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Deep within the Fortress of Science created by her brother Alexander, Lena Luthor sat across from the green-hued artificial humanoid named Brainiac. He spoke in a cold, metallic echo, yet his eyes had a warmth that was almost human.
Lena wore a pink skirt and a white blouse with a pink bow in her long blonde hair. She was a sensitive person who could receive mental flashes that foretold the future in a vague, dreamlike way. She was now receiving a good feeling emanating from the creation of her brilliant brother.
"Why did you want me to teach you about being human?" she asked the android. "Alex is much smarter, and Lois has lived a more experienced life going back to her Daily Planet reporting days."
"You are much prettier than either of them. I like you," he said simply.
She smiled and said, "I think you may be more human than you imagine. First things first: You need a normal name, not Brainiac. How about John?"
"John Smith," he said. "I like that as a human name. It seems very average, and that is something one such as myself craves: to fit in, to belong."
"Do you think Alex's plan will work?" she asked. "Can the Crime Syndicate be trusted to defeat the Lawless League?"
The android replied, "I calculate that they have the raw power to do so, but they may be defeated by unknown factors, x-factors that defy even my probability determinants. However, I will promise to do my best to aid Alexander in finding a way to keep this world and you safe from them all."
Lena kissed him on the cheek, and the artificial man felt oddly moved by her contact.
Perhaps this is what emotions are like, he mused inwardly. I feel a need to be with Lena and protect her. That in itself would seem to be beyond my capabilities. Speculation: My self-repair function may be improving me with regularity and thus enhancing my every ability until I become almost human.
Meanwhile, Alexander Luthor was trying to raise a signal from the Crime Syndicate. Nothing replied. He had secretly bathed them within their old prison bubble with an odorless, colorless spray that would show up on his scanners and thus allow him to keep track of them should they escape. Now he wondered if they had merely triumphed or had even died. Loss of life would perhaps interfere with his tracking, as some human pheromones were altered by loss of life.
Little did Luthor realize that, in a manner of speaking, the Crime Syndicate members had ceased to exist.
Days later, a strong and agile figure in a ragged, dirty suit made his way through an alleyway in Gotham City and searched through the trash bins there for food. He was dirty and looked dazed or drugged, yet no one challenged him in his wanderings.
Then one day he fell behind an Italian club where the city's Mafia dons dined on expensive food and costly wines. He sat in the mud and breathed in slowly.
"Who am I? Who? Who? Think, man -- how did you get this low?" he said through clinched teeth, but no memory would come to him.
He listened as his keen ears heard a muffled cry. He quickly rounded the corner to see two men in dark suits with their guns drawn. They stood over a fallen figure and dragged a boy toward a waiting limo.
"Hey, you brainless excuses for homo erectus!" he found himself saying. "Release that child, or I'll hurt you! Be slow about it, and I'll hurt you worse!"
"Look," sneered the heavy mobster, "some bum wants to be a tough guy!"
"Hey, he's a regular one-man army!" muttered his ally as the bum smashed his nose with a swift punch and kneed him below the belt with one smooth motion. He shoved the mobster in his partner's path and kicked the gun out of his waving hand. A second sudden thrust knocked the heavy man cold.
The kid was about fourteen years old, and he smiled appreciatively at the homeless man. "Wow! That was amazin'! You took down two top enforcers without even breakin' a sweat!"
"What goes on here?" shouted a large fat man in a costly suit who ran out to the boy with two gunmen trailing behind him.
"Ricky, what's the meaning of this?" he asked as the limo sped off. "I see the Maroni gang's top men spread out next to your guard. Did they try to grab you?"
"Yeah," said Ricky. "But, Pop -- this guy came out of nowhere and saved me."
"I did my part, nothing more," said the bum. "I could not let the child be harmed by those thugs. I don't hurt children. That one rule I know, though I am at a loss about much else!"
The fat mob boss turned to his son and the bum. "You're now under my protection, for I am greatly indebted to you. Come with Ricky and me, and we'll feed and clean you up."
