An Unseen Threshold
There was nothing particularly special about November of 1941 for the people of America. The war continued in Europe, North Africa, China, on and below the waves of the Atlantic. There was the sense that the country was sliding ever closer to entering the conflict. But, for many, life continued on much as it had the months before and much as they supposed it would for many months to come. It was only afterwards, when the benefit of perspective allowed history to be segmented into discrete chapters that it could be recognized as a held breath, a moment of tension before the inevitable release.
To any outside observer, Superman was as busy as ever in his protection of Metropolis and the wider world. Kal-El's voyages to his arctic refuge were an entirely private affair. In his crystalline fortress he immersed himself in the vast trove of knowledge secreted in his rocket. Krypton's rise and fall was laid out before him, a saga of grandiosity and ruin, marred only by the understanding that he alone was its inheritor.
Batman and Robin dealt with a trail of murderers that led right to the heart of one of Bruce's greatest failures: the downfall of Harvey Dent. His face disfigured, his faith shattered, Two-Face cut a bloody swath through all who had wronged him, outright gangsters and corrupt civil servants alike. Though he tried to hide it from the boy, for Batman it was a cruel rebuttal to the hope of reforming Gotham, a reminder that for every inch he dragged it from the muck, the city would take its due in blood.
The identity of Diana Prince proved to be the release that Wonder Woman was in dire need of. She hadn't realized how much weight she bore on her shoulders from the government, the team, Steve, her mission, her mother till it was lifted, if only for a spell. Gateway City, her friendship with Etta Candy and the Holliday Girls, it was a community, a place to which she could belong.
Daniel Garret no longer questioned his dreams of the stars. Of the myriad of worlds and wonders he passed by in his sleep, the only thought in his head that his destination was fixed. There was only the time before the blue scarab in that far away tomb and after it. Now, when the mummy on display at the local university took over the wills of all around it and planned a less than pleasant future for the inhabitants of Hub City, only two words came to mind. "Khaji Dha."
When Robotman seized the arm of the bank robber, it took all his concentration to avoid snapping the man's limb like a twig. The sensors could tell him he had made contact, how much pressure he was exerting, but the nuances were gone. The tactile reality of texture and temperature eluded him, as it had since the accident, as it would for presumably the rest of his life. Smell and taste were lost, sight and sound filtered through artificial mediums, present, yet without the authenticity that his real body had possessed. The bystanders outside the bank were more horrified of him than the criminals. Even the cops gave him a wide berth. He did not, could not show his reaction on his face. Some days Robert Crane was no longer sure he had survived the accident, that this new form was not in fact some manner of purgatory, a dim echo refusing to be silenced.
Greg Sanders didn't enjoy killing. There was something ugly about it, the kind of act that darkened a man's soul. Yet, when bandits put his father in the ground Greg paid them back in turn. His father had been a hard man to live with. He was the sheriff of a lonely county in Wyoming, the man that had taught Greg to fish and ride and shoot and hunt and survive, where help never arrived in time, where a man could only, should only count on himself. When Greg took to the guitar, to songwriting, he thought it was a way to gain some distance, to enable a version of his life outside the pull of his father. In death, the man reeled him back. It was his father's voice that Vigilante heard every time he pulled the trigger.
A year and a half into her time behind the mask, and Joan Dale was sick of the shows. The performances, the ribbon cutting ceremonies, the parades, all of it. She wondered if the name was a mistake, so patriotic that it all but required her to play along with the requests. The people loved it. Miss America. She didn't hold quite as much allure as Wonder Woman or a few of the big names, but for your average person anyone in a colorful costume was a sight to marvel at. The organizers plied her with promises of outreach, inspiration, civic duty. Wouldn't it be good for the people to see someone so dedicated to justice and the American way? That worked just enough. That kernel of hope that her presence at these ceremonies would inspire someone to do the right thing. Still, Joan longed to return to the action, the thrill and the sense of purpose that buoyed her in her early months, when she fought muggers and racketeers, extortionists and wife beaters. It was more dangerous, sure, but there was that immediacy of results. There certainly wasn't that nagging feeling of unused potential. It didn't help that when no one was around, when Joan was allowed privacy, she practiced with those strange powers, the ones that let her reshape objects. When it first developed she couldn't transform anything larger than an apple and the process was akin to ridding a bicycle blindfolded while she sang the national anthem. With practice, however, the scale grew and the difficulty decreased. There remained that tension, the pressure behind her eyes, the clenching of her muscles, but she could push through. Miss America was already a household name. Joan waited for the day that she earned that fame.
Sylvester Pemberton, emancipated millionaire and controller of the family fortune at age sixteen, had more money than sense, as his valet, Pat Dugan, loved to remind him. Why else would he spend all his time creating a stellar belt, capable of enhancing his natural abilities, with the intent to dress up in a star-covered costume and fight crime? Sylvester enjoyed replying that Pat had no firmer claim to common sense, since he was the fool that followed Sylvester's lead wherever it took them. The pair stumbled into the kind of fame that many of their fellow heroes took months or years to build, when they trailed a local tough back to his haunt. When the two of them kicked in the doors, they were interrupting a meeting between the five heads of Baltimore's organized crime families. By the time the smoke cleared, Star-Spangled Kid and Stripsey were bona fide superheroes. Sylvester talked about improvements to the belt, new methods for fighting crime, a future where they might be worthy of the Justice Society. He would never admit to the similarities, but he held the same manic, full-throated commitment to his ideas that had seen his father put in prison for fraud. The Pemberton's were not a family that could recognize their ambitions overextending their reach. Through he grumbled about it, this was a point of endearment for Pat. The kid was nuts sure, but who wasn't? At least he believed in something. As long as the Star-Spangled Kid planned on diving head first into danger, Stripsey had to be there with him.
