Eel O’Brien was a name that Plastic Man didn’t like to use too often. True, it had been his name (more or less) for nearly forty years before a gunshot wound, a vat of acid and the kindness of a total stranger had transformed him from the simple bank robber he had once been. There was something about that name, though, that sent a tiny shiver up the pliable hero’s unnaturally flexible spine. He had all but given up using it now, save for the occasional undercover work when it was a necessary reminder of who he had once been and the life he would never allow himself to go back to.
He had earned the nickname ‘Eel’ from a fellow hood with whom he’d pulled a few jobs. After one particularly narrow escape from the police, his friend had smacked him on the back and laughed. “Damn, O’Brien,” he’d said, still catching his breath from the chase, “I thought for sure they had us, but you…man, you can get outta any jam, can’t you?”
“Just lucky, I guess,” he had said with a shrug, but from that moment on he was ‘Slick as an Eel’ O’Brien and, later, once the alcohol had flown heavily and that became too much of a mouthful, simply Eel. It was the one thing that even now, on another Earth, in another universe, Plastic Man simply could not escape from.
A wisp of smoke floated past him and Plastic Man sighed heavily, the exhale blowing the smoke in all directions away from him. He sat at a small wooden table, the legs of his chair wobbling as he tapped his foot impatiently. His hair was slicked back, sunglasses replaced his usual goggles, and he wore a crimson suit, white dress shirt, and black tie. He considered this his Eel O’Brien disguise, though it closely resembled the clothing he wore on the day of his accident all those years ago. To his left, Lex Luthor’s eyes were trained on a man sitting across the bar from the two of them. The Ace O’ Spades was busy tonight, as usual, and Plas felt as if he and Lex had been sitting there for hours waiting for their target to arrive. Perhaps they had been sitting there for that long – after a while, Plas had sort of zoned out. He figured Lex would let him know when it was time to start paying attention again.
Finally, Lex leaned closer to Plas and whispered, “I think that’s him.”
Plas followed Lex’s line of vision to the timid-looking man sitting at the bar. They watched him for a few moments silently and Plas soaked in the details. His black hair was greasy and unkempt, his dark green suit heavily wrinkled. The light purple tie around his neck was loosened, and the top buttons of his dress shirt were undone; heavy stubble created the beginnings of a beard on his face. His eye seemed to sag from fatigue, and there were heavy black bags beneath them. He was hunched over at the bar, as if propping himself up on the counter so as not to fall into a heap on the floor. Occasionally he sipped a gin and tonic, but mostly he just sat there and looked exhausted.
“Edward Nash,” Lex stated matter-of-factly, “part of the janitorial staff of the hospital. After the failed break-in attempt, Mr. Nash simply stopped showing up to his job. He would’ve had access to and knowledge of the exact whereabouts of the medical supplies the burglars were looking for.”
Plastic Man eyed the man across the room curiously. “Great. So all I have to do is talk to him, right?”
“Right,” Lex replied. “Once you’ve gotten him to relax a bit, give me the sign and I’ll come join you. It may be difficult. Feel free to…encourage him with alcohol, if necessary.”
“You want me to get him drunk?”
“If you must. Try to relate to him, make him comfortable, if you can.” Lex paused for a moment before adding, in what seemed an attempt to reassure his companion, “Just be yourself…though maybe a little less…energetic.”
“You want subdued, huh? In that case,” Plas said, lifting to his lips the glass that sat on the table before him. “I’m going to need another drink.”
They were under water. That was all Ray Palmer could say for certain. Sure, he had a general idea of where they were – off the coast of Rhode Island, traveling what felt like deeper and deeper by the minute – but those were generalizations. For all he knew, he and J’onn could be hundreds or thousands of miles from the place they knew on their Earth as the Secret Sanctuary, the location in Happy Harbor where the original headquarters of the Justice League was hidden. No; despite the fact that his scientific background often required him to form and test hypotheses and to rely on unprovable theories, the hero known as the Atom preferred, in this situation, to deal in facts. And the only fact that he could state for sure was that they were under water.
They had been traveling for hours, passengers aboard an underwater vessel crewed by a group of, to put it mildly, unfriendly Atlanteans. Asking where they were going was pointless; Ray had determined, although he could make a fairly educated guess as to their destination. Their captors didn’t so much refuse to tell them as refuse to acknowledge their existence. The Atlanteans were stone-faced and steadfast in their resolve not to speak to Ray or J’onn. Only one of the kidnappers had addressed them directly before they were hustled onto a docked ship at Happy Harbor, and he was recognizable to Ray and J’onn only because he resembled a man known on their Earth as Black Manta. Black Manta, of course, was one of Aquaman’s enemies, which meant that he was also an enemy of the Crime Syndicate. This, in turn, meant that, despite their rough treatment of the two Justice Leaguers, the Atlanteans were the good guys. Such as they are, Ray thought with a slight smile.
