Chapter 1: The Day the World Changed
Disclaimer: All things Superman/Supergirl, Wonder Woman, Batman, and Legion of Super-Heroes belong to DC Comics. No copyright infringement is intended.
"If you are just tuning in, something truly extraordinary has happened today in Metropolis. A potential catastrophe that could have cost hundreds of lives was averted at the very last second by, as incredible as it sounds, a flying woman."
- TV News Reporter
"Yeah, she did, Clark. Your mommy saved all those people!"
- Martha Kent
"I know it looks like a big S. It is not, though. It is the crest of my family. It stands for hope!"
- Superwoman
FLYING SUPERWOMAN SAVES AIRPLANE
- Daily Planet Headline by Perry White
Themyscira
The island that was home to the Amazons had been hidden away from the eyes of men for thousands of years. Created by the gods of old Greece, the Amazons had fought against the influence of Ares, God of War, for many years. They had defended the world itself from an invasion by the New God called Steppenwolf. Then, though, they had found themselves betrayed by the half-god Heracles and retreated from the world of men for good.
That did not mean, of course, that the Amazons remained ignorant of the world outside their magical borders. Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, made sure to keep herself up to date on all important events in the outside world. There were at all times roughly half a dozen Amazons away from the island, working as spies and gathering intelligence in men's world before they returned. The Amazons were eternally vigilante, for they knew that the God of War would one day break free of his prison and return to try and destroy the world. Not that men weren't doing a great job of that without any sort of divine influence, Hippolyta often mused.
It was not news about Ares, however, that upended Hippolyta's world on that day.
"I saw her, my queen," were the first words out of Mala's mouth when she arrived, excited and out of breath, to give her report. "It was her, I am certain!"
"Who are you talking about, Mala?" Hippolyta asked, confused. "Whom did you see?"
"It was Kara, my queen! She is in Man's World right now!"
Mala took a bundle of papers from her bag, something Hippolyta recognized as a newspaper. And right there on the front page was a large picture showing a familiar flying woman.
"Kara?" Hippolyta whispered, her fingers tracing the image. "Can that really be you?"
There wasn't really any doubt. Three thousand years had passed, but she remembered it as if it had been yesterday. During the largest battle the Amazons had ever waged, the evil god called Steppenwolf had been but a heartbeat away from killing her, when a golden-haired goddess had dropped down from the sky and saved her life.
A goddess that was not actually a goddess, but rather a mortal from the stars, stranded on their world, and in need of sanctuary. The Amazons had gladly taken her in and Kara had become the first-ever outsider to set foot on Themiscyra and be adopted into the Amazonian nation as one of them.
"She did say we would meet her again one day," Mala said eventually when the silence became too heavy.
Hippolyta nodded. Among Kara's more outlandish tales had been that she was not just from the stars, but actually from far in the future and had met the Amazons before in said future. To be honest, Hippolyta had not fully believed her. Oh, she had believed that Kara believed it, because her savior-turned-sister hadn't had a dishonest bone in her entire body, but... well, she had received a blow to the head from Steppenwolf's battle axe. So there had been the possibility of her having been... well, confused.
Now, though, the evidence was staring her in the face. Kara was here and, judging by the photograph, she was several years younger than the last time Hippolyta had seen her. Even among the immortal Amazons, that just did not happen. It seemed that time travel was, indeed, the only explanation.
It looked like she owed Philippus a full ten rounds around the island. The general of the Amazons had always firmly believed that Kara had spoken true and would return one day.
"Should we approach her?" Mala asked.
Hippolyta shook her head. "No, under no circumstances. Kara left specific instructions that we should not approach her, nor talk about her past with us, until she approaches us first. I believe our past with her is still in the future for this young woman." She tapped the picture in the paper.
Mala nodded. "As you command, my queen. I just wonder how this younger Kara will end up finding her way to our island, if that is indeed how we will end up meeting her."
"Mother, what news from Man's World?"
Hippolyta looked around, seeing her wonderful daughter approach. She smiled, as she always did when she saw Diana, and opened her mouth to tell her about the news, but then hesitated. Diana was the only Amazon who had no knowledge of Kara and her past (future?) stay here on the island. Somehow the topic had never come up, seeing as it had been so very long ago. Some instinct was telling her that it might be better to keep it that way, at least for now.
"Just the usual tales of war and misery, nothing more than that. My Diana, my daughter!"
Hippolyta embraced her daughter, even as she felt the chill of destiny upon her skin. Soon, possibly very soon, Kara would return to the island to rejoin her sisters. Yet for her it would be the first time, she would not know any of them, not yet. Yet somehow she would still find her way here and Hippolyta could not help but think that her precious daughter would end up having something to do with that.
Washington D.C.
