He was taller than most men, six feet and an inch, broad of shoulder, but not unreasonably so. He did not need to be exceptionally large; his muscles were powered by something entirely different from the life-force which flows through ordinary animals. No human, after all, would be flying through hard vacuum at enormous speed, without a helmet; he did not conform to our usual understanding of either movement or respiration. And he was gorgeous.
Not gorgeous like an actor or a model, but more like a Greek statue, utterly symmetrical, without a single line or jag in his skin, moving in a line so straight that it would have shamed a yardstick. He was headed for the Asteroid which, in turn, was headed straight towards the Earth.
They weren’t very far from the outer atmosphere. Sensing surveillance wasn’t one of his abilities, but the superhero could almost feel the many satellites tracking him. Some were news cameras, some were repurposed surveillance drones, some were simply weather observers with good cameras. Everyone wanted to see this. Everyone wanted to see him.
As usual.
Comic books suggested that superheroes had secret identities to hide their identities – for protecting loved ones, for experiencing some peace, for avoiding being constantly attacked. This might have been true if they’d emerged during, say, the 1950s, but superheroic scientific breakthroughs happened in the Information Age. This makes sense; previous technology just wasn’t up to the challenge. But it also has some horrible consequences. There was no real privacy for the superhero. Not even super-speed could reliably fly you to somewhere sufficiently free of orbital tracking, of security cameras, of phones, of bodycams, of various sorts of modern-age monitoring, such that you might change into your ‘secret’ identity.
He was a superhero all the time. He had no private life, nothing but just doing good ,all day long.
Or…something resembling good. After several pretenders had impersonated him on social media, he was eventually forced to create an official website, and official social presences. It was impossible to monitor them by himself, which meant he had to hire a media team. That was, most likely not actually when things started going downhill; they’d probably been going downhill for a long time. But that’s when he really started to notice.
He did not exactly need food or sleep or shelter the way humans might, although no-one, least of all himself, had determined his limitations in terms of nutrition, hydration, or shelter. And it’s not like the populace wasn’t happy to offer him food and drink, although he felt weird asking for crashspace. But he needed to pay the media team. And his ability to do so became ever more complex.
Eventually he turned to crowdfunding. But therein lay the rub.
Crowds might fund an artist, an entertainer, a creator, a public figure, because that person pleased them artistically and their politics aligned. But “doing good” isn’t “making art”. Artists periodically find themselves on the wrong side of popular opinion, and their work is censured, or censured, or watered down in order to please a larger market; or else, sometimes, they come down hard on one side or another, become that group’s champion, and all others be damned.
He could not take the latter path; his powers were a gift to him, and he, in turn, lived in order to use those powers to serve a greater good.
Modern humans have many words for someone who believes that no single side has all knowledge and understanding, no one voice is the true voice of reason, and there is little true change which comes without sacrifice or discomfort. The words humans used were “Traitor”, “Monster”, “Beast”, and “Villain”.
But at least there’s one thing upon which everyone could agree: if a giant asteroid was in its way to strike the earth, killing the vast majority of its inhabitants, then it was obviously the fault of whichever people they disagreed with at that particular moment.
The Superhero sighed a very small sigh. This was difficult in vacuum, but he managed.
He hadn’t checked his finances lately. It had become far too stressful. But he had to read the headlines, at least to see if there were any new global catastrophes incoming. The last international news he’d seen, shortly before he leaped out of the Earth’s atmosphere, were that the negative effects of gravity came from “the Socialist Agenda”; or “Late Capitalism”; or “Tuna Overfishing”; or “Bribed Football Referees”; or “Lack of Respect for Kangaroos”. In any case, each noise source was quite convinced that things would be different if it wasn’t for all those opposing voices, all of which belonged to people who were ignorant, insane, and malicious all at once. And every news source was quite clear on this point as well: Intervention here was clearly a partisan act, and the Superhero ought to be abhorred.
The asteroid loomed large, just ahead of him. He paused and he stared at it for a moment.
Screaming, as we generally know the term, is not possible in outer space; it’s not just that no-one can hear the sound, it’s also that you can’t expel oxygen which isn’t in your lungs to begin with.
He screamed anyway, and smashed his head into the massive rock, again and again and again.
Eventually, he stopped, and, again, he looked over the massive thing. It had now lost enough mass that he ought to be able to push it out of harm’s way.
You can’t really sigh in space, either. But his chest swelled and relaxed, slow and hard.
He balled his fist and hammered on the asteroid, cracking off a huge chunk, which he shattered with a fist. He examined the remaining celestial body with a critical eye. Then he moved over to one end, and, looking carefully at the Earth, gave the thing a small shove.
* * *
He watched the asteroid drop towards the planet, watched the shockwave. He stayed in place, still watching, as some of the seas rose up, as the continents cracked, as the great cloud of dust and ash soared to the atmosphere. Then he turned aside and flew off towards the edge of the galaxy.
It was almost certainly not an extinction-level event, just a cataclysmic one.It was definitely much better than what would have happened if he hadn’t done anything at all. He doubted the remainder of the human race would thank him, but they weren’t going to thank him in the first place.
He began accelerating, moving out of the Solar System. It was time for a vacation. Perhaps five years, perhaps ten.
He wondered what it would be like when he returned. Stone age? Bronze age? His guess was something Neolithic.
He shrugged. When he came back, he’d help.
Maybe he’d teach them the secret of copper.
(as told to Jeff Mach)
My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. I also tweet a lot over @darklordjournal.
I write books. You should read them!
I put on a convention for Villains every February.
I created a Figmental Circus. It’s happening this June. You should go!
