Showcase of Suspense #5

“Crisis Times 4”

Roll Call:

Justice League of America: Captain America, Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Black Canary, Green Arrow, Iron Man, Hawkeye

Avengers: Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, Batman, Scarlet Witch, the Vision, Thor, Yellow Jacket, Wasp, Aquaman

Justice Society of America: Captain America, Bucky (Rick Jones), Sandman, Whizzer, Ms. America, Wildcat, Hourman, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Power Girl.

Invaders: Human Torch, Toro, Namor, Flash, Green Lantern, Atom, Robin, Spitfire, Huntress.

Earth-2:

“I see you’ve brought the equipment we’ll need to complete my plan.” The Red Skull looks at the boxes Lex Luthor has brought with him from Earth-1. This will help me complete my plan nicely.

“Don’t you mean ‘our plan’? I’d hate to think you’re planning on betraying me this quickly.” Luthor smiles. He knows that the Red Skull can’t be trusted, but then again, he also knows the Skull is smart enough not to trust him. “Just try not to turn on me until we’ve disposed of the heroes.”

The Red Skull laughs, “Ah, at least we’re being somewhat honest with each other.” The Nazi war criminal walks away from Lex and he grabs two glasses and fills them with wine. “I’ve promised you Earth-1. Once we have our respective worlds, then our battle shall begin. It would ruin the fun of the game to have no one worthy of my genius to battle with.” The two villains toast to the game they are about to begin.

Lex Luthor smiles during the toast, but the smile is only on the outside. There’s no joy inside this man. I know you’ll turn on me if given half a chance. I’ll make sure you don’t get that chance.

“Shall we begin?” The Skull snaps his fingers and the man known as Crossbones comes into the room carrying a disheveled Riddler. “Did you persuade him to work with us?”

“Of course, father. He was much simpler to break than Diamondback was.” The son of the Red Skull smiles recalling how he tortured and killed the daughter of Spitfire. He throws the Riddler onto the floor in front of Lex Luthor.

“Please…let me go…I won’t talk.” The Riddler has blood coming out of the side of his mouth. “Please…”

“I’m sorry Riddler. I can’t let you go. If I did you’d send more riddles to the heroes. I can’t have that.”

The Riddler’s eyes widen in astonishment. “Please…don’t kill..me…I can still be useful.”

A laugh erupts from the throat of the Red Skull. “Lock him up. I’ll deal with him later.”

Crossbones grabs the Riddler’s ankle and drags him out of the room. “Shouldn’t we have killed him?”

“Luthor, I don’t kill those who help me.” The Skull gives Lex a sly smile. “At least not until I need to.”

Avengers Mansion:

“So you still haven’t told him?” the Green Lantern from Earth-1 asks. Hal Jordan takes another sip from his drink. “I think he deserves to know.”

The Captain America of Earth-2 sighs, “I know, but I’m just not sure when to tell him. He’s never asked about my identity and I’m not sure how he’d react.”

“I can see where you’re coming from, but I still think he deserves to know.” Hal turns quickly when he feels a slap on his shoulder. “Hey! How’s it going Alan.” The two Green Lanterns continue talking to the Earth-2 Captain America.

“So you weren’t dead?” Power Girl touches Wonder Man’s arm tentatively. “You feel normal.”

“Well I don’t feel too bad either. Just a little out of place.” Simon pushes up his glasses to make sure she can’t see his eyes. “Haven’t gotten much rest yet either. Graviton, the Grim Reaper and then Ultron, I don’t know how you guys do this on a regular basis.”

Power Girl smiles, “It’s never easy. I guess that’s why only some people can handle it. So do your fists really hit as hard as Thor’s hammer?”

“I love your new outfit Jan,” Black Canary says.

The Wasp smiles at the compliment, it had taken her weeks to work out this design. The white costume with the blue lines may seem simple, but she kept trying to make it more complex and those designs never looked right to her. “Thanks. How’s Ollie?”

“He’s as strange as ever.”

“I bet he’s worse now,” Jan giggles. Hank Pym rolls his eyes.

“Well you’d win that bet. He’s been incorrigible since Hawkeye joined the Justice League. You’d think two guys who are so good at archery would be able to get along. When they get together there’s so much testosterone flowing around that I worry I’m going to grow a beard.” Dinah just shakes her head. “Did you hear about their trick shot contest?”

Jan starts to laugh, “Would that be the one where Diana almost kicked them out of the League or the one where Clint and Ollie both had to be freed from each others’ arrow tricks?”

“Actually I was thinking of the latest one where poor Barry thought he was being attacked by a gang of archers.” Dinah smiles and tries not to look at the Flash. Jan bends over laughing.

