"Sivana," he realized instantly. The crafty old coot had betrayed them all.
He kicked himself for not thinking of it first.
Within seconds, the Justice Society poured into the complex. Fierce fighting broke out as the Intergang guards fired at the invading heroes with a mixture of handguns, Uzis, and laser rifles. "Stand your ground!" Ira Quimby shouted from the catwalk, having literally taken Sivana's place. "We beat Black Adam! We can beat these insufferable do-gooders!"
Don't bet on it, Green Lantern thought, leading the charge into the lab. Hot lead and energy blasts ricocheted off a wall of emerald flames that bulldozed through the hail of gunfire like a battering ram. Scanning the scene for the most dangerous threats, he spotted T.O. Morrow whipping a blinking metal wand out of his back pocket. Green Lantern reacted with the speed of thought, binding Morrow's arms to his sides with luminous green chains. I don't know what that gadget does, Alan Scott thought, but I'm not giving Morroiv a chance to use it against us.
He concentrated his willpower and the chains tightened around the fugitive futurist. "Drop the wand," Green Lantern ordered his prisoner. Meanwhile, out of the corner of his eye, he caught glimpses of the heated battle raging around him. .
In a blur of superspeed, the Flash single-handedly disarmed the guards in a matter of moments. Their weapons ripped from their hands by an irresistible force, the demoralized mercenaries, many of whom hadn't been paid in weeks, quickly surrendered.
A one-eyed scientist, whom Alan identified as Dr. Cyclops, aimed some sort of black-light ray at Doctor Mid-Nite. "In the land of the blind," Cyclops ranted, "the one-eyed man is king!" Clearly he was unaware that Dr. Pieter Cross could only see in pitch blackness. Doctor Mid-Nite hurled a Blackout Bomb at Cyclops. Inky black smoke blinded the scientist, but not the crime-fighting physician, who delivered a karate chop to the mad doctor's neck with surgical precision. Cyclops' single eye rolled up until only the white could be seen.
Doctor Death hurled a fuming beaker of acid at Power Girl's face. "Please!" she jeered as the acid and broken glass splashed harmlessly against her invulnerable skin. "Like that's supposed to bother me?" A gust of superbreath blew the goateed scientist into the wall behind him. A shelf's worth of glass retorts and graduated cylinders crashed down onto him. "I've had bikini waxes that stung more."
"Your time is up, Hourman!" a clock-faced crook taunted Rick Tyler as the hooded hero ran toward him. An hourglass full of Miraclo tablets dangled on a chain around Hourman's neck. A beam from Doctor Tyme's ray gun washed over Hourman, who suddenly seemed to jump forward sixty seconds in time. "You're powerless now!"
That didn't seem to worry Hourman, who slammed his fist into Tyme's goofy countenance anyway. The face of the timepiece cracked down the middle. The minute and hour hands went flying off in separate directions. An alarm bell chimed as Hourman literally cleaned Tyme's clock. He wrested the gun from the villain's grip. "I don't need superstrength to take out a creep like you."
Tyme moaned upon the floor. "If only I had those fifty-two seconds ...!"
Huh? Green Lantern thought. What on earth is he babbling about?
"Defend me, my Insectrons!" Baron Bug commanded from beneath a counter. A swarm of mechanical bees and wasps rose from a worktable and toward Mister Terrific, who just happened to be invisible to all electronic cameras and sensors. The Insectrons buzzed right past him, leaving him alone as he grabbed onto Baron Bug's collar and dragged him out into the open. Capturing the scientist's remote, Michael Holt quickly deduced its function. A press of a button caused the robotic swarm to drop lifelessly onto the floor, where they were crushed beneath the feet of fleeing sentries and lab assistants. Their metallic exoskeletons crunched loudly.
"Chicken much?" Stargirl swept the floor with a low-level blast from her Cosmic Rod, stunning over a dozen retreating accomplices with one smooth move. Using the staff in a gymnastic fashion, she nimbly pole-vaulted over a heap of unconscious bodies after Veronica Cale. "What a bunch of losers!"
"I surrender!" Cale cried out, raising her manicured hands above her head. Guilty tears streaked her mascara. "After what we created, we deserve everything we get."
"Me, too," Rigoro Mortis added, sounding more intimidated than contrite. With the Super-Hood, Mark III, only a pile of notes and blueprints, the balding scientist had nothing more up his sleeves. His voice quavered. "I give up too!"
