at him.
"No matter the world, Kryptonians shall all fall to my might!" It declared.
Homelander slapped the green tip away without a second thought. "The hell is a Kryptonian?" He asked the thing. He dashed back toward the monster, but it enveloped him in the rest of its' tentacles. John struggled, but he felt himself being crushed. He felt pain in every nerve of his body. He tried to hold it back, but he let out a gasp of pain. What civilians hadn't fled stared on in disbelief as John felt himself slipping into unconsciousness.
"YL'GETH!" A powerful voice rang out over the screams of despair, and the creature stopped its' assault on Homelander to look up in the sky. John writhed in its' grasp until he could make out a bright blue and red figure in the darkness of the night. Superman.
Superman descended from the air to land on the ground. The teeming sea of panicked humanity seemed to settle to a calm when he landed, and parted to allow him passage.
"Your quarrel isn't with the people of this world." Superman declared. "It's with me. Leave them be."
"Your tricks will not work, Kryptonian!" The monster, Yl'geth, proclaimed.
Superman shot from his spot on the ground and smacked the creature's limbs, loosening its' grasp on Homelander. Yl'geth swiped at Superman with the green-tipped tentacle, sending him reeling back, then sliced a yellow hole in the air and tossed Homelander at Superman before disappearing through it.
Superman picked Homelander up from the ground by his arms. John couldn't help but notice that his suit was damaged, and Superman couldn't not notice the padding was crushed, nor could anyone else.
"Are you alright?" Superman asked him.
Homelander shook him off irritably as he got to his feet.
"I'm fine!" He snapped.
