Chain 219: Justice League Unlimited

Chain 219: Justice League Unlimited

Location: Gotham City, 1996
Age: 30
Identity: Drop-In, Human
Drawbacks: [+800] Consistent Continuity, Justice League Beyond, Doomsday
Scenario: A Better World

[Free]      I'm Actually An Alien!
[Free]      Take The Controls
[100/1800]  Gifted Intellect
[200/1800]  Surprised To See Me?
[400/1800]  Sticking Up For The Little Guy
[500/1800]  Great, More Time Travel
[700/1800]  You're Off Your Meds, Aren't You?
[800/1800] Business Minded
[1400/1800] I Am The Power!
[1600/1800] Who Guards The Guardians?	200
[1600/2200] Power Stipend (+400)
[2000/2200] Super Science
[Free]      25th Century Drone
[2200/2200] Comradery: Galatea

Ah, here we are again, in familiar shoes. The equivalent to Lex Luthor were he in Gotham and lacking have an alien to obsess over, CEO of Sovereign Megasystems and any number of subsidiary companies, in a glittering tower opposite Wayne Enterprises in the heart of the business district. In fact, this is precisely where we left off at the end of my last stay in Gotham. I can absolutely work with this. In fact, I'm going to retire my hero identity (at least for a time) and take up a new pasttime.

Politics.

Frankly, it's so easy to get elected to congress that it ought to be downright criminal. Being a well-known businessman does nothing but work in my favor. I know how the game is played, and lobbying is less a matter of bribery as it is favors owed and granted. Oh, certainly money is still part of it, but that's most of what the public sees. What the insiders see is another world entirely.

This world seemed to move a little slower on the whole than I might have expected, or perhaps the show itself moved faster due to the limitations of its format, but things went... interestingly. And sometimes out of order. For example, I ended up dealing with Doomsday twice before anyone else did. The first time, the damn thing ended up plowing through Sovereign Megasystems' HQ and into my office from the sky somehow, inexplicably; he got punched into Gotham Bay, wrapping up the confrontation in a hurry. The second time, he came out of nowhere while I was driving to DC and trashed my car; I had to fake the return of my hero persona as a separate individual in order to beat him, only for him to disappear at the most convenient time. The third time... well... Justice Lords intercepted him before he could come at me, luckily. The less said about them, the better. And on it went. Guess I shouldn't have pried into Cadmus, even if I was on the armed services committee.

Toward the end of my second two-year term in congress, I ran for president, and I found that my opponent was in fact Lex Luthor. Which, of course, raised so many eyebrows. But he'd been pardoned three years earlier during the debacle with the Justice Lords, and technically there was nothing preventing him any longer. While his presidential campaign may have been a smokescreen, it didn't mean he wasn't following through to the best of his abilities, down to commercials, debates, and those who wanted a piece of the action.

Lex wasn't a planner, though. Not really. What he does is a matter of setting things in motion, then trying to manipulate them. Usually it works without any outside influence. Sometimes it does not. Usually he blames The Alien for his failures, no matter how great or trivial. But he was quite good at deflecting and redirecting, and this was perhaps the one time in the twentieth century that party allegiance had nothing to do with the election.

I was elected by a frightfully narrow margin, and Lex's misdeeds only came to light after that fact - which made for quality conspiracy theory fodder until people pointed out the rest of the insane things he kept doing, which put paid to the tinfoil hats. I was sworn in as president, found out how little power the president had other than as a mouthpiece in this world... then pulled every string and used every favor I'd accumulated over six years to exert influence anyway, especially considering I had to divest myself of any management roles in Sovereign Metasytems.

I got to find out that the Secret Service has its own contingency plans in case of attack by super powered individuals, too. They actually managed to neutralize Doomsday... at least, a couple of times. Captain Atom did the deed himself the third time, which gave me the ammunition I needed to send in the US Marshalls to pull the plug on Cadmus, folded its assets into Checkmate, and warned Amanda Waller to keep them in line and not just use them as a metahuman black bag team.