That left Ira Quimby up on the catwalk. Wildcat swung up onto the walkway with feline agility. A meaty fist grabbed onto the collar of Quimby's sweaty Hawaiian shirt. "Forget it, chum," Wildcat growled, spinning the scrawny super-genius around. "You're not going nowhere." The costumed prize fighter scowled beneath his whiskers. He looked disappointed that he hadn't had a chance to punch someone yet. "Where's Black Adam?"
While Wildcat gave I.Q. the third degree, Green Lantern finished up with T.O. Morrow. The constricting green chains finally forced Morrow to drop his wand, which Green Lantern incinerated with a burst of emerald fire. So much for that, he thought, then rendered Morrow unconscious with a mild jolt of energy. Dissolving the chains, Green Lantern took a moment to survey the battlefield. From the looks of things, his teammates had won an easy victory. The sprawling lab complex looked like a cyclone had hit it, but the fighting appeared to be over. Proud of his comrades' skill and courage, it took Green Lantern a moment to notice that someone was missing.
"Wait a minute," he called out to the others. "Has anyone seen Atom-Smasher?"
Let the others mop up the floor with those nutty professors, Atom-Smasher thought as he sprinted through the building, leaving the battle behind. He had no doubt that the JSA would be able to handle Doctor Sivana's diabolical think tank without his assistance. I need to find Black Adam.
Despite their differences, he and Adam went way back. They had liberated Kahndaq together, fighting side by side. Adam was like a brother to him. A stern and unforgiving brother, perhaps, but a kindred spirit nonetheless. They had both known tragedy in their lives, and sought solace in vengeance. The other difference between them was that A1 Rothstein now regretted his bloody past. He figured Adam deserved the same shot at redemption.
"Adam?" he called out loudly. He had shrunk down to normal human proportions, the better to search the sprawling lab complex. He ran through sterile white corridors, searching for his friend. Open doorways offered glimpses of bizarre weapons and inventions under construction, including a kryptonite guillotine, a fifth-dimensional torpedo, a portable black hole projector, and a subterranean locomotive for boring to the center of the Earth. Sealed airlocks were marked with cautionary labels warning of radioactive and/or biohazardous materials. A refrigerated storeroom held a sickening collection of eyeballs, hearts, and other human organs, preserved in formaldehyde. The specs for a life-sized plutonium android were scrawled on a blackboard, next to the ingredients for the ultimate nerve gas. None of which was what Atom-Smasher was looking for. "Adam, can you hear me?"
"Albert... ?"
A pain-wracked voice came from the other side of a locked steel door. KEEP OUT! ordered a handwritten sign taped to the door. TRESPASSERS MAY BE DISSECTED. ~ *
That sounds like Sivana, Atom-Smasher thought. Increasing his mass by 10 percent, he slammed his shoulder into the door, knocking it off its hinges. Fie charged into the chamber beyond, then froze in his tracks, taken aback by the ghastly scene before him.
Black Adam was still trapped upon the mad doctor's operating table; his convulsing limbs clamped down by thick promethium bands. A blinking crown of circuitry, which Mister Terrific had theorized was some sort of neurological disruptor, continued to induce epileptic seizures in the captured superman. Steel cables and pulleys suspended the operating table above a frothing vat of noxious chemicals. A profusion of probes and electrodes monitored his vital signs, while robotic arms employed diamond-tipped drills, flamethrowers, buzz saws, cattle prods, and laser scalpels to test the limits of Adam's invulnerability. His black tunic and trousers had been sliced to
ribbons. Ugly purple welts and bruises showed through the torn fabric. Exposed flesh was scalded and burned. A tray of bloody surgical instruments sat atop a nearby counter. High-voltage defibrillator paddles were cradled upon a crash cart, the better to keep Sivana's unwilling guinea pig alive. Anesthetics were conspicuously absent.
"Oh my Lord," Atom-Smasher whispered. The caustic fumes from the vat stung his throat and nostrils. He shuddered to think how long Adam must have been inhaling the corrosive vapors. "What has that bastard been doing to you?"
And for weeks, no less.
Atom-Smasher didn't care what Black Adam may or may not have done. Nobody deserved this kind of torture. Not even the world's most dangerous mortal.
