Earth-349: Crisis on Earth-348
by Anton
Psychopolous, Ph. D.
Disclaimer #1 This
story is set on a hypothetical parallel world within the pre-Crisis DC
Universe, based on a story in Superman #349, but is not limited by that
story or any other.
Disclaimer #2 Some
characters appearing in this story are based on copyrighted characters owned by
DC Comics, Inc., Marvel Comics and others.
Their use here is not intended to infringe or disparage those
copyrights.
Disclaimer #3 This
story is not recommended for persons under 18 or the easily offended.
Outwardly, the
minibus in the left northbound lane of the Pacific Coast Highway could have
been any one of millions of Volkswagens driven by young people all over the
world. Better-kept than most, with no
rust or dents, and perhaps its motor sounded deeper and quieter than the
sewing-machine rattle of the usual VW, but at a glance it was just another Type
2, with four well-groomed kids inside.
In fact, only the
hood ornament and some of the exterior panels had been made at Wolfsburg. From its tires (which would not go flat even
if punctured by bullets) to its windows (which bullets would not penetrate at
all), it had been custom-built from exotic materials by brilliant craftsmen at
the Dugan Motor Works. Its young owners
called it the Type 2000. It had
absorbed almost half of the two million dollars Roberta Wayne and Jolene Dodds
had allotted to the group.
Dick Gordon was
driving. Dick always drove. He rarely let them forget that he was
Batwoman's partner, or how much of the Teen Titans' budget came from his
patroness. In jeans and a red
turtleneck, he still looked like a boy wonder.
Jenny West was
riding shotgun, in purple bellbottoms and a white peasant blouse. A red and
gold medallion that dangled between her small breasts concealed the
tightly-compressed costume of Impulse, the Flash's young protegee.
Behind them sat
Danny Dunbar and Paula Manning (known to the Atom and Green Lantern,
respectively, as Dyna-Mite and Lamplighter).
They sat well apart, to avoid Jenny's teasing, waiting impatiently for a
stop so they could make out.
The Teen Titans
were on their way to Coast City.
Barely a year
before, Robin had gotten together with Impulse and Sandy the Golden Boy, just
for a lark. They'd brought a minor criminal
to justice. More importantly to their
way of thinking, they'd hit it off as friends and decided to get together on a
regular basis. Their respective
guardians had loved the idea and bankrolled it quite generously; Dodds had
persuaded the other adults not to try to run the group themselves, letting the
kids find their own way.
Their way hadn't
been easy to find. By the time they
moved into their New Jersey headquarters (an old artillery emplacement they
called "the cave"), they had been joined by Aqualass and Dyna-Mite,
who had quickly become an item. A rude
remark by Sandy about "interracial" romances had led to a fight
between the two boys, Sandy had been expelled from the group and Aqualass had resigned. Since then, Lamplighter had joined, Ant Boy
had come and gone, and the team had been on the verge of disbanding at least
twice.
It hadn't been easy
keeping up interest in the team during the school year, but they'd spent an
exciting summer together, travelling around the country helping teenagers in
one bad scene after another. Now they
hoped to get in one more good session in Coast City before heading back East.
In the city people
called "The City", trouble was brewing between the adult authorities
and the local non-conformist kids. Dick
talked easily about "calming things down", as though the four of them
could make peace between generations in a single busy weekend. Danny wasn't talking about the mission at
all, a sign that he expected trouble .
Jenny was mainly interested in finding out what these
"hippies" were really like.
She suspected that Paula would fit right in.
The highway was an endless series of curves and loops,
hugging the coast. Now the van was
following a long curve to the right, and a dense fogbank loomed ahead of them.
"Look at
that," Dick said happily, "good old Pelican Bay fog. We must be almost there. Whoa!"
Dick exclaimed
aloud as the fog enveloped them, and proved so thick he could see almost
nothing, not even the road under them.
He flicked on the headlights, then threw the switch that boosted them to
floodlight level, but still the gray fog swallowed them.
"Slow down,
Dick," Paula urged, holding up her chinese-lantern pendant to send a beam
of green light out into the fog.
Dick braked, then
braked more sharply as a human figure suddenly appeared before them. He brought the van to a stop and noticed
that the shape remained some ten feet in front of them, and that its feet did
not appear to touch the ground.