The murderer ran. There was an animal panic to his flight through the streets of Empire City. He ran and hid and then ran again, nowhere safe enough to rest. He ducked through shops, out side entrances, blundered into other people, hailed a taxi at one point, decided against it, then dipped into the subways before he exited back into the receding light. Eventually, the murderer tired, forced to find a place to settle into for the night. He chose a hotel fit for the purpose, a room exchanged for a bundle of cash and no questions, a room where he could drag the dresser in front of the door and peer through the blinds at every sign of movement from outside. Sleep was distant, harried by every car that drove by, every creak in the building. The murderer ended up with his back against the bath, the revolver in his hands, his head bobbing as he fought to stay awake, fought to stay alive his eyes fixed on the door. When the shadow passed the window, once, twice, then remained he knew. The murderer fired his gun till the barrel cycled, every shot expended. He broke the back window, the narrow one in the bathroom and risked the fall, the one that rolled his ankle and cost him the pistol. He dragged his left foot through the alley, all this for another minute of running, another second, anything. When the hunter landed in front of him, he nearly laughed at the futility of it all. All this effort and it amounted to the same as if he gave up right away. No man escaped the Manhunter.
A city was a lot of things. For Lawrence Jordan, the one that stood out in his present circumstances was the vast network of wires and cables that sent electricity racing through it, a labyrinth of power and information that most inhabitants barely considered. Lawrence no longer had that option. As Airwave, he was tuned in permanently, an observer of that hidden world of radio waves, electrical signals and all that they carried. It was too much for one man to bear alone, all that chatter, all the noise. When he first gained his powers it nearly drove him nuts. Gradually, Lawrence learned to tune out the static, to look through it for the patterns, the ones that really mattered. Cries for help. Illicit plans. Admissions of guilt, of conspiracy. It was an invasion of their privacy, he knew, but to hear all that and not intervene was unthinkable. When Airwave rode the current he wasn't merely someone who lived in the city, he was the city.
New York City wasn't lacking in heroes. There was Hourman and Sandman and Crimson Avenger and sometimes Green Lantern and apparently Miss America. They fought the villains and accumulated the attention in the press. The accolades. Let them have it, figured Ma Hunkel. The point wasn't fame or glory. It wasn't about looking good. It was about the people, the ones that lived, worked and died in these neighborhoods. Too often they were lost in the shuffle, acceptable losses. Which is why, after that first time, where she spotted a group of toughs shaking down a store in Brooklyn, Ma Hunkel just threw together whatever she had at the time and sorted them out. Who cared that her appearance was absurd, metal pot on her head and all. The crooks got the message, as did every one after them. The papers might make fun of her, call her crazy. All she needed to know was that her neighborhood was safe. The Red Tornado made sure of it.
Miya Shimada didn't belong. Never mind that she was Nisei, second-generation. That her parents had been in California since the early days of the century. Her father left Osaka during turmoil at home, beckoned to America by the prospect of steady labor. When he arrived in San Diego, he found a people that hated him, that feared him and his fellow Issei for what they saw as competition in the labor market. Stores turned them away, employers underpaid them, insults and threats were hurled. Her mother came later, brought over by a matchmaking service. Both of Miya's parents liked to tell the story of how they only knew one another from pictures and a handful of letters before she was shipped over by boat. Her arrival was no more welcome than her husband's. Still, they banded together, carved out their own enclaves in hostile territory. Enough to survive, to retain that sense of identity. To keep their head up and work, that distant glimmer of hope that one day they would be American enough to be accepted. Their children, the Nisei, were at the forefront of that dream, a people unwanted in their birthplace and isolated from their homeland. They listened to their parents' stories, lived in their neighborhoods and absorbed their culture. Yet, they took efforts to become 'more American'. They dressed more like the locals, listened to their music, watched their movies. They played baseball, attended dances, joined the Scouts. Miya was no different. She thought that if she worked at it, if she made all the right moves, there could be no doubt she was an American. Her love of the country would break through even the most skeptical heart. As America and Japan drew closer to conflict, it only inspired the Nisei to become more nationalistic, to prove their loyalty. Even in her private moments, this self-analysis, this constant examination of living up to the standards of her nation loomed over her mind. Which was why, two years after their genesis, Miya had still told no one of her powers. Of the way the waves would simply listen to her commands, move at her mere suggestion. She could not risk it. Past the idealism, past the dreams, Miya understood that someone else, someone white would be celebrated for such a gift. In her, they would see only a threat.
In the midst of these stories and many more, thousands of miles away an order was given. Across the vast expanse of the Pacific, a group of ships sailed for Hawaii.