MY JSA - pt. 4

Capt. Marvel left right away, flying out the hotel window, to go check on something in Fawcett City.  Also promising to be back in a flash was the Flash, who vanished from sight in a gust of wind. The Batman produced a pipe and began smoking while he listened to the Shadow tell him something in a hushed voice.

Scotty Thunder was still reeling from it all, and sought out the nearest restroom to get away for a moment.  All the water he had drank between courses had caught up with him, and he sought relief at the nearest urinal. No sooner had he started when he heard the door to the restroom open and someone striding into the room on soft-booted feet. Glancing over, Scotty was thunderstruck to see Hawkman himself step up to the urinal beside him. The man was topless save for his hawk-head hood, having removed his artificial wings, but still cut an imposing figure that clashed with the mundane environment.

"Hi," Hawkman said, as he began using the neighboring urinal. "I guess this has been quite a day for you."

"Yeah," was all Scotty could think to say.

"Well, try to relax and not be so intimidated. We're all just people beneath our costumes. Most of us are even human." Scotty imagined Hawkman was smiling at that last part, but didn't see. Hawkman had finished, and patted Scotty on the back with a steely hand that almost made Scotty miss the bowl.

By the time Scotty had washed up and composed himself, everyone was back in the private dining room. Scotty took his seat. Dollman was just speaking up.

"I guess it's come around to my turn now. I've been wondering what story to tell, as I've had quite a few adventures already too. But I think the most frightening adventure for any of us are he ones that threaten our real identities. As you know, I don't wear a hood or mask when I fight crime, and we've all debated the pros and cons of that before. But there was one night when I was afraid my friends and I were in danger from -- the men who knew too much.

"It was a quiet night in my lab last spring, and I was hard at work -- as always – on my shrinking formula. So far, my invention only seems to work on my own body chemistry, but the U.S.

Army was interested in a generic formula that would work on any soldier. As patriotic as the next superhero, I'm still trying not to let Uncle Sam down on that score. But that night, without warning, a thug with a gun burst through the door to my lab and shouted for me to freeze."

"I'd been caught flat-footed, and had no choice but to raise my hands like a good little scientist captive and go along. I even managed to say 'What's the meaning of this?' in a naively confused way.

"The first thug through the door told me to shut up with a gravely voice. He was big, broad, and looked like an ex-boxer with a case of the uglies. He was going to pistol whip me with his gun, when the second thug through the door told him to stop. The second thug was a tall, lean man with a long face and a cigarette hanging off his thick lip. He looked around, and nodded for two more thugs to file in and close the door behind them.

"'We know your secret, doc,' the tall lean man who lead them said. It was what I was afraid of – that the underworld had figured out I was Dollman! But I wasn't ready to give up. There had to be some way out of that jam.  “’Now that you know, what do you plan to do with me?’ I asked, still biding my time.

“’We’ll decide that before we’re through,’ their leader told me. ‘In the meanwhile, you’d better make yourself useful by explaining to us what of this stuff is valuable. If you’re really helpful, maybe we’ll even let you go.’

“By the way the other three snickered, I knew that wasn’t true. But I already had a plan. ‘I’ll cooperate -- just don’t hurt me. There’s plenty here that’s valuable…the main ratiometer is essential…the endocrinagitator is an extremely rare piece of equipment...’ I made up a few more exotic-sounding names for some of the less-expensive equipment in the room.

“’You heard ‘em, boys, start moving these into the truck outside!’ the last two thugs to enter frowned, but silently settled into the task of moving. ‘Is that all you got?’ he asked, looking back at me.

“’No, that’s not. There are several other rooms full of my equipment. It would really help if you had a better understanding of what all this does, and then you’d know which are the most valuable items. Although this is all state-of-the art equipment, much of it stems from biological concepts that have been known much longer. In 1912, for instance, we first started to learn of the importance of vitamins…’

“’Shut up!’ I was told. ‘Just show us what’s in the next rooms. We haven’t got all night!’

“’Well, alright, I’ll show you where I keep the vitamin ventrification units that I was trying to describe. But the room is fairly small. One of you can come in to lift them…’

“By then, I’d maneuvered them where I wanted them, and my double-talk seemed to have lulled them into a false sense of security. The skinny leader was naturally reluctant, and sent his biggest goon in with me.  