"It's some
super-type," Jenny observed, and the figure did appear to be a woman in a
white skintight bodysuit, accented with a small green skirt, green slippers,
gloves and a hooded cloak.
Then Jenny noticed
that the woman had a white face, and white nipples with white areoles. The white was not skintight fabric but
deathly pale skin.
"Spectre," Paula whispered.
"Huh?"
said Danny, still goggling at the woman's pale but shapely knockers.
"There was a
policewoman named Bridget Corrigan
--"
"There may
well have been," said a deep female voice that seemed to come as much from
within the van as from the figure floating in the fog before it. "Or an acrobat named Phoenix Brand, or
a florist named Alicia Simmons. Speak
whatever mortal name you please, it matters not to the Spectre."
A chill that had
nothing to do with fog settled over the Titans as the voice reached them.
"What matters
is the task that awaits you in the great city on the bay. The future of Earth Three Hundred and
Forty-Eight depends upon what the Teen Titans do in the next twenty-four
hours."
The Spectre lifted
her cloak and it billowed out enormously beside her. The van rolled forward unbidden, driving into the darkness of the
cloak as though it were a tunnel entrance.
Dick seized the wheel as they rolled into darkness and then suddenly
into daylight again as they left the fogbank, rounded another curve and saw the
city, the bay and the bridge laid out before them.
But instead of the
graceful white curves of the world-famous Sunset Bridge, they saw the tall
square towers of a span that was painted, of all colors, a brilliant bright orange.
The shaken young
heroes sat around a table at the first coffee shop they had seen beside the
road. Danny had paid for four sodas
with his lucky silver dollar (Dick had advised against trying to spend any of
their more modern money), and Paula was holding her lantern over a handful of
change, discreetly trying to turn their own coins into the Woodrow Wilson dimes
and Ulysses Grant quarters Danny had been given. Dick joined them with a tabloid-sized books with a cardboard
cover that read "Inventorum for 1944". Apparently it was something like an almanac.
"Okay,
Dick," Danny said, sipping an odd cola drink, "you seem to have some
idea what's happened to Coast City, so let's rap."
Dick opened up the
"Inventorum" to what appeared to be a map of the United States and
put his finger on the West Coast.
"Nothing's
happened to Coast City. It's just that
this isn't Coast City, Califia. It's
Golden Gate City, in the state of Eldorado, on a parallel world called
Earth-348. Also, the date on the
calendar over there is June 5th, 1944."
"The day
before D-Day?"
"Dummy up,
Dan-o! I'll explain about that in a
minute."
"Earth-348. The Spectre
used that term," Paula said.
"So, you've been to this other world before?"
"Not me
personally, no. But two years ago, the
Flash was chasing three of her enemies when they tried to escape through a sort
of portal into another dimension. She
followed them here, to a world similar but not identical to our own."
"She met up
with a super-speedster of this world, called Quicksilver," Jenny put in.
Dick glared at her
but she went on. "Together they
defeated them, and three of Quicksilver's foes they'd teamed up with. Flash took hers back to our world and back
to prison. Quicksilver, um, killed
hers."
Dick took
over. "Last year, Batwoman and the
Flash and some other heroes visited their world again. I guess it's something that can happen every
year around this time."
"Is this,
like, an alternate history kind of thing?" Danny asked. "Like it's the world the way it would
have been if the South had won Civil War II?"
"More like a
parallel history," Dick said.
"Things happen differently, but tend to come out the same in the
long run."
He pointed to the
map, with its unfamiliar state boundaries.
"Like, they
have 48 stars on their flag, the same as we did in '44, but they're not the same 48 states. And they never had a Civil War I, but there
was something like a second War of Independence a few years later, and Jackson
was the Army leader and wound up as President, and they had what they call the
War Between the States in the 1860s, almost the same as on our Earth."
"So they're
still gonna beat Hitler on this world, right?" asked Paula, a bit
anxiously.
"Probably. But it might
take another two years here, or there might be a coup in Germany and the war be
over tomorrow. No way of knowing
exactly how the parallel history will
work out. So don't go around making any
predictions to people, or talking about some secret military operation before
it's even begun."
Paula leaned over
and punched Danny's shoulder.
"Or making any
bets at the racetrack."
A gray-haired man
walked past their table, looking them up and down, lingering on Paula's
minidress. Their clothes were fairly
conservative, but obviously not for Earth-348 in 1944.
