Superman Movieverse Forum

Rumors of War
Wars can be prevented just as surely as they can be provoked, and we who fail to prevent them must share in the guilt for the dead.
Omar Nelson Bradley
U.S. General of the Army (1893-1981)

“Have I told you recently how much I love you, Missus Kent?” Clark asked. His voice was husky with want.

“Only a dozen times… but don’t stop,” Lois murmured. “I like it, Mister Kent.” She rolled over on top of him, pinning him to the quilt they’d spread over the hay in the barn loft. “Tell me, how often did you bring your girl friends up here?” She felt his chest rumble with silent laughter.

“Lana preferred the back seat of her dad’s Chevy,” Clark told her. “And we never went this far.”

“Rachel said she had a lot of fun after the prom…”

“At an all night diner over in Great Bend,” Clark told her. “We had apple pie and coffee and ended up with the local sheriff’s deputy waking us up about dawn in the back of my dad’s pickup. We were both fully clothed by the way.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that was the story Rachel was telling.” Lois started laughing again as a blush climbed up his cheeks.

“Lois!”

“Clark, Lois…” Martha’s voice called out from somewhere below. “Pastor Linquist is here and Mister White is on the phone.”

Lois started laughing. “Busted!” she chortled, handing Clark his jeans.

He just shook his head as he sped into his clothes. “I’ll meet you down stairs. If Perry’s called the house, it can’t be good.”



Martha simply raised one eyebrow at him as Clark climbed down the ladder to the loft and took the wireless phone from her hand.

“Yes, Perry, what’s going on?”

“Have you caught GNN recently?” Perry White’s gruff voice came over the speaker.

“Uh, no,” Clark told him as he hurried into the house. “I’ll have it on in a second.” He grabbed the remote from the coffee table and flipped through the channels on the big screen until the familiar faces of the GNN weekend newsreaders appeared on the screen.

“And for those just tuning in: the ongoing territorial dispute between Latislan and Podansk is threatening to deteriorate into armed violence amidst accusations of partisanship on the part of the United States and the neighboring European Union states. This follows Superman’s repair of a failing dam yesterday on the Obyarsk River on the Latislan side of the border. This repair is alleged to have raised the river level above that dam well beyond flood stage, causing damage to the Podansk-Obyarskaya hydroelectric facility two hundred kilometers up river from the border of the two nations.”

Old archive footage of the Podansk-Obyarskaya dam came on screen, inset with satellite photos of the current situation. It was bad. The river below the massive structure appeared to be a muddy, swirling torrent. The generator houses were nearly underwater.

“Thus far,” the newsreader continued, “Superman has been unavailable for comment.”

“Well?” Perry asked. Clark knew he was watching the same footage on his office monitor.

“Perry, there’s no way the dams downstream could hold if the water is that high at that point. Superman’s repair raised the height of the one he worked on by, maybe, a meter…”

More archive footage came on the screen: Superman speaking with General Navance and President Kasparov just after the signing of the border treaty Superman had helped negotiate. The agreement had been finalized no more than a month before he left Metropolis to prepare for his trip to Krypton.

“Superman needs to show his face, make a comment,” Perry was saying.

“I’ll see what I can do, Chief,” Clark promised.

“Trouble?” Lois asked as Clark hit the ‘end’ button on the phone.

Clark nodded. He studied the photos on the screen as they went back to showing the satellite shots of the hydroelectric plant. “They’re blaming Superman for the flooding at the hydroelectric dam.”

“And Perry wants the story covered yesterday?”

Clark nodded, lips drawn thin in worry and annoyance. After six years of something resembling peace, the two former Soviet territories should have been able to work out their differences. Instead it seemed they were just looking for an excuse to start killing one another again. He hoped they didn’t have nukes, but since they’d both had them at the time they signed their treaty, it was likely they both still had them, even though the treaty had called for them both to destroy their nuclear armaments.

“Do you want me to drive you to the airport?” Lois asked.

