Post by redsycorax on Jul 26, 2022 23:57:47 GMT
On many alternate Earths, there were two, sometimes three, global wars in the twentieth century. Across the multiverse, the list of combatants and adversaries differed. On some, a German, Japanese and Italian Axis fought American, British and Soviet Allies. In others, the war was waged against the resurgent Kaisers Germany. In still others, conflict broke out against a darkmagic wielding Saracen Caliphate, in a handful, the United Kingdom fell to Oswald Mosley's fascists or the United States became a tyranny under Charles Lindbergh and aligned themselves with Nazi Germany. In several, the Second World War was without fascists, so it was waged against Stalin's USSR. In others, there was no Second World War, because Adolf Hitler either died in World War One's trenches in combat, or was assassinated before or after he seized power. On Earth-2155, however, the turn of events was more poignant. When Adolf H applied for enrolment in the Venice Academy of Fine Arts, he was accepted on this alternate Earth. As a consequence, the Nationalist Socialist Workers Party never had a charismatic orator of its own and after its messy beer hall putsch fiasco in 1923, the party spluttered into oblivion. While there was an authoritarian interlude in the late thirties and a short-lived Polish-German War in March-April 1939, it was not waged for the partition and annexation of Poland but for Treaty of Versailles territories alienated from Germany after 1918. The Soviet Union and United States 'superpowers' never became 'superpowers' in this world. Because there was no large-scale US industrial development, the fates of particular metahuman figures were transformed here.
While there was a Superman and an Aquaman, a Supergirl and an Aqualad, there were some prior deletions from the heroic roster. Thomas Wayne had to work late on that night in Gotham City, so he and his family never took a shortcut home through Crime Alley. In any case, Joe Chill had been rehabilitated beforehand on this alternate Earth and was not awaiting them there. Oliver Queen and Roy Harper patrolled Star City as the Green Arrow and Speedy, but Queen retired in the sixties as Roy Harper went off to Hudson University. Captain Steve Trevor was never shot down and washed up on the Amazon Paradise Island and Princess Diana succeeded her mother Hippolyta in time. Abin Sur was never caught in a yellow radiation storm near Earth and Hal Jordan never became Green Lantern here. Katar and Shayera Hol were never assigned to Earth in pursuit of a Thanagarian fugitive. In the early sixties, there were marriages- Hal Jordan and Caroi Ferris, but this United States lacked the corporate funding and criminal activity to create the circumstances that led to the emergence of the Silver Age Atom and the Flash. There were other aspects of the reprieve from the Second World War that could be less easily explained. Gotham City was never terrorised by the Joker. Lex Luthor became Superman's friend instead of his mortal foe. Brainiac abducted Kandor, but Superman was able to successfully enlarge it without long years as an urban sink enclosed in a bottle. In fact, there were fewer 'super-villains' on Earth-2155 than on other metahuman-rich alternate Earths.
But as we will read from the following story, it would be a mistake to assume that this particular alternate Earth was nothing more than a stagnant, placid backwater...
METROPOLIS:
Superman soared overhead, en route to intercept a criminal gang that was trying to steal specific containers from a German-sited freight vessel. He sighed to himself. Perhaps things would have been different if Germany hadn't gotten over its period of instability or if the Soviet Union had survived into the present day, but neither of them had. As a consequence, the US economy wasn't as large as that of Britain, Germany or Japan, and as a secondary consequence, criminality was more widespread than it should be. He blinked as a telepathic message entered his earplug:
"Arthur? I'm busy with contraband at Port Metro at the moment. Can it wait?"
"Sorry, Clark. I'm afraid that this can't. Someone has sabotaged the German Lunar Shuttle. Let me take care of the Port Metro situation for you." Superman nodded and accelerated past Port Metro and waved to Aquaman as his counterpart swam vigorously toward the Illinois lakeport where he'd agreed to take over from his high-flying counterpart.
BERLIN:
As he entered German airspace, Superman trained his telescopic vision forward toward the launch vehicle. He frowned at the blinking sensor, then at the rapidly pulsating digital countdown. He reached the bomb in seconds and flung it high into the air. It detonated harmlessly in the stratosphere. And predictably, there was gunfire from the group below, which seemed to be a terrorist sect of some kind. He alighted, frowned and then trained his heat vision on the rifles, which became too overheated for the assailants to hold. Berlin's Kriminalpolizei quickly overpowered the group, much to the applause of the everyday Berliners behind the barricades. As Superman took to the skies once more, the Lunar Shuttle lifted off safely from Tempelhof Spaceport, heading toward the distant German moonbase within the Mare Tranquilitis crater.
It seemed to be a placid, unremarkable day on a quiet, mostly peaceful world. But there had been a reason that Superman's attention had been diverted.
FLASHBACK: 1967:
As Lois Lane packed her suitcase, Clark awkwardly shuffled:
"I'll miss you, Lois."
"Thanks, Clark. But let's face it, I'll never get anywhere with Superman. I don't know why. It could be because we're two different species, but I'm tired of pining after him. Time for me to get on with my life- and that involves accepting that promotion offer the Gotham Gazette provided me with, so I can become their new editor."
"Are you really sure you want to do this? You've got seniority over me. The Daily Planet needs your professionalism and expertise."
"Yes, Clark, I am. And thanks for the respect. We had some good times as colleagues, didn't we?"
And thus Clark Kent stood, paralysed by indecision, as the woman who meant the most to him and his Kryptonian alter ego walked out of her apartment, down to a waiting taxi on the street below. With his telescopic vision, Clark kept his eye on her as her vehicle moved through the traffic toward Metropolis Airport, out of his life forever. As a gentle breeze ruffled him, without turning around, Clark said:
"Hi, Kara."
"Oh, Kal. Don't stand on ceremony. Go after her, you big lummox. You don't want this and, I suspect, neither does she."
"Kara, I can't stand in her way. What could we ever have together?"