The skillful fighting bum nodded with appreciation.
"You got lucky today, pal," said the boy's father. "You saved my boy, and that means you are in good with me. Boss Zucco takes care of his friends!"
The former Owlman smiled strangely.
Johnny Thunder watched as Hypernion tore apart the Tower of London with his bare hands. Centuries of majesty crumbled to dust because one of the Lawless League wanted to make a point. "People of England!" shouted Hypernion, his voice carrying across the entire United Kingdom, "in 1776, you declared your independence from America after your victory in the British Revolution. That era is over! You are now a part of the New American Empire as ruled by the Lawless League! Your Princess Sarah is to surrender herself to me in three hours. She will be the new mate of Hypernion, and like her people, she will submit to our iron rule!"
Johnny whispered to the Kryptonian, "I don't get it, Hypernion. How didja get rid of the Crime Syndicate, again?"
The handsome last son of his alternate Krypton said, "I told you before, Johnny. We used Atalanta's lasso and the Martian Warlord's mental powers to rob them of all memories of their identities and of their selves. Then we dressed them in ordinary clothes and released them around the nation. They live yet have no idea that they once ruled this world. Think of the delightful irony! They live in pathetic secret identities, if they have discovered any name for themselves at all!" His laughter was thunderous, and Johnny tried hard not to flinch as the villain's mirth boomed around him.
In Gotham City, the amnesiac Owlman had been taken in by the Boss Zucco gang and had developed a real friendship with the hero-worshiping Ricky Zucco. Five months passed. He was now clean and well-dressed as he lived the life of a mobster's bodyguard. He grew to like the boy, and he realized that he would want to protect him even if he was not being paid to do so. Something about keeping children safe resounded in his mind, though he knew no more of his past than ever before.
He and Ricky trained together as he showed the bright and agile boy how to fight, to shoot, and to use his senses to track and observe all that happened around him.
"Notice that woman's ankles? They're too large. She's a man in a dress and wig," he said one night as he sat around the Zucco table at the posh night spot called Zucco's.
Ricky Zucco smiled. "Yeah, you're right. Why would he dress up like that unless he's after us?"
Owlman nodded. "He's most likely going to make a move on your dad. Don't worry. I'll stop our man in pantyhose."
He patted Rick on the shoulder and eased around the table to approach Boss Zucco's office door. All the while, he watched the man in the evening gown via the wall mirror. He moved with such silence that Zucco did not hear him approach.
The fat man said, "I don't like the way Al is becoming such a hero to Richard. A kid should look up to his old man, not some nameless bum. We gotta get rid of him. Just get him alone and slit his throat. Ricky will think he deserted him, and he'll forget him."
Owlman frowned and slipped inside quietly. He waited in the shadows as first Zucco's thug left the room, and then, as he predicted, the man in the dress slipped inside.
"Zucco, you're gonna die for what you did to Big Jim Gordon's son!" said the hitman.
Owlman slipped up and closed his hands over the hitman's throat. He fell to the floor in a faint.
Zucco smiled. "You saved me again, Al! I won't forget that. You've made Richard your little shadow over the last few months... that I won't forget, either."
Owlman approached with a predator's grace, his eyes gleaming, and whispered, "Too bad I overheard your plans for me. Too bad I failed to stop that hitman before he shot you. Too bad I'll raise Ricky myself, you slug!"
He picked up the hitman's gun and shot Zucco cleanly through the heart.
Owlman did not realize that young Ricky Zucco had followed him to the door after he noticed the hitman slip inside. He had heard and seen everything. His eyes filled with tears as he backed away. His mind raced, and one thought filled his brain. I'll kill Al for killing Dad, but to do it I'll need to be as good as he is. The only one who could make me that good a fighter and thinker is Al himself! I'll pretend to believe in him and beg him to make me his partner, and as I learn with every minute, every day, every year, I'll become equal to him, and when he trusts me years from now, I'll kill him!
