Chapter Forty-Five
Zorro V Platinum Man
It happened about a year after Prankster had killed Wonder
Boy. Zorro lost his shit. He started killing his villains, sometimes
torturing them first. At first the Hero’s
Guild tried to ignore the news out of Chicago, but even the world’s mightiest
heroes couldn’t overlook their own member’s ever-growing death count. Will told me that he was ashamed to be a part
of that organization after the meeting where they debated what was to be done
with their rogue colleague. Too many
members wanted to keep ignoring that numbers.
They pointed out that these were very bad people Zorro was killing. That, he was, essentially saving lives
proactively by killing them. That Zorro
was just too valuable, as far as his tactical knowledge, his detective skills,
and, frankly, his considerable financial resources and donations made in his
name. Fucking money-grubbing
fascists. Will quit. Good for him.
It was the right thing to do, I later assured him.
Anyway, after the Golden Speedster left in his
righteous huff, the remaining Guild members decided that Platinum Man would be
dispatched to have a word with their founding member’s difficult PR
situation. And this set up that famous conflict
that took over the media all over the world.
The ancillary philosophical debate raged on in the newspaper editorials,
and blogs. Zorro had to be stopped. Maybe, Zorro was right after all, maybe, some
villains needed killing? Maybe the ends did justify the means? In the end, a lot of people outed themselves
as authoritarian assholes, but that’s fucking history for you. But, in the end, a crazy dude, who had been
on an obsessive quest for sublimated revenge, discarded the pretense of his heroic
code of conduct, and his always thin grasp on reality, and started going nuts
on people. It was always just a matter
of time with that guy, right?
We’re all seen that Time Magazine cover, right? You know the one. There’s Zorro standing his ground defiantly
in his battle armor in front of the ruins of a bombed-out nightclub. There’s Platinum Man levitating just above
him, his cape fluttering majestically. Where
exactly was the photographer standing to get that picture? Dude had balls. Looking at that picture, you could tell that shit
was about to explode. He had to feel
that through the lens.
That was the fight that changed everything. It changed the world in ways few people could
sense. And it was all part of Admiral
Nemo’s plan. The plan. I knew as much of the plan as anyone, and
even I was still surprised to see it work out perfectly in every detail, like a
complex maze of dominos falling in amazing precision. In the end, one hero was dead, and the other
side-lined, the Guild in tatters, and the last impediment removed. Just thinking about it, I’m moved to give a
standing ovation. Encore!
(c) Copyright 2020 Diana Hignutt
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