“I’ll grab my stuff,” Clark said, heading upstairs.  He reappeared moments later with his carryon bag. He gave Martha a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll call when I get in,” he promised. He nodded to Linquist standing in the kitchen. The poor man looked confused. He had, no doubt, come over to handle his pastoral duties – to get to the truth about Clark’s sudden acquisition of both a wife and child.

But his presence made leaving to handle the problems in Latislan and Podasnk more difficult. Lois started the rental car and Clark climbed into the passenger side.

“I’ll grab a cup of coffee at the airport then come back,” Lois told him as she pulled the car onto the road. “So is that the preacher who bored you to tears way back when?”

“No. That was Pastor Wallace. This is Pastor Linquist. Wallace retired when I was in sixth grade or so and Linquist was his replacement. Dad wasn’t much for church, that was always Mom’s thing, but Linquist was okay. He was always a pretty good listener.”

“Should I expect the third degree when I get back to the house?” Lois asked, only half joking.

“I hope he’ll be more subtle than that.” 

Lois slowed the car and pulled to the side of the road. Clark got out and sped into the blue and red suit.

“Be careful,” Lois ordered.

“I will,” he promised before he disappeared over the horizon.



Superman’s first stop was the area of the dam he had repaired the day before. That dam was holding. In fact, the water level behind it was lower than he’d been expecting. The refugees were safe. There were no elevated heartbeats indicating extreme stress or worry – only the normal stresses of living out of tents instead of their homes. He took care to stay in the darkness, speed slow enough not to generate sonic booms.

He headed up river toward Podansk and the power plant. He spotted the problem – multiple landslides had blocked the channel below the power plant. While the water wasn’t as high as the GNN photos had indicated, it was still dangerously high and it was only a matter of time, hours possibly days, before the natural dam was breached, restoring the river’s flow downstream. If it happened slowly, and if he could get the biggest chunks of debris out of the way, the chances were good the dams further down the river, especially the Rauvin hydroelectric dam that served most of Latislan, wouldn’t be endangered.

He heard voices by the landslide debris, the snick of a switch being thrown. Then there was blinding flash and the concussion of an explosion, followed by several more. Water and debris came pouring over the natural dam. Within seconds boulders were torn from the river bottom, careening toward the earthen dam that protected the valley further down. There was a scream, but it was cut off before he could locate the source.

Superman took a deep breath and blew, freezing as much of the mass of water and debris as he could to slow the rush downstream. The water stopped, but he knew the ice dam wouldn’t hold for long.

He flew to the nearest refugee encampment. “Get to higher ground! The dam’s going to go!” The people he had rescued from the threatening dam only the night before rushed around, gathering what they could before they ran up the steep paths to even higher ground.

Another explosion. Telescopic vision revealed a military-style helicopter over-flying the ice dam – at least what was left of it. The helicopter fired another missile into the ice dam and the rest of it broke, releasing the torrent of boulders, uprooted trees, and muddy water to head downstream toward the other dams. He took a moment to inspect the helicopter and detected the tell-tale glow of kryptonite in the cabin.



“The government of Latislan is claiming over a thousand dead as a direct result of the destruction of the Rauvin dam. Half the country is without power. General Navance is screaming bloody murder,” Perry White said quietly. He watched Clark’s shoulders sag in resignation. “He wants to know why Superman didn’t stop it.”

“Superman tried,” Clark responded. He didn’t bother to keep the disgust out of his voice as he looked up from his monitor. He’d come onto the newsroom floor less than half an hour before to find Perry waiting for him.

“Somebody wanted to make sure that one: the lower river dams didn’t make it, and two: that Superman was blamed. The river just downstream of the Podansk-Obyarskaya was blocked by later landslides. Not the raising of the Triel earth dam by a meter. It’s possible, in fact I’d say probable, that the later landslides were helped along. When Superman arrived to scope out the situation, the blockage was broken by high explosives. At least one of the men responsible died when the explosives went off.”

“Any way to identify them?”

Clark shook his head. “Military style uniforms, no patches, no rank marks. Nothing on the helicopter either. Standard cabin and control layout. All in Russian, which doesn’t mean much in that part of the world. No aircraft ID visible. For the rest, well Superman was a little busy.”