A young girl was sitting on the living room floor, her eyes glued to the screen. An even younger girl sitting next to her was paying more attention to her dolls, only occasionally glancing at the TV.
"Looooois," Lucy Lane complained, elbowing her older sister in the side. "Can we watch something else? You've been watching that stupid news report foreeeeeeever! Cartoons are on!"
Lois Lane barely noticed her baby sister's whining (besides, Lois was already 10 years old, far too old for some stupid cartoons). She was far too excited. She had barely slept these last two days, not since the news had broken.
"Superwoman," she muttered, once again watching the footage from the near-crash of the plane from Metropolis with pure adoration in her eyes.
A copy of the Daily Planet with the world-famous interview by Perry White was in her room, safely locked away in a box under her bed. Someone had already blown up the picture from the front page to poster size and Lois had spent a good portion of her allowance in order to buy one.
"Enough of this foolishness," a male voice suddenly said and the TV switched off.
"Daa-ad!" Lois complained. "I was watching that!"
"You have watched it enough," General Sam Lane said, already dressed in his uniform and looking ready to go and fight communism and chew out unlucky officers. "Bad enough that so many people have nothing better to do than swoon over some illegal alien; I will not have my daughters do the same!"
A few years down the line Lois would be eloquent enough to go into an in-depth argument with her father on the topic of Superwoman and superheroes in general (quite often, too), but that was still in the future. In the present, all Lois could do was give a (slightly whiny) huff and storm off into her room, slamming the door behind her.
She remained on her bed until she heard the apartment door close and her father drive off. Only then did she get up and retrieved the treasured newspaper from under her bed, looking at the front page with adoration in her eyes.
"Superwoman," she muttered again, smiling broadly.
A few minutes later Lois was running around the house, a red towel tied around her neck, and swooping down on her baby sister to save her from some imaginary threat or other. Their mother merely shook her head at their antics, smiling in fond exasperation. Lucy complained that she did not need a rescue, she just wanted to watch her cartoons in peace.
Las Vegas
"What do you think of this, Bruce?"
Bruce Wayne gave the newspaper but a cursory glance. With his hair grown out and a five o'clock shadow on his face, he bore almost no resemblance to the pampered prince of Gotham who had disappeared from public view years ago.
"I think you might soon have competition for the title of greatest illusionist in the world, John," he replied.
Giovanni "John" Zatara merely laughed. "Oh, Bruce, would that it were so."
Bruce looked at his teacher with a raised eyebrow. "Are you trying to tell me you believe this alien with super-powers thing? You, of all people?"
John shook his head. "Bruce, my boy, there are many, many more things between heaven and Earth than even your brilliant mind can fathom."
He gestured and a flame appeared over his palm. "And there are but very things in this universe that are truly impossible."
Bruce chuckled. "If you say so, John!"
John kept a smile on his face, but inside he despaired a bit. Bruce Wayne, the young man who had approached him to become his student, was a constant source of exasperation for him. So driven, so brilliant, so quick a study, yet in some ways very narrow-minded, sometimes to the point of tunnel vision. It had taken John but a few days to figure out that Bruce did not want to learn from him in order to become a stage magician. No, the young man was acquiring skills left and right for some other, far more serious purpose.
Only very people knew that John was a true magician, not just a stage performer, and while he had little talent for things like clairvoyance or catching glimpses of the future, he could almost see destiny settling heavily across the young man's shoulders. A destiny that, in some way or other, seemed to connect him to the flying woman in the newspaper. He chuckled. Or maybe he was just a silly old magic man in a top hat who should stick to making rabbits appear out of thin air.
"Daddy, daddy," a tiny little voice brought him out of his musings. "Can I practice with Bruce today? Can I? Can I?"
Zatanna, his six year old daughter, looked absolutely adorable in her little outfit consisting of a child-sized top hat, a tiny tailcoat, and shined shoes. She was already quite skilled at slight-of-hand and card tricks and most definitely wanted to follow in her father's footsteps and become the first successful female stage magician in the world.
"We are practicing escapology today, dear," John told her. "I fear you are still a little too young for me to wrap you up in a straight jacket and dunk you in a water tank."
She pouted adorably, but seemed to accept it. "Can I watch you dunk Bruce then?"
John merely laughed, all thoughts of destiny, flying women, and far too driven young men vanishing from his mind, at least for now.
Midway City
Carter Hall, currently working towards his master's degree in archeology, had suffered from weird dreams as long as he could remember. In his dreams he was in different lives, wore different faces, carried different names. In many of these dreams he had wings and could fly, something that was utterly ridiculous, of course. He had tried not to let it influence his life too much, even though it had driven his interest in archeology.
Now, though, for the first time ever, he saw something from his dreams enter real life.
