Superman #1“Man of Tomorrow, Part One”Written by David Charlton
Art by Carlos Galvez
“Rocketed from the dying planet Krypton by his father Jor-El, this strange visitor from another planet was raised by a kindly old couple from Smallville, Kansas, and possessed powers beyond those of mortal men, to fight for truth, justice and yada-yada-yada…!” The script in one hand, the cell phone in the other, Kent Armstrong snorted in amusement and shook his head, earning a disapproving glare from the stylist working on his wavy blonde locks. “I mean who writes this stuff?” He asked his agent, flipping the script over to look for a name.
“Kent, baby, they can’t all be
Citizen Kane!” Came the harried voice of his agent, Mort Seigel, who was also--- Kent could tell with his enhanced superhearing--- shuffling through contracts, chewing on a sandwich, and allowing an antacid to fizz in a glass on his desk.
“Yeah, I know, but another
Superman-type picture…?” Kent checked his make-up in the mirror he sat in front of, the stylist continuing to fuss with his hair. Behind him, he saw the reflection of an Assistant Director impatiently glancing at his watch. Kent ignored him. “I mean we just wrapped on
Superman Saves the Solar System, and now this…? What’s a ‘Brainiac’, anyway?”
“Brainiac! You know, super-smart, like you’re super-strong!” Mort explained as if it were obvious. “Brains against brawn. Good against evil.”
“Brains against brawn?” There was a note of outrage in Kent’s voice, and he waved away the stylist. “What does that mean? Am I supposed to be a muscle-bound buffoon?”
“Buffoon? What? No!” Mort objected, and Kent could hear him clearly smacking his balding pate with his hand. “Who said buffoon?”
But Kent wasn’t listening. “It’s like we do the same movie over and over again. All I do is fly around, use my heat-vision and let them bounce bullets off my chest! And these scripts are ridiculous: ‘
You just get on home now, son, and don’t forget: study hard and eat your vegetables!’ I don’t talk like that?
Nobody talks like that! I’m a good actor, Morty! I can do more than Superman! I want to do more. I
want to do…” He fished for an example. “
Citizen Kent!”
“Sweetheart, sweetheart, shuddup and listen to me.” Mort cut in quickly. “You are Superman. It’s not just a character, it’s
who you are. And the public love you for it! It’s made you the biggest box-office draw in the whole world, and it’s what people want to see from you. Besides, your contract is iron-clad. Just one more picture, and we can kiss Morgan Edge and his Coast City Studios goodbye. Then we’ll do your Citizen Kent, or
Gone With the Wind II, or whatever the hell else you want to do! Now just do me a favor, and make the stupid picture!”
And with that, he hung up. Kent Armstrong stared at the razor-thin phone for a moment, impressed by what Morty would have called the chutzpah, and gave a small shrug.
“Mr. Armstrong, the director needs you back on the set.” The waiting A.D. said, testily.
With a resigned sigh, Kent rose. He checked himself one last time in the wall-length mirror. The blue and red and yellow costume was as familiar to him as his own reflection. He stared at the stylized ‘S’ on his chest, the single electron revolving around it. It seemed he was never going to escape Superman.
He joined the A.D., and headed for the soundstage, where his leading lady Lana Lang was waiting for him to go over the big rescue scene again. Up ahead, he could see Lana glaring at him, and taping her toe on the cement floor. She was beautiful--- and boy could she fill out a dress!--- but was she
ever high maintenance!
“Oh, and Mr. Edge wants you to add this to your costume from now on.” The A.D. passed him a bundle of red fabric. It was a cape.
“Oh, that is
it!” Kent exclaimed in disgust, and letting the cape fall to the ground, he rose into the air, and flew across the soundstage, through some open doors, and out off the lot…
*****
“He did
what?” Morgan Edge chewed the end of a cigar, and growled, unnecessarily close, into the speaker phone.
“He walked off the set, Mr. Edge!” Came the shaking voice of the director. “Well, flew off, really, but you get---.”
Morgan Edge jabbed the disconnect button, and sat there fuming for a moment.
What the hell was that kid doing now? He got up, and paced the length of the wall-sized window. The view from his office was spectacular; all of Coast City stretched out before him, from the studio lots below, to the ultra-modern town beyond, to the palm tree-lined Pacific Coast Highway and sparkling blue ocean on the horizon. Morgan Edge felt like a king surveying his domain when he looked out this window--- which was as it should be! The town had sprung up around his studio, and the marketing and merchandising empire
he had created out of Superman! It was he who had first approached that awkward, whitebread national hero and made him a superstar! Without him--- Morgan Edge!--- Superman would still be a low-paid government stooge, and Coast City just a pit-stop for aviators and military personnel.