"Don't make the same mistake Dick Malverne and I did, Kal. If you don't say anything, you'll end up losing her forever."
"She deserves more of a life than just 'Superman's girlfriend,' Kara."
"Now the carnival is over, is it? So you're resigned to living the rest of your life alone?"
"It's not as if we're the last of our kind anymore, Kara. There are a million Kryptonians living on Neorao, regardless of whatever decisions you and I make."
"That's not the point. You and I deserve some private happiness. We can't save this world and others, 24/7. Linda Danvers and Clark Kent have lives of their own too. Please, Kal. Don't leave it too late. For your sake and for hers."
But several years later, returning to Earth from a space mission, Superman heard that Lois Lane had married Gotham millionaire philanthropist Bruce Wayne. That night, in a Metropolis bar, Clark Kent rued the fact that his Kryptonian physiology was immune to Terran alcohol. Lois Wayne and he never met again, apart from at official functions, whether as Clark Kent or as Superman.
MIAMI, FLORIDA:
Governor Linda Danvers emerged from the tunnel that led from inside a deserted farmhouse into a secluded basement corner of her gubernatorial building. Officially, she'd been conducting a personal investigation into the flood proneness of its structural integrity, given Florida's proximity to the ocean. After all, with the damage caused to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, one couldn't be too careful. Hardly had she done so when her lieutenant governor, James Olsen, rushed up:
"Trouble. Sorry to detain you, but a cluster of airborne Clawites has been seen heading across the Carribean toward us."
"Damn it! Thanks, Jimmy, appreciate the heads up. Okay, I'll declare a state of emergency and turn on the klaxon early warning system. After all this time, though? There have been no sightings of the Claw or his mutated henchmen for years."
"Well, the Supreme Court poleaxed their supply of escaped and released prisoners with the Ricardo vs Claw decision back during Carter's second term in the seventies. Since then, he's been forced to obtain captives from Latin American, South-East Asian or African states that can be brought off."
"Which care nothing for human rights, including prisoners rights to humane treatment, post-incarceration social services and rehabilitation. Can you let Red Arrow and Aquaman know about what's about to happen? We could do with the help. I wish we had some kind of mutual assistance superhero group to help out, but Kal and I have been saying that for years. Speaking of Kal, has he returned from that mission to Delta Pavonis yet?"
"Not according to the proximity sensors in the Fortress."
"Mr Olsen, what would I do without you?"
"I don't know, Kara. Remind me after this is over?"
CLAWITES, CLAW: Originally contained within an egg from the planet Zylmarx, after a planetary extinction event had caused the fragmentation of his homeworld, the entity known as the "Claw' emerged from a meteor that had impacted in Tibet early in the twentieth century. Unfortunately for the Southwestern Pacific island of Ricca, the Claw found his way there and took over the wartorn and factionalised island, bringing peace there at the cost of tyranny and repression. His abilities include gigantism, hyperdwarfism, superstrength and partial invulnerability. Utilising a mutagenic biochemical process known as unguibosogenesis, the hostile extra-terrestrial has fought many of the world's superhero community, such as Superman, Superwoman, Green Arrow, Red Arrow, Aquaman and Tempest. Unfortunately, there was a ready supply of otherwise vagrant or escapee current or former prisoners who were coerced through circumstance and situation into unguibosogenetic surgery and transformation into post-human "Clawites'. In 1976, the landmark US Supreme Court decision Ricardo vs Claw decision forced the United States constituent states and territories to recognise international protocols and treaties related to prisoners rights to humane treatment and punishment, post-release social services and rehabilitation programmes, dealing a severe blow to the Claw's operations within the United States. However, over the ensuing decades, the Claw has managed to rebuild his criminal enterprise, utilising captive prisoners from Eastern Europe, South-East Asia, Latin America and Africa. In return for utilising his mutagenic process on his subjects, the convivial nations can keep their criminal justice and incarceration costs down. Unfortunately, the League of Nations Global South bloc has been able to block co-ordinated international moves to outlaw the practice of unguibosogenesis within the framework of international treaties, despite Security Council expressions of concern from Great Britain, France, Germany and Japan over the practice.
ENCYCLOPEDIA AMERICANA: 2022 Edition:
MARTIAN ORBIT:
"Kal?"
"Kara? What's up?"
"It's the Claw and his servitors. He's managed to acquire enough of them to menace Florida and that means that Governor Linda Danvers will need to undertake executive authority to keep her people safe over the next few hours. Fortunately, the Interpol Surveillance Satellite Network meant that we had enough forewarning this time. However, that means that I'm effectively out of commission in that arena for the next day or so. Jimmy has already notified Arthur, Garth and Roy, but the sooner you get back here, the better."
"I'm passing Mars now. Won't be long. Unfortunately, Cuba's Batista regime is one of the Global South bloc and one of the Claw's suppliers of "human resources." Why they feel that they're entitled to offload their prisoners with no regard for their basic human rights onto that murderous tyrant, I'll never know."
"It's not through want of trying, Kal. Unfortunately, he's a head of state, so we can't touch him directly."
RICCA:
In his refrigerated office, the lemon-skinned and fanged malevolent visage of the Claw leant back as he saw the deployment of his latest horde of Clawites in action. He nodded and grimaced in something akin to a smile. Franchising unguibosogenic technology had been a masterstroke of his- it meant that he was not directly responsible for the actions of those nation states that employed it to manage their incarcerated populations, had ready international allies and could therefore operate with minimal restrictions on his activities. And Ricca earned further revenue and international exchange currencies for supplying cerebral implant technologies and intracranial explosive ampoules should the Clawites try to break free from his surrogate's controls.