“GNN and the State Department both want to talk to him,” Perry reminded him.

“I guess he’ll have to show his face then,” Clark responded. After eight months, Clark was still getting used to the idea that Perry White, editor of the Daily Planet, knew and was okay with keeping Superman’s secrets. It made both of Clark’s jobs easier – at least Perry wasn't likely to fire him for disappearing suddenly, sometimes for days, so long as a Superman exclusive came out of it with either Lois Lane or Clark Kent’s byline on it. But it was still disconcerting to have Perry calling him on his cell phone and letting him know about emergencies that needed Superman’s attention.



“Superman’s on TV,” Jason called out. He was sitting, playing with the device Lara and Jor-El had given him, ignoring the adults sitting around the table in the farm house kitchen.

Lois, Martha and Pastor Linquist hurried into the living room to watch the breaking news. Lois settled on the sofa next to Jason. On the screen Superman was standing in front of a microphone in front of gray drapes with a U.S. State Department seal displayed against them. The hero looked decidedly uncomfortable, hands folded at his waist. A couple of bureaucratic types in non-descript suits stood just to one side of him. Lois spotted Linda King standing in the front row of the journalists that had made it to the hastily called press conference.

“As you are well aware,” Superman began, “heavy un-seasonal rains in the mountains of Podansk and Latislan have created severe landslides within the river valley that contains most of the hydropower generation capacity of both nations.  Although attempts were made yesterday to shore up one of the critical river control dams, the Triel dam, subsequent slides and human interference has resulted in the breach of both the Rauvin dam and the Triel dam, resulting in substantial loss of life within the nation of Latislan.”

“Superman,” Linda King called out. “You said human interference? I assume you don’t mean yourself?”

“Correct, Ms. King,” Superman said, nodding in her direction. “As soon as I arrived on the scene I evaluated the situation. I had a plan for removing the most dangerous debris from the river and minimize the danger to the Podansk-Obyarskaya facility. I was not permitted to implement that plan. Instead, unknown parties set off explosives near that dam, creating an uncontrollable surge of water and debris that overtopped the Triel dam and breached the Rauvin dam, severely damaging the hydroelectric facility there. Attempts on my part to minimize the damage were actively thwarted by parties using unmarked military type equipment.”

“So you claim that the accusations being leveled at you by the governments of Podansk and Latislan are completely unfounded?” This from a reporter Lois didn’t recognize.

“I regret that I was unable to give as much assistance as the flood situation warranted. Or as much as I wanted,” Superman admitted. “However, as many of you are already aware, since my return from Krypton and the events that occurred at that time, I have attempted to avoid places and situations where people are lobbing missiles at me, especially when they have kryptonite. The parties responsible for breaching the dams were in possession of kryptonite.”

Lois saw the expressions on the faces of the two government agents turn grim at Superman’s statement. Superman stepped aside to allow the taller of the State Department men to take the microphone.

“The United States government has already extended offers of emergency assistance to both Latislan and Podansk...”

“Mommy, was somebody shooting at Superman again?” Jason asked.

“That’s what it sounds like,” Lois told him.

“But that’s not nice,” Jason complained.

“No, it’s not nice,” Martha agreed.

“You like Superman, don’t you, Jason?” Linquist asked.

Lois found herself smiling at Jason’s answer: “Of course. He’s Superman. He can fly and he’s friends with me and Mommy.”

“And your father?”

Jason looked up at Linquist. “Superman was Daddy Richard’s friend, too.”

“What about Clark?”

Jason nodded. “He couldn’t help Daddy Richard when the bad people came. And then the bad bald man hurt Clark, I mean, Dad… The bad bald man hurt Superman too. That’s why he couldn’t help.” Jason turned and gave his mother a puzzled look. “Mommy, why do people want to hurt Superman?”

Lois sighed. They’d had the same conversation several times, beginning when they both went to visit Superman in the hospital after Luthor’s attempt to conquer the planet by misusing Kryptonian technology. “Some people are afraid of him because he’s so powerful and he’s from another planet,” Lois explained. “Other people are afraid he’ll stop them from doing the bad things they want to do.”