But he had seen this coming for a while. Armstrong had delivered his worst performance yet in
Superman Saves the Solar System, and rumors had gotten back to him that the kid wanted out of his contract. Well, that was too bad! Edge had too much money invested in
Superman Vs. The Brainiac to halt production now…
He jabbed the intercom button on his phone, and snarled to his secretary: “Get me Morty Siegel!” Then he changed his mind. He would go over both their heads, and call the kid’s father. “No, forget that, get me Colonel Armstrong on the line---.” Then a better idea hit him. His contingency plan. The one he’d hatched just in case something like this were to happen... “Forget that, too, Lupe.” He took a deep breath, and forced himself to calm down. “Get me Winslow Schott!”
*****
The sight of Superman in the sky was such a familiar one to most residents of Coast City that few even bothered to look up anymore. Which suited Kent just fine, as he just needed to get away. He glided over the town that had been his home these last five years, sailing almost leisurely past the cliff-top offices of Coast City Studios; he caught a glimpse of Morgan Edge glaring out the bay window and puffing furiously on a cigar, then he rose higher, and shot out into the desert, away from the setting sun.
He half-considered stopping by the AFB to visit his mother and father, but he could already hear the lecture coming from the Colonel:
Kent, you know I never approved of you going into the entertainment industry, but you have a contract with Mr. Edge, and a responsibility to fulfill. And an Armstrong never reneges on his word…
Yeah, but Colonel, I’m not a real Armstrong, am I? Kent thought moodily to himself.
Nobody knows who or what I am. It was just chance that you and Ma found me on the side of the road, out in the desert that night… Just a bright flash, and then…me. A baby with freakish powers ‘beyond those of mortal men…’ Maybe that screenwriter was right. Maybe he
was a strange visitor from another planet.
Shuster Air Force Base passed by below him, and he did not stop, angling himself a few degrees north. He needed to see someone that would make him feel better. He poured on the speed, and in a moment, the sprawling facilities of Ferris Aerospace came into view.
Carol was out on the airstrip, talking with a couple of her engineers as they watched an experimental fighter-jet being put through its paces. Deciding to have a little fun, Kent caught up with the jet, and matched it maneuver for maneuver, then literally flew circles around it.
“
Armstrong, get the hell out of my skies!” His super-sensitive hearing picked up Carol yelling at him--- and he didn’t need super-vision to see the rude gesture the test-pilot shot him from the cockpit of the jet. Wearing a rueful expression, he descended, landing in front of his childhood sweetheart.
“Just what in the hell do you think you’re doing, Kent?” She tore into him, her green eyes flashing, and her ebony hair stirring gently in the desert wind. “That’s an expensive piece of equipment up there! Do you have any idea how much time and effort went into designing the X-13? Not all of us can fly around like birds, some of us need metal wings, and if you think you can just---.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Carol…!” Kent held up his palms in a gesture of surrender. “I’m sorry. I was just having a little fun. I didn’t mean anything by it. Peace, okay?”
The engineers with her at least had the grace to look embarrassed--- here was their boss chewing out
Superman!--- but Carol seemed less than mollified. She fixed him with a scowl that was not diminished by the wide, boyish smile he gave her.
“Look, I just wanted someone to talk to for a minute.” He told her, defensively. “I just needed a friend…”
This worked. Her expression thawed a little. “What, were all your starlet girlfriends too busy?” She grumbled. “Was what’s-her-name--- Lana Lang?--- getting a boob job or something?”
“Carol, Lana Lang doesn’t need
any work, if you know what I mean.” He said, despite himself.
“I do.” She glared back, but now she was having a hard time maintaining her stern expression. “I saw your last film. Nothing to the imagination. The hussy.”
Kent laughed, and Carol found herself smiling. And just like that the tension seemed to leave the air.
“Excuse us for a second, willya, fellas?”
