Requiem For A Heavywieght

Issue #1 (of 3),

By Chuck Burke

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Heavy rain is falling in the late evening hours in Gotham City. In a vacant
lot surrounded by boarded- up houses, eight young men huddle around a barrel
of burning cardboard. Over the sound of the raindrops, a sensitive ear
might hear them discussing payment for the briefcase full of glass vials
that one of the men holds.

A flash of lightning illuminates a rooftop overlooking this scene, revealing
the presence of two costumed figures. One, dressed in red and blue, is a
man not much older than those below. The other, a large man dressed all in
black, is old enough to be a grandfather to any of the others.

"What do you say, Rick? Ready to drop in on these schnooks?" whispers the
older one.

"You sound like my dad, Ted." retorts the other in a whisper. He pauses a
second, focusing his internal energies to release the latent chemicals in
his body, and he feels the rush of Miraclo feeding his muscles. "Let's do
it."

Without another sound, they drop from the rooftop to the ground below. The
younger man lands to one side of the group, hitting the ground and rolling
up into a crouch. The bigger man uses the group to break his fall, leaping
into their midst with a loud howl.

"What the hell?!?" One of the young men cries, before being silenced by a
massive fist in the face. Even as he hits the ground, two of his companions
are pulling knives and crouching to face the dark intruder. When they see
the smile beneath the cowl, they start to have second thoughts.

"Ready to dance a little, boys? Come on, see if you can slice a piece off
the old 'cat!" With a low growl, the big man in the black cat suit drops
low, sweeping with his left leg at the knifeman closest to him. The foot
connects, and only one is left standing.

Meanwhile, three young men are facing off against the one in red and blue.
One recognizes the hourglass symbol on his costume. "Jeez, that's Hourman!
What's he doing in Gotham?" It is the last thing he says before a knife
hand strikes his neck with inhuman speed, rendering him unconscious. The
other two start forward, only to look upward in amazement as the lithe
figure jumps over their heads to come down feet first on the last assailant
facing his cat-suited partner.

"Two are heading for the alley, Hourman, including the bag man. You take
care of these clowns, I'll take him down."

"Got it, Wildcat. I'll catch up with you." Hourman turns back to the
remaining two, as Wildcat takes off running.


Out on the street, Wildcat stops long enough to hear the running men. He
takes off after them, mentally figuring that they have a head start of about
a block. He tries to keep an eye on them as they run through the nearly
deserted neighborhood. Every house he passes is boarded over, some with
"For Sale" signs out front, though they no longer mean anything. "Two days,
and this will all be gone." he thinks to himself. "Been tracking this group
for months, and got lucky when I heard they were pulling one more deal here
before the demolition crews move in to make room for the new Department of
Extrahuman Operations center here."

He has run three blocks when he realizes that he can't see them anymore. He
slows down, looking for signs where they might have left the street. A
puddle in the walk leading to a tumble-down, two story house catches his
eye; there are ripples on the puddle, as if something had disturbed it. On
closer inspection, he spies a wet footprint on a porch step.

"Well, where in there would they be waiting? Are they smart enough to wait
upstairs? Or are they waiting by that front door for me to walk in." He
smiles as he looks up, and notices a stout branch of a strong old oak tree
that reaches over the porch roof. He jumps, grasping the branch, ans swings
himself up onto it. He carefully stands on it, and with cat-like grace,
walks across the branch to the porch roof. Knowing that they have possibly
already heard him, Wildcat ducks his head and leaps through the boarded-over
window on the second floor. The wood splinters apart, and he hits the floor
of an empty bedroom rolling forward to take the landing on his shoulder,
rolling over completely to come to a stop standing right by the open door.
He sees the two thugs coming up the stairs, and dives for the closest one.
His arms go around the young man's waist before he can react, and together
they roll down the stairs, taking the second one with them.


Three minutes later, Hourman comes running down the street, stopping when he
sees Wildcat sitting on top of the two bound and unconscious drug dealers,
breathing heavily.

"I tell you, I'm getting soft. Getting aged by Extant took more out of me
than I realized. I'm going to up my run from 2 to 5 miles, starting
tomorrow. I got here, I was so loopy I didn't even recognize the place."