Watching the TV, he distinctly remembered a dream he had had years ago. He had been a Native American in the Old West and he had seen a woman fall from the sky, burning like a miniature star. A woman who had somehow remained unharmed from the fall and was able to fly, just like he did, but without wings. A woman who vanished into a pool of light mere days after he had met her. It had been one of his weirder dreams and that was saying something.
He did not know how it was possible, but the woman was right there on the TV screen. Flying! It was her, there was no doubt. He would recognize that blue suit with the distinctive S symbol anywhere.
For the first time ever he considered that, maybe, just maybe, there was more to his dreams. Was it possible... were they actually... memories? Memories of previous lives?
He would definitely look into that.
Metropolis, 1,000 years in the future
"What is that?" the blonde teenager asked.
Hovering inside a stasis cube, there was a bundle of yellowed paper with black writing on it, as well as a grainy picture of a flying woman.
"That, my dear girl, is one of my favorite pieces," the booming voice of R.J. Brande said.
Imra Ardeen, a native of Saturn's moon Titan, looked up at the man she and her new friends had saved the day before. It had been coincidence, really. Hailing from a planet of telepaths, Imra still needed some practice to tune out all the thoughts of the untrained minds that surrounded her here on Earth. Especially intense, focused thoughts, such as those of two people who were about to carry out an assassination.
Imra had heard their thoughts, had realized that they intended to kill Brande, and had called out a warning. Two other teenagers, whom she had met just hours earlier when they boarded the same space liner to Earth, quickly jumped in to intervene. The Braalian, Rokk, had used his powers of magnetism to wrench the weapons out of the hands of the would-be assassins. And Garth, a boy from Winath, had used his electrical powers to shock them into unconsciousness. Just a short time later, with the two perps safely in the custody of the Science Police, Imra had used her powers once again to discover the identity of their employer, which happened to be Brande's own brother.
For Imra, that had been that and she had proceeded to head to the Science Police headquarters for her planned internship. Just a day later, though, Brande had invited her, along with Rokk and Garth, to visit him in his vast Metropolis mansion. R.J. Brande was possibly the richest man in the entire United Planets, after all, the innovator of the star birthing industry, and – as she was learning now – something of a history nut with his own vast collection of 20th century memorabilia.
"It's a newspaper," Brande explained, gesturing towards the pieces of paper Imra had looked at. "A thousand years ago this was the primary source of news on this planet. It was eventually replaced by television and the internet. Still, there is something deeply satisfying about actually holding a physical piece of history in your hands."
"I recognize the woman in the picture," Imra said. "That's Superwoman, is it not? I cannot read the language, sadly."
Brande nodded. "Yes, that's her. The first one of them all."
"First of what?" Garth asked, the red-haired teen having walked over to join them.
"Of the heroes, of course," Brande said. "Superwoman's debut began the Age of Heroes, when people with extraordinary abilities stepped up to dedicate their lives to protecting and bettering our world and our galaxy."
Brande looked at the image of Superwoman with a fond look on his face. "Such an extraordinary woman, she was."
Imra frowned, puzzled by the look and the amount of fondness in Brande's voice. It almost sounded like had met the great heroine personally at some point, but that wasn't possible, was it?
"I wanted to visit the Superwoman Museum here in Metropolis at some point," Rook remarked, also joining them now. "But I think your collection might be even better, Mr. Brande."
"I would hope so, lad," Brande chuckled, "given the amount of credits I have spent on it."
Imra looked at him. She had promised herself that she would never use her powers to read someone's mind unprompted, so she really had no idea why they were here today. At first she had believed that Brande merely wanted to show his gratitude in some way, but now she suspected that it was more than that.
"Why are we here, Mr. Brande?" she voiced her question.
The old billionaire smiled. "Because, my young friends, when you saved me yesterday, I felt... inspired. A thousand years ago a young woman from a distant world used her extraordinary abilities to help people in need. Yesterday, you, three young people from distant worlds, did the same."
"You cannot possibly compare what we did to the deeds of Kara-El," Imra argued. "She was... she was a hero beyond compare. We are just teenagers."
Brande grinned at them. "And you think Kara-El was not at one point? She was somewhere between 18 and 20, it is believed, when she began her public career. Her son began working with her and other heroes when he was but 14. Her daughter was even younger when she stepped into the public eye."
He wrapped his large arms around their shoulders, leading them towards the exit of his private museum.
"I just want the three of you to think about it, okay? I think you – and other people like you – have the ability to do a lot of good for this silly old universe. Our worlds might be at peace now, but there are always troublemakers, would-be conquerors, and other menaces. I think we could do with a new Age of Heroes."
The logical part of Imra Ardeen's brain was telling her that it was nonsense. Just the crazy ideas of an old man with too much money and too much time on his hand. Still, another part of her mind could not help but be... intrigued by the idea.
To be a hero like Superwoman some day.