CARRIBEAN SEA:
As the Clawite horde drew closer to the Florida Everglades, Superman reached Earth and floated over the ocean, his stern gaze turned on the Claw's unwilling henchmen. As ever, he was perplexed by what he should do, or indeed, could do under these circumstances. The poor wretches had been largely coerced into this and were not wholly responsible for their own actions, given the explosive implants within their crania and limbic zone circuitry. While others were less inclined to recognise their sentients rights, Superman and the other members of the 'superhero' profession could not afford that laissez faire attitude. Unfortunately, Zylmarx no longer existed and as far as he knew, the Claw was its only survivor and moreover, the head of state of a sovereign country that was no signatory to international criminal extradition treaties. He could not simply power into Riccan territory, apprehend the Claw and imprison him offworld in a suitable planetary environment, no matter how often he wished he could. The Claw's exploitation of vulnerable people nauseated him profoundly. Below him, the ocean roiled with sharks and other more threatening marine life as Aquaman and Tempest surfaced, waving to their colleague in the skies above. At length, frustrated in their predatory objectives, the Clawites turned and headed back to their quarters in Cuba. And within Cuban territorial limits, under the corrupt hereditary dictatorship of Roberto Batista, as had been the case with his father Fulgencio from the sixties onward, he was unable to pursue the creatures. He could only watch as the Batista regime executed its failsafe option, coldly terminating the wretched existence of its enslaved Clawites.
METROPOLIS:
"Lex?"
"I saw it, Clark. It must have been heartbreaking for you, old friend."
"I don't suppose that there have been any further advances in reversing or preventing unguibisogenic tech since I've been away?"
"I wish I could tell you otherwise, but as ever, the truth is that the Claw's grasp of biotechnology is centuries ahead of our own. Every time we try to reverse that barbaric technique, there's a fatal biochemical feedback reaction and the poor wretch perishes. And with the Republicans in state legislatures leaning toward the 'Claw Solution', there are restrictions on state and federal funding to explore new avenues anyway. Fortunately, they haven't managed to get the practice decriminalised in the United States again, but they've been at this for decades."
"Thanks, anyway, Lex. What I, or the rest of this world, would ever do without you is not worth thinking about. Hey, congratulations on the Nobel Prize for Science. Is that your fourth?"
"Only my third, flatterer. Anyway, you have a great metropolitan newspaper to edit, and I have STAR Labs to run."
"Thanks for trying, anyway, Lex."
"One day, we will do this, though. And that global curse will be undone."
"With your commitment and perservance, Lex, I've never doubted it."
MIAMI:
Governor Linda Danvers sat back in her office chair, grateful that her cousin's intervention had removed the Clawite menace for the time being. As she relaxed, she heard Jimmy's footsteps outside:
"Governor?"
"I take it something serious has come up?"
"Possibly. Something nagged me about the Clawite incursion attempt and I ordered the Florida State Crisis Management Agency to collate the most recent recorded international Clawite adventurism. And we found something..." Jimmy laid the graphics on Linda's desk. It didn't take long for her to witness the correlation that her lieutenant governor had just informed her about:
"Jimmy, if this is true..."
"Exactly, Linda. They seem to be specifically targeting coastal cities and settlements in all of their most recent activities."
"I wondered why they weren't engaging in as much larceny these days."
"The Claw is too wealthy now to focus on further wealth acquisition. But these ventures of his... the raid on the Netherlands that Aquaman and Tempest foiled? Or Dhaka, in Eastern Pakistan? Those can't be coincidence. The Clawites are now being manufactured to harass humanity, because the Claw has a plan. Because of climate change."
"Sometimes I wonder if the fall of communism seventy years ago was uniformly positive. Would we be so tolerant of untrammeled capitalism and the consequences that it's had for our environment otherwise? Thank you, Jimmy. I'm so grateful that you accepted that Galaxy Corporation editorial posting down here and agreed to be my running mate."
"So, we now know that this pattern is deliberate. Is the Claw planning some power grab as climate change worsens?"
"How, exactly? He knows that thanks to Lex Luthor's brilliance, green kryptonite no longer affects Clark and I after he gave us that antidote. And the Thaumavirus Plague killed most of the mages on Earth five years ago, so we're not vulnerable to adversarial spellcasting either. None of this makes sense, Jimmy. He knows Clark, Arthur, Garth, Roy or I will intervene and thwart his schemes. So why is he doing this?"
STAR CITY:
Roy Harper, now known as Red Arrow, had cornered his latest adversary, the Huntress, on the roof of a Star City bank. She stared balefully at him, clenching her powerwhip in her gloved hands, her cougars Kali and Shiva snarling at her side:
"Don't even think about it, Rosselini. If you make so much as a move toward your weapon, I'll shoot. And that goes for any movement from your pets there."
Helena Rosselini, the Huntress, sneered at her heroic counterpart:
"Damn you, Arrow. Why are you on that side of the ledger?"
"Nope, sorry, Helena, doesn't work with me. You know I never miss."
"Think of what we could accomplish if you flipped."
"So why don't you?"
"Because I'm not that sentimental or altruistic, stud."
"Invert that answer. I'm not that mercenary or avaricious."
"Oh, all right. Stand down, Kali and Siva." At her word, her two companion predators knelt and became passive. As the SCPD ran from the staircase exit onto the roof, the Huntress pouted as she was led away. And to think that they had been involved with one another, once upon a time. But then, sometimes fairytales didn't end the way that they were intended to do. For a moment, he sighed to himself. No. Liana was at home and he had parental responsibilities now. Why did the Young Justice League days with Garth and Kara seem so long ago now? It almost seemed a different world- that idealistic, innocent place where Supergirl, Speedy and Aqualad fought against more quotidian threats than their mentors. And now Supergirl was Superwoman, and Linda Danvers was Florida Governor, Roy Harper was a father and art gallery owner and Garth was Atlantean ambassador at the League of Nations. Helena hadn't even asked him about their daughter, but then he was used to that.
FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE:
Superman stepped down toward the holographier network, amidst the images of current affairs. After the Clawite stand down and the foiled Huntress robbery in Star City, all was quiet at present. The Hindenburg II airship had ended its inaugural flight from Berlin to New York, but he doubted it would replace the Surconcorde hypersonic suborbital flights, which only lasted an hour. The algorithms hadn't located any plausible avenues for sabotage, Moscow's Liberation Day parade hadn't attracted the usual barracking and hostility from communist counter-protestors this year, the Tycho-Clavius lunar magnotrain tunnel was still battling its cost overrun, three quarters of its route completed. As ever, apart from the ever-present Clawite headache, the Earth was at peace and terrorism and political instability seemed to be the province of a bygone era. Not for the first time, he wondered what his life would have been like if he and Lois Lane had settled down with one another. He didn't envy Linda and Jimmy their happiness, but it would hurt when they finally married. Lois Wayne was a happy woman and a mother now. Instead of the perennial Lois-Lana sniping that had characterised his relationships in another world, Lois was the wife of a millionaire philanthropist and Lana... Lana had passed away from breast cancer almost a decade ago now. He had waited too long, made self-justifications about the threat to his possible wife and family if he had made a different choice and he had lost both women forever. And then, Kara's translucent image stood before him:
"Kara?"
"Kal, Jimmy found something. It's the Clawites. They're acting deliberately, according to a pattern and have been doing so for quite some time. The evidence seems to suggest that the Claw is exploiting climate change."
"That explains something. Unfortunately, unless they actively raid particular cities or institutions, we're powerless to pursue them into sanctuary countries."
"And meanwhile, the Claw is raking it in. Damn it, Kal. Does someone have to die before the League comes to its senses?"
"With great power comes great responsibility, Kara. Unfortunately, with the data privacy laws the way they are, we can't confirm that without violating his internationally guaranteed right to privacy."
"Roy stopped that old flame of his in Star City. Poor guy. It must be tearing him apart that Rosselini won't acknowledge Liana, her own daughter."
"At least he has that level of security."
"Sorry, Kal. I didn't mean to remind you."
"It's all right, Kara. Looks like a quiet day."
THE FUTURE:
But that was the last placid day which humanity would have for quite some years. A decade later, Aquaman's rotting corpse slowly deteriorated in the ruins of Atlantis. Garth lay comatose in a hospital bed. Red Arrow sat in a wheelchair, with his daughter Liana holding her father's hand as they looked out on a desolate, storm-tossed landscape. But, ironically enough, the Claw was not around to savour his victory either, given his miscalculation. Despite his profiteering from ungibuisogenic technology, his one-time pawns had rebelled against him, razing Ricca to its coral reef surroundings as a grim mushroom cloud curled malevolently over the one-time standfast location. And after that, there was a slave revolt as the progeny of the Claw massacred the human populations of their former masters in the Claw's former client states and then descended on the remaining islands of humanity. Red Arrow was crippled, Aquaman was killed and Tempest was incapacitated. Superman and Superwoman stood alone against the Clawite plan, now revealed as 'superceding' humanity as the world around it deteriorated due to climate change. Although they were now truly invulnerable, the task was an uphill battle, given the volume of revolutionary Clawites. And thus, what should have been a utopian world that had never known the scourge of global war or massive organised genocide turned into a charnel house as humanity was forced to fight for its survival against a rapacious and expansionist species that would never give it any more peace. As a consequence of foregone unified human struggle against the wrack of climate change, millions died. And, at length, the League of Nations was forced to sign a ceasefire as Superman, Superwoman and Superwoman's daughter Superlass looked grimly onward. In return for their surrender, the remnants of humanity would be permitted to leave their homeworld in peace. Several months later, the two Kryptonians and their heir looked sorrowfully back on a transformed, abandoned Earth as the species that had welcomed them to their one-time sanctuary fled it with them, into the sanctuary of interstellar space.
EPILOGUE:
Although humanity survived and prospered on Terra Nova, the fourth planet of Tau Ceti, Superman and Superwoman never forgot or forgave the Clawites. They confined the insurgents to their own solar system and insured that they did not expand any further. And, one day, as Superman looked out over New Gotham, Lucy Wayne came to stand alongside him:
"My parents would have loved it here."
"I don't doubt that, Ms. Wayne. I knew your mother for many years."
"She often talked about you, Superman. Up to the point where the Clawites destroyed Old Gotham."
"Ms. Wayne, I'm sorry I wasn't there for her, or your father, but-"
"It's all right, Superman. No-one expected you to be everywhere, or your cousin to be. After they killed Aquaman and Tempest and disabled Red Arrow, you were alone against them. Even given your prodigious strength and abilities, you were only two people. Two living legends, whom we were fortunate to have amongst us for so long. And in the end, you enabled humanity's survival and escape from an interminable, grinding war. We have a second chance now."
"You're definitely your mother's daughter, Ms. Wayne."
"What will you do now?"
"Tau Ceti is a red sun, so my cousin and I would be powerless here if we stayed. However, even if humanity has outgrown us now, we still have responsibilities to the rest of this universe."
"I understand. We will miss you. However, nothing lasts forever."
"Sure. One day humanity will return to Old Earth."
"I can barely remember it any more. Many of the younger generation don't feel that way. It was humanity's cradle, but we couldn't stay in that cradle forever. Look at us now. Unified as a species, at peace, engaged in peaceful trade, commerce and cultural exchange with our adjacent interstellar neighbours. Superman? Wherever you, Superwoman and her daughter go now, know that the thoughts and prayers of the humanity that you protected and safeguarded for so long go with you."
"Thank you, Madam President." And then, Superman's antigrav belt carried him aloft as his polymer suit protected him from the outside atmosphere and solar radiation. Finally, he entered a Neorao starship. Superwoman and Superlass were waiting for the gray-haired guardian. Taking one last look at the species that they had shepherded into the light and independence, the starship fired up its engines and soon, the two Kryptonians and Supergirl's daughter were out of Tau Ceti's inhibiting red solar radiation field and free to be themselves once more.
