by Libbylawrence
Lisa Snart was a true sex symbol, and she relished that fact. She was blonde, beautiful, flirtatious, alluring, and addicted to adoration. Plus, she had abandoned her super-villainess past and was on her way to becoming an actual super-heroine. This was mostly thanks to her largely adopting the values of service to others as exemplified by Captain Comet. As the Golden Glider, Lisa was a skillful skater with an agile mastery of combat based on savate. And while she did like helping others, she still could never resist a photo op.
She posed in a short green miniskirt and white tube-top on a parked snowmobile in the middle of Washington’s so-called hottest beach — an empty sandlot a few miles from the river and many miles away from Chesapeake Bay’s real beaches. She justified her side career as a calendar girl by giving part of her earnings to charity, in an effort to impress Captain Comet with her good deeds.
After finishing that photo-shoot, she turned to see a speeding police car speed make an abrupt halt as a man in a red costume and a mauve hood and cape escaped the law by swinging off-road in a gold-colored classic car that had been modified with some strange array on its roof. She decided to take down the red-costumed felon herself rather than call in the Rehab Squad.
Golden Glider slipped on her experimental skates that formed ice underneath them, allowing her to skate almost anywhere, and raced off after the yellow vehicle, darting in and out of traffic with amazing skill. The Blonde Bombshell neared his car’s sloped back and, with a sudden jump, soared through the air and up onto the wide back of the car. “Goin’ my way, sailor?” she teased as the hooded man turned around in shock.
“Get out, lady!” the man replied, leaning his head out the side window. “This is serious business. I’ve never hit a girl before, but don’t push me.”
“Between you and me, darling, I’m no lady,” she quipped, then slammed her fist into the back of his head.
“Ow!” he cried, and spun off the road as she had intended, away from other traffic. As the car screeched to a halt, he jumped out and ran off, a bag under one arm. His mauve hood and red costume made a stark contrast to the grassy green bank around him. Glider leaped out, allowing her skates to provide her with an icy path that she used to arc over his head and land directly in his path.
“Miss me?” she asked, posing with her hand running through her long blonde hair. He fired a gun at her, and she was suddenly trapped in a huge gooey bubble. Her skates sliced through it, but it still held so firmly that, by the time she had freed herself from the trap, her red-suited foe had escaped. If that gum had gotten in my hair, I would have killed him, she thought.
***
A final related crime involved Dr. Karin Grace, who with her Star-Band had become the powerful Goldstar. She was soaring over the sea, enjoying the sun, when she spotted a weird figure in a purple and green outfit flying toward a U.S. Army plane using a small jetpack attached to his back. As he neared the government transport plane, he pulled a gun out of a holster at his side. Karin approached and was startled to see that the green that she had seen was actually his skin color. He was thin and wiry, and his rubbery features were hidden under a purple cowl and goggles, which appeared to be part of a purple uniform he wore. He did not appear to be human.
The green-skinned man fired, and a yellow ray sliced the plane’s wings off with ease. As it fell, he flew closer and activated a wrist-worn device. An antigravity field or tractor beam pulled a machine out of the crashing plane and carried it in his wake.
Taking a deep breath, Goldstar flew in pursuit of the falling plane. Karin knew this was life and death, so she prayed her Star-Band was up to the task. She concentrated, and an energy hand formed under the plane, which she used to catch it and steady it as she slowly lowered the plane safely to the ground. The crew thanked her, and she smiled happily. Well, Mr. Rick Flag, wait ’til you hear about little ol’ Karin, she thought. The green man who wrecked the plane had fled with his stolen machine as soon as his ray had locked on to it.
***
Back in Washington, D.C., at the Meta-Human Rehabilitation Agency, which served as the Rehab Squad headquarters, the heroes shared the similar adventures they’d had meeting their unknown foes. A computer-check by Lyla revealed that the thefts had several things in common.
Lyla, who looked stunning with her newly curled hair, sat on a table in front of the assembled heroes wearing a pink blouse and white shorts. “First,” she began, “these thefts are of equipment that could only be used to broadcast some kind of dangerous and powerful energy ray. That suggests the satellite will be deployed either for terrorism or pure destruction. Second, the crooks are all powerful or skilled and, from the way you all described them, unknown to any conventional law enforcement. Even the Monitor’s files, going back decades, tell me nothing. And you all agree that none of the crooks looked older than thirty-something.”
“My sparring partner called me a Goldwyn Girl and used the term Earther,” said Lesla-Lar. “That suggests to me that she is both alien and — what? — likes old movies?”
Captain Comet snapped his fingers. “That’s it! My enemy said I’d make the news in the Daily Star!”
“So?” said Golden Glider. “That’s the paper in Green Arrow’s hometown, Star City.”
“Yes, but he specifically called it the Metropolis Daily Star,” said Captain Comet, “indicating to me that he was referring to the largest newspaper in Metropolis — on Earth-Two! I know, because I once shared an adventure with that world’s Justice Society of America, fighting an earlier incarnation of the Secret Society of Super-Villains. (*) Here on our Earth, which is referred to as Earth-One, super-heroes didn’t show up until the 1950s. But on that world, super-heroes, or mystery-men as they called them, became active much earlier than they did here, first appearing in the late 1930s and really peaking during World War II.”
[(*) Editor’s note: See Justice Society of America: Times Past, 1978: The Redundant Rogues.]
“You were the first super-hero on this world,” said Glider proudly.
“It’s true that I did my part until others came along to help,” Captain Comet said modestly. “However, I suspect that the apparent youth of these unknown foes, combined with their dated references, makes them time-travelers or Earth-Two meta-humans who crossed over at some previous time.”