"Crazy
kids. Dressed like circus clowns. The Justice Battallion is in town, they'll
straighten you out."
The young heroes
exchanged glances.
"Justice Battallion?"
Dick shrugged.
"I guess we're
about to meet the home team."
They were driving
down yet another of Golden Gate City's impossibly steep, absurdly straight
boulevards (had they laid out the streets without even looking at the hills?) when Danny spotted the odd-looking aircraft
with a fireball flying rings around it.
It was hovering over a large plaza just ahead of them, preparing to
land.
Green energy
flooded the Type 2000 and all four Titans were instantly in costume. Dick parked hastily and they got out. Paula, in the green Asian dress and purple
domino mask of Lamplighter, formed a
green platform to carry them onto the plaza, over the heads of the quickly-gathering
crowd.
"Susan?"
Lamplighter called to the flaming figure that still flew overhead. "Susan Storm, is that you?"
The flaming figure
landed and the flames vanished from around her, revealing a tall blonde woman
in a red bodysuit.
"Oh,
sorry. I thought you were the Human
Torch, a hero from our world."
"I am called
the Human Torch," the woman replied in a well-modulated voice, "but
my real name is Galatea Horton, and I'm afraid I've never met you."
"There are a
lot of people, heroes especially it seems, who are near-matches between our
world and this one," Robin explained to his comrades. "If we're here long enough, you'll run
into a lot of familiar names: Hercules, Black Widow, the Falcon, the Vision. .
. ."
The aircraft's
hatch opened. A broad silhouette filled
the darkened opening.
"And who might
you be?"
If the contralto
voice had been any deeper, it would have been considered freakishly low for a
woman's. The tone was that of an
officer who could get a dozen princes to march in step. The owner of the voice was tall and
broad-shouldered, with muscles that again were almost too much for a woman,
though subtantial breasts distorted the white star at the center of her blue
scale-mailed shirt.
"Uh, I'm
called Robin, and these are Impulse, Lamplighter and Dyna-Mite. We're from the same world as Batwoman and
Aquawoman and those guys."
Impulse stared at
Robin. She'd never seen his air of
calm, assured authority crack so badly, except when Batwoman had been present.
The flag-draped
woman smiled.
"Oh, yes,
visitors from the future or something.
Wasn't in on that caper, but I heard about it."
She shot out a
red-gloved hand.
"Captain
America. You've already met the Human
Torch, and here's --"
A tall, lean man,
dressed only in a pair of scaly green swimming trunks, stepped from the
aircraft. He raised one long eyebrow,
regarding the young heroes skeptically.
"Prince Namor,
the Sub-Mariner."
Robin stared at the
strange, prick-eared apparition (his near-nudity reminiscent of the Spectre)
for a moment before hastily grasping Captain America's hand.
"Wow, Captain
America, for real? There was a
Captain America on our world in the '40s, sort of. But she was a symbolic figure like Uncle Sam, not a real
person. Just something they used to
sell bonds."
Cap laughed
ruefully.
"Sometimes it
seems like that's all I ever do."
A few minutes
later, the seven costumed heroes were gathered in a meeting room in City
Hall. The Justice Battallion had been
expected, and the unfamiliar young heroes were accepted by the authorities as
merely some new recruits. While they
waited for the police captain who would brief them, the heroes of two worlds
made further introductions and explained their respective missions, which
turned out to be strangely parallel.
On Earth-348, there
was a subculture named for the weirdly-cut "zoot suits" worn by the
young men. A few days before, in
another El Dorado city, there had been a riot for which the zoot suiters had
been blamed, though apparently it was common knowledge that it had really been
an unprovoked attack by sailors on liberty.
"The situation
is complicated because the zoot suiters are Mexicans, who aren't the most
popular people in El Dorado," Captain America explained. "And those sailors in Todos Santos,
well, with a war on, folks are very reluctant to criticize servicemen."
Dick saw how
uncomfortable his teammates were looking, especially Lamplighter. He began talking rapidly, trying to keep the
Titans from saying anything to alienate the Justice Battallion heroes. He explained how they faced a similar
situation on their own world, and how they had hoped to mingle with the young
people and learn more about them, before taking action.
"An excellent
plan," Cap said crisply, "and workable of we can only move fast
enough. We're operating under a
deadline, you see. John Hoover, the
National Ombudsman, wants to shut down the dance clubs, ban jazz music, round
up all the zoot suiters and stick them in the camps."