"What do you mean? You found the guys. Nothing wrong with your judgement
there, old-timer."

Wildcat stands up, and pulls Hourman close enough to hear a whisper. "That
ain't what I'm talking about, Rick. I mean the house. This is where I grew
up!"


Two hours later, just after midnight and after depositing their sparring
partners outside the closest police station, Ted Grant and Rick Tyler walk
into Warrior's Bar and Grill in New York. "Handy little thing, that
transporter doohickey Alan and the Martian came up with. Makes getting home
here a lot easier."

"Sure, Ted. Now, let's grab a drink, and you can explain what you said
about that house."

Moments later, the two men sit down, and Ted starts his explanation.
"What's to explain? I'm serious, that was where I lived when I was a kid.
Right up till I left for college, actually."

"College? I never figured you for the college type, Ted. No offense, but I
thought you spent your whole life in the ring."

"Everybody thinks that. To tell you the truth, Rick, once I got out of high
school, I didn't want anything to do with sports. Up until then, that was
all I did. Football, wrestling, swimming, and of course boxing. I won two
junior titles in Gotham before I was 17. Old Joe Morgan was the coach at
Saint Bridget's and got me started in the ring. He was really upset when I
told him I was dropping sports and going to college to study medicine."

"Medicine? You became a doctor?" Rick was incredulous.

"No, I never made it. You see, my mother died when I was 12, and it was
just Dad and I. He was a great guy, but he had a problem. He loved to bet
on just about anything, especially my matches. Still, when time came for
college, he was behind me a hundred percent. He's the one who had it out
with Joe when I quit boxing. Took a lot of guts, cause my dad was just a
little guy. Joe could have taken him apart. Dad didn't care, he wanted me
to be happy."

"Sounds like a great guy, Ted. So what happened after that?"

"I had just finished my freshman year, in 1938. I was living at the
college, even though it was in Gotham. I figured it would be hard to
concentrate at home, you know? Anyway, I come home, and there's Dad,
sitting on the porch. He sees me, and starts down the steps. All of a
sudden, he fell forward, landed flat on his face. I ran over, and turned
him over. Even as a freshman, I'd seen enough examples in the teaching
hospital to recognize a stroke. Massive one. I don't think he ever even
felt himself hit the ground."

Rick reached over to pat Ted's hand. "I'm sorry, Ted. At least it happened
quickly, though. No wasting away or anything like that."

"Thanks. Seems funny, you feeling sympathy over the death of a man who died
almost 60 years ago. Still, I appreciate it. It's just like everyone in
the neighborhood then. They all liked Dad, and the funeral was one of the
biggest I'd ever seen. Too big, in fact." Ted's voice dropped with the
last line, a fact that Rick Tyler noticed.

"Who was there, Ted? What happened?"

"A couple of guys showed up, looking for me. They didn't even wait until he
was in the ground when they told me I had to pay back the money he owed
them. That's when I found out that he'd kept gambling, and losing, after I
left for college. I guess, without me to bet on, he didn't have any more
sure things. Of course, I wasn't exactly rolling in money, but they gave me
the option of working for them, boxing for their boss, until the dept was
paid."

"You mean, you started out boxing for a couple of crooks?"

Ted shook his head. "Not what you'd expect, is it. Now you know why I've
never signed up for one of those book deals they've been giving most of the
old sports celebrities. At first, I was in the ring to lose, but I didn't
like that idea much. One night, I was up against this big ape who might
have been able to take me on his own, with a little luck. I decided to cut
loose, show those two mooks what I could really do. Poor guy came into the
ring, after they told him that I would take a dive in the fifth round. It
never got that far. I knocked him out cold with ten seconds left in the
first round." He smiled. "After that, any guy who made it past the eighth
round was told to take a dive before it got much further."

"Did any of them do it?" Rick cocked his head, already suspecting the
answer.

"Nope. Nobody ever made it that far. Of course, these weren't sanctioned
matches or anything. These were bare-knuckle matches, in old warehouses or
back allies. I probably would have been there forever if it hadn't been for
a couple of muggers."

