Twenty-three - Übermensch
1. The First Corpse
We found poor old
Teddy Boy
Face down
In a pool of blood
Oh yes
And you know what blood does
For Reggie’s
constitution
But it wasn’t that what was first
In the mind
For tick tock like a clock
My noggin’ goes
And it spied something much more
Decadent
That the rim red juice
Of an unsettled score
“Blue Blazes,” says me
quick as a sparrow
sharp as an arrow
“Looks like we weren’t the first
to stumble onto
that nefarious clue.”
Striking heroic poses was the next
Box to tick
On a long long list
Of things to do
But afores anything like that starts
A’happenin’
Reggie up an’ phases out
Like a shadow in the dark
No longer there
His last words lingering
Wafting over the corpse
Like ocean waves o’er a body
sinking
“Side-kicks” he says
and then I knows we’ve got
trouble
then I knows
oh yes, my brothers
sidekicks indeed
2. Origin Story
It was all meteors and
Wizards and magic words and
Secret formulae and
Struck by lightning
And
Last son of another
Planet
Back then that was
All the rage
And we were the top of the pops
Me with flight and might and right
And Reggie phasing in and
Out
And Frank Wilson the
Dark Vision
With black pupils and
The otherworldly
Stare
And Doc Phillips
The Teddy Boy
With his mechanical soldiers
All made
Out of toys
(big bears and angry penguins)
(and pretty maids all in a row)
We were the gang, the group
The Superboys
All the power, all the
Rage
The best of our
Age
Oh yes, my brothers
Yes
And
We could
Do
Whatever
We liked
3. Anything We Liked
It had seemed like
A good idea
Back when good ideas
Had seemed good
We were a happenin’ bunch
With our muscles on
Muscles
With our spandex
And our capes
And our symbols
(read logos
for the nike generation)
and our
oh so strong oh so fast
oh so super
powers
And what does one do
When anything can be done?
What did we do?
Got ourselves some
A little bit of
Never mind the who nor how
Oh yes, got some
Plenty of some
You want it, we
Want it, we
Got it
Some side-kicks
Is what
My brothers, oh yes, oh my
Oh yes
That’s what
4. The Side-kicks
Kicking scratching wretched
Hating biting fighting little
Demons wretched nasty
Children monsters
All in tights
Always at nights
And we their ‘wards’ their
‘role model models’ their
‘ships in their bottles’
their ‘necks with their throttles’
Just a matter of time
O’course, oh yes, oh yes
Just a matter of time
My brothers my
Before the cuckoo flew
The nest
When they flew from the coop
Wasn’t much more to say
We’d had our fun so why not
Let them run
Always get more where
That came from
Only
Only we never thought
Couldn’t dream
Didn’t know
what they’d do
It was crime-fighting time
It was same damn bat time
With our capes and our rings
And our powerful things
But those troubled toddlers
Those sweet damaged kids
Wanted blood in their bowers
Wanted red dripping showers
Of death and destruction to
Reign down upon us
They wanted our flesh and
They started
To kill
It was Reggie who saw it
In the Teddy
Boy’s corpse
The first sign
Like a bad sodding penny
Our weakness
Our Achilles heel
Our Kryptonite, our yellow
Our one hour out of water
Our fire, our wood
Our do what we should
Oh yes my brothers, yes
And they meant to bring us
Down
5. Protect the guilty, kill the innocent
We sounded the call, avengers
Assemble
Let the vengeful ones tremble
We wouldn’t get done
Like Teddy Boy
Weren’t ready to come
Crashing down
Blue Blazes, Great Scott
We’d get those young
snots
And we took to the sky
Like the fourth of July
All wrapped up in flags
Frank, Reggie and me
From us they’d not flee
There was no decision
Needing x-ray or heat vision
The time it had come
For our sidekicks
To die
6. Johnny dies
We first found
Little Johnny
In a slum off Grand Station
Living in filth, his
Spandex outfit ragged and
Dirty
His cape
Stained with vomit
T’was Dark Vision’s ward
So he bent down and
Took his head between his
Hands
Pausing as the boy’s wide eyes met his
Black gaze
Impassive
as the youth
Spat
Full into his
Face
Showing no expression as he
Twisted
The head and
Heard the neck
Snap
7. The last of Wally
Reggie wasn’t so
Gentle with
Wally
Kicked him
This way
Kicked him
That
I heard his skull crack and
His leg snap
And his ribs splinter
And his shoulder pop
But he didn’t cry out
Not once
Not at all
Reggie said he never had
No matter what he did the
Boy never made a sound
Only sound now was Reggie
Breathing heavy
Over the broken and bleeding
Boy wonder
Before he stomped his li’l head
Into tiny
Broken
Pieces
8. I do my bit
My own quite tame
Dauntless young Dicky
With his secret identity glasses and
His fake limp
Not so fake, really
And he was short sighted
But it’s the thought that counts
In these here matters
Not that I thought about it
That much
Except when I heard
The sound
The glasses made
As I crushed them under my
Heel
It’s funny
The things you remember
The things you
Forget
After he was done it
Was three for
Three
A home run, a full
Innings
All bases covered and
The team heads for home
Only we forgot
About one
The one we should have
Done first
Teddy Boy’s
Boy
The fourth
Sidekick
An angry young
Man
With a score
To settle
9. Teddy Boy’s Boy
Was about a week
Later
When Frank come
Runnin’ in all
Screamin’ fit
To burst
Me and Reggie didn’t
Rightly know
What to think til
Looking at his eyes
We realized that
Some
Little
Demon
Has torn them both
Out
No more with the Dark Vision
Gig for Frank, just another
Blind man
On the street
Then we knew
What was what
Then we realized the
One we forgot
Then we remembered
Young Roy
Teddy Boy’s Boy
And we knew he was coming
For us
10. Slugfest
Reggie phased out about then
Said he’d find where and when
Said we’d hunt him and
Kill him
No cliffhanger, just the end
But it didn’t go well
For either or all
As about an hour later
Reggie phases in again, out again
In again, out again
Here comes his
Head
Now here’s his
Leg
Then his
Arm then his knee
Then his voice
And his
Scream
And he said where Roy was
Then his scattered atoms
Were gone
There was no more Reggie
No Frank and no Doc
But now I knew where Roy was
And I knew me he couldn’t stop
So faster than a
Speeding bullet
Up, up and away
To his hide out, his lair
His neither here, neither there
With fists of steel I
Came crashing in
Making quite a din as I
Roared out his
Name
Then he came
And we fought
11. Final Issue
We fought for a night
For a year
For a day
I beat him, he
Beat me
Who won?
Who can say?
I’m sure that I killed him
Sure that he killed me
Like a crossover story
Adapted on the tv
So I lie in the rubble and
I hum my theme tune
And I stare at the stars
And I stare at the moon
And my poor wonky vision
Starts to see it all red
With a croak I expire
So I guess that’s ‘nuff said.