The only thing that would keep Luthor and his lackeys in the dark would be the sight of the entire Justice League—all at once, together. And it was beyond J’onn’s resources to provide that.
Or was it . . . ?
An idea taking shape in his head, J’onn changed course and headed for the room where he had stowed the equipment earmarked for the gymnasium. If his scheme worked, he might be able to buy the League some additional time after all.
Luthor strode across the metal flooring of the Watchtower’s central plaza, his footfalls echoing, his gang following in his wake.
“Are you sure about this?” asked Star Sapphire.
“Positive,” said Luthor, not even bothering to look back at her.
The Shade grunted. “You were just as positive when you said there wouldn’t be anyone here to oppose us—and look how that turned out.”
Luthor cast his henchman a withering look. “This time, you’ll see I’m right. There’s no Superman here, no Batman, no Green Lantern. The only member of the Justice League who’s still up here is the cursed Martian Manhunter.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Copperhead.
Luthor glanced at him. “No one cares what you believe.” He turned to Grundy. “Do you care?”
The giant chuckled, making a sound like rocks grating together. “All Grundy cares about is smashing things.”
Luthor smiled. “Now that’s the kind of attitude I like.”
But Copperhead still seemed unconvinced. “The way Wonder Woman used that lasso of hers . . . no one else could have done that.”
It was all right, Luthor thought. Copperhead would change his tune when he saw proof of Luthor’s contention. And that would come soon enough.
Suddenly, he stopped dead in his tracks. But then, he had come as far as he needed to.
Copperhead looked at him. “Why are we stopping?”
“So I can show you something,” said Luthor.
The Shade looked wary as he took in the sight of the Watchtower’s immense central core. “But we’re out in the open here,” he complained.
“Exactly my point,” said Luthor. “We’re out in the open, in full view of anyone who cares to observe us. And no one is showing up to contest our presence here.”
He was right. There wasn’t a single indication that the Martian Manhunter or anyone else was around. The place looked deserted.
I knew it, Luthor thought with a rush of satisfaction.
“Come on, Justice League!” he shouted, his voice ringing from surface to metal surface in strident echoes. “Defend your headquarters! Teach us what happens to those who dare to invade your fortress!”
There was no answer. No flash of red cape, no glare of green ring energy, no glimmer of golden lasso. Nothing.
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of us!” Luthor bellowed. “How can you be? You’ve got us outnumbered, haven’t
you?”
Still no response. The Watchtower was as silent as a tomb.
“Or is it possible,” Luthor demanded in the same brazen tone, “that there’s only one of you here—a clever Martian shape-shifter who’s been trying to make us think he’s all seven of you?”
He waited, but no one showed up to refute his charge. He turned to Copperhead, the doubter among them. “You see? The Justice League is in Metropolis, just as I said they would be. The only one here is—”
“Luthor!” someone called out, his voice cascading defiantly throughout the Watchtower’s central core.
The mastermind looked up to see who had interrupted him and spotted a figure floating in midair, a long blue cape draped over his brawny green shoulders. The Martian, he thought.
Luthor smiled. “Just as I thought. You’re on your own, aren’t you? And you have been since we arrived.”
“Your infirmity must be affecting your mind,” said the Martian. “I’m no more alone than you are.”
As he finished his sentence, a second figure joined him aloft. It was Superman, in all his red and blue glory!
Luthor’s mouth went dry. It can’t be, he thought. And yet, it was.
As he watched, the flesh under his vest beginning to itch again, Wonder Woman flew out from hiding to join her comrades. And a moment later, Hawkgirl and the Green Lantern made their presence known as well.
“There’s no Superman here?” Copperhead said, mimicking Luthor’s assurances. “No Batman? No Green Lantern? Then who are they?”
Luthor’s lip curled. He had been so sure of himself. So certain. But now, they really were outgunned. That left him with just one option.
“Shade,” he said, trying to maintain his air of authority, “supply us with a diversion. We’re getting out of here.”
His lackey didn’t have to be told twice. Before the League could descend on them, the Shade filled the chamber with great, billowing clouds of blackness.
Taking advantage of the cover they offered, Luthor snapped, “The shuttle bay!” and took off in the appropriate direction.
It was the quickest way out of the satellite. And before the Injustice Gang left, they could probably do some damage to the League’s shuttle, making it more difficult for the heroes to offer pursuit.
There will be other opportunities, Luthor told himself. Other chances to humble my enemies. It’s only a matter of time.
As Sapphire lingered to provide cover, Luthor led the rest of his gang into a corridor. In moments, they reached the entrance to the shuttle bay.
Pausing by a black plastic panel set into the wall, Luthor pressed it. Instantly, the doors parted, giving him and his lackeys access to what was within.