While the two women continue to talk, Hank Pym wishes the Atom of Earth-1 had come; He had some designs he wanted to pass by Ray Palmer. Well at least I get to spend more time with Jan this way.

“So Batman, you want to take Hawkeye back? Or better yet, you guys have room on Earth-2 for Ollie and Clint?” Barry Allen rubs his shoulder.

The Human Torch smiles but Batman just looks at the Flash. “He knows he’s welcome anytime he wants to come back. He left to prove he’s better than the Green Arrow.”

The Flash looks at Batman, “I thought we were in this to help people, not to boost our own egos.”

“Most of us are.” The Human Torch looks around for Toro. “Anyone seen Rick Jones?”

“Look here Ollie, I can beat you any day of the week in arm wrestling. Why do you want to put yourself through the humiliation?” Clint Barton sits across the table from Green Arrow and puts his arm into position for an arm wrestling match.

“When are these two going to grow up?” Huntress asks.

“Hopefully never.” The Beast smiles. “I hope they do this every year, I could make a lot of money off these guys.” Hank McCoy, a.k.a. the Beast, turns to the Earth-2 Atom. “Twenty bucks on Clint.”

“You’re on!” As the Atom takes out his money, Wildcat adds his own money to the mix.

Meanwhile, off in the corner, Rick Jones is talking on the phone. “I understand a little of what you’re going through. You ever need help dealing with that body-switching stuff, I’ll help you anyway I can.”

Iron Man walks by talking to the Whizzer and Miss America. “I wonder if it’s healthy for Rick to be talking to his Earth-1 self like this? It would creep me out.”

“Hmmm…Rick’s been through a lot as Bucky the last couple of years and he’s probably just trying to help out this Earth’s Rick. Both of them wanted to be sidekicks so bad. It has to be hard on the other Rick to see our Rick as Bucky when the Cap on this Earth wouldn’t allow it.” The Whizzer takes a sip of his Coke and puts his arm around Miss America.

“He’s right, Iron Man. We should let those two work it out. It seems to work out well for them.” Miss America looks back at Rick Jones. She still has trouble thinking of him as Bucky.

The Captain America of Earth-1 has remained in the monitor room since the party began. A man walks in quietly while Steve Rogers watches the monitors. “Hello Clark.”

“Steve, why are you hiding in here?” Superman gives the Sentinel of Liberty a concerned look. Clark Kent knows the answer, but he wants to hear it from the old warhorse’s mouth.

“Seeing Rick Jones as Bucky brought back a lot of bad memories.” Cap turns away from the monitors. “And I don’t mean just the death of Bucky Barnes. It makes me wonder if I was right when I told Rick he couldn’t be Bucky.”

“You simply did what you thought was best.”

“Did I? I’m not so sure. I was so worried that Rick would end up like Bucky that I never gave him the chance to prove himself. How mad do you think he is to see that his Earth-2 counterpart is Bucky?”

Superman stands there silently for a second. “If it means anything, I would’ve done the same thing you did. I don’t think Rick was ready to be a sidekick. He wanted it too badly and I think it would’ve led to problems down the road.”

“Thanks, that does help.”

Back on Earth-2:

The prison cell is dark, but the occupant smiles. They’ll free me. I know they will. Bats’ll figure out the clues I left him. He has to. The Riddler stops smiling and holds back tears. If he doesn’t, I’m a dead man. He slumps into the corner of his cell. He falls asleep quickly despite the pain and bruises from the beating that Crossbones gave him.

Avengers Mansion:

“I beat ya, ya silly goateed freak!” Clint Barton is jumping up and down with his hands in the air.

“Glad to see you’re such a good sport,” Ollie grumbles. “How about a footrace?”

“Double or nothing?” The Beast asks.

“Yeah, I want my money back,” the Atom responds.

Wonder Woman approaches Thor nervously. “I don’t see Hercules here. Do you think he’ll show up?”

“Thou hast no need to worry milady. Hercules hath left us to seek adventure on his own.” The God of Thunder rests his hand on Diana’s shoulder to comfort her. Hercules’ history with Wonder Woman’s mother and with Wonder Woman herself is very complicated. Thor still wonders if Hercules is Diana’s father. If he is, he has changed much since that time long ago.

“We keep seeming to miss each other. I would like to talk to him soon.” She forces a smile. “I have a lot of questions to ask him.”

Two figures run by at full speed. “You aint gonna beat me old man!” Clint Barton yells at the top of his lungs. The two archers reach the front door at about the same time.

“I won. How’s that you little facist.” Oliver Queen smiles.

“You took off too early!” Hawkeye yells.

Beast sighs, “There goes my wad of cash.”