So it went. For motives unknown to the amnesiac Owlman, young Ricky Zucco became his ward and partner. He taught him ceaselessly until he had become a very capable fighter and thinker. But in the weeks that followed his assumption of the Zucco empire's wealth and power, Al suddenly remembered all.
His keen mind and subtle mental powers had allowed him to recover his identity and memories before his more powerful teammates in the Syndicate. Thus, he knew himself as Dr. Thomas Wayne, alias Owlman, and he knew that he had lost a fortune and a family estate of his own years before.
He told Ricky everything except for the fact that he had murdered Boss Zucco. He was troubled to feel that he had so lost touch with himself as to learn to care for the boy. That he did, however. He would not go back on his word now. He would raise Ricky Zucco as his own son and make him worthy of the mantle of the Owl.
Using the Zucco wealth, he bought the old manor house outside Gotham that had been the Wayne family home before the scandal the doctor had gone through had stripped him of his wealth. He equipped a cavern beneath it with all he would need to reclaim his role as Owlman and then reunite his partners and ultimately kill the Lawless Legion.
"I call this the Aerie. It shall be our base from which we shall eventually conquer this world. I have a surprise for you, lad. This black costume will make you my partner. I shall name you Raven."
Excited, Ricky Zucco eagerly donned the black costume. "I like it. Owlman and Raven!"
He had mixed emotions. True, he had formed a vow to one day kill his mentor to avenge his father's murder; however, he also had a respect and admiration for Dr. Wayne that he could not explain or forget. Little did either of the two know that Owlman's latent mental powers were not as dormant since the Crisis as he had assumed. They had, in fact, reached out to the boy and slowly influenced him until his loyalty to Wayne became almost as strong as had been his passion to kill the man who killed his father. Thus, Raven was a very confused young man.
Nightly, Owlman and Raven worked together and haunted the shadows as they warred on Big Jim Gordon's rival gang for control of Gotham. They became an urban legend, and slowly Owlman's keen mind developed a plan to find and restore his partners from the Crime Syndicate, but there was no hurry. As long as the Lawless League concerned themselves with the world as a whole and left Gotham City to him, he had no problem and no reason to rush out of a life he relished.
The Lawless League's domination of the whole world grew until Alexander Luthor could stand it no longer. He had waited in his hidden Fortress of Science and planned and plotted with Brainiac, alias John Smith, until they had developed a few new weapons that might enable them to bring down the terrorists who mastered their world.
"Prognosis: grim and likely failure if we attack them now. We need more time and better alternatives," calculated Brainiac.
Lena hugged the artificial man she had come to love. "Oh, John, don't risk yourself too soon. Even Alexander can only do so much against such brutes. I lost my parents to one like them, and I could not bear to lose you, too."
John smiled. He had Lena's love, even though he had been made and not born. He was as human as he could desire. "My love, I cannot stand by and let my friend risk his all alone. I have my own inborn gifts, and our technology may yet be enough for us to win the day."
Lois Luthor grunted. "Hmmm... I agree with Lena. You two may be smarter than them, but they are killers. You mustn't think that they won't go for your lives at first sight."
Alexander nodded. "True, my dear; but how can you respect me if I don't fight them? How can you look at your husband without feeling scorn if I merely sit here and hide? I became a hero reluctantly, but I won't relinquish the job when my world needs me more than ever. I've been working here for nearly a year now. They have conquered the whole world. I must try to defeat them and take back our world."
Lois hugged him and prayed that his brilliant mind could overcome their ruthless power.
Brainiac spoke up. "Alex, I have studied our photos of this League over the last few months, and I notice that there are actually six of them. See how this photo shows a Hypernion in Greece, while this one captured his image over California at the exact same time? They have a shapeshifting ally who poses as one or another of them. Notice the same type of thing happened with two Amazon Princesses on the 14th, one in the White House and one in Maine."
"Great Scott! I assume they aren't clones," offered Luthor.