He had expected to see the League’s shuttle, waiting for him and his gang to climb inside. What he didn’t expect to see was the League itself.
But there they were, in the flesh. Superman. Batman. Wonder Woman. Hawkgirl. Everyone, it seemed, but the Martian Manhunter.
“Look who’s here,” said the Green Lantern.
The Flash grinned. “This must be how the three bears felt when they found Goldilocks in the house. I hope these guys didn’t eat any of my porridge.”
Now Luthor really didn’t understand.
Superman had a number of incredible powers, but he couldn’t melt through walls the way the Martian Manhunter could. Neither could the Flash, or Hawkgirl, or any of the others. And there was no other way to get into the shuttle bay—Luthor knew that from the scans he had made of the Watchtower.
So how had the League beaten the Injustice Gang to the exit?
Then Star Sapphire burst into the room. “They’re not real!” she spat.
“Really?” said Wonder Woman, looking very real indeed.
Star Sapphire recoiled at the sight of the League. Then she turned to Luthor, looking extremely confused. “Back there . . . they were just holograms, projected to look like the real thing.” She eyed the heroes again. “But this . . .”
This is real, Luthor told himself, completing the thought.
So the Manhunter had rigged a hologram projector to make them think he had company after all. And they had fallen for it—Luthor included.
It didn’t matter, he insisted. All that mattered was his getting out of the Watchtower in one piece.
“Shade . . . ?” he said.
“I know,” said his henchman.
Then he began to flood the shuttle bay with his thick, impenetrable shadows, the same way he had flooded the Watchtower’s central core.
But this time, the League was way ahead of them. Moving before the darkness could confound them, each hero went after a different member of the Injustice Gang.
Luthor saw Superman bounce Grundy off a wall, sending the giant plummeting to his knees. The Flash ripped the Shade’s walking stick out of his hand as Hawkgirl doubled the villain over. Even Copperhead was sent flying head over heels, the victim of a well-thrown Batarang.
Only Star Sapphire managed to defend herself from the devastating assaults of Green Lantern and Wonder Woman. But as determine
d as the heroes were, even she seemed destined to go down in defeat.
Luthor’s only option was to abandon his gang—something he was quite willing to do if it meant increasing his chances of escape. With three quick steps, he launched himself through the open hatch of the shuttle and hoped for the best.
Fortunately for him, none of the Justice Leaguers saw him in time to stop him. Pounding on the pressure-sensitive hatch control, he shut the door behind him. Then he sat down in the pilot’s seat and activated the shuttle’s engines.
Automatically, the external doors slid aside, revealing a black sky full of stars. But thanks to the force field that was still in place, the air remained in the shuttle bay. Otherwise, both the Injustice Gang and the League would have been sucked out into airless space.
Not that Luthor cared whether they survived or not. As always, he was only really concerned about himself.
With a few quick taps of the shuttle’s controls, he advanced it through the force field. And still the air remained in the shuttle bay, the force field having been designed to allow only certain kinds of matter to pass through it.
As soon as Luthor was free of the Watchtower, he veered in the direction of Earth. In a matter of moments, he was slicing through the planet’s upper atmosphere, the stars becoming hazier and hazier as he left them behind.
Looking in his control panel’s rear-view screen, he could see Superman and the Green Lantern. They had left the Watchtower and were giving chase.
Too late, Luthor thought. They couldn’t hope to move as quickly as the shuttle. He would be back on Earth and in hiding long before they could catch up to him.
I did it, he told himself.
And he hadn’t lost anything—not really. His gang could be replaced. They were only hired hands, after all, and those were a dime a dozen.
Maybe the neutralizer was out of his reach for now. But there was more than one way to skin a cat—or destroy a Justice League.
He was Lex Luthor. He would find a way.
But even as he was patting himself on the back, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Something was happening in the corner of the cabin. . . .
Whirling in his chair, he drew his projectile gun—and saw the ghostly form of J’onn J’onzz emerging from a bulkhead.
“No!” Luthor snarled.
Then he fired his weapon at the Martian Manhunter. But the hero was already immaterial, so the explosive projectile simply passed through him and struck the bulkhead instead.
Luthor barely had time to realize how foolish he had been before he was flung across the cabin like a rag doll and slammed against the opposite bulkhead.
Sometime later—maybe a second, maybe an hour—he opened his eyes. To Luthor’s disgust, J’onn J’onzz was kneeling beside him, peering through the remains of his fitted pullover shirt.
“Your vest seems to have saved your life,” the Martian Manhunter observed in his strangely accented speech. “But it won’t save you from going back to jail.”