“And some people don’t really believe that anyone can be as good, or honest, or helpful as he seems to be,” Linquist added. “That scares people too. And scared people sometimes do very hurtful and bad things.”

“Dad says: ‘People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway.’”

Linquist chuckled. “That sounds like Clark. Jonathan, too, for that matter. I still have the copy of the Paradoxical Commandments he gave me when I first moved to Smallville. It’s in my office.”

“Clark has a copy of it at home,” Lois told him. “And he gave a copy to our boss last Christmas.” Lois chuckled. “Perry has it in his office, too.”



‘People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered…’ the first line of the framed poster read. You got that right, Perry thought as he looked out over the bullpen. Clark had come in a few minutes before and was now in the process of booting up his computer. The editor studied the reporter for a long moment. Clark looked worried. Perry suspected it was because of the problems in Latislan and Podansk.

He heaved himself out of his leather chair and crossed the newsroom to Clark’s desk. “What’ve you got?” he asked.

Clark glanced up at him. “More questions than answers. Seven years ago, both those countries’ leaders agreed to a peace settlement that included provisions for the United Nations to mediate border issues and oversee the demolition of their nuclear stockpiles. And now they’re…” He sat back in his chair frowning in frustration.

“And now it looks like things are worse than before?” Perry asked.

Clark nodded. “Even the weather seems to be conspiring against them. I’ve never seen flooding like that, not without a hurricane or monsoon being involved. And then to have the dams deliberately breached like that… If I didn’t know Luthor was dead, I’d be wondering how much he was involved.”

“You know, they still haven’t found his body,” Jimmy Olsen commented from his own desk just across the aisle from Clark’s. “Maybe somebody figured out a way to save his brain...”

“You’re trying to give me nightmares, right?” Clark asked. Perry suspected he was only half joking.

“I’m going to ask Eduardo to assign somebody to help you with this,” Perry said. Eduardo Valdez had been promoted to the assistant editor slot soon after Richard White’s death. International news fell under his purview while Superman was generally covered by Lois Lane and/or Clark Kent. It made for interesting territorial maneuvering in the newsroom when Superman was working overseas – like now.

“Sounds good,” Clark said. His tone said he didn’t believe it. Perry smiled, taking care that Clark didn’t see.

Lois Lane was the second or third best journalist in the world – at least in Perry White’s not-so-humble opinion. Clark Kent was second only to Lois Lane. And although they worked beautifully as a team, over the years Perry had determined that neither played all that well with others. Lois had prompted the resignations of a number of promising youngsters who had the misfortune of being partnered with her as they learned the ropes.  Clark had shown his mettle by sticking it through – now he and Lois were married. But when Perry had tried partnering Clark with other reporters earlier in his career at the Planet, they too left. While Clark wasn’t abrasive or abusive in the way Lois was, he didn’t suffer fools gladly. He was polite and outwardly understanding about their errors but he had no patience with those who didn’t learn from their mistakes.

Lois Lane was the one, the only, exception to that rule. But then, Lois was one of the best in the business. Her inability to spell words of more than two syllables was legendary – but those weren’t mistakes. It was simply evidence that her mind was working faster than her fingers could type and the thesaurus in her head couldn’t be accessed fast enough.

Perry spotted the International editor crossing the newsroom to get a cup of coffee. “Eduardo, who have you got working on that fubar in Eastern Europe?”

“Natalia Korchek,” Eduardo answered. “She was raised near there.”

Perry nodded. “She’s working with Kent on this. Get research started on pulling up every thing we have on that area, starting with Superman’s involvement in ‘99.” He turned to Clark. “Sunday feature. ‘What Went Wrong.’ Superman had a peace settlement all sewn up before he took off. What happened?”

Clark nodded. “I’m sure Superman would like answers to those questions.”

“I assume we can have Superman’s input on this?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Clark said. “He’s supposed to be meeting with some people from the State Department tomorrow.”

Perry snorted. “Proving once again that the role of diplomacy is to prolong a crisis?”

“Uh… yeah.”