Paula gaped,
appalled.
"Camps? Like, concentration camps?"
Namor shrugged.
"The same
camps where they're keeping the Japs."
"So like,
Japanese nationals have been interned for the duration," Dick said
uncertainly.
"Them,"
Cap admitted, "and native-born Americans of Japanese descent, and anybody
else whose loyalty has been questioned.
The camps were built before the war to house the refugees from the
midwestern drought."
Paula opened her
mouth. Jenny squeezed her hand to
silence her. Dick took a deep breath
and said, "We never had . . . such camps in our America."
The three heroes of
Earth-348 exchanged glances, suggesting that they envied the Titans their
youth, and their world, which seemed happier than their own.
"So, how about
if we, the Titans, go out tonight, try to gather some impressions," Dick
pressed. "Maybe the police have
some young-looking rookies they could lend us."
Cap smiled.
"I can pass
for 17 when I have to."
Her smile broadened
at Dick's dubious look. She removed a
glove and raised her hand to her throat, as though reading her own pulse. For a moment she just stared, eyes glazed,
into the distance. Then she shrank
within her costume, until it hung on her like a tent. The young woman Dick now saw was shorter than himself, with no
noticable muscle and not much of a figure.
She smiled at him shyly, showing slightly irregular teeth.
"That is, if
you don't mind being seen with the real me."
It was still before
seven when they got there, so the club was pretty quiet. Dick looked acceptable in a jacket from a
police evidence locker and the one pair of slacks in his suitcase that wasn't
flared. Gloria Rogers, the unenhanced
version of Captain America, was perfect in a fuzzy blue sweater, a calf-length
pleated skirt, white socks and saddle shoes.
Dick paid at the door and they drifted towards the bar.
Dick looked over
the unfamiliar list of soft drinks.
"What looks
good to you, Glory?"
The kid behind the
counter smirked, and Gloria said softly, "I'm dying for a Hi-Ho, if that's
all right with you, Dick."
Dick bought two
bottles of a frighteningly red liquid.
The bartender opened them both and dropped in paper straws without being
asked, handing Gloria hers first, then giving the other to Dick with a raised
eyebrow.
As they moved away,
Gloria whispered, "You should have ordered for both of us without consulting
me. When he handed me my own bottle
instead of giving them both to you and you didn't snatch it from his hand to
give to me, you confirmed that you're a rube who doesn't know enough to treat a
girl like dirt. I'm afraid you've just
lost some credibility."
"Shut up,
girl, you're boring me."
Gloria smiled.
"That's the
idea."
There was no
amplification to the music, and Dick knew that Rock&Roll was a good decade
away, but the band beat their instruments with energy and style, and the place
was alive with what he could only call good vibrations. He saw Danny and Paula dancing off to one
side with more energy than grace. Jenny
and a tall rookie cop were doing a better job, since the cop knew the steps and
Jenny was a fast learner. Applying the
skills of observation Batwoman had taught him, Dick had figured out the most
common steps and set about applying them with Gloria. After the first number, it was less of an effort, and he began to
enjoy the activity for its own sake.
And Gloria's.
The entrance doors
burst open, and a dozen cops waving nightsticks burst in. The exits to either side of the stage
opened, and more uniforms appeared there.
The music
stopped. The kids drew back, crowding
together, backing away from the cops but still defiant. Jenny had vanished, probably vibrating into
invisibility to try to intervene unseen.
Her dance partner was looking around for her, fumbling in his pocket for
his badge. Dick couldn't see what Danny
or Paula were doing.
One boy stepped
forward, almost nose to nose with a particularly large officer. His face was pale under dark coloring, but
he stood up to the big man.
"We ain't
doin' nothin', man! We don't got to
take this from you!"
The cop raised his
stick and snarled, "You'll take whatever we --"
"WAIT!"
On the stage,
Lamplighter had materialized a microphone and loudspeaker from green
energy. The crowd goggled at the
apparition, and at her amplified voice.
Everyone paused, and Dick prayed that she would find the right words to
say.
Then she began to
sing, and Dick's heart sank.
She doesn't understand, Dick thought, she thinks these kids are squares because
their clothes and their music seem old-fashioned to her. But they're not squares, they're not old
farts -- they won't buy it!
Then he looked around the room, and saw
that they were buying it. They were listening. And then he understood.