"'Hey..' said the big lug, 'this vitamin-thingee looks a lot like water heater.'

"But he didn't get to say anymore, because when he turned around I was gone. Sealed in the small boiler room, I had shrunk down to doll size. Taking care of this one was as simple as tying his shoelaces together and pushing on his foot with my full-sized strength. He toppled over into the water heater, smacked his head good and hard, and lost his gun in the tumble. While he lied there, groaning, I grew back to full size, pulled down his jacket, and used its sleeves to bind his arms behind his back.

"I was sure by now that these crooks didn't know I was Dollman, or they never would have separated like that. So what was the secret they thought they knew? I had to find out, but that meant capturing the other three, and still not spoiling my secret identity.  I had shrank back down just in time, because the door opened. The talkative one tried to get some responses out of the big lug on the floor about what happened and where I had gone, but by then I had slipped around the open door, grew back to full size, and closed it fast.  Grabbing a nearby chair, I jammed it under the door handle just as the crook started to pound on the other side.

"Glancing around the room, I noticed that what I had called my ‘endocrinagitor' was already gone. It was then I realized that I had already made my first grave mistake, because even though they had only taken a cabinet I stored some chemicals in, it occurred to me that some of those chemicals were volatile.  If these crooks were as bad at driving as they were at robbing scientists, then they were in for some trouble unless I stopped them before they left.

"I'd shrunk back down in time before the two goons who'd moved the cabinet came back in, and just as the doorknob to the boiler room was shot off from the inside.  Now I had all four of them to deal with again, though the big lug was rubbing a big red spot on his head and still looked groggy.  The crooks quickly compared notes, and their leader came up with the theory that I had somehow escaped out of the boiler room through a secret passage or some such thing.  One of the two movers got scared and said I must have been on my way to get the cops. They might have bolted for their truck outside, so I had to act fast to keep them with me.  Using the tables and cabinets spread throughout the room for cover, I could walk around the whole room as if invisible. And that's what I did – I walked right over to a side door, and opened it as slowly as I could. To the crooks, it creaked open eerily.

"'What is this place, haunted?' one of them asked.

"'Don't be stupid, it's just that kooky doc! And it means he's still in here somewhere.  I'll show him that no one makes a fool out of Toby Braddon!  Joe, Mitch, check out that door.  Moose, stay by that boiler room and make sure he doesn't double back through there.'

"Joe and Mitch were slow and cautious on entering the side room, which was a secondary lab with cages of test rats in it. Their slow approach had bought me enough time to race ahead of them a few rooms to the circuit breakers, and I plunged the secondary lab into darkness after they entered.  When I crept back in, they were still searching the room, and arguing over what was wrong with the lights. In the dim light from the front room, I was able to sneak past them and slam that door shut. It was now plenty dark in the lab -- dark enough for me to grow back to full size behind one of them with some things in my hands I had picked up from the room -- a rag and a bottle of chloroform. The crook fought against my grip, but in vain, and he dropped to the floor just as the other one got the door to the front lab open again.

"‘Boss, he got Joe somehow!' Mitch yelled out."

“The door to the testing lab flung open, flooding the room with light that revealed the truth of Mitch’s words. I’d taken one down again, and had to stop the rest of these crooks fast. Mitch wanted to pick up his fallen comrade, but Toby ordered him not to, and the two crooks resumed searching for me back-to-back, with their guns held high. They made it into the storage room, but by then I’d already killed the lights to that room as well, and even had a minute to string up a tripwire trap in the dark. Toby had found my flashlight in the testing lab, but Mitch was stumbling around blind and went down from the tripwire. He let out a yelp of surprise as he hit the pool of pitch I had provided, a bucket’s worth left over from when the lab’s roof had been fixed in the spring. Toby had some harsh words to say for his underling, but had to stoop over to help him up. That gave me time to grow back to full-size outside the room, come running back in, and give Toby a quick kick to the rear. While Toby was sprawled out on top of a sticky Mitch, I scooped up their dropped guns. I don’t like guns, and I don’t use them when I fight crime, but I didn’t want these hoods thinking I was too heroic. I ordered them at gunpoint to sit on the floor with their backs together, and then I tied them up tight with a roll of insulated wire.

