Post by redsycorax on Oct 17, 2021 2:31:20 GMT
On Earth-109, October 27-28 1962 saw the escalation of the Cuban missile crisis into fully fledged nuclear war and the ensuing deaths of the Justice Guild of America, Injustice Guild of America and much of the Young Justice Guild. In the traumatic aftermath, the tyrannical mutant Ray Thompson seized power in Seaboard City and was not to relinquish it for four decades. On distant Earth-One, young future Green Lantern John Stewart was avidly reading All-Team, Active, Streak, Catman, Sensational and Worlds Greatest comics. However, September 1962 marked the last issues of all of those National Comics titles. John always wondered why...
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Julia Schwarzchild had poured herself a stiff martini before she heard a knock on the door:
"If that's you, Garrett and Carlin, please, come in."
Bleary-eyed, and looking as if they hadn't slept for days, her two best comic book authors entered as soon as they received her consent.
"Julia? Did you have the same dream we did?"
Looking out the window, swallowing, National Comics' chief editor nodded in response:
"Mine was about Lyra Lewis, whose stories I write. I was leading up to her being asked by Tom and this time, saying yes. But that dream...oh God, boys. I saw her on a pavement in Los Angeles, doing a broadcast and then...then...there was a blinding burst of light and I saw a mushroom cloud rise up and people were...burning... cars... catching alight... people screaming... buildings, falling... and then Lyra screamed herself and she was picked up and smashed against a distintegrating building and her body... f-fell...God, it was all so real..."
"Snap," said Garrett Forrest, 'only in my case, it wasn't Lyra. it was the whole of the Justice Guild. And from what I remember, things had taken a different turn over the last few days because things had gone wrong in the Carribean and the Soviets and ourselves started firing nukes at each other. Remember Ryerson, that air force base where Green Guardsman had been discharged after his time in Korea? The Russkies targeted that. All of them, killed. Tom tried to defuse the bomb and got a lethal dose of radiation, Ted was killed in the demolition of the Justice Guild brownstone and Scott, Dina and Jake were vaporised when the nuke hit. And then I saw something monstrous rise from the burning debris and look right at me... and I woke up screaming."
"I was going to write a story where the Injustice Guild attacked Seaboard City, but I experienced a dream where they all redeemed themselves and most of them gave their lives to save a small city's inhabitants from being targeted by a Russian nuke. I don't know about you, but I can't continue to write "new" artifical JGA stories. It just doesn't seem 'realistic' or true to life to do so." Carlin Introite replied.
"I know, Carl. I feel exactly the same, having seen Lyra die that way. It would feel like walking over their graves. Let them rest in peace. Obviously, we can't print any new stories under those circumstances. Look, I know all of us write SF stories. Is it possible, perhaps that we were somehow telepathically in synch with a parallel world in another universe that was virtually identical to ours until last week?"
"I think there might have been some differences beforehand. Remember Cassandra, that character I introduced into the JGA? I dreamt about her visiting Washington." Garrett volunteered.
"The question is, how do we rationalise it? We could do reprints, but... the Justice Guild as we 'knew' them are dead and obviously, that sort of denouement has no place in a children's comic. It'd terrify them, even if the Guild behaved like the noble heroic figures that they were in their last moments."
"We don't. We announce a shutdown. Circulation has been falling for months, anyway. We can reprint westerns, horror and spy stories. Except that's only a stopgap." Julia concluded. Reluctantly, the others agreed with her.
And so, in Harlem several weeks later, John Stewart was aghast to discover his favourite comics titles had been abruptly cancelled. He was sorry to see them go, although there was still the Brown Hornet adventure comic around to tide him over. But he still fantasised about what it would be like to be a superhero one day. And then, in the seventies, he found out.
THE END
++
Julia Schwarzchild had poured herself a stiff martini before she heard a knock on the door:
"If that's you, Garrett and Carlin, please, come in."
Bleary-eyed, and looking as if they hadn't slept for days, her two best comic book authors entered as soon as they received her consent.
"Julia? Did you have the same dream we did?"
Looking out the window, swallowing, National Comics' chief editor nodded in response:
"Mine was about Lyra Lewis, whose stories I write. I was leading up to her being asked by Tom and this time, saying yes. But that dream...oh God, boys. I saw her on a pavement in Los Angeles, doing a broadcast and then...then...there was a blinding burst of light and I saw a mushroom cloud rise up and people were...burning... cars... catching alight... people screaming... buildings, falling... and then Lyra screamed herself and she was picked up and smashed against a distintegrating building and her body... f-fell...God, it was all so real..."
"Snap," said Garrett Forrest, 'only in my case, it wasn't Lyra. it was the whole of the Justice Guild. And from what I remember, things had taken a different turn over the last few days because things had gone wrong in the Carribean and the Soviets and ourselves started firing nukes at each other. Remember Ryerson, that air force base where Green Guardsman had been discharged after his time in Korea? The Russkies targeted that. All of them, killed. Tom tried to defuse the bomb and got a lethal dose of radiation, Ted was killed in the demolition of the Justice Guild brownstone and Scott, Dina and Jake were vaporised when the nuke hit. And then I saw something monstrous rise from the burning debris and look right at me... and I woke up screaming."
"I was going to write a story where the Injustice Guild attacked Seaboard City, but I experienced a dream where they all redeemed themselves and most of them gave their lives to save a small city's inhabitants from being targeted by a Russian nuke. I don't know about you, but I can't continue to write "new" artifical JGA stories. It just doesn't seem 'realistic' or true to life to do so." Carlin Introite replied.
"I know, Carl. I feel exactly the same, having seen Lyra die that way. It would feel like walking over their graves. Let them rest in peace. Obviously, we can't print any new stories under those circumstances. Look, I know all of us write SF stories. Is it possible, perhaps that we were somehow telepathically in synch with a parallel world in another universe that was virtually identical to ours until last week?"
"I think there might have been some differences beforehand. Remember Cassandra, that character I introduced into the JGA? I dreamt about her visiting Washington." Garrett volunteered.
"The question is, how do we rationalise it? We could do reprints, but... the Justice Guild as we 'knew' them are dead and obviously, that sort of denouement has no place in a children's comic. It'd terrify them, even if the Guild behaved like the noble heroic figures that they were in their last moments."
"We don't. We announce a shutdown. Circulation has been falling for months, anyway. We can reprint westerns, horror and spy stories. Except that's only a stopgap." Julia concluded. Reluctantly, the others agreed with her.
And so, in Harlem several weeks later, John Stewart was aghast to discover his favourite comics titles had been abruptly cancelled. He was sorry to see them go, although there was still the Brown Hornet adventure comic around to tide him over. But he still fantasised about what it would be like to be a superhero one day. And then, in the seventies, he found out.
THE END