In the seat next to him, J’onn J’onnz, having long since changed forms from that of John Jones to that of Martian Manhunter, sat perfectly still, hands folded in his lap, his eyes closed. His breathing was slow and his face bore an expression of calm. Ray had seen him do this before during times of great stress, and he wished he could do the same. Unfortunately, regardless of the situation, Ray could never seem to keep his mind from racing. He had been thinking about their current predicament non-stop, and the only conclusion he could come to was that they were stuck. There was nothing they could do but go along for the ride. This was the purpose of their mission on this Earth, though – to observe – so Ray saw no reason not to accept this conclusion, especially when he knew why they had been taken captive: the Atlanteans were planning something against the Crime Syndicate…and the Justice Leaguers had been drafted.
The craft seemed to be slowing, Ray thought, and he turned to his teammate. “J’onn,” he said quietly.
“I feel it,” J’onn said, opening his eyes slowly. “We’re here.”
Before they knew it, the submersible ship had landed on the ocean floor and docked. Ray and J’onn were hustled to their feet, Ray thought more roughly than was necessary, and led towards the opening of the windowless craft. The sub has connected with what looked like a long plexiglass tube. The path created by the tube rested on the ocean floor for about fifty yards before it began to descend under the ground. After several minutes, J’onn, Ray and the Atlanteans emerged from the tube inside a large room with concrete walls and no windows. The flames on the torches that illuminated the room burned low, creating a flickering orange glow that filled the room. Along the far wall from the entrance of the long room, Atlantean soldiers stood shoulder-to-shoulder, ten apiece on either side of a chair whose back rose to the room’s concrete ceiling. Seated in the chair was a scarred figure with short blond hair, a simple crown of tarnished gold adorned his head.
The newly-arrived Atlanteans led Ray and J’onn across the room. Black Manta – or whatever his name was on this Earth – hailed to his fellow soldiers as they approached the formation, and upon receiving a hail back, the heroes’ escorts abruptly stopped marching and fell to one knee on the ground. Ray nearly tripped over one of them and he looked at J’onn, who still appeared completely calm.
“Hail, Orm, King of Atlantis,” Black Manta said, the sound of his voice deadened by the concrete walls.
Orm stood from his throne and approached the group. “Rise, friends,” he said calmly. “There’s very little need for theatrics anymore.” Black Manta and the rest of the Atlanteans stood slowly and fell in at attention, which Orm quickly dismissed with a wave of his hand. “Your mission was a success, I take it,” Orm said, addressing the leader of the group.
“Indeed,” Manta replied. “We have secured both J’onn J’onnz and Ray Palmer.”
“Have you briefed them on our plan?”
“They know why they are here, but I did not go into specifics. I thought it best to wait until we had arrived so that you could address them personally.”
The King extended a hand to his subordinate and smiled. “Well done.” Manta shook his king’s hand, and Orm looked over his shoulder towards the two Justice Leaguers. “I hope they haven’t treated you too roughly.”
“Their manners leave a little something to be desired,” Ray replied. “You’re the King of Atlantis?”
“I am,” Orm said, moving past Black Manta and the rest of the Atlantean soldiers. “Welcome. Forgive my men’s harsh treatment of you. Given the reasoning behind your recruitment, you can understand if they’re feeling overly serious lately.”
“Removing the Crime Syndicate from power is certainly serious business,” J’onn answered. “What do you want from us?”
“Cooperation and a little assistance.” The King of Atlantis waved a hand around the room. “This is the army I have at my command. They’re dedicated, but we all know that 30 men at most are not going to be able to destroy the Syndicate. We need all of the help that we can get.”
Ray looked puzzled. “How much help do you think the two of us can really give you? J’onn may be fairly powerful, but all I can do is shrink.”
“You’re also a genius,” Orm explained. “We have a strategy, but it will require both your powers and your intellect in order to carry out.”
“And what is your plan,” J’onn inquired.
“I will explain that,” Orm replied, “once the rest of our allies have arrived.”
At that, a thunderous boom shook the whole bunker. Ray shuddered at the sound as it filled the small room. He looked at Orm, who smiled. “It sounds like one of them is here.”
A moment later, a bright light illuminated the room and a powerful wind nearly knocked Ray off his feet. As J’onn steadied him, the two men stepped toward Orm and turned around, and another boom accompanied the appearance of the light. From out of the light’s source – a large, glowing circle at the end of the room where J’onn and Ray had entered – stepped five figures. The figure in the middle was massive, almost too large for the bunker. His face was gray and cracked. He wore a long, flowing cloak of lavender and dark blue, and carried a long staff, the top of which was split and curled.