The second weirdest thing that came out of that? Galatea joined my security retinue. The weirdest thing was, during a debate on the next election, my opponent tried to accuse me of improper relations with her. And... that was pretty much the only thing he could try to hit me with, the moral objection. I stared at him, dumbfounded, before I started to laugh. Then pointed out that she was pretty much the ideal woman - cute, smart, and able to subject me to death by snu-snu. Considering my pelvis was intact, however, obviously that was not the case. And just to gall him further, she escorted me onto the stage for the next debate, arm in arm, and blew me a kiss as she walked backstage again. The media ate it up, and my reelection was a landslide.

I swear that bastard was somehow involved in sending Doomsday at me again when he'd been frozen in storage, but hey, Galatea was able to deal with him handily that time.

Oh, and speaking of such things. My presidential term was one that saw sweeping changes in the laws of the country. Certain business aspects were restricted and others relaxed, but whenever someone threw a fit about it, I got to point out that it affected my holdings as much as anyone else's. Laws were changed, some federal agencies restructured a bit, and certain rules were put into place to streamline the adoption of new technologies in society.

The Collins Act passed - you may remember him as the ordinary guy who ended up faking out the Joker with one of the clown's own fake bombs - and that saw to the shutting down of places like Arkham Asylum and a more serious treatment of criminally insane metahumans. It was rather nice that I got to stay long enough to see the whole of the changes made to society, too - at least, after the mess Ra's al Ghul made a year after I left office. Uplifting global society, a rather cyberpunk feel, but with rather less authoritarian oppression. Megacorps were still very present, however.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. In the last year of my presidency, the series finale one might say, we were forced to deal with a Doomsday that had been enhanced by technology from Apokolips after he'd been launched into deep space the last time he'd appeared. We really should not have been surprised really, but the combined efforts of the Justice League, Checkmate, the Ultimen, AND my retinue was barely enough to deal with him. The damn bastard just kept getting stronger and stronger, it seemed, but in the end... I lured him into the Phantom Zone with a little help from Superman, and then managed to get myself out.

Just in time to face down Darkseid and the forces of Apokolips. Because of COURSE I'd have to face down Darkseid. On the White House lawn.

>"Are you crazy?! Do you know who that is?!"
"I do, Superman."
>"He'll kill you, or worse!"
"You've all been beaten to a pulp, and you specifically by those Kryptonite-laced gauntlets Doomsday was wearing. The national guard is containing the parademons, for the most part - but I need to face him. Buy you all time to recover, at least for a little bit. Doomsday put everyone through the wringer. It might not be a lot of time... but five minutes is five minutes."
>"If you're sure..."
"Get up there with Kara and Gally and get some sunshine. I've got a plan."

And with a reluctant look, Superman launched himself into the stratosphere, and I walked out of the White House. The Secret Service had been ordered to withdraw and protect the Vice President, as this fell within one of the contingency plans in case of just such a scenario. Darkseid ... was not what I expected him to be, but that just made me smile. It made my plan that much easier.

"You hold a position of authority. You will surrender your world to Darkseid," said the brute in front of me, scowling.

I raised a finger. "Two problems with that. One, I don't have the authority to do that, though I wouldn't if I did. Two... well, something seems just a bit off." When he scowled, I simply pointed at him and continued, "You've got the voice almost correct, but the inflections are wrong. Not to mention... knowing that such an order is futile. But I tell you what - I will give you the utterly unprecedented opportunity to withdraw your forces. I will give my word that I won't even pursue you, let alone strike you down. Otherwise, I will send every force of this world to yours. We may not destroy it, but we will cause damage that none could miss."

Raising his voice, he boomed, "You DARE to threaten me?! To question your god?!"

I lowered my hand. "I'm disappointed that you don't recognize me, but then... wearing this form... you likely would not."

I began walking forward, toward the would-be god. "I may not have been playing hero lately, but you'd probably recognize me better if I were, say, about a head taller than that body of yours. And with gold eyes. And on fire." This just led to momentary puzzlement. Then realization. "More importantly than that, though... he'll be back. The Source Wall won't hold him. You do not want him to see your failure." A momentary expression of fear appeared that did not belong on that face, not at all. His form flickered, momentarily showing the true appearance of the individual who had been there before it restored itself. A lackey who had but hoped to impersonate him. Desaad.