"Help...." Adam pleaded, through cracked and bleeding lips. His hoarse voice held only a whisper of its usual deep timbre. His bruised face furrowed in concentration, as though it was taking all his strength and willpower just to stay focused on the other man. Bloodshot eyes entreated Atom-Smasher. "Release me____"
"Hang on," the giant hero said. He tripled in height and weight, so that he could reach over the acid vat to grab onto the hanging operating table. He scanned Adam's restraints, wondering where to begin. Maybe the steel shackles?
"The crown ..." Adam's eyes turned toward the intricate device girding his skull. "Neural crown ..."
Atom-Smasher nodded. "Got it." He reached to remove the crown, then hesitated. Unbidden, images of the devastation in Bialya flashed through his brain. He recalled the stink of millions of rotting corpses. He couldn't believe that Adam had really been responsible for that atrocity. The man he knew would never have committed such a crime.
And yet..'.
"Adam, about Bialya." His eyes searched the other man's face. "Tell me you didn't do what they say you did. Waller doctored that satellite footage, didn't she? The same way she edited that footage of Osiris killing the Persuader." To Atom-Smasher 's disgust, Amanda Waller had spliced in reaction shots from Osiris' brief, happy stint with the Teen Titans to make it look like the youthful hero had enjoyed dismembering the axe-wielding super-criminal. He figured she had pulled a similar trick with the footage from Bialya. "It was the Fourth Horseman who killed all those people, right? You chased him to Bialya, but he murdered everyone before you could stop him."
It was the only explanation that made any sense. Adam wouldn't commit genocide, not even after his wife was killed. From what Atom-Smasher knew of Isis, that's the very last thing she would have wanted Adam to do in her name. Adam had to know that.
Didn't he?
"Yes," Adam confirmed. "It was ... the Horseman."
I knew it! Atom-Smasher thought. The world had always misjudged Black Adam. I'm the only one left who understands what kind of person he really is. He's not a monsterI just a man who's known too much tragedy in his life. Like me.
"And if I free you now, you're not going to do anything crazy?"
Adam shook his head, the simple motion obviously requiring a Herculean effort. "Just want to ... go back home," he assured Atom-Smasher. "Grieve ... for my family..."
"Of course." Atom-Smasher sympathized with Adam's loss; he had lost his own mother to the heartless machinations of a fiendish super-villain. In addition, he couldn't help feeling responsible, at least in part, for all the sorrow Adam had recently endured. Everything had started to go wrong for Adam and his family after that bloodbath in the redwoods. This is partly my fault, A1 Rothstein thou ght. I should've never joined the Suicide Squad on that damn assignment.
His mind made up, he plucked the Neural Crown from Adam's brow and tossed the sadistic gadget into the acid bath below. Good riddance, he thought. Adam's muscles immediately stopped spasming. In control of his own body once more, he strained against the steel bands pinning him to the table. Atom-Smasher tugged on the restraints as well, adding his own strength to Adam's, and the promethium bonds shattered. He lifted Adam from the table and gently placed him down on the floor, several feet away from the edge of the acid bath. "Are you all right?" he asked his friend.
"I am better." Black Adam teetered unsteadily at first, weakened by nearly a month of debilitating abuse, but quickly began to regain his strength. "Thank you, my friend." He flexed his biceps experimentally, making a fist. "Your actions ... shall not be forgotten."
Something in his tone set Atom-Smasher on edge. He started to say something, but was interrupted by a clamor from outside. The unmistakable sounds of combat penetrated Sivana's private chamber of horrors. Atom-Smasher recognized the distinctive zap of Stargirl's Cosmic Rod, and the crackle of Green Lantern's emerald flames. The noise was getting louder by the moment. He realized that there was no time to lose.
"The Justice Society is here," he warned Adam urgently. "You've got to get away." There would be time enough to clear Adam's name later, before a violent confrontation could get out of control. "You need to leave here before someone gets hurt."
Adam laughed bitterly. "I cannot possibly be hurt any more than I have already been, thanks to Intergang and Sivana." Scowling, he looked to the west. "Gotham City, I have learned, is Intergang's new capital."
Gotham? Atom-Smasher didn't like the sound of this. "You said you were just going to go home to Kahndaq," he reminded Adam. "To mourn Isis and Osiris."
"Did I?" Adam's expression darkened ominously. "Perhaps you only heard what you wanted to hear." He gave Atom-Smasher a warning look. "I go to fulfill my wife's dying request. Do not try to stop me."