A young woman with dark hair and dark eyes approached them. In her arms was a stack of books, papers and CDs. “Where would you like them?” she asked. Her voice held a hint of Slavic.

“How about you use the spare office,” Perry suggested. The ‘spare’ office was a small room next to the International editor’s office. It had been used variously for storage, a temporary nursery, even an emergency flop. Currently it had a worn sofa-bed, a desk, and a computer terminal for visitors to use. It wasn’t the most comfortable office, but it would give them the quiet and the room they were likely to need.

Clark nodded and moved to take some of the books and papers from his new ‘assistant’. Perry watched after them as they made their way to their temporary station. Jimmy hurried to join them.

“So, I guess you and Lois had some excitement yesterday…” Jimmy was saying.

Perry chuckled to himself and Clark gave him a quizzical look. “AP ran it. ‘Visiting hometown hero saves two after freak boating accident’,” Perry quoted. “I’m sure it’s posted in the staff lounge by now. By the way, reporters are supposed to cover the news, not be the news.”

Clark seemed to start shrinking in on himself as if trying for actual invisibility. Then he caught himself and straightened up to not quite his full height. “Somebody had to do it,” he said simply.



Clark sighed in frustration. The key to what was happening between Podansk and Latislan this time was somewhere in the pile of documents on the desk. His journalist’s instinct said so.

He was familiar with the history of the area – under-populated, land-locked, and barely able to grow enough food to feed themselves much less support the infrastructure required for industrialization. The area had fallen under the ‘influence’ of the Soviet Union during the height of its power. The Soviet’s heavy hand had put a stop to the incessant inter-tribal warfare that seemed to be the primary leisure activity of the hill and mountain people.

When the Soviet Union came apart, the United Nations stepped in to help the region’s population make the transition to a democratic and free market society. The area was also divided into two nations along ‘ethnic’ lines. But the first ‘free’ elections saw two dictators come into power - dictators of tiny, dirt poor nations who had nuclear weapons thanks to the precipitous withdrawal of Soviet military personnel.

The area settled into an uneasy peacefulness. Both nations discovered that as long as crime and violence was kept to a minimum and the trains ran on time, they could attract tourism. The relatively unspoiled beauty of the mountains, the water recreation areas behind the dams, all attracted Western tourists and cash.

Then a wealth of mineral deposits were found in the areas adjacent to the border between the two nations. Both countries laid claim to the whole of the deposits leading to attempts by both sides to invade and annex portions of the other’s territory. That was when Superman stepped in to separate the two sides and to convince them to sit down together to hammer out an equitable solution – a mining trust whose board was drawn from both governments. The trust’s sole purpose was to safely mine the ores and market them, equitably disbursing the profits. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.

Clark still wondered how he had managed to keep his job at the Planet during the negotiations. They had dragged on for weeks, straining even his unearthly patience. And all during that time, Clark Kent had been missing from his desk in the newsroom. He had been sending in stories concerning the negotiations and some of them had actually made it into the paper but it certainly wasn’t what Perry had said he wanted him to be doing. He has supposed to have been working with Lois on tracking down the source and impact of ‘designer’ drugs coming into the city. But Perry never said a word about it when Clark finally made it back to his desk. Did Perry suspect the truth even then?

“You know, it looks like the treaty broke down about two years ago,” Jimmy commented. “That’s when the weather patterns changed. Podansk got hit hardest. Major crop failures, rationing. It was bad. Kasparov wanted to make adjustments in how the money from the mining trust was distributed. Navance wasn’t keen on the idea, vetoed it.” He handed Clark the series of articles he had been skimming. Clark noted the byline on the series: Richard White.

“Richard was the one covering this?” Clark asked.

“Well, yeah,” Jimmy said. “That’s one of the reasons Mister White brought him in after Old Man Schmitz retired. While you were covering the story here, he was covering it over there. I remember Mister White saying he would have liked to team the two of you up.”

“Well, we both know what happened when he did,” Clark commented softly. Richard was dead and Clark had very nearly died at the hands of Lex Luthor.