I gave him my best politician's smile as a trio of Kryptonians descended from the heavens to hover behind me. The five minute mark had been reached. "Flee. You have gambled and lost, but the time of reckoning is not yet at hand. Invite it prematurely at your own peril."

Boom tubes split the sky for the second time that day, and the forces of Apokolips withdrew, the false Darkseid first among them. With a grin, I looked up toward the three heroes floating there - Superman, Supergirl, and Galatea - even if they were still more than a bit worse for the wear after the protracted fight with an upgraded Doomsday. "Well, everything went better than expected," I said to them. "I'm on a winning streak, so I may as well go all in. Tea, it looks like my evening is suddenly free, how do you feel about causing political scandals?"

(The scandal was as glorious as expected.)

Things calmed down quite a bit in the wake of the invasion. Apparently some pictures were caught of me facing down the would-be Darkseid in front of the White House, and my reputation was so bulletproof that my asking Galatea to dinner in front of the hastily arriving news crews was barely a byline, and an entertaining one at that. I retired from politics after the end of my second term aside from turning some of my resources into a global charity organization, Galatea retired from government service and remained on my own private security retinue, and I resumed working most primarily with Sovereign Metasystems in Gotham.

Unfortunately, it wasn't long after I returned to Gotham that I heard through the grapevine that Robin had gone missing and Batman was absolutely tearing the city apart. This... no. I recognized the path things were going down, and I elected to change it, this time. I grabbed Galatea, drove the Highwayman around Gotham to intercept Batman after he broke up a bar full of thugs, and stopped him before he could go further.

"Not going to lie, Batman, I honestly forgot this was fated to happen," I told him.

Batman launched himself forward, grabbing me by the lapels of my suit. Galatea prepared to move forward to defend me, but was stopped with a shake of my head. The hero growled, "Where?"

"Arkham. Hopefully we aren't too late, but expect the clown to know every last detail. We'll be right behind you," I answered.

"This is my fight, stay out of my way," he replied as he and Batgirl both returned to the Batmobile.

He was less than pleased to find that we were on his tail the entire way to Arkham, going much faster than an oversized sedan like mine should be able to go. All I said to him once we both left our vehicles and marched into the shuttered asylum was, "Accept some help, for God's sake." And with that, the four of us marched in.

Galatea pointed us in the right direction, but Batman was already heading there - this was obviously the Joker at this point, so it would be where the Joker felt most at home. And when we walked in, it was a most discongruous scene of domestic bliss, with the Joker reading the newspaper and Harley Quinn working on a boxed dinner. The Joker said something blithe about early arrivals, Batman grabbed him of course, and the Joker brushed him off; he barely even scowled when he noticed the extra hands, when he'd only expected Batman and his people in the city, though Galatea stumbled as Harley brought a rather large glowing green rock out of the oven. Apparently they ran out of meatloaf, but they had a contingency in case he brought Superman around; one alien was as good as another.

And so the Joker began walking toward the curtained-off area, going on about how Batman had extra kids around. However, before he got there, I interrupted. "Too bad you don't know what it's like to have kids though, eh, Jack? What with being a widower and all." The Joker froze mid-step, turning his head toward me slowly. He growled something about nosy politicians coming around, but I continued, "You know why you're funny? You're a clown with stagefright!" All four of the heads in the room slowly swiveled toward me, Batman and Batgirl perplexed, Harley with trepidation, the Joker with growing anger, but I kept right on going. "I mean, definitely not your jokes, I heard your act back when you had a tan and barely cracked a smile, maybe it would've been funny if you didn't stutter. No... farmboy turned small-timer, running numbers and driving ol' Sal around to pay for school, thought you could leave it behind, then you had the bright idea to quit your job at Ace Chemicals to become a comedian instead... and when you couldn't hack it, your old buddies got you to help them knock over the place with that fancy hooded getup."

The Joker was absolutely livid, and stomped toward me. "How did- who does- what do you know, anyway!? That's all wrong!"

I shook my head, slowly. "Forget it, I read the back issues. The important thing here is... your mob buddies, they're the ones that set the fire, to force you to crawl back to them. They were going to kill you, too."