“I had just finished knotting the wire when I heard Moose hollering for his buddies out in the main lab.  Apparently, he had come to his senses – such as they were – and I was going to have to take him down again. But as I snuck through the testing lab to get closer, I heard another, much more familiar voice as well. I could tell it was my girlfriend, Martha. I took the last sip from the shrinking potion I had on me, and snuck in for a closer look.

“Moose was shouting, ‘Boss! Come out, I think I’ve got the doc’s girlfriend here!’  Sure enough, Martha had chosen just the wrong moment to visit the lab, and the dumb lug had grabbed her.  I knew Martha was a feisty girl, and might even get out of this on her own, but there was no taking chances since Moose had a gun in his hands again.

“I slowly opened a drawer where I knew a funnel to be, and I spoke through it like a megaphone. ‘Alright, don’t hurt her! I’ll come out!’ I said.

“’Oh, she’ll get it, if you don’t come out with whatever you’re working on for the government!’

“So, that was the big secret they thought they knew – some small-time crooks had gotten wind that I had a military contract and thought I had some super-weapon.  They didn’t even suspect that my secret weapon was a shrinking formula. But Martha didn’t know my secret yet either, back then, so I had to get her out of the room…and a plan occurred to me that would work if Moose was dumb enough. I did my best impression of his boss, Toby. 'I've got the doc,' I said.

'Shove the girl in the boiler room!' Sure enough, Moose was used to obeying orders without questioning them. When Martha was shut safely away, I slipped in front of him, sipped the last of my growth potion, held my fist over my head, and waited to connect with his jaw.

One call to the police later, the crooks were taken care of, and my secrets were all safe."

Dollman had scarcely finished before the Flash was ready for his tale.

“My story has to do with sunken treasure,” the Flash began, “and how I helped a poor man escape a crowd of swashbuckling cutthroats! The Sancta Joanna, a Spanish galleon, went down

off the coast of Panama in 1567. It was laden with gold plate and precious jewels from the Aztec treasure houses. Many attempts had been made to find it but none of them had been successful. It lay in green-blue waters, unseen by man for centuries.

MY JSA - pt. 3

At first I thought Luthor was leaving as the plane started to pull away, but then I realized that he was just getting the plane in position for a dive. I took the moment's delay to make one last desperate bid for shore. With Lois tucked under one arm, I did a one-handed stroke as fast as I could go. As a California beach grew closer, so did Luthor's plane. The drone of his engines grew louder as it dropped through the sky towards me. He was either out of bombs or just decided to try a different tactic. If he planned on firing bullets at me, I'd be safe, but I couldn't guarantee Lois' safety so long as I was pinned down in the water.

"Finally, my feet hit land. I leapt out of the surf, cleared the beach, and landed on dry grass. Now I could deal with Luthor. Looking up, I could just make out Luthor in the cockpit of the plane. He was close enough that he could have started firing at me a full minute earlier, but he was too busy savoring the moment and lost his chance. I saw the gunsels drop open and I saw the bursts of light as they fired, but by then I was in the air again and hurtling straight towards the plane.

Bullets whizzed past me, and Luthor was still trying to fix on my last position when he found himself scrambling to get me in his sights again. Before that could happen, I crashed into the propeller of his plane and shattered its blades. I punched my arm through the front of the plane to keep from falling before the plane did, and that was already starting to loose altitude. Then I saw the back of the plane open, and Luthor jumped out, harnessed to a metal hang glider with rockets on it. ‘I cede this duel to you, Superman!' Luthor yelled with a laugh before zooming off over the ocean.

"Naturally I survived the crash, and got Lois to the nearest hospital. She regained consciousness almost right away, but they kept her there under observation for three weeks.  It was nearly that long before her blurry vision went away. This was all last February, so I visited her on St. Valentine's Day in my civilian identity with a bouquet of roses. I explained to her how the plane we had been on landed safely, how only she had fallen out of the plane, and how I had seen Superman leap out of another plane and catch her. As for Luthor, I haven't seen him or his island, Pacifica, since."

"You haven't been back to look for him?" the Flash blurted out, clearly impatient from having to wait so long to ask.

"Well, no," Superman replied. "I've been busy with criminals, fires -- the standard stuff -- and as long as Luthor is busy trying to repair his artificial island I don't have to worry about him trying to take over the world."

"Why don't we all go to Pacifica and look for Luthor?" the Flash asked. "I'd sure like to see some dinosaurs..."