"No," said the green man. "My sensors detect a distinction between their genetic makeup. One in both shots is genetically identical. I theorize that such a being would develop on Mars!"
"A man from Mars?" said Luthor. "Odd, we know that the others appear to identically match the power signatures of the Earth-1 JLA. It is as if the Leaguers are some alternate Earth's versions of the JLA. If the Earth-1 Superman had not shared his Earth's data files with me back then, we'd be totally lost."
"However, if their world has a Mars with life forms such as that one upon it, why couldn't we also have life on our Mars?" suggested Brainiac.
"And if so, why couldn't we enlist their help?" concluded an eager Luthor.
"We lack space travel technology, with your armor now almost powerless, but perhaps we could bring the Martian to us," suggested Brainiac.
"That's it. We will teleport our own Martian here, or die trying!" said a determined Alexander Luthor.
The loss of identity suffered by Ultraman came to a head around ten months after his defeat at the hands of the Lawless League. He had wandered dazed into Smallville, Kansas, where an elderly farmer couple had taken him in and allowed him to do hired hand work in exchange for food. He was obviously strong and never seemed to tire. The couple's family name was Kent, and he came to enjoy their kindness and hospitality.
"Cal is my name. That's the only thing I can recall," he had explained. "That and a need to be active and in action."
Martha Kent said, "My Jonathan was like that as a young man, always on the go at our old store or on this farm."
Jonathan Kent led Cal out to the front porch one starry night after the drifter had been staying with them for around three months. "Cal, I reckon you have a better purpose for yourself than just helping out on this farm. Is there any way I can help you reach that goal?"
Cal smiled. He had responded with a real appreciation to the paternal man's interest. "If only my own father had been so open and encouraging. Not that I can recall his name -- just a face, an attitude, and an alien world!"
They gazed up at the stars, and he said, "Sir, I guess I could find my destiny in the big city. A place where things happen fast."
"Well, I would try Gotham City... or Metropolis!" said Kent. "They say anything is possible in big hubs of activity like that."
Cal agreed, and with a reluctance born of a real affection for this elderly family who had offered his troubled soul a place of rest, he soon left for Metropolis.
He wasn't there long before he wandered into the heart of the city with no particular expectations. He made his way through the streets and saw what seemed impossibly far away: a woman in peril from a speeding car. He moved, compelled by some whim he could not understand, and shoved the pretty redhead to safety.
The movement had been all a blur, but he stayed to help her to her feet.
"You saved me! How can I thank you?" she asked. She wore a pink skirt and white top, and her red hair blew in the breeze. "I guess I was daydreaming and walked right in front of that car. My dad always says, 'Lana you'd lose your head if it wasn't screwed on tightly enough'."
Cal shook hands with Lana Lang, WGBS TV newswoman. She offered to buy him lunch, and they stopped by her office, where fate stepped in when her boss, Morgan Edge, spotted Cal.
"Lana, who is this hunk? He would look great on camera!" said Edge. "Can you read?" he asked him. "Try him for a screen test, Hal! He would bring in the females... hmm... maybe with glasses for a more cerebral look..."
"Of course I can read," said Cal. "Never thought about the news game. I do need work."
Thus was born WGBS TV newsreader Clark Kent, a name borrowed from the Kents. He added glasses to his slicked-back hair, and a star was born. Thus things went well for the former Ultraman during his amnesia.
Clark Kent's new career soon earned him a nice salary and a romance with Lana Lang. He often wondered about the past he could not recall except in dim flashes. A father's disapproval and a desire to prove himself and avenge any slights to his ego were etched within his character so firmly that he never quite shook them, even in this altered state. He continued to grow close to Lana, and she smoothed many of his rough edges until they became a popular news team.
The stories he read about the Lawless League's gradual climb to world domination and the mysterious absence of Alexander Luthor tugged at something within his fractured psyche. He still questioned his loss of memory. And then, one fall day, he found what he had lost.
He and Lana had been hiking around the park trails outside of the city -- something the elegantly dressed Miss Lang did not do with any relish -- when he unearthed a glowing green rock.