There are many other stories about what happened to them after they left humanity's prospering children on their new homeworld, but those are for another time. This story was one about the reason that it was forced to abandon Earth-2155. As for the Clawites, their own rapaciousness doomed them. Without their hated human adversaries to unite them, the Clawites disintegrated into warring factions and ravaged the world they had inherited. Although humanity had gained maturity after being forced to abandon their cradle, their successors warred with one another and then, one dark and poisoned day, they took an ultimate and irrevocable step. A cobalt-salted thermonuclear device exploded and within a year, the species had dwindled into final extinction and Earth hung, a silent irradiated sphere in space. It would be millions of years before it became habitable once more and returned to its primordial beauty. But that lies far beyond the parameters of this tale to relate.
THE END [1.30 PM, AUGUST 13, 2022]
While there was a Superman and an Aquaman, a Supergirl and an Aqualad, there were some prior deletions from the heroic roster. Thomas Wayne had to work late on that night in Gotham City, so he and his family never took a shortcut home through Crime Alley. In any case, Joe Chill had been rehabilitated beforehand on this alternate Earth and was not awaiting them there. Oliver Queen and Roy Harper patrolled Star City as the Green Arrow and Speedy, but Queen retired in the sixties as Roy Harper went off to Hudson University. Captain Steve Trevor was never shot down and washed up on the Amazon Paradise Island and Princess Diana succeeded her mother Hippolyta in time. Abin Sur was never caught in a yellow radiation storm near Earth and Hal Jordan never became Green Lantern here. Katar and Shayera Hol were never assigned to Earth in pursuit of a Thanagarian fugitive. In the early sixties, there were marriages- Hal Jordan and Caroi Ferris, but this United States lacked the corporate funding and criminal activity to create the circumstances that led to the emergence of the Silver Age Atom and the Flash. There were other aspects of the reprieve from the Second World War that could be less easily explained. Gotham City was never terrorised by the Joker. Lex Luthor became Superman's friend instead of his mortal foe. Brainiac abducted Kandor, but Superman was able to successfully enlarge it without long years as an urban sink enclosed in a bottle. In fact, there were fewer 'super-villains' on Earth-2155 than on other metahuman-rich alternate Earths.
But as we will read from the following story, it would be a mistake to assume that this particular alternate Earth was nothing more than a stagnant, placid backwater...
METROPOLIS:
Superman soared overhead, en route to intercept a criminal gang that was trying to steal specific containers from a German-sited freight vessel. He sighed to himself. Perhaps things would have been different if Germany hadn't gotten over its period of instability or if the Soviet Union had survived into the present day, but neither of them had. As a consequence, the US economy wasn't as large as that of Britain, Germany or Japan, and as a secondary consequence, criminality was more widespread than it should be. He blinked as a telepathic message entered his earplug:
"Arthur? I'm busy with contraband at Port Metro at the moment. Can it wait?"
"Sorry, Clark. I'm afraid that this can't. Someone has sabotaged the German Lunar Shuttle. Let me take care of the Port Metro situation for you." Superman nodded and accelerated past Port Metro and waved to Aquaman as his counterpart swam vigorously toward the Illinois lakeport where he'd agreed to take over from his high-flying counterpart.
BERLIN:
As he entered German airspace, Superman trained his telescopic vision forward toward the launch vehicle. He frowned at the blinking sensor, then at the rapidly pulsating digital countdown. He reached the bomb in seconds and flung it high into the air. It detonated harmlessly in the stratosphere. And predictably, there was gunfire from the group below, which seemed to be a terrorist sect of some kind. He alighted, frowned and then trained his heat vision on the rifles, which became too overheated for the assailants to hold. Berlin's Kriminalpolizei quickly overpowered the group, much to the applause of the everyday Berliners behind the barricades. As Superman took to the skies once more, the Lunar Shuttle lifted off safely from Tempelhof Spaceport, heading toward the distant German moonbase within the Mare Tranquilitis crater.
It seemed to be a placid, unremarkable day on a quiet, mostly peaceful world. But there had been a reason that Superman's attention had been diverted.
FLASHBACK: 1967:
As Lois Lane packed her suitcase, Clark awkwardly shuffled:
"I'll miss you, Lois."
"Thanks, Clark. But let's face it, I'll never get anywhere with Superman. I don't know why. It could be because we're two different species, but I'm tired of pining after him. Time for me to get on with my life- and that involves accepting that promotion offer the Gotham Gazette provided me with, so I can become their new editor."
"Are you really sure you want to do this? You've got seniority over me. The Daily Planet needs your professionalism and expertise."
"Yes, Clark, I am. And thanks for the respect. We had some good times as colleagues, didn't we?"
And thus Clark Kent stood, paralysed by indecision, as the woman who meant the most to him and his Kryptonian alter ego walked out of her apartment, down to a waiting taxi on the street below. With his telescopic vision, Clark kept his eye on her as her vehicle moved through the traffic toward Metropolis Airport, out of his life forever. As a gentle breeze ruffled him, without turning around, Clark said:
"Hi, Kara."
"Oh, Kal. Don't stand on ceremony. Go after her, you big lummox. You don't want this and, I suspect, neither does she."
"Kara, I can't stand in her way. What could we ever have together?"
"Don't make the same mistake Dick Malverne and I did, Kal. If you don't say anything, you'll end up losing her forever."
"She deserves more of a life than just 'Superman's girlfriend,' Kara."
"Now the carnival is over, is it? So you're resigned to living the rest of your life alone?"
"It's not as if we're the last of our kind anymore, Kara. There are a million Kryptonians living on Neorao, regardless of whatever decisions you and I make."
"That's not the point. You and I deserve some private happiness. We can't save this world and others, 24/7. Linda Danvers and Clark Kent have lives of their own too. Please, Kal. Don't leave it too late. For your sake and for hers."