"Hold on," Capt. Marvel interrupted. "Is this an official motion?"

"It doesn't have to be," the Flash said. "I'm just saying a few of us should get together after our meeting and go see how tough this Luthor character is."

"If Superman will show us where it is, I can take as many there as want to go," offered Skyman.

Batman leaned forward and looked around the table.

"Am I next, then?" he asked.

"Well…" began Ibis the Invincible. "Technically I predate all of you by 3,000 years - except perhaps Hawkman - but I sense we're going in order of our more contemporary adventures."

"I think we can wait until you've had your turn, Batman," Hawkman said. "And I know Dollman is going before me too."

"I've been thinking about what story to tell," Batman began, "and I'm sure I've had no adventures any more exciting than the rest of you have had.  But I think the most exciting, if not the most dangerous adventure, is always your first encounter with the supernatural. Unlike some of you who have supernatural origins, I was just an ordinary man who had the resources and training to become a mystery man. Though I had studied under a magician during my training, I had thought then that magic was no more than parlor tricks.

"Like Superman I'm at a disadvantage, because I've told this story before to the Shadow, so I won't go over the whole thing again. But just last year, I encountered a villain who was something much other than human.

"It was the Batgyro's first trans-Atlantic flight, but I made it to Paris with ounces of gasoline to spare. It was a risky flight, but I hadn't wanted to waste time trying to get my costume and paraphernalia past customs while my fiancée Julie's life may have been in danger. I had sent her abroad in the hopes of either keeping her away from the villains who had hypnotized her in New York or, better yet, luring them out in the open. I had to stash the Batgyro well away from the airport, change clothes, disguise myself, and backtrack to the airport before she left. In my true identity I wasn't supposed to be in France and I wasn't ready to share my secret life with her yet.

"It wasn't long before I noticed I wasn't the only one following her. Another man was trailing her. He looked to be in his mid-30's, with handsome features, a fine brown moustache, and wearing a black suit and matching wide-brimmed hat. As the man got into a cab to follow Julie's cab, I raced over and muscled into the backseat behind him. I apologized in the worst French I could manage for making him share the cab, and told the driver I needed to go to a hotel but it didn't matter which. I was lucky that the stranger didn't think anything suspicious of me, and he told the driver to take us to whatever hotel the cab in front of us was going. We were soon at the Hotel Raphael. I watched the strange man linger in the lobby while Julie checked in, and I saw him get into an elevator next to hers when she went up to her room. I sprinted for the stairwell, quick-changed into my costume, wedged my suitcase and street clothes into a fire hose case, and reached the 5th floor, where they had both gone, just as the strange man was getting off the elevator.

"I was on the strange man's back in an instant, with one hand over his mouth, and pulling him back into the open elevator behind him. In the next instant, I found he was pushing me into the elevator, and before I could shift my weight I hit the back wall hard. The man wrinkled his nose and seemed to be sniffing me. Then he said, 'You!' as if he had just recognized me.

"I knew I was in trouble when I folded my legs up between us and then kicked out at him -- he was barely pushed back! He caught himself in the doorway just as the elevator was closing and pulled himself back inside. He slammed his fist on the buttons for the lower floors and the doors closed on us.

"After all the weight lifting I had done in my training, I was unaccustomed to fighting thugs stronger than me – especially ones as slight of build as this fellow. I was also unprepared for fighting in such cramped quarters. The elevator car didn't leave any room for kicking. Luckily my opponent didn't seem to have much martial training, as he just kept swinging his arms at me. Most of the time, I was able to dodge and get in a good punch before he could swing again. I smacked him in the face, and then went for his solar plexus, but he was shrugging off my blows like they were more irritating than painful. He connected with me a few times, and I sure felt each blow!

"A minute later, the door opened onto the second floor of the hotel. I was able to maneuver between him and the door so that I had room to judo flip him into the hallway when he next swung at me.  Though he landed on his back, he was getting back up on his feet again in no time. He was stronger than me and almost as fast! I resorted to a groin kick to buy me some time and leapfrogged over him.  There was a room service dolly just a few doors down, and I grabbed from it a steak knife and the lid from the entree platter. This fight was taking way too long and was too dangerous. I was prepared to end it quickly with the steak knife if I had to, but for awhile I tried feinting with the knife while I swung the lid into the side of his head a few times. That was making him really mad. The stranger who had looked so debonair while shadowing Julie was now a drooling, snarling, savage fighter. I was fighting hard too, as I had to keep moving constantly or he would have grabbed me. I didn't care to find out if I could escape his hold.