Jimmy shrugged. “Well, anyway, after you left, Richard got transferred here and became our resident expert on that area of the world. I think he was even planning on writing a book about it.”

Clark grabbed the handset for the desk phone and quickly tapped in a number from memory. After a few rings the other end picked up.

“Hello?”

“Mom, is Lois there?”

“Of course…” He heard his mother calling Lois’s name and the phone being handed off.

“Yes Clark?” Lois asked, coming on the line.

“Honey, Jimmy says Richard was thinking about writing a book about Latislan and Podansk?”

“Thinking about it?” Lois asked. “He finished his first draft just before… Well, just before you came back.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know where it is, along with his notes?” Clark asked.

“In the basement file cabinet. In the top drawer,” Lois responded. “Why?”

“I’m trying to get a handle on what went wrong over there and I’m not getting anywhere,” Clark explained. “There’s something missing, something that didn’t get into the press, maybe because it couldn’t be substantiated – a rumor, an allegation, anything.”

“Well, I remember when the reports came in on the drought two years ago, Richard started looking into weather patterns and things like that,” Lois said. “He was convinced the weather changes there weren’t an act of nature. But he couldn’t find any hard evidence to support it.”



Clark spent the evening reviewing the files in the basement cabinet. After Richard’s death Lois and Clark had gone through Richard’s files, destroying the article notes that were more than two years old. Two years was the statute of limitation on libel in New Troy and the Planet had a standing policy that general article notes should be held at least that long. Both Clark and Lois also had a habit of holding onto investigation notes far longer – you never knew when a book offer might come by. It seemed that Richard had many of the same ideas.

Lois hadn’t gone through Richard’s book and investigation notes at all.

The book itself was a very comprehensive history of the region. The last two chapters covered the sources of the more recent hostilities.

For a culture that came out of the Dark Ages less than a century ago, matured under the weight of the Soviet machine, the sudden acquisition of wealth and technology may not have been the blessing everyone seemed to think it should be. Only the future will say whether their new wealth was worth the price. But so far, only the arms dealers have benefited.

The weather changes of the past few years were mentioned as a contributing factor in the problem. Richard’s notes said something else – the weather was the key factor. He had compiled a list of people doing weather modification research and there were hand written notes beside each name – possible, maybe, retired, dead…

This was beginning to feel like his and Lois’s hunt for the ‘Sound Man,’ a psychopathic killer who had found a way to turn sound into a deadly weapon. There had been a very short list of researchers capable of building the weapons the Sound Man had used in his attempt to blackmail the city.  One had died, one had been in Antarctica and two had been in Metropolis at the time. As it turned out, last two suspects on their list had been working together. And they had both been mad as hatters.

Clark heard sirens in the distance. He listened for a moment – an apartment house fire near Hob’s Bay. He dropped Richard’s notes on the weather anomalies into his briefcase and sped into his suit. He was in the air almost before the papers settled into the case.



Superman arrived on the scene just in time to rescue two firefighters who had fallen through the floor of one of the ground level shops into the building’s basement. They were bruised but otherwise unharmed. Some of the other building inhabitants weren’t so lucky. An old woman in a wheelchair and two young men – they were found together in one of the back stairwells, overcome by smoke. The basement fire door to that stairwell had been blocked open.

From his own experience, Superman knew that it wasn’t really panic that killed people in a fire – it was lack of knowledge and an underestimating of the dangers of fire and smoke. Despite the mythology, humans didn’t usually panic in emergencies – they reacted logically given the limits of their knowledge of the situation. It was rarely ‘every man for himself.’ Parents made sure the children were safe, husbands made sure their wives were rescued. Neighbors looked after neighbors. Superman had no doubt that the two men had tried valiantly to rescue the old woman. They might have even succeeded if the basement door had been shut.

Superman examined the building and then flew through it, chilling the hot spots, attempting to minimize the damage to the rest of the building – not that it was going to save the building. The fire had started in a back storeroom in one of the shops, a small deli, and had spread to the basement that had been home to cleaning supplies and a workshop. From there the fire had gone on to attack the rest of the five-story building. The back stairwell had acted as a chimney, spreading the smoke and heat throughout the building.