Kent and Carol walked apart a ways, sharing a companionable silence. The daughter of Air Force General turned entrepreneur Carl Ferris, Carol had grown up on Shuster AFB next door to the Armstrongs. She had been Kent’s first friend, his first kiss--- his first
many things! There was no one in the world he felt more comfortable around, though they had many times gone their separate ways. She to learn--- and later inherit--- the family company, he to serve his country, and then later to pursue his career in show business. Kent often thought he would one day end up happily ever after with Carol, but one thing or another always got in the way. They had long ago decided it was unfair to each other to ask one to wait for the other. It had been a sad, difficult time, but the bond between them was just too strong, so they still often met.
“Actually, it’s exactly
about my movies I came to see you…”
Kent told her the whole story as they walked around the perimeter of Hanger Bay 12, the sun dying in a blaze of orange in the distance. He told her of his frustration, of his disappointment, and of his increasing feeling of indenture to Morgan Edge and the Studio.
“Can’t you get out of it?” She asked him, her arm looped comfortably through his. “I mean, you’re Superman! Can’t you just have the President write you a pardon, or something?”
“I’m not in jail, Carol.” He chuckled. “And I can’t just trade-in on my past good deeds and services all the time. I don’t do those for pay or reward, you know.”
“I know.” She sighed. She had asked him once before, just after he’d gotten back from stopping the meltdown of a Chinese nuclear reactor, to stop putting himself in the most dangerous of situations. He refused. He often wondered if that was the moment he lost her.
“I mean, Superman is separate from
Superman, you know?”
“I know.”
“But
I have ambitions, too! Dreams and aspirations. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life living up to everyone else’s expectations of me… Sometimes, I feel like I just want to fly into space, and see how far I can go…!”
A small frown creased Carol’s brow. She had never known Kent to talk like this before. It bothered her more than she let on. “What do you mean? You want to go away?” She kept her voice carefully calm.
“No, it’s not like that…” He looked off into the desert and seemed to be searching for the right words to say. “It’s just… I want to know who I am! Why I have these incredible powers… What I’m supposed to do with my life…”
“Pretty heavy questions for an Air Force brat.” Carol remarked. She had never heard him so introspective before. He had always just accepted things, and seemed to be pretty happy with his place in the universe. Of course, who wouldn’t be? He was Superman!
“Carol, do you think I’m from outer space?” He blurted out in a rush. “Is that why I’m so different? Am I from Mars or Krypton or something?”
“Krypton?” She scoffed. “Who came up with that one? Krypton’s a gas!”
“Some stupid screenwriter, but you know what I mean.”
“Yes, I do. You mean you’re feeling sorry for yourself.” Carol looked him straight in the eyes, ignoring his stricken expression. “Kent, everyone wants to feel that they belong somewhere, that they have a purpose in life. Anyone who knows you, anyone who’s seen your films, anyone whose life you saved--- there’s no doubt in their minds what the answers to those questions are! You could have red skin and a fin on your head--- like that Martian Manhunter fellow out in Metropolis--- and you would still belong to us, side by side, and lifting us up. You have a gift, Kent, a gift no other human has been blessed with, and with it, you show us all what is best in
us.”
He opened his mouth to interject, but she forestalled him with a finger pressed to his lips.
“I’m not done, flyboy.” She said. “Now, some might argue that with great power comes great responsibility, but that doesn’t mean you have to bear the weight of the world on your shoulders either. If you’re not happy, if there are things you need to come to terms with, than I think you should find a way to tell Morgan Edge to go to hell. You’re a smart guy, Kent. If you want to escape your contract, I’m sure you could find a way. After all, what’s he gonna do?
Sue Superman?
America’s hero? It’ll ruin him!”
He just stared at her a moment, already feeling lighter in his heart. She just had a knack for slicing through the Gordian Knots of his life.
“Carol, you’re a genius.” He shook his head in admiration.
“I know.” She gave a small shrug, her mouth quirked in a crooked smile. That mouth that seemed to glisten in the last light of the sun, that mouth that invited his. He was already bending his head down to meet it--- she lifting hers in response--- when someone came running towards them, calling his name.
“
Superman! Superman!”
“What is it?” He suppressed an annoyed groan, and looked to the panicked-looking engineer heading for them.
“It’s on the T.V. and radio, sir! It’s Coast City…” The engineer paused to regain his breath, doubled over from the unusual exertion.
“What is it, man?” Kent asked again with some urgency.
“It’s under attack…!
From a 100 foot ape!”
Kent and Carol shared a confused, appalled look, both of them recalling the monster Superman fought in his second film.
They gasped at the same time: "
TITANO?!?"
To Be Continued!