The Joker stared at me blankly for a handful of seconds. Then his expression abruptly snapped to murderous rage, and he sprayed me with the acid from his flower, screaming incoherently... which trailed off as he realized that I was unharmed. Batman and Batgirl were poised to jump in, though they'd stopped when they realized I was unharmed.

I flicked my eyes at Harley and the lump of Green K next to her on top of the stove, then nodded to them, before looking down at myself with a frown. I carefully removed my suit jacket, using what was left of it to wipe the spent remains of the acid from my dress shirt. "That suit cost twelve thousand dollars, you know," I commented. "Money well spent, I'd say-" He sprayed me again, this time in the face. I exhaled a frustrated sigh, before wiping my face off with the suit coat, removing the now-ruined dress shirt as well.

The Joker sputtered as I began walking toward him. "That's not... that's impossible! That lump of rock would make even Superman weak! Even the fumes from the acid should-"

"I'm not Superman," I replied, cracking my knuckles as Batman and Batgirl charged toward Harley. Who somehow pulled a bazooka out of nowhere and fired it at Batman, wrapping him up and immobilizing him, then leading Batgirl on a merry chase away. Galatea busied herself slinking around the edge of the room toward the curtains. "Batman's busy. You get to deal with the most powerful man in America, instead."

"Come on, you're not Superman, you said so yourself! You're not even a politician anymore!" he screamed at me, before pulling a knife and stabbing toward my kidney. The blade skittered away from my skin, and he looked down at it as if betrayed. "What..."

I advanced, backing the clown against a wall. "You could not comprehend the half of what I am," I told him in a low tone. "I'm what you could consider a god, and I've been trying to make this a better world. I'm going to offer this once. I can fix everything, Jack Napier, if you only ask." I stopped, and looked at him with pity in my eyes, grasping his shoulder. Weaving a bit of magic to give him a clear mind, perhaps for the first time in years.

"Fix... what?..."

"Why do you think I faced down Darkseid without fear? It is within my power. No tricks, no nonsense, you have my word. I can turn you back into the man you used to be. I can bring back your wife. Jeannie. Your unborn daughter."

The Joker's fear melted away, and he stared at me in wonder as Batman began to saw himself out of his bindings. "She was... I was gonna have a daughter?"

I nodded slowly. "I don't usually do this... folks complain about free will and all that... but just this once I can give you a mulligan. No more Joker. Just Jack and Jeannie. Please."

He was quiet for a several seconds before he slowly shook his head.

"Then I shall stand aside, but... tell me. Why not?" I asked, my expression shifting to one of sorrow.

"It's far, far too late for that," he whispered. "Jeannie always deserved better... and I got her killed. Jack Napier is dead. Let him stay buried."

I nodded slowly, releasing his shoulder and backing away; the manic glint reentered his eyes and he looked at me warily, but I lifted my hands and took a few more steps away. At this point, of course, he focused on Batman and began leading him on a chase, through the curtains. Robin had been on the table of the operating theater, but by the time the Joker tore the curtains away, he found that the table was empty - Galatea had seen to his liberation and hustled him outside the building. The Joker found it not at all funny, but had led Batman on a merry chase nonetheless. Showed badly-spliced film of Robin being tortured... but alas, the lad never shared his secrets. Batman got a knife to the leg, the now-liberated Robin returned, raised one of the Joker's joke pistols and-

The timeline was dropped. The last hour undone by a change - when Batman got into the Batmobile, I chose to follow at a more sedate pace, and we arrived at Arkham as the dust settled. Things still went much the same way, and Batman persevered; Harley had fallen down a chasm and was lost. The Joker ... well, he was very, very dead. I gave out a bit of instant therapy to all involved - I spared Robin the trauma of what happened via a well-placed obliviation, and the other two heroes got a little sanity bequeathed upon them. Robin didn't stop heroing... but he did leave Gotham to work more with the Titans.

Just in time for Ra's al Ghul to trigger the near-apocalypse of '09. The detonation of virtually every Lazarus Pit worldwide. A catastrophe of epic proportions.

But civilization rebuilt. It always does.