“Could they be Earth-Two meta-humans who were also plucked from, or traveled through, an earlier time?” asked the lovely Lesla. “That way they could be both young and still from the Golden Age, as I’ve heard that world’s heroic beginnings called.”
“Possibly,” he said. “What’s your opinion, Lyla? You are our resident meta-human expert, no matter what world or time.”
Lyla smiled. “Thanks, but I while admit the Monitor’s files may contain references to such older heroes or villains from Earth-Two, none seem familiar to me. Of course, if they had extremely brief careers long ago, then came to our time and world, that would explain their unknown status.”
“They may be Earth-Two’s Forgotten Villains,” piped up a smiling Dolphin.
“Or Forgotten Heroes. The man I faced did not strike me as evil, just oddly determined to accomplish his mission,” declared Captain Comet.
Goldstar rushed in to add her tale, and she suggested they seek out the source of her foe’s green features.
“He could be a Martian,” suggested Lyla.
“Yeah, Martians are all green,” said Dolphin.
“Actually, hon, some are chalk white on our Mars,” said Lyla. “Who knows what they are like on the Mars of another dimension? Why do they even have to be from Earth-Two? That Daily Star reference proves little. Maybe they are from Earth-Three or Four, or even A.”
“That’s a good point,” Captain Comet replied. “So let’s go talk to some other Earth-Two heroes who’ve crossed over to live on our world, like Sargon the Sorcerer, and see if any of these meta-humans are at all familiar.”
Lyla smiled. “The Black Canary of JLA is really the daughter of the Earth-Two JSA heroine. (*) That fact has only come to light relatively recently, but the Monitor knew of it when it did.”
[(*) Editor’s note: See “The Doppelgänger Gambit,” Justice League of America #220 (November, 1983).]
“Let’s go pay a few visits to see if they can shed light on the matter,” ordered Captain Comet.
***
Black Canary was gracious, intelligent, and undeniably gorgeous. Starman and Dolphin listened as she told them all she knew of Earth-Two. “I can’t say I recognize any of those types from any JSA cases I knew of from my mom’s memories.” Seeing the puzzled looks on their faces, Canary added, “It’s an odd story that I won’t go into about my life and my mom’s. I know Reddy — Red Tornado — was built on Earth-Two, but he is an elemental/android and not really a native. You say he is well again and gone back to live with Kathy Sutton? (*) I’m so happy. He’s a sweetheart. I made his costume for him, you know.”
[(*) Editor’s note: See Captain Comet’s Rehab Squad: Heroes and Villains, Epilogue: Red Tornado Reborn.]
“Miss Lance,” said Dolphin, “do you know any other Earth-Two people who live here now?”
“Well, Zatara crossed over, but he died last year shortly after the Crisis. (*) The Freedom Fighters were briefly here a few years ago, but they left for their adopted world Earth-X a while back. You know of Sargon the Sorcerer, of course. The Spectre was based on Earth-One until the Crisis, and he roams where he will. You’d know him if you met him, anyway.” She shrugged her shapely shoulders and said, “I wish I could be more help.”
[(*) Editor’s note: See The Night Force: The War of Darkness and Light.]
“You’ve been a great help, Miss Lance,” said Starman, smiling warmly. “Thank you for your time.”
As the two left, Dolphin turned to her boyfriend and said, “What’s on your mind, Will? You seem distracted.”
“Say, Dolphin, do you ever wear fishnets?” he said.
Dolphin shook her head and said, “Bad choice of words.” And she stormed ahead of him.
“What’d I say?”
***
Captain Comet visited the former JLA Bunker in Detroit, since Lyla had learned that the Conglomerate had relocated there after the recent death and funeral of their teammate, the Beetle. (*) Sargon the Sorcerer was a founding member of the Conglomerate, a publicity-hungry team that had captured all the headlines along with the Rehab Squad before the Justice League could fully return to the public spotlight. The death of the Beetle had spurred the team to abandon their founder, Maxwell Lord, however, and Comet hoped that they would channel their energy into doing good rather than merely seeking fame and fortune from this point on.
[(*) Editor’s note: See Justice League of America: Pyre, Chapter 5: Day of Despero and The Conglomerate: Funeral for a Friend.]
Sargon the Sorcerer added little but an offer of his help at any time. The mystic personally knew of no other Earth-Two heroes like those mentioned by the visiting Captain Comet. “But I do recall a crime-fighting gentleman magician predating both Zatara and me called Nadir, Master of Magic,” said the equally genteel Sargon. “I never actually met him, and only read of his adventures back in 1937 or 1938, but he sounds vaguely like the man you fought, complete with the Hindu turban. He vanished a couple of years before the war.”
“Thanks, my friend,” said Comet. “That does help.”
“Who’s the Boy Scout?” sneered a red-haired, green-clad newcomer as he swaggered into the room. Captain Comet recognized him as Guy Gardner, a member of the Green Lantern Corps best known for his lack of social skills.
“I’m Adam Blake, Captain Comet,” he said, extending a hand.
Gardner ignored it and said, “You look like some Adam Strange wanna-be to me. I’m the one, true Green Lantern.”
“Actually, I have met both the real Green Lantern and his alien predecessor, Abin Sur,” said Captain Comet. “They were true heroes in that they did not feel the need to constantly prove themselves. You might benefit from their example.”
The angry Gardner said, “Who died and made you the expert on super-heroing, you Johnny-come-lately nobody?” He swung at Comet, who ducked and left him stunned on the floor with a mild mental blast.
“Actually, since you asked, I was technically this Earth’s first super-hero.” He turned to the Conglomerate’s magician, nodded, and said, “Thanks for your help, Sargon.”
As Captain Comet walked off, the amused Sargon the Sorcerer bent down to help the dazed Guy Gardner up. “No cracks from you, Turban Boy,” Guy muttered.