But several years later, returning to Earth from a space mission, Superman heard that Lois Lane had married Gotham millionaire philanthropist Bruce Wayne. That night, in a Metropolis bar, Clark Kent rued the fact that his Kryptonian physiology was immune to Terran alcohol. Lois Wayne and he never met again, apart from at official functions, whether as Clark Kent or as Superman.
MIAMI, FLORIDA:
Governor Linda Danvers emerged from the tunnel that led from inside a deserted farmhouse into a secluded basement corner of her gubernatorial building. Officially, she'd been conducting a personal investigation into the flood proneness of its structural integrity, given Florida's proximity to the ocean. After all, with the damage caused to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, one couldn't be too careful. Hardly had she done so when her lieutenant governor, James Olsen, rushed up:
"Trouble. Sorry to detain you, but a cluster of airborne Clawites has been seen heading across the Carribean toward us."
"Damn it! Thanks, Jimmy, appreciate the heads up. Okay, I'll declare a state of emergency and turn on the klaxon early warning system. After all this time, though? There have been no sightings of the Claw or his mutated henchmen for years."
"Well, the Supreme Court poleaxed their supply of escaped and released prisoners with the Ricardo vs Claw decision back during Carter's second term in the seventies. Since then, he's been forced to obtain captives from Latin American, South-East Asian or African states that can be brought off."
"Which care nothing for human rights, including prisoners rights to humane treatment, post-incarceration social services and rehabilitation. Can you let Red Arrow and Aquaman know about what's about to happen? We could do with the help. I wish we had some kind of mutual assistance superhero group to help out, but Kal and I have been saying that for years. Speaking of Kal, has he returned from that mission to Delta Pavonis yet?"
"Not according to the proximity sensors in the Fortress."
"Mr Olsen, what would I do without you?"
"I don't know, Kara. Remind me after this is over?"
CLAWITES, CLAW: Originally contained within an egg from the planet Zylmarx, after a planetary extinction event had caused the fragmentation of his homeworld, the entity known as the "Claw' emerged from a meteor that had impacted in Tibet early in the twentieth century. Unfortunately for the Southwestern Pacific island of Ricca, the Claw found his way there and took over the wartorn and factionalised island, bringing peace there at the cost of tyranny and repression. His abilities include gigantism, hyperdwarfism, superstrength and partial invulnerability. Utilising a mutagenic biochemical process known as unguibosogenesis, the hostile extra-terrestrial has fought many of the world's superhero community, such as Superman, Superwoman, Green Arrow, Red Arrow, Aquaman and Tempest. Unfortunately, there was a ready supply of otherwise vagrant or escapee current or former prisoners who were coerced through circumstance and situation into unguibosogenetic surgery and transformation into post-human "Clawites'. In 1976, the landmark US Supreme Court decision Ricardo vs Claw decision forced the United States constituent states and territories to recognise international protocols and treaties related to prisoners rights to humane treatment and punishment, post-release social services and rehabilitation programmes, dealing a severe blow to the Claw's operations within the United States. However, over the ensuing decades, the Claw has managed to rebuild his criminal enterprise, utilising captive prisoners from Eastern Europe, South-East Asia, Latin America and Africa. In return for utilising his mutagenic process on his subjects, the convivial nations can keep their criminal justice and incarceration costs down. Unfortunately, the League of Nations Global South bloc has been able to block co-ordinated international moves to outlaw the practice of unguibosogenesis within the framework of international treaties, despite Security Council expressions of concern from Great Britain, France, Germany and Japan over the practice.
ENCYCLOPEDIA AMERICANA: 2022 Edition:
MARTIAN ORBIT:
"Kal?"
"Kara? What's up?"
"It's the Claw and his servitors. He's managed to acquire enough of them to menace Florida and that means that Governor Linda Danvers will need to undertake executive authority to keep her people safe over the next few hours. Fortunately, the Interpol Surveillance Satellite Network meant that we had enough forewarning this time. However, that means that I'm effectively out of commission in that arena for the next day or so. Jimmy has already notified Arthur, Garth and Roy, but the sooner you get back here, the better."
"I'm passing Mars now. Won't be long. Unfortunately, Cuba's Batista regime is one of the Global South bloc and one of the Claw's suppliers of "human resources." Why they feel that they're entitled to offload their prisoners with no regard for their basic human rights onto that murderous tyrant, I'll never know."
"It's not through want of trying, Kal. Unfortunately, he's a head of state, so we can't touch him directly."
RICCA:
In his refrigerated office, the lemon-skinned and fanged malevolent visage of the Claw leant back as he saw the deployment of his latest horde of Clawites in action. He nodded and grimaced in something akin to a smile. Franchising unguibosogenic technology had been a masterstroke of his- it meant that he was not directly responsible for the actions of those nation states that employed it to manage their incarcerated populations, had ready international allies and could therefore operate with minimal restrictions on his activities. And Ricca earned further revenue and international exchange currencies for supplying cerebral implant technologies and intracranial explosive ampoules should the Clawites try to break free from his surrogate's controls.
CARRIBEAN SEA:
As the Clawite horde drew closer to the Florida Everglades, Superman reached Earth and floated over the ocean, his stern gaze turned on the Claw's unwilling henchmen. As ever, he was perplexed by what he should do, or indeed, could do under these circumstances. The poor wretches had been largely coerced into this and were not wholly responsible for their own actions, given the explosive implants within their crania and limbic zone circuitry. While others were less inclined to recognise their sentients rights, Superman and the other members of the 'superhero' profession could not afford that laissez faire attitude. Unfortunately, Zylmarx no longer existed and as far as he knew, the Claw was its only survivor and moreover, the head of state of a sovereign country that was no signatory to international criminal extradition treaties. He could not simply power into Riccan territory, apprehend the Claw and imprison him offworld in a suitable planetary environment, no matter how often he wished he could. The Claw's exploitation of vulnerable people nauseated him profoundly. Below him, the ocean roiled with sharks and other more threatening marine life as Aquaman and Tempest surfaced, waving to their colleague in the skies above. At length, frustrated in their predatory objectives, the Clawites turned and headed back to their quarters in Cuba. And within Cuban territorial limits, under the corrupt hereditary dictatorship of Roberto Batista, as had been the case with his father Fulgencio from the sixties onward, he was unable to pursue the creatures. He could only watch as the Batista regime executed its failsafe option, coldly terminating the wretched existence of its enslaved Clawites.