Captain America’s voice comes over the intercom. “We’ve got trouble people!”

A Few Minutes Later:

The Robin of Earth-2 stands before the assembled heroes. “We’ve just received the following letter from an anonymous source. It’s obviously the Riddler’s handiwork, but we’re not sure which one.” He hands out copies of the letter to everyone at the table.

He’s the king of crime, corruption, compassion, corporations, compulsion, cats, and cowboys.

What would you be getting if you mixed Hank Pym and a dairy farm?

He knows if you’ve been good, he knows that I’ve been bad, but the presents you won’t get.

The Bahamas are a nice place, but most people would rather take the ultimate vacation somewhere wonderful.

Your points for this game will be null if you mistake them for pilots, but be careful they’re an unparalleled bunch of fighters.

You fools think you’re giants, but there’s bigger and there’s better, but you wouldn’t know it by their size.

“Am I the only one who thinks these look simpler on the surface than past riddles from the Riddler?” Spitfire asks.

“Well let’s sort them out. The first one is pretty obvious. He’s the king of the Seven C’s. So he’s obviously talking about me.” Aquaman looks around. “But what could he mean…”

“Once again you show your arrogance usurper! I’m the rightful ruler of Atlantis on my world, and someday the same shall be true for my counterpart on this Earth! Who says he isn’t talking about Namor, the Sub-Mariner?”

“You want to talk about arrogant you…”

“Enough Arthur! Enough Namor!” Hourman steps between them. “This isn’t solving anything. There’s obviously a threat to one of your kingdoms. We’ll try to use the computers here to figure out which one and then send you guys off to solve it.” Hourman pauses while looking at the two undersea heroes. “That is if you two can put the welfare of Atlantis before your own pride.”

“Shall we deal with the riddle that involves me next?” Hank Pym asks. “I’d like to know what you’d get when you cross a cow with me.”

“A pretty ugly kid,” Hawkeye jokes. Oliver Queen turns and smiles at Clint.

Batman moves from the corner of the room and says “That’s pretty simple actually. He’s trying to trick you into thinking of you in your current identity, Yellow Jacket. Dairy products are cheese, milk and cream. If you consider your Giant-Man costume, you’d be big and red. The answer to the riddle is the Big Red Cheese, Captain Marvel.”

“The Riddler is going to Earth-F?” Black Canary can’t believe her ears. “There’s a piece of the puzzle that’s missing here.”

Batman nods. “I couldn’t agree more.”

The Huntress leans on the table and says. “The Watcher.”

The Atom turns to the Huntress. “What’re you babblin’ about?”

“The answer to the third riddle is the Watcher. He knows who’s good and he knows who’s bad, but he isn’t Santa Claus. He simply knows. So some of us are going to have to head to the Blue Area of the Moon.”

“That fiend! The fourth riddle is Paradise Island! No man may set foot on that island! Could he know?” Wonder Woman starts to run for her invisible plane.

“Shouldn’t someone go with her?” Iron Man asks. “You Avengers want to have Jarvis try to stall her until we decide who should go with her?”

Thor steps forward. “She shall need time to prepare for takeoff, by then she should remember that our aid is coming.”

“I don’t get the next one. Who’s unparalleled in fighting? And why would they be mistaken for pilots?” Sandman asks

“I think I’ve got it, but part of the riddle makes no sense. I think he’s talking about the Squadron Supreme. I have no idea what he means by ‘Your points will be null for this game,’” the Vision says.

“I think that’s part of the missing piece. There’s more to these riddles than meets the eye. They’re too easy and that bothers me.” Batman scowls while examining the piece of paper. “There’s something here and we’re all missing it.”

“This last riddle seems to suggest two possibilities. My first guess was the New Gods or Darkseid. But I’m not sure where giants would come in. That led me to think of Titan. They’re also called gods and the name means giant.” Wesley Dodds looks around for confirmation.

“The logic is pretty sound.” Both the Vision and the Human Torch say in unison.

Batman leans on the table with both hands. “It’s Titan. Now it’s time to split into teams and go after the bad guys like we’re supposed to. However, I’m staying here with Robin to figure out what we’re missing.”

Robin looks startled. “Why me?”

“You were trained by my counterpart on your Earth. I can’t think of anyone more qualified to solve the Riddler’s riddles than you.”

“I’ll stay too.” Everyone turns to look at the Earth-1 Captain America. “I can coordinate things from here if need be.”

Bucky whispers to the Earth-2 Captain America. “You going to stay, too? That way you can tell him. He needs to know.”

The Earth-2 sighs and steps forward. “I’ll help Steve coordinate things from here.”