"Luv, that is one weird meteorite you've found," cooed Lana. "It would make a lovely necklace in the right setting."
Clark felt odd as he neared the stone from space. It gave him a fever that passed into a sudden rush of energy, and all at once his memory returned.
"Great Krypton!" he roared. "How dare those fools rob me of myself! I'll make them pay!"
Lana cried out, "Clark, what's wrong?"
He looked once at her and remembered their romance, then he turned and flew off, bent on violent revenge. He did not stop until he slammed directly into the White House as alarms echoed and the woman called Green Gladiatrix challenged him.
"You again?" she said as he deflected her energy blast and melted the roof above her flying form.
The wood and plaster rained down on her without any harm befalling her until a yellow sliver fell inside her bubble. Ultraman noticed and took advantage of it. He ripped up a yellow beam and rammed it directly through the woman's midsection. She died instantly, and he crushed her ring to powder.
Then an invisible fist slammed into him, and he fell beneath the blasts of Hypernion. "You murdering savage! You killed Gladiatrix!" shouted Hypernion as he and the invisible Martian Warlord beat down their foe.
Ultraman rose again and shoved them down with brute force. "You haven't seen the extent of my power!"
Atalanta's rope then snagged him, and she ordered him to sleep. The magic robbed him of his awareness, and he fell at her feet.
"Men! I wonder what you'd do without me," she smirked as she placed her hands on her hips.
"The better question is -- what do we do with him?" asked Darknight.
Debbie Ann Robinson smoothed down the bow in her hair and hurried downstairs to fix breakfast for her husband and their daughter, Debbie. She smiled as she heard her teenaged daughter groan at the sound of the alarm clock signaling the start of the school day. "Deb! Don't forget -- cheerleading starts today!" she called as she hurried down to the kitchen. Jack smiled up at her as she bent down to kiss him.
"Hmmm... You're up early today. Usually have to drag you out of the shower kicking and screaming," she teased.
Jack grinned. "Yes, I know, but today is special. It's officially the one-year anniversary of your return. After that accident when we thought you were dead, we never knew if we'd smile again. But then you turned up with amnesia, and my pals at the FBI alerted me. Now you've been the perfect wife and mother you always were before you disappeared for a year."
Debbie Ann nodded slowly. "Jack, I have never remembered our past. I still don't. However, you identified me, and -- being an FBI agent -- your word was enough. I have been and am still very happy here with you and Debbie, but I sometimes fear that you might have been wrong."
"Fingerprints don't lie," he insisted. "Your kiss doesn't lie. I know my wife!"
Debbie Ann shook her head. "Silly old me. Always worrying."
"That's what makes you soccer mom supreme," said the perky Debbie Jr. as she skipped in to grab toast and head for the door.
"Young lady, that skirt is a bit short! Change it now!" scolded her mother.
"Mommmm," whined Debbie Jr. as she flounced back to her room to change.
"Easy, dear," teased Jack. "You sound like some warrior princess leading troops into battle!" His wife sat on his lap and laughed, but that phrase also stirred something deep in her locked memories. "Anyway, I have a little present for you," he said, holding out a wrapped box.
Debbie Ann smiled and ripped off the paper to lift open the lid. "What do you mean by this?" she said with a dangerous edge in her normally perky tone.
"Hon, it's a solid gold bracelet," he said. "Let me slip it on you."
His wife's eyes flared with a rage he'd never seen before as she shoved him, not merely back, but across the kitchen. "No one shall ever put bracelets of submission upon me again!" she shouted.
As he got back up, Jack Robinson saw his docile wife toss back her long black locks and rip off the ribbon.
"These clothes are only fit for some domesticated pet, not the warrior princess of Sanctuary Island!" she said in disgust as she tore off the clothes and marched past the startled man.