End Chapter 1
Author's Note: Welcome back to the wonderful world of the Super Family. This new story here will be a collection of separate tales (maybe the occasional multi-parter) set in the same universe as my previous story "Adventures of a Super-Family" (AoaSF for short). Don't expect regular updates on this one or vast, over-arching plot threads; it's just a pot where I can throw in the various ideas and missing scenes that got left on the table with the original story or new ones I've gotten since.
This first chapter, which is running congruently with chapter 2 of AoaSF, is really just a primer, so to speak. Seeing as I use Superwoman's debut as my year zero, it made sense to start with that and show several of the characters who appeared a bit later in the story react to their first sighting of Superwoman.
About the Timeline: Seeing as I don't want to tie down my universe to a specific year (well, not any closer than second half of the 20th century), I'm using the year of Superwoman's public debut as my year zero for placing events in this timeline, the beginning of the "Age of Heroes", as Brande called it. So years will be labeled BSW (Before Superwoman's debut) and ASW (After Superwoman's debut). Only exception is Kara's brief stay in the Wild West, where a specific AD year was mentioned in-story.
Timeline:
Approx. 3,000 BSW
Kara time travels to ancient Greece, fights against Steppenwolf, stays with the Amazons.
(1870 AD)
Kara encounters Katar Johnson (Hawkman) in the Wild West, travels to Krypton, first meeting with Metron
23 BSW
Bruce Wayne is born
20 BSW
Kara Zor-El is born on Krypton
18 BSW
The city of Kandor disappears from Krypton
12 BSW
Barbara Gordon is born
10 BSW
Lois Lane is born
7½ BSW
Kal Jor-El is born on Krypton.
7 BSW
Krypton explodes, Green Lantern Abin Sur arrives too late to prevent it.
Kara and Kal arrive on Earth.
Wally West is born
6 BSW
Kara achieves her GED and takes college courses by correspondence.
4 BSW
Teenage Kara meets and joins the Legion of Super-Heroes (30th century)
3 BSW
Kara reveals her superpowers to Clark
1 BSW
Kara begins using her powers to save people as an unseen guardian angel
0 ASW
Kara goes public as Superwoman
1 ASW
Kara meets Wonder Woman, first visit to Themyscira (from her perspective)
2 ASW
Kara first meets Batman and Lois Lane
4 ASW
Kara first meets Green Lantern Abin Sur.
Brainiac learns that there are survivors of Krypton.
Clark learns about his and Kara's true heritage
6 ASW
Justice League is founded to battle Mongul and the War World
Guy Gardner becomes Green Lantern following Abin Sur's death
Lex Luthor is arrested
Superboy goes public
Perry White discovers Superwoman's identity, but keeps it to himself.
Brainiac first comes to Earth.
Barbara Gordon becomes Batgirl
Project Cadmus begins to work on creating a Kryptonian hybrid (Kona)
7 ASW
Kara travels through time (Ancient Greece, Wild West, 30th century)
Superboy first meets the Flash Wally West
Kona/Supergirl (aged to 13) escapes from Cadmus and meets Kara
Lex Luthor found guilty and sent to prison
8 ASW
Brainiac frees Luthor from prison
Kandor briefly appears in orbit of Mars
Lois Lane discovers Superwoman's identity, but keeps it to herself
Original Teen Titans form (Flash, Superboy, Supergirl, Zatanna)
Sandy first comes to Earth. Supergirl goes public.
Lex Luthor turns against Brainiac, revealed as Kona's genetic father.
9 ASW
Diana (Wonder Woman) adopts Donna Troy (age 2)
Sandy returns. Kara & family lost in space, encounter Dominion and Big Barda
Citadel War in the Vega System. Superboy becomes Superman
10 ASW
Sinestro tempted by the Demons of Ysmault
Invasion of Earth by the Dominators, beginnings of Kryptonian Alliance
Scott Free and Barda escape from Apokolips to Earth
Superman kidnapped by Darkseid.
11 ASW
Vril Dox becomes Brainiac 2 and takes control of the War World
Super Family travels to the 30th century to defeat Darkseid and free Clark
12 ASW
Kara frees human experiments from Vukar Tag, becomes Seeder of Worlds
18 ASW
Death of Jonathan Kent
21 ASW
Kara fatally overdosed with sunlight by Brainiac and Luthor
Guy Gardner killed by Mageddon. Kyle Rayner becomes new Green Lantern.
Mageddon destroyed, Superwoman disappears, believed dead.
41 ASW
Green Lantern Kyle Rayner encounters Strange Visitor
Approx. 1,000 ASW
Time of the Legion of Super-Heroes
Battle against Darkseid
Kandor settled on New Krypton
Again, this is merely a rough timeline of major events. The bulk of the story "Adventures of a Super Family" takes place between 6 ASW and 12 ASW. Chapters in this "Tales" story will be all over the place.