He reported his findings to the fire marshal as soon as the fire was out and the fire crew began collecting their hoses.

“This is the fourth fire in as many months in this same building,” the fire marshal told him. She had introduced herself as Caroline Oswald. She was one of the ‘new’ people, officers who hadn’t been in place when he left for his ill-advised trip to Krypton. Metropolis hadn’t had any female fire marshals when he left and only a handful of female firefighters. Now Metropolis had over a dozen women filling those positions.

“You’re thinking arson?” Superman asked.

She shrugged and he sensed she didn’t want to voice her suspicions.

“I didn’t detect any accellerants usually common to arson,” he told her. “But the storeroom where the fire started had a lot of flammables. Cases of potato chips, cooking oil, that sort of thing.”

“Figures,” Oswald muttered running her hand through her hair. “I hate cases like this.” She looked back over her shoulder at a woman with a young boy standing near one of the fire engines. The woman looked like she was in shock. The boy was watching the fire-fighters with open adoration.

“The woman owns the shop where the fire started,” Oswald said. “The boy’s her son. Maybe now we can get him into early intervention.”

“You don’t think…?” Superman began to ask and then realized that was exactly what she was saying. He had read that arsonists started young, but this was the first time it really struck home. The boy was younger than Jason and, if Oswald was right, he was responsible for the deaths of three people.

“I see,” Superman said. “I’d better get going…”

“Thanks for the assist, Superman,” Oswald said as he lifted off. He gave her a little smile and a wave before sweeping away, above the buildings. He circled high above the city then dove between the skyscrapers to foil any attempts by radar to track him as he headed toward the Daily Planet.

As much as he hated it, a fire with deaths was newsworthy and he was a reporter. The one thing he wouldn’t - couldn’t - write about was that the suspected arsonist wasn’t even in kindergarten yet.



Clark turned in the article on the fire to the night editor and then settled onto the worn sofa in the side office to read through Richard’s research papers. One name on Richard’s list of weather researchers jumped out at him – Professor Clyde Mardon. Although Richard’s notation indicated the man was dead, there was a question mark beside the name as well. There was also something familiar about the name Mardon.

Clark dredged the name up from his memory. Before he had left for Krypton, Superman had been involved in the apprehension of a minor criminal by the name of Mark Mardon. Mardon had robbed a convenience store and started to pistol whip the cashier. It was a simple assault, hardly requiring Superman’s intervention. He had simply been in the neighborhood and the police showed up within minutes. But there had been something ‘creepy’ about Mardon that had stuck in his mind.

A quick search of the Daily Planet database revealed that Mark Mardon’s criminal career had escalated into murder, but he had managed to escape custody while being transported to the prison. Speculation at the time was that he was one of Lex Luthor’s cronies but Luthor himself denied it.

The search also revealed the reasons behind the question marks Richard had placed by Clyde Mardon’s name. Clyde Mardon, a Nobel laureate researcher, had been Mark Mardon’s older brother and although nothing could be proven, the speculation was that Mark had murdered his own brother to gain access to his research on weather manipulation. Soon after Professor Mardon’s death there was a series of bizarre deaths in the town where Mardon’s lab had been – people killed by lightning on perfectly clear days.

Another search on bizarre weather related deaths over the world yielded interesting results. There was a pattern of lighting deaths crossing the world. The last recorded death was in Latislan two years before – a few months after the weather changes were noted in the area. Coincidence? Clark didn’t think so.

It was too early to call STAR Labs to see if they knew anyone who was following up on Clyde Mardon’s research. Nothing in Clark’s web search, or his search of the Daily Planet archives, indicated anyone was continuing his work but Kitty Faulkner would know. And if she didn’t, Lucius Fox over at WayneTech would know.

Clark settled back to wait for STAR Labs’ offices to open. Lois and Jason would be arriving at Berkowitz later in the morning. Clark suspected Lois wasn’t going to too upset with their vacation being cut short a few days. He was actually a little surprised that she had managed to handle staying at the farm as long as she had. Lois didn’t tolerate boredom very well.