It was new to
them. They'd never heard it
before. The song had never been written
on Earth-348.
They listened, and
they listened, through all four verses, and everyone -- kids, cops, the band,
and Dick, too -- were in tears by the time Paula reached the last refrain:
"And crown thy good with brotherhood
"From sea to shining sea."
In the silence that followed, Paula said
softly, but clearly thanks to her amplifier, "This is our city, our
country. It belongs to all of us. In war or in peace, we're all in this
together. We don't have to fight with
each other."
The sticks were
holstered. Cops and kids were talking
now, some of them smiling. In the back,
Dick saw the manager talking with a plainclothesman. Photographers were preserving the moment of amity between
cultures and generations, creating images that would be in papers all over the
country the next day. So, he suspected,
would the words to that memorable new song.
Dick turned towards
Gloria, who was still watching Lamplighter as she dissolved the amplifier and
tried to make her escape.
"I think,
Dick, that we just saw what you kids came here for."
He put his arm
around her shoulder and squeezed.
"No. What she
came here for. Paula's the hero this
time; we were just along for the ride."
The music started
up again.
"Dick, do you
like this kind of music?"
"Not much, to
tell the truth."
"Me
neither. Let's go some place
quieter."
They stopped at the
police station. The department had
rented rooms for the Justice Battallion group, and Gloria picked up a room key
from the desk sergeant. They walked the
few blocks to the hotel.
Dick looked up at
the building.
"What do you
know? The Dominion Hotel. They have this same place in Coast
City."
"Were you
going to stay there?"
"Nah. We're almost out of money. A Motel Five, most likely."
The room was
expensively furnished, but lacked the amenities of a first-class hotel room on
Earth-349 in 1964: no refrigerator, a simple AM radio instead of a stereo
system, and of course there was no TV.
But Dick didn't mind a bit, once they were settled on the couch, soft
music playing, room service drinks in front of them.
Gloria tugged at
the sleeve of his jacket.
"You look good
in those clothes."
"Thanks. It's not the style back home, but I can see
how it could catch on."
"Your Robin
costume, it, well . . . ."
"Makes me look
stupid?"
"I was going
to say, it doesn't flatter your build."
Dick laughed.
"That's a very
polite way of putting it. Yeah, well,
when I first became Robin, three years ago, I was just a skinny kid, built kind
of like a dancer."
Gloria reached up
and squeezed his left biceps.
"Now you're
built like a football player."
Dick stared, then
burst out laughing.
"I hope that
means on this Earth boys play
football!"
Gloria's hand was still on Dick's arm. He put his hand over hers and returned her
smile. They moved closer, and in a
moment were kissing.
Dick was surprised
to feel Gloria's tongue in his mouth, but he adapted quickly. He held her for a long time, enjoying the
feel of her body against his, through their clothes. When they broke, she stepped back and placed a hand at her
throat.
"Just a
minute, and I'll change back to Cap."
Dick frowned.
"What
for?"
Startled, Gloria
dropped her hand.
"Well, don't
you want me at my best?"
Dick took her hand
and kissed the inside of her wrist.
"Am I
complaining?"
Gloria blushed and
ducked her head.
"Do you really
want me . . . the way I am?"
He raised her chin
and kissed her lightly on the lips.
"Absolutely."
she shuddered.
"I've only
ever done it as Cap, never as Gloria."
Dick stroked her
cheek.
"Want to know
a secret? I've never done it at
all."
Like two virgins,
they made love slowly, cautiously, but with only a little clumsiness. Gloria surprised him by whipping out a
condom and opening it with her teeth.
"On my world
there's a pill women can take for birth control."
She chuckled.
"Does it keep
the clap away, too?"
Dick had to admit
that it didn't.
"Then this way
is better, isn't it?" she smiled, expertly rolling it onto him.
"Sure feels
nicer."
Later, she did
change to Captain America, and rode him hard to climax. His hands gripped her steely thighs, his
neck craning so he could reach her nipples with his lips and try to suck an
entire breast into his mouth.
"You'd have
better luck trying that with Glory!"
Dick had intended
to go out to look for more signs of trouble afterwards, but it felt so good to
just lie there, his muscular limbs tangled with Cap's, and he was so tired,
besides . . . .
It was broad
daylight when they were awakened by a pounding on the door. Dick dove for the bathroom with his pants
while Gloria calmly answered the knock, pulling a sheet around herself.