"Our fight went all the way down to the far end of the hallway, with me always a half step ahead of his next swing or punch. Then I turned my back on him and started to run for the door to the stairwell, but that too was just a feint. I anticipated his lunge for me, and twisted in time to use the same judo throw on him. This time his momentum sent him crashing into the stairwell door so hard that he broke it open and tumbled inside. I was on him before he could recover, delivering a hard kick that sent him sprawling down the stone steps to the lower landing. I took a moment to catch my breath and see if the fall had killed him. It hadn't. He was already picking himself up from the landing, but he was getting bigger too. His clothes were shredding from his back, and his face was twisting and elongating as it sprouted shaggy fur. The transformation seemed as painful for him as it was to watch, and twice as startling. I had been fighting a real werewolf!"

Scotty Thunder looked around the table once more at the great heroes sitting around him. They had long since stopped glancing back at him, and were thoroughly engrossed in Batman's story. No one else even raised an eyebrow when Batman said he had been fighting a werewolf.  Scotty, however, was bothered by this revelation.  Although he had started believing in magic when his wishes started coming true, he had given no thought to the existence of other such things. If magic was real, and so were werewolves, did that mean vampires and ghosts were real too?

Scotty gulped and decided against asking anyone.  Scotty poked at the clams on his plate, having also decided not to mention to anyone that he didn't like seafood. A waiter was coming around to refill glasses, but the heroes had only been sipping their white wine lightly and all had half glasses left. Scotty took another sip from his and went back to listening.

"It was the Shadow," Batman said with a nod to his mentor at the table, "who first taught me to believe in the supernatural. Without his guidance, I probably would have been struck dumb by the shock of it. But when that werewolf bounded up the stairs at me, I already had a batarang out in each hand and slashed at him with their sharp tips. He had claws, and now so did I. But he still had the advantage on me in combat. My 'claws' weren't really hurting or even bothering him, and I still had to watch out for his teeth and greater strength.

"One of my batarangs was attached to a silken cord spooled into my belt, and after releasing some slack, I was able to use the batarang and cord to trip the werewolf several times. Since he never switched fighting style from ferocious lunges, I managed to send him flying through another door using my 'trip cord.' My plan was to wear him out, if not knock him unconscious, but the room was unfortunately occupied and the couple in bed started yelling and screaming in French. I tumbled low into the room, luckily missing a table that had been thrown at my head. I came out of my roll with a vial of acid in my hand that I kept in my belt for locks -- but instead I whipped the vial into the werewolf's open jaws. He bit down reflexively and howled as his mouth was burned by the acid and cut by the glass. I lowered my head, raised my arms, and plowed into him, carrying the stunned monster all the way across the room and through the balcony doors.

"Shards of glass showered the narrow balcony, and my drive towards the railing stopped at the last moment as the werewolf regained its balance and was able to push back. I twisted clear of the broken glass in the doorway and fell back into the room. The couple was on their feet, and I herded them towards the hallway as fast as I could. Luckily, the werewolf was still stunned by the acid burns in its mouth, and was trying to fan its tongue by wagging it like a dog."

"Where did you find a silver weapon?" Ibis the Invincible asked the Batman.

"A good deduction, but there's one flaw," the Batman countered. "You need a silver weapon to kill a werewolf, but not to stop one.  I had everything I needed in the hotel room around me.

The acid I'd used had killed its sense of taste.  Perfume from the dresser sprayed in its face killed its sense of smell. A blanket over his head blinded his eyes. I disengaged the wire spool from my belt and tied it to a belt, which I got around its waist as it shredded the blanket. Then I threw my batarang, with the wire attached, off the balcony and snagged a passing van. Just as the werewolf was ready to take another lunge at me, it went hurtling out the window, and must have been drug for a half-mile before it got free.  I may not have killed my first werewolf, but it had to have crawled away by the time I got to where the bus had stopped.

"That wasn't the last of the supernatural I'd encounter that trip, and I had quite a showdown with a creature that called itself The Monk before I'd freed my fiancé. But I never again faced the unknown without knowing I could handle it."

"And with that," Capt. Marvel said, " I call a short recess."