METROPOLIS:
"Lex?"
"I saw it, Clark. It must have been heartbreaking for you, old friend."
"I don't suppose that there have been any further advances in reversing or preventing unguibisogenic tech since I've been away?"
"I wish I could tell you otherwise, but as ever, the truth is that the Claw's grasp of biotechnology is centuries ahead of our own. Every time we try to reverse that barbaric technique, there's a fatal biochemical feedback reaction and the poor wretch perishes. And with the Republicans in state legislatures leaning toward the 'Claw Solution', there are restrictions on state and federal funding to explore new avenues anyway. Fortunately, they haven't managed to get the practice decriminalised in the United States again, but they've been at this for decades."
"Thanks, anyway, Lex. What I, or the rest of this world, would ever do without you is not worth thinking about. Hey, congratulations on the Nobel Prize for Science. Is that your fourth?"
"Only my third, flatterer. Anyway, you have a great metropolitan newspaper to edit, and I have STAR Labs to run."
"Thanks for trying, anyway, Lex."
"One day, we will do this, though. And that global curse will be undone."
"With your commitment and perservance, Lex, I've never doubted it."
MIAMI:
Governor Linda Danvers sat back in her office chair, grateful that her cousin's intervention had removed the Clawite menace for the time being. As she relaxed, she heard Jimmy's footsteps outside:
"Governor?"
"I take it something serious has come up?"
"Possibly. Something nagged me about the Clawite incursion attempt and I ordered the Florida State Crisis Management Agency to collate the most recent recorded international Clawite adventurism. And we found something..." Jimmy laid the graphics on Linda's desk. It didn't take long for her to witness the correlation that her lieutenant governor had just informed her about:
"Jimmy, if this is true..."
"Exactly, Linda. They seem to be specifically targeting coastal cities and settlements in all of their most recent activities."
"I wondered why they weren't engaging in as much larceny these days."
"The Claw is too wealthy now to focus on further wealth acquisition. But these ventures of his... the raid on the Netherlands that Aquaman and Tempest foiled? Or Dhaka, in Eastern Pakistan? Those can't be coincidence. The Clawites are now being manufactured to harass humanity, because the Claw has a plan. Because of climate change."
"Sometimes I wonder if the fall of communism seventy years ago was uniformly positive. Would we be so tolerant of untrammeled capitalism and the consequences that it's had for our environment otherwise? Thank you, Jimmy. I'm so grateful that you accepted that Galaxy Corporation editorial posting down here and agreed to be my running mate."
"So, we now know that this pattern is deliberate. Is the Claw planning some power grab as climate change worsens?"
"How, exactly? He knows that thanks to Lex Luthor's brilliance, green kryptonite no longer affects Clark and I after he gave us that antidote. And the Thaumavirus Plague killed most of the mages on Earth five years ago, so we're not vulnerable to adversarial spellcasting either. None of this makes sense, Jimmy. He knows Clark, Arthur, Garth, Roy or I will intervene and thwart his schemes. So why is he doing this?"
STAR CITY:
Roy Harper, now known as Red Arrow, had cornered his latest adversary, the Huntress, on the roof of a Star City bank. She stared balefully at him, clenching her powerwhip in her gloved hands, her cougars Kali and Shiva snarling at her side:
"Don't even think about it, Rosselini. If you make so much as a move toward your weapon, I'll shoot. And that goes for any movement from your pets there."
Helena Rosselini, the Huntress, sneered at her heroic counterpart:
"Damn you, Arrow. Why are you on that side of the ledger?"
"Nope, sorry, Helena, doesn't work with me. You know I never miss."
"Think of what we could accomplish if you flipped."
"So why don't you?"
"Because I'm not that sentimental or altruistic, stud."
"Invert that answer. I'm not that mercenary or avaricious."
"Oh, all right. Stand down, Kali and Siva." At her word, her two companion predators knelt and became passive. As the SCPD ran from the staircase exit onto the roof, the Huntress pouted as she was led away. And to think that they had been involved with one another, once upon a time. But then, sometimes fairytales didn't end the way that they were intended to do. For a moment, he sighed to himself. No. Liana was at home and he had parental responsibilities now. Why did the Young Justice League days with Garth and Kara seem so long ago now? It almost seemed a different world- that idealistic, innocent place where Supergirl, Speedy and Aqualad fought against more quotidian threats than their mentors. And now Supergirl was Superwoman, and Linda Danvers was Florida Governor, Roy Harper was a father and art gallery owner and Garth was Atlantean ambassador at the League of Nations. Helena hadn't even asked him about their daughter, but then he was used to that.
FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE:
Superman stepped down toward the holographier network, amidst the images of current affairs. After the Clawite stand down and the foiled Huntress robbery in Star City, all was quiet at present. The Hindenburg II airship had ended its inaugural flight from Berlin to New York, but he doubted it would replace the Surconcorde hypersonic suborbital flights, which only lasted an hour. The algorithms hadn't located any plausible avenues for sabotage, Moscow's Liberation Day parade hadn't attracted the usual barracking and hostility from communist counter-protestors this year, the Tycho-Clavius lunar magnotrain tunnel was still battling its cost overrun, three quarters of its route completed. As ever, apart from the ever-present Clawite headache, the Earth was at peace and terrorism and political instability seemed to be the province of a bygone era. Not for the first time, he wondered what his life would have been like if he and Lois Lane had settled down with one another. He didn't envy Linda and Jimmy their happiness, but it would hurt when they finally married. Lois Wayne was a happy woman and a mother now. Instead of the perennial Lois-Lana sniping that had characterised his relationships in another world, Lois was the wife of a millionaire philanthropist and Lana... Lana had passed away from breast cancer almost a decade ago now. He had waited too long, made self-justifications about the threat to his possible wife and family if he had made a different choice and he had lost both women forever. And then, Kara's translucent image stood before him:
"Kara?"