From the bathroom,
Dick heard Namor's voice at the door, excitedly telling Cap that they needed to
get to back to England immediately.
When he emerged, dressed, Namor gave him a thumbs-up, ignoring Cap as
she pulled on her chain mail.
"There's
something big going on over in Europe, they've invaded France or
something."
Dick nodded grimly.
"Or
something."
The early reports
would be confused, of course, but soon enough they would know the truth: on
Earth-348, as on Earth-349, this was D-Day: Dust Day, the day Allied planes
dropped a load of radioactive powder on Berlin. As on Earth-349, over a hundred thousand Berliners would die
(though Hitler would escape), and all of the city's millions would become
homeless.
After the war, the
Allies would enclose the poisoned city in a high concrete barrier. The Berlin Wall would stand for decades,
until the deadly dust had finally decayed to a safe level, and the grandchildren
of present-day Germans could reclaim their ancient capital.
D-Day would ensure
an eventual Allied victory, but a victory that was tainted, as surely as Berlin
was tainted, a victory that would burden the whole human race with horror.
Well, it was their
problem, their history, to deal with as best they could, just as Earth-349 had.
Robin shook himself
and smiled at Cap.
"I think
that's our cue for an exit."
The others had also
spent the night at the Dominion, and Dick had them gathered quickly at the Type
2000.
Impulse was
reluctant to go.
"We haven't
really solved anything, you know."
Robin nodded.
"But we
helped. They'll all see things from a
new perspective: the authorities, the kids, maybe even the great and terrible
National Ombudsman."
"But will that
be enough?"
"It'll have to
be. 24 hours is all the Spectre gave
us."
Jenny nodded,
knowing that would have to do.
With their seat
belts fastened, Robin started the engine.
"Back to the
highway, I guess."
But before he had
driven out of the plaza, the black fog suddenly enveloped them again. Dick wondered for a moment what their
departure looked like to the people left behind on Earth-348, then his
attention was drawn to the oncoming headlights of a huge bus with a rounded
rear end. He caught a glimpse of people
in the vehicle, people who seemed to be dressed for winter, and then it was
gone.
"Do you think
something's wrong," Jenny asked as another pair of headlights loomed. "There wasn't any, um, traffic the other
time. Maybe I should get out and scout
at super-speed."
"No! That sounds like a great way to get lost but
good."
Dick drove on
through the fog, which seemed to go on forever, passing a stream of traffic
that included a mammoth old truck hauling a passenger trailer, something that
looked like a 1920s touring charabanc, and a flying saucer with Minnesota
plates.
"Hey!"
cried Danny. "Did you see that
lady in the red T-shirt driving that old car?"
"She looked
just like Tom Smart, except instead of that Egyptian thingie, she had a Greek
letter on her shirt!"
"Duesenberg," Dick muttered.
"Eye of
Horus," Paula said softly.
"Psi,"
Jenny finished.
Danny chuckled.
"Maybe the
next Human Torch we run into will be a guy!"
Just then the fog
parted, and Dick was driving along a lonely stretch of highway that he guessed
was part of the agricultural region south of Coast City. Then a highway sign informed the travellers
that they were actually just outside Piscataway, about 40 miles from the
"Cave".
"Well,"
Jenny observed, "I guess the Spectre gave us a lift. Better than no reward at all."
They spent a few
hours relaxing in their headquarters, showering and snacking, but then it was
getting late, time for the young heroes to call in to their respective
guardians, parents and mentors.
Danny, in an Aztec
Gold suit, was combing his hair before hopping into his Mustang for the long
drive to Ivy Town.
"Hey, guys,
what are your plans for the month?
Anything big in mind?"
"Not me,"
Jenny declared. "Just
decompressing before school starts."
"Green Lantern
wants me to go along on a trip to Alpha Centauri," Paula said. "I probably won't have time for any big
projects after that."
Jenny turned to
Dick.
"How about
you, Dick?"
"I was
thinking of dumping the Robin schtick and developing something more
grown-up."
Jenny sighed.
"I suppose
you';re going to start dressing all in black and gray, like all the other
Bat-types in Gotham."
"No, I like
wearing bright colors, staying upbeat.
"What'll you
call yourself, then, the Rainbow Batman?"
"No. I was thinking of a name more like, I don't
know . . . Captain America."