Moments Later:

The Beast and Wonder Man watch the six teams of heroes depart for their destinations. “You sure you didn’t want to go?” Simon Williams asks Hank McCoy. “It would be more fun than sitting here.”

“Nah. I’d rather be the cavalry that comes in to save the day.” The Beast laughs, “Besides, I’ve got some tests running that I want to keep an eye on.”

Simon Williams knows all about those tests; the Beast has been trying to figure out what happened to Williams while he was ‘dead’. I’m afraid to learn the answers, but then again, I’m always afraid.

The Beast takes one last look at Simon Williams before leaving the room. The bigger question is why didn’t you go Simon? Why didn’t you go? McCoy knows the answer, and doesn’t blame Wonder Man for being afraid to die, again.

Wonder Man watches the six teams fly off into the distance. The team headed for Atlantis (Namor, Aquaman, the Whizzer, the Golden Age Green Lantern, and the Martian Manhunter) dives into the Atlantic Ocean.

The second screen shows the team headed to Earth-F. Superman, Scarlett Witch, Wildcat, the golden age Flash, and Miss America are preparing to leave. The Flash runs in circles opening up a dimensional portal that Superman, holding the Scarlett Witch and Wildcat, flies through. Miss America and Jay Garrick quickly follow the Man of Steel through the hole in space.

Hal Jordan places a green bubble around Hawkeye, Human Torch, Toro, Hawkman, and Hawkgirl. Using his amazing power ring, the Green Lantern carries his teammates towards the Blue Area of the Moon.

Since men are not allowed to step foot on Paradise Island, Wonder Woman, the Wasp, Spitfire, Black Canary and Power Girl strap themselves into the Invisible Airplane. As the plane takes off Simon Williams thinks to himself, Invisible planes, Martians, Androids with my brain patterns, and multiple Earths. What have I gotten myself into?

Yellow Jacket, Iron Man, Huntress, Thor and the Atom are headed for Earth-S and a possible confrontation with the Squadron Supreme. The Quinjet shoots through a hole in space created by the Silver Age Flash. Barry Allen follows the Quinjet through and disappears from view.

The last group of heroes heads for Titan. The Quinjet carrying Hourman, Vision, Green Arrow, Sandman and Dr. Fate heads off into space.

Meanwhile:

“Luthor, it looks like the heroes will be distracted by our compatriots.” The Red Skull pours them both another glass of red wine.

“The two Captain Americas and Batman remained behind. They could still ruin everything.”

“You worry too much, Luthor. I’ve killed one Captain America already, it won’t take long to kill another.” The Red Skull hands Lex Luthor a glass of wine and chuckles as he thinks back to how he killed the Earth-2 Captain America, Steve Rogers.

Back at the Mansion:

“I’ve been able to decipher one aspect of the letter. The man behind the riddles is the Red Skull. The Riddler made all of the riddles relate to the correct name of the person or group in the answer except for Captain Marvel. By using the Big Red Cheese nickname, he was giving us a clue to the identity of the true enemy we’re facing.” Batman stares intently at the riddles.

“Unfortunately, there’s still something we haven’t been able to figure out yet,” Robin adds.

“At least that’s a start. Good job guys.” The Earth-1 Captain America walks out of the room to keep Simon Williams company in the monitor room. I need to make sure our reserve unit is ready to go when needed. The Red Skull is up to something big this time and so far we have no idea what it is.

Next Issue: Next issue the teams run into the bad guys! What are the Red Skull and Luthor planning? And special guest writers galore!

Letters:

This is some great stuff you've come up with Mark, or Baloo, or whatever you wanna be called! The Hulk/Bizarro story was hilarious! Supes/Spidey/Thor was an excellent tale as well.........waiting for that JLA/JSA/Avengers/Invaders story..............How much longer is it gonna be? CAN'T WAIT!! -A true blue. and new fan

InterKnight77

Glad to hear you liked the first 4 issues and I hope you enjoyed the first issue of the new storyline. The next one will be better since I’m not writing all of it. J

And just for the record, you can call me anything you want if you’re reading my stuff. If you have to suffer, I’ll let you call me names.

Hey mark! Well, I just wanted to comment on SoS #3 and #4. #3 was a great conclusion to the Superman/Thor/Spiderman arc, of course, but issue #4, the Hulk on Bizarro world may have been the most awesomely strange thing that I have ever read. I loved it and cracked up, especially at the ending! Keep up the great work!

TJB

I’m not sure if “the most awesomely strange” is a compliment, but I’ll take it as one. Seriously, thanks for the kind words.

Finally, a big thank you to Mark Bousquet who edits all of my stuff and makes my stories much better than they would be otherwise.

Mark Beaulieu

Ulysses and Pandora Productions