"I assume my foes in the League altered my fingerprints and memories to make me your perfect little wife. Perhaps they killed her, or at least learned of her disappearance via the mental powers of their Martian. He certainly probed my mind enough before turning me free with no recollections of my old life. Well, Jack Robinson, I am not your Debbie Ann. I am Diana, princess of the Amazons, and I take my leave of you now."
She rushed off in a long shirt that hung like a tunic upon her powerful frame. She would reclaim her lasso and costume when she trounced the League that had played with her thusly.
The man known as Johnny Quick had another name as well -- Charles Drake. He had gained his super-speed powers through a helmet that had made him the fastest man alive. Now he no longer needed the helmet to use his powers, since years of use had altered his own metabolism. However, with the memory loss induced by the Lawless League, Drake couldn't even recall that he had such amazing powers. He had drifted to a small town and was desperate for a job. He seemed to have no talents except for an instinctive desire to avoid the police. He made his way to Central City after bumming across the country. Here he encountered his destiny at speeds all too fast, even for him.
He had only been in town for a while when a handsome blond man approached him and offered to buy him a drink. Needing something to eat, he accepted the stranger's hospitality. They entered a run-down café.
"What's your name, pal?" asked the blond as he ordered a meal for them both.
"I'm... I'm Chuck," he said after some hesitation.
"You don't sound too sure," said the man. "I'm Allen."
"Well, the truth is, I'm a bit out of sorts. Need work. New to town," stammered Drake.
"I think I can help you," said Allen. "Let me get us some food here, and we'll talk. Then maybe I can find you a place to stay and a job. See, I know a lot of people around this burg."
They laughed and talked well into the night, and at closing time they made their way home to Allen's house, where he offered Chuck a guest room.
"Pretty woman! Is that your wife?" asked Chuck as he picked up a photo.
"She was... she's dead now," muttered a now-grim Allen.
"How'd she die?" asked Charles Drake.
"You killed her, you lousy thug!" shouted Allen, suddenly turning on him. "You murdered my Iris when you were in your Johnny Quick I.D. And now I'm going to kill you for it." He then fired a small gun that he had produced from nowhere.
As fast as Drake was, he did not expect this sudden bizarre attack, and his body literally froze as ice hardened around him.
"You don't remember any of it, do you?" said Allen as his once-pleasant features turned angry and hateful. "I'll refresh your memory, killer, before I end your life.
"First, my name is Barry Allen. I was your boss at the police lab before you stole my invention and gained the speed that should have been mine. I realized you had no idea who I was when I saw you stumble around town... though my mirrors have been scanning your every move since you first returned to Earth from the bubble. I enjoyed seeing that League scum trash you, but I prayed only I could really kill you. After you stole my helmet and began your career as Quick, Iris tracked you down via her journalistic ties, and you killed her! I've spent years using my science skills to invent weapons meant to catch or kill you -- ice guns, heat rays, mirror traps, tops of lethal design, even trick boomerangs! You killed and got away, but I'm going to reverse that! I'm your opposite number -- the player on the other side, as Ellery Queen called it -- and as your personal Rogue, I'll make you pay!"
Drake's memories returned with a rush, but he was helpless in the ice as his enemy prepared to end his life.
Charles Drake began to vibrate until the ice shattered. He raced forward only to crash full tilt into a mirror.
"Clever. You're not where I thought," sneered Johnny Quick as he searched for the Rogue. "And yeah, boss-man Barry, you did invent the helmet I stole, but did you ever have the guts to use it? I'd say you didn't!"
He dodged a heat ray that almost left his coat smoldering, but he was able to move in time to escape the lethal fire.
A boomerang soared by him, and sonic fire shattered his eardrums as he fell forward and received a kick to the stomach from the suddenly appearing Rogue.
"Not so smart-mouthed now. I'll wring your neck!" cried Allen as he attacked the man who had robbed his life of everything he cherished. "You were a bad cop -- you betrayed us all! You robbed from me, and you killed my wife!" roared Allen as the room seemed to spin in front of the wounded Johnny Quick's eyes.