Then the light was gone, and the five figures crossed towards Orm and the assembled Atlanteans. They stopped several feet away and the large figure in the center raised his hand. “Hail, Orm of Atlantis! Uxas of Myraklos comes before you, bearing gifts of Anti-Life and wishes of good fortune for the coming battle!”
Ray looked at J’onn. The Martian gulped hard and looked back at his friend. Ray didn’t have to be telepathic to see what J’onn had realized: Darkseid was here.
The alcohol had done very little for Plastic Man – ever since his accident he couldn’t even get a good buzz, much less drunk – but it had worked wonders on Eddie Nash. Nash had perked up considerably from the time that his friend Eel had come over and bought him his first drink, and after four more he was nice and loose. He was smiling; Plas thought he must just be relieved to have someone to talk to, to take his mind off of things. Unfortunately, Eddie’s mind needed to be back on things if he and Lex were going to get anywhere.
“So Eddie,” Eel said, throwing an arm around Nash’s shoulder. “You work at Metropolis General, right?”
“Oh, pleasse,” Eddie slurred. “Don’ talk to me about work.”
“But you do, right?”
“Yeah I do,” he spat. “Fuggin’ place…I wanna quit buh where elsse’m I gonn’ go, right?”
“I hear ya,” Plas replied with a smile. “Sometimes you’re stuck with the life you have no matter how much you want out.”
“You shed it, brother,” Eddie said. “I’m a nursh, right? And I juss wanna help people…”
“That’s all anybody wants,” Plas said.
“…and then, when I try, FZZZZZH, my frien’ss’re dead. I’m lucky I’m fasst, know what I mean?”
Eddie swayed on his stool as Plas sat back and looked at him. He glanced across the smoky room at Lex and nodded slowly. Lex nodded in response, grabbed his coat, and made his way towards the two men.
“I gotta riddle for ya,” Eddie said, grabbing Plas by the arm. Eel looked at him and Eddie continued. “You’re inna woodss with a frien’ when a bear attackss both o’ you. How d’you get away?”
Eel smiled. “Run faster than your friend.”
Eddie laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. “You heard tha’ one! No fair!”
“Mr. Nash?”
At the sound of his name, the clearly inebriated Eddie Nash turned to see Lex Luthor standing behind him. At this, his face went ghost-white. “Oh, no…yer…” He stammered. “I can’ talk t’you! Yer…”
“Relax, Mr. Nash, no one knows we’re here.”
“They all know! They alwayss know! They see ever’thing, I sswear!”
Eel stood from his seat and circled around Eddie, stopping next to Lex. “Chill, Eddie. You’re in good hands. We just need to ask you a few questions.”
Lex and Plas scooped Nash off of his barstool and the three moved to an empty booth along the side wall of the room. Eddie and Plas sat on one side of the table, while Lex sat on the other. Luthor folded his hands on the table in front of him and cleared his throat. “Now, Mr. Nash…”
“Eddie,” he replied quickly. “Call me Eddie. Dammit, I feel like I’m shobering up already…”
Lex started over. “Eddie. What happened at the hospital the night of the robbery?”
Nash laughed. “You know wha’ happened! The Crime Ssyndicate happened! Ultraman and Ssuperwoman happened! Now I got three frien’ss dead ‘n’ I can’ leave my housse. Only reasson I came here wash to drink mysself to shleep.”
“I know,” Eel said, trying to console him. “I’m sorry we have to do this, but we’re just trying to help you.”
“Help me?! You can’ help me! Whaddya think you can do? They’re machiness, man!”
“The night of the robbery,” Lex pressed on. “Did they say anything? How did they act?”
Eddie shook his head. “They didn’ ssay nothin’. They juss’ sswoop’ in’n kill, tha’ss they’re sschtick.”
Lex repeated himself. “They didn’t say anything at all?”
“Nothin’. Didn’ say nothin’.”
“Did you hear anything?”
Eddie took a moment to think and tears started to well up in his eyes. He took a deep breath and tried to compose himself. “It wass hard to hear anythin’ over my frien’ss sscreams.”
Lex’s eyes widened. “Their screams?”
“Yeah. They burned alive, f’r fug’ssake. I ssaw them, on fire. It was…”
With that he put his head in his arms on the table and began to cry. Plas looked at Lex, who mouthed a silent ‘we’re done’ and got up from the table. Plas looked over at Eddie and put his arm on his shoulder again.
“Eddie,” Plas said carefully. “I’m sorry.”
A moment later, Lex and Plas were outside of the bar. Lex was walking briskly down the street and Plas hurried to catch up to him. “Hey, wait up,” he called after the bald man, who kept walking.