Luthor tried to grab his enemy by the throat, but J’onn J’onzz took hold of Luthor’s wrists and held them.
A sound of frustration tore from Luthor’s throat. “How did you—”
“Get on board before you left?” asked the Martian Manhunter. “Easily enough, once I realized that you were headed for the shuttle bay. My ability to travel through solid matter afforded me a much more direct route.”
Luthor glowered at him. “Don’t sound so smug. You’d be nothing without the rest of the Justice League.”
The alien hero didn’t answer the remark. But as if he found some humor in it, he allowed himself an uncharacteristic smile.
By the time J’onn returned to the Watchtower with Luthor, his teammates had gotten the best of the Injustice Gang. Grundy, Star Sapphire, Copperhead, and the Shade were all imprisoned behind a force field in a holding area, viciously blaming each other for their defeat.
J’onn wasn’t surprised they had been beaten. Without their leader to give them orders, the Gang was simply incapable of standing up to a force like the Justice League.
Throwing Luthor in with his lackeys, J’onn stood there for a moment and considered how easily it might have been him behind the force field—and the Injustice Gang standing outside it.
He was still thinking about it when the Flash clapped him on the shoulder. “Nice going there, Chief. Now we’ve got the whole set.”
“So we do,” said J’onn.
The rest of the team gathered around him. It felt good to be surrounded by them—better, in fact, than it had ever felt before.
“You look beat,” John Stewart observed.
“I am,” J’onn had to admit. “However, it’s nothing a little rest won’t take care of.”
“I don’t understand,” said Superman. “How did you hold off Luthor’s gang all by yourself?”
J’onn smiled. “Actually, I had some help.”
“From who?” asked Hawkgirl.
J’onn’s smile widened. “From you.”
She made a face beneath the curved beak of her mask. “I hate to break this to you, but I was down in Metropolis.”
“And not just from you,” said J’onn, “but from Flash as well. And Green Lantern. And all the rest of you.”
For once, even Batman looked perplexed. “Explain,” he said.
“I would be happy to,” J’onn told him.
And he related how it had gone, from his first encounter with Star Sapphire to his last with the entire Injustice Gang.
“So,” said Wonder Woman, “you used the holographic equipment we got for the gym to make Luthor think we were all with you.”
“That’s correct,” said J’onn. He glanced at the Injustice Gang, still bickering behind their energy barrier. “It was something of a long shot, as you humans might say, but it worked.”
“That leaves just one question,” said Batman. “Where did you put the neural wave neutralizer?”
“Obviously,” said Hawkgirl, “not in any of the places where the Injustice Gang looked for it.”
“Actually,” said J’onn, a little embarrassed, “I didn’t store it at all.”
John Stewart looked at him. “Don’t tell me you—”
“Left it in my quarters,” J’onn admitted a little reluctantly.
The Green Lantern rolled his eyes.
“Mind you,” said J’onn, “I had every intention of storing it in a secure location. But after you all left, something else drew my attention.”
“So,” Superman speculated, “the neutralizer was still sitting on your floor, awaiting a permanent berth, when you noticed Luthor’s gang approaching the Watchtower?”
J’onn nodded. “Yes. And, faced with the need to conceal the device quickly, I exercised the only logical option—I hid it under my bed.”
“So it’s there now?” asked Wonder Woman.
“It is,” J’onn confirmed.
“Maybe you should leave it there,” said the Flash.
Batman shot him a disparaging look.
“Hey,” said the speedster, “it was just a thought.”
“Come on,” said Wonder Woman, taking J’onn by the arm. “Let’s go find the neutralizer a permanent home.”
Glancing again at Luthor and his henchmen, J’onn agreed that that was a good idea.
As he and Wonder Woman ascended around the central core in a lazy spiral, she said, “Tell me, just what was so enthralling that it kept you from stowing the neutralizer?”
J’onn smiled to himself. “Have you ever heard of a fellow named Hamlet . . . ?”
MICHAEL JAN FRIEDMAN is the author of more than fifty books of fantasy and science fiction, nine of which have appeared on the New York Times bestseller list. His most recent projects were In Darkest Night and Wings of War, two of the earlier adventures in the Justice League series.
For years he has been a mainstay of the Star Trek publishing program, contributing critically acclaimed novels that have been translated arou
nd the world. He also wrote the novelization of the 1997 film Batman & Robin (Warner Books) and a series of original novels based on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (HarperCollins, 1996). In 1995, Friedman cowrote the Star Trek: Voyager television episode “Resistance,” which series star Kate Mulgrew cited as her favorite. He has also written more than 160 comic books for DC Comics and Marvel Comics.
Michael Jan Friedman lives on Long Island, New York, with his wife and two sons.
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