Guy Gardner, owner of Warrior's, sits down at the table. "Got another
schmuck to tell this tired old story to, eh Grant?" He turns to Rick and
puts out a hand. "Hiya, kid. Guy Gardner, your humble host. Don't mind
Ted here, he tells a good yarn, and you can even believe some of it. Like
this bit about the muggers - no lie, he saved the butt of the heavyweight
boxing champ, didn't you?"

"I didn't even think about it at the time. I was headed home after a match,
still keyed up because the guy I was up against was on the floor in five
seconds. I was passing by the old Gotham Garden, and I heard something,
sounded like a fight. I come around a corner, and there's this guy getting
beat up by three chumps with masks over their faces. I always did side with
the underdogs, so there I am, slugging away at these three guys, when the
victim pops one of them with the sweetest left hook I ever saw. We mopped
up the street with them, and that's when I realized that I had just rescued
Socker Smith."

"Smith? Wasn't he the one that was supposed to go to Munich in '36?"

"Whoa, you know your boxing, don't you Rick? Yeah, he was all set for the
Olympic team, and his kid brother got sick. He bowed out, giving the top
spot to Joe Louis. A year later, he turned pro, and he had won the
championship about six months before I met him."

"So what happened after that?"

"Well, he thought I had potential, and he wanted me to start training with
him. The guys I had been working before agreed to let me go, after Smith
slipped them a little finder's fee, and I found myself in the world of the
pros. To tell you the truth, it wasn't a whole lot better. Turned out that
Smith's managers, a pair of fellows named Flint and Skinner, were just as
willing to fix a match as my old pair. They just had different methods."

"What do you mean?" Asks Rick, signaling to the bartender for another
round.

"Four months after I started with him, Socker decided I was ready for a real
bout. I did pretty good there, and in my next four bouts. Only one quick
knockout, but I could wear down most any opponent I came up against. Then
the boxing commission set up a lulu of a match: Socker and me. He still had
the title, and I was considered a hot prospect. Nobody figured I would beat
him, but Flint and Skinner decided to change the odds. They rigged one of
my gloves with a drugged needle."

"Drugged? To knock him out, or just slow him down."

"A knock out, which was dumb to start with. Even worse, they botched it up.
I nailed him in the fourth round, with a hard shot to the chest, and the
needle stuck him then. He went down a few seconds later, and the referee
counted him out. All of a sudden, I'm the new heavyweight champ. I felt
great, for all of about twenty seconds. That's when they realized something
was wrong with Socker. I get down there, trying to wake him up, and the
next thing I know, the ref is grabbing my shoulder and leading me to an
office in the back. A couple of cops come in, and start asking me
questions, then one takes out the handcuffs and tells me I'm being arrested
for murder."

"Murder? Smith got killed?"

"Yeah, and they figured I did it. After all, Flint and Skinner were his
managers before I came along, what reason could they have for killing him?"

At this point, the bartender calls over. "Hey Ted, you have a phone call
here. Says her name is Tilly, and it's important."

"Be right there." Ted turned back to Rick and Guy. "Hang on a second,
guys. This is an old friend, too old to be kept waiting." He walks over to
the bar and grabs the phone. They watch as his face goes lax, and his eyes
grow large. "How did it happen? When, yesterday? This morning. Of course
I'll be there, I'll get the first flight out of New York. Yes, Tilly, I'll
get there as fast as I can. Okay, I'll call from the airport if I need a
ride. No, don't you try to drive out there. Send one of the kids. Okay,
I'll see you tomorrow afternoon, or tomorrow night at the latest. Bye."

He came back over to the table. "Ted, are you all right? Who was that?"

"Tilly Templeton. She's the wife of an old boxing friend of mine, U. T.
Templeton. Rather, she was. U. T. died this morning. Massive stroke."

Rick's hand came down on Ted's, and even Guy stood up and gripped his
shoulder. There weren't any words that they felt were right.

"Thanks, guys. Now, I need to catch me a flight to Memphis."

"Ted? TylerCo has a plant there that I've been meaning to visit. How about
we fly down in the company jet. Could have you there by 9AM, if you want."

"Aw, Rick, I don't know how the thank you. This will mean a lot to Tilly."

"Don't think about it, Ted. Just meet me at JFK Airport at 6:30. I'll
leave a note at the main information desk on how to find the hangar."