"Kal, Jimmy found something. It's the Clawites. They're acting deliberately, according to a pattern and have been doing so for quite some time. The evidence seems to suggest that the Claw is exploiting climate change."
"That explains something. Unfortunately, unless they actively raid particular cities or institutions, we're powerless to pursue them into sanctuary countries."
"And meanwhile, the Claw is raking it in. Damn it, Kal. Does someone have to die before the League comes to its senses?"
"With great power comes great responsibility, Kara. Unfortunately, with the data privacy laws the way they are, we can't confirm that without violating his internationally guaranteed right to privacy."
"Roy stopped that old flame of his in Star City. Poor guy. It must be tearing him apart that Rosselini won't acknowledge Liana, her own daughter."
"At least he has that level of security."
"Sorry, Kal. I didn't mean to remind you."
"It's all right, Kara. Looks like a quiet day."
THE FUTURE:
But that was the last placid day which humanity would have for quite some years. A decade later, Aquaman's rotting corpse slowly deteriorated in the ruins of Atlantis. Garth lay comatose in a hospital bed. Red Arrow sat in a wheelchair, with his daughter Liana holding her father's hand as they looked out on a desolate, storm-tossed landscape. But, ironically enough, the Claw was not around to savour his victory either, given his miscalculation. Despite his profiteering from ungibuisogenic technology, his one-time pawns had rebelled against him, razing Ricca to its coral reef surroundings as a grim mushroom cloud curled malevolently over the one-time standfast location. And after that, there was a slave revolt as the progeny of the Claw massacred the human populations of their former masters in the Claw's former client states and then descended on the remaining islands of humanity. Red Arrow was crippled, Aquaman was killed and Tempest was incapacitated. Superman and Superwoman stood alone against the Clawite plan, now revealed as 'superceding' humanity as the world around it deteriorated due to climate change. Although they were now truly invulnerable, the task was an uphill battle, given the volume of revolutionary Clawites. And thus, what should have been a utopian world that had never known the scourge of global war or massive organised genocide turned into a charnel house as humanity was forced to fight for its survival against a rapacious and expansionist species that would never give it any more peace. As a consequence of foregone unified human struggle against the wrack of climate change, millions died. And, at length, the League of Nations was forced to sign a ceasefire as Superman, Superwoman and Superwoman's daughter Superlass looked grimly onward. In return for their surrender, the remnants of humanity would be permitted to leave their homeworld in peace. Several months later, the two Kryptonians and their heir looked sorrowfully back on a transformed, abandoned Earth as the species that had welcomed them to their one-time sanctuary fled it with them, into the sanctuary of interstellar space.
EPILOGUE:
Although humanity survived and prospered on Terra Nova, the fourth planet of Tau Ceti, Superman and Superwoman never forgot or forgave the Clawites. They confined the insurgents to their own solar system and insured that they did not expand any further. And, one day, as Superman looked out over New Gotham, Lucy Wayne came to stand alongside him:
"My parents would have loved it here."
"I don't doubt that, Ms. Wayne. I knew your mother for many years."
"She often talked about you, Superman. Up to the point where the Clawites destroyed Old Gotham."
"Ms. Wayne, I'm sorry I wasn't there for her, or your father, but-"
"It's all right, Superman. No-one expected you to be everywhere, or your cousin to be. After they killed Aquaman and Tempest and disabled Red Arrow, you were alone against them. Even given your prodigious strength and abilities, you were only two people. Two living legends, whom we were fortunate to have amongst us for so long. And in the end, you enabled humanity's survival and escape from an interminable, grinding war. We have a second chance now."
"You're definitely your mother's daughter, Ms. Wayne."
"What will you do now?"
"Tau Ceti is a red sun, so my cousin and I would be powerless here if we stayed. However, even if humanity has outgrown us now, we still have responsibilities to the rest of this universe."
"I understand. We will miss you. However, nothing lasts forever."
"Sure. One day humanity will return to Old Earth."
"I can barely remember it any more. Many of the younger generation don't feel that way. It was humanity's cradle, but we couldn't stay in that cradle forever. Look at us now. Unified as a species, at peace, engaged in peaceful trade, commerce and cultural exchange with our adjacent interstellar neighbours. Superman? Wherever you, Superwoman and her daughter go now, know that the thoughts and prayers of the humanity that you protected and safeguarded for so long go with you."
"Thank you, Madam President." And then, Superman's antigrav belt carried him aloft as his polymer suit protected him from the outside atmosphere and solar radiation. Finally, he entered a Neorao starship. Superwoman and Superlass were waiting for the gray-haired guardian. Taking one last look at the species that they had shepherded into the light and independence, the starship fired up its engines and soon, the two Kryptonians and Supergirl's daughter were out of Tau Ceti's inhibiting red solar radiation field and free to be themselves once more.
There are many other stories about what happened to them after they left humanity's prospering children on their new homeworld, but those are for another time. This story was one about the reason that it was forced to abandon Earth-2155. As for the Clawites, their own rapaciousness doomed them. Without their hated human adversaries to unite them, the Clawites disintegrated into warring factions and ravaged the world they had inherited. Although humanity had gained maturity after being forced to abandon their cradle, their successors warred with one another and then, one dark and poisoned day, they took an ultimate and irrevocable step. A cobalt-salted thermonuclear device exploded and within a year, the species had dwindled into final extinction and Earth hung, a silent irradiated sphere in space. It would be millions of years before it became habitable once more and returned to its primordial beauty. But that lies far beyond the parameters of this tale to relate.
THE END [1.30 PM, AUGUST 13, 2022]