“I have a theory,” Lex said without looking back at his companion. “We have to get back to my lab.”
“What?” Plas finally caught up to Lex and saw on his face a look of sheer determination. “Can we have share time now? What’s going on?”
“We have to move,” Lex said with no sign of slowing. “We have to come up with a way to contact Ultraman.”
“Oh, well that makes sense,” Plas said before stopping suddenly in his tracks. As Lex continued walking away, Plas shouted after him. “WHAT?!”
He hadn’t been very nervous before, but Ray Palmer felt something tighten in his stomach as he watched the being he knew as Darkseid embrace the king of Atlantis. He looked up at J’onn and frowned. “I know that they’re supposedly the good guys, but this still gives me the willies.”
J’onn looked back at him and smirked slightly. “I must admit, I also find it a bit disconcerting.”
Uxas released his embrace of Orm and smiled. “It is a good day that sees the union of Atlantis and Myraklos against our common and most vile of enemies.”
Orm nodded. “Agreed, my friend; I’m pleased that you and your court have come.” He motioned toward J’onn and Ray. “I’d like to introduce you to our visitors.”
At this, Uxas turned and approached the two Justice Leaguers. He extended a hand to them and spoke, his voice like thunder in the small bunker. “Hail, heroes of another universe! I am Uxas, Highfather of Myraklos!”
“J’onn J’onnz,” the Martian replied, shaking the larger figure’s hand. Ray followed suit, his hand nearly crushed by Uxas’s inhuman strength.
“Allow me to introduce you to the court of Myraklos, my trusted advisors and friends,” Uxas said, motioning to the figures who had accompanied him out of the boom tube. A short, smiling man of moderate physique, garbed in purple cloaks, was introduced as Desaad, Uxas’s strategic advisor and closest friend. The older-looking man in green and black cloaks was Steppenwolf, uncle of Uxas and leader of Myraklos’s para-angel army. An armor-clad woman, tall, muscular and beautiful with long black hair, was identified as Barda, Steppenwolf’s second-in-command. Finally, a red-haired man with soft features hidden behind a helmet of silver and gold, clad in red robes and wearing a gold belt with a small, pinging box at his hip, was introduced as Orion, son of Uxas and Highbrother of Myraklos. As Uxas concluded the introductions, each bowed before the heroes of Earth.
“This is truly an important occasion!” Uxas stepped between Ray and J’onn and clapped his hands on their backs. “The combined strength of three worlds will see to it that the Crime Syndicate’s reign is ended forever!”
“What does the Crime Syndicate matter to you?” Ray asked. “You must have other things to attend to on your own planet. Are they really that much of a problem for you?”
“One would think not,” Uxas said soberly, “but when the Syndicate chose to ally themselves with Izaya and the hellhounds of our sister planet, New Eschaton, Myraklos had no choice but to declare war upon them! Our world is a peaceful one, the firepits having long since been extinguished, but the gears of war must turn once again if we are to continue to live in peace!”
Orm appeared next to Uxas. “Atlantis made contact with Myraklos once our plan for bringing down the Syndicate was conceived. As you can see, I have few men at my command, but Uxas has thousands of para-angels at his disposal. Our combined forces will be more than enough to create a distraction for the Crime Syndicate while you two carry out the primary mission of the offensive.”
“And what is that mission?” J’onn asked, his tone flat and once again calm.
“Destroy the Syndicate’s base upon the Moon,” Orm replied. “Or, rather, disarm its defenses so that we can destroy it ourselves. There is a powerful force field around their citadel, and numerous weapons systems set up even inside the field. We will need you two to sneak into the citadel and shut it all down. Once that is done, Atlantis and Myraklos will do the rest.”
Ray’s eyebrows arched. “And how are we supposed to get past those defenses ourselves?”
Orm smiled. “These are interesting times that we live in, and they require a certain…flexibility, and some improvisation. With that in mind, trust me when I say that you’ll have help. Once he arrives.”
Never a fan of surprises, J’onn grimaced. As he did, a voice came from out of a shadowed corner of the room. “Oh, I’m here,” the voice said, arrogantly. J’onn and Ray turned to see who was with them.
A man in blue and silver armor stepped out of the shadows. A helmet hid the top half of his face, and a silver cloak bearing a feathered pattern hung over his shoulders. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and smirked.
“What do you say, gents,” Owlman said with a sneer. “You ready to help us change the world?”
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To Be Continued...
Next Issue: The Leaguer’s mission on the antimatter Earth comes to a stunning conclusion! Can Owlman be trusted? Will Lex Luthor’s plan to contact Ultraman succeed? And what shocking discovery will all of our heroes make that will change the world forever? Don’t miss it!
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