"Vertigo..." he gasped, "...from that top!" He spun around desperately, even as his legs buckled beneath his reeling senses. The oxygen he absorbed drew away from Barry Allen, who ran for cover but fell as Quick's whirlwind sent furniture flying through the room.
"I win!" he said smiling as a hundred punches a minute landed on Rogue's face. "You see, Bar, I was and am the stronger man! You do-gooders can't even be bad correctly!"
Then the sound of breaking glass sent him falling -- falling into some weird, other-dimensional mirrorverse.
"I just won!" laughed the mad Rogue.
Johnny Quick could not stop his fall, and he could not vibrate free, since he now seemed to be alone in an enormous and endless void. He couldn't know how long he had been falling, since time had no meaning in this realm. He only knew that this was one race he had lost. As he tumbled endlessly, his mind closed down, and he knew no more.
And then he blinked his eyes and awoke in a lab.
He saw the calendar and realized that nearly a year had passed while he was lost in that other realm. He had not needed food or water or rest, and no time had passed in his perception, yet the Rogue's Mirrorverse had imprisoned the Syndicate speedster for a long, long time.
"How'd I get out of that place?" he muttered as hunger assailed him. "Where am I?"
"It's called Ivy Town University," spoke a voice. "My name is Ray Palmer, and seeing as I rescued your sorry tail from the microverse dimension called Mirror Land, maybe you'd better start calling me by my new professional name -- Microbe!"
Johnny Quick turned to see a six-inch man in black and red.
"Oh, and by the way, I aim on joining your Crime Syndicate, too. You owe me big time."
Johnny Quick glanced at the six-inch Microbe and smirked. "You want to join the Crime Syndicate? Maybe you did save me from La-La Land, but face it, pal, you got some growing to do to fit in with us!"
Microbe suddenly grew to six feet tall. He grabbed Quick by the shirt and said, "Listen, you moronic ape -- I am a gifted scientist, I can shrink down to any size and retain my human sized strength and mass if I choose, and -- of most importance to you at this particular moment -- at will, I can reduce myself to microscopic size, enter your body through your pores, and grow six feet within your body!"
Quick frowned. "Now that is just sick! I like it -- you got my vote! It's time we added a new member."
Microbe smiled. "I hoped you'd see it my way."
In Gotham City, Owlman and Raven finished their nightly raid on the Big Jim Gordon mob.
"Man, you should'a seen Gordon's face when you tossed his right hand man O'Hara through that glass window!" smiled Raven.
Owlman grinned and ruffled the boy's hair. "I rather enjoyed that bit of roughhousing, if I do say so myself. Listen, lad, I think we have Gotham City's criminal world well under our thumbs, and I'm very proud of your development. So I need to take a trip solo and rejoin my old gang for old business. I want you to stay here and keep working out as I've shown you. Don't tackle Gordon's mob on your own. I promise to be back soon!"
Raven said, "Be careful. I bet you're going to bring down the Lawless League. Why can't I join you?"
Owlman grinned. "I want you here. I must do this with my old team. Then I'll be back, and we'll bring down Gordon for good."
Raven thought to himself, You'd better come back. I need you to teach me enough so that I can kill you someday to avenge my dad.
Owlman said, "Don't worry, kid, you won't be lonely. Our loyal French maid, Helena, will be here to cook, clean, and take care of the manor as always."
Helena Pennyworth was a French maid only in terms of her uniform. She was Owlman's lover and loyal servant since he came into the Zucco money. Her late father Alfred had once served Dr. Thomas Wayne before his ruin.
Superwoman wore her old uniform, or at least a good copy thereof. She had taken enough time to dress for the upcoming battle. She looked great, but her expression was one of surprise. She turned to see a grinning Johnny Quick standing with a six-inch man on his shoulder.
"How long have you been there?" she shouted. "You watched me change, didn't you!"
Quick said, "Glad to see me, aren't you? This is my little buddy, Microbe. He's a whiz kid who tracked you down with some gizmo. He says he wants in the Crime Syndicate."