Before A1 could ask what he meant, Black Adam rocketed into the air like a missile, smashing through the ceiling. Pieces of shattered steel and concrete splashed down into the acid bath, dissolving instantly. The spray from the vat splattered against Atom-Smasher's legs, stinging his skin. Smoke rose from his scorched trousers.
Attracted by the commotion, the Flash zipped into the chamber. He stared up at the gaping hole in the ceiling. Even though Jay Garrick was the only member of the JSA capable of matching Adam's speed, he was unable to fly. Bound to the ground, he could only squint upward at the sky. "Was that... ?"
"Black Adam," Atom-Smasher divulged. He shrank down to normal size. "He got away from me."
"Hell," the Flash swore, taking him at his word. The two men waited silently for their teammates to catch up with them. Atom-Smasher wished that he could confide in the older man, but he kept mouth shut instead. He doubted the Flash would understand.
Please tell me, he prayed, that I didn't just make the biggest mistake of my life.
WEEK 50
AROUND THE WORLD.
Black Adam had just crossed the International Date Line, en route to North America, when a sudden blow sent him tumbling backward into the Southern Hemisphere. He fell from the heavens like a fallen angel, coming to rest in a vacant lot outside Sydney, Australia. The earth-shaking impact of his landing was picked up by seismometers all across the continent.
What? He rose angrily from a deep crater. Who dares?
"That's far enough, Adam," Captain Marvel declared. Accompanied by both Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr., he descended from the sky until he hovered only a few yards above Adam's head. His broad face looked graver than Adam ever recalled seeing it before. "You need to answer for what you did to Bialya. This ends today."
The sight of the Marvel Family, still intact while his own family had been ruthlessly slaughtered, enraged Black Adam. He launched himself into their midst, lashing out furiously with his fists. The violent struggle carried them across the city, blasting through the defenseless streets and buildings. Flames and explosions erupted in their wake. "Do not presume to dictate to me, Billy!" Mary and Freddy grabbed onto Adam, hoping to restrain him long enough for Captain Marvel to knock him out, but Adam tossed them aside. "Look to your own family's safety!"
A volcanic punch sent Captain Marvel Jr. flying away from Sydney and across the Indian Ocean. Knocked senseless by the stupendous force of the blow, he crashed into the base of a monumental pyramid outside Cairo, Egypt. He collapsed onto the desert sand
s, nearly nine thousand miles from where Black Adam had hit him.
Seconds later, Mary Marvel splashed down into the reflecting pool outside India's famed Taj Mahal. Startled tour guides pulled the unconscious American heroine from the water. Baffled onlookers stared up at the heavens. More timid souls fled the scene, half expecting more bodies to come hurling down from the sky. Suddenly, it was raining super heroes....
That's two down, Black Adam thought.
Back in Sydney, Captain Marvel suddenly found himself facing Black Adam on his own. Smoke rose from the collateral damage of their titanic clash. The city's world-famous Opera House was in ruins, its overlapping concrete shells flattened to the ground. A few miles away, the Harbour Bridge, colloquially known to the locals as "The Coat Hanger" due to its distinctive arched design, no longer connected the central business district and the North Shore. Its wide lanes had been sliced across the middle. The huge steel arch was a tangle of twisted metal beams and girders. Fire trucks, ambulances, and other emergency vehicles raced through the demolished streets. The Tasmanian Devil, Down Under's most famous super hero, was out cold atop a decapitated high-rise. Tanks and missile launchers, dispatched by the Australian military to defend the capital, had been reduced to so much scrap metal. Overturned vehicles cluttered the streets. Mangled cannons and gun turrets bore the imprint of Black Adam's bare hands.
Lightning flashed as the World's Mightiest Mortals traded blows atop the remains of the Opera House. "Stop this!" Captain Marvel shouted. He wobbled unsteadily upon his feet. Blood dripped from his split lip. His knuckles ached from slamming repeatedly against Black Adam's invulnerable face and chin. Marvel had fought Black Adam before, but he had never seen his ancient Egyptian counterpart this berserk. Adam's murderous rage only seemed to increase his already formidable strength, which he no longer had to share with Osiris. Looking into Adam's hate-crazed eyes, Captain Marvel found it hard to believe that he had actually presided over Adam's wedding only eight months ago. "Let me help you! Tell me what you want!"