The Man of Steel: Superman and the Poisoned Planet
they would be friends by now But if Ron even had any friends Danny was certainly not one of them When Danny turned back around his boss was nowhere to be seen It was as if she’d just disappeared into the thick brush of the jungle Where did she Danny started to say under his breath Then he thought better of it He decided his time would be better spent trying to catch up to his employer So Danny started to jog The path was just too overgrown with weeds and ferns for him to move very quickly Nevertheless he did his best The last thing he wanted to do now was get his boss even more annoyed with him This was the first job he had had in months and he didn’t know when another would come along Danny pushed past a particularly sharp thorny tree of some kind Then he stopped In front of Danny was a clearing The sun’s hot rays hit his face and neck He squinted in the bright light There a few feet ahead of him was a trench several feet below ground level Danny walked over and peered down into the hole His boss had already beaten him to the punch She was down in the crater kneeling in front of a strange glowing rock She had taken off her hat Danny noticed her long and flowing red hair It looked out of place there surrounded by all the green vegetation and the green stone in front of her Even her skin seemed to have a greenish tint to it Danny had never noticed that before Is everything okay he asked His boss laughed But it wasn’t a laugh like something was funny It was a dark little chuckle Like she was up to something Then she said Everything is perfect It was hard to see in the bright sunlight but Danny could make out something in his boss hands She was holding the end of a long vine The vine was growing right out of the earth under the glowing rock in the crater Just like the strange stone the plant was glowing bright green I think we found what we were looking for said Danny’s boss She stood up and faced him Danny could hear the rest of the men spreading out behind him in the clearing It was time to get to work And even in the heat and humidity no one was about to protest
Danny had kept his complaints to himself for the last few hours He’d rather be miserable than make his boss mad One thing he had learned over the past few days he did not want to get on Poison Ivy’s bad side KAPOWWWWWWWWWWWW Superman smacked Parasite with a giant telephone pole The villain was sent crashing into a concrete wall with a THUDDDD He was unconscious Finally Superman thought Fighting a villain you can’t touch is tiring Superman had been forced to take a rather long lunch break to hunt down Parasite a power-sucking super-villain Cautiously Superman picked up the unconscious Parasite by his collar and soared into the air FWOOOOOOOOOOOOSH Just another day as the Man of Steel Superman thought Moments later he was dropping off the unconscious super-villain at Max Slab Penitentiary After talking with the guards and explaining the situation he leaped into the air and soared toward his day job at the Daily Planet newspaper As he touched down on the rooftop of the Daily Planet Building the hero just hoped no one would notice It wasn’t exactly Superman who would get in trouble It was his alter ego reporter Clark Kent who would have to face an angry boss if he was discovered Perry White was a pretty fair boss but one thing he didn’t care for was tardiness And Clark Kent couldn’t explain that Superman had been forced to fight the Parasite on the outskirts of the city then fly to the Slab Maximum Penitentiary to ensure that the super-villain wouldn’t escape again If Superman told anyone why he was late then that would mean everyone would
know he was Clark Kent If the world found out that Clark and Superman were the same person everyone he had ever met would become targets of Superman’s countless enemies And Superman refused to put other people at risk So Superman changed into Clark Kent’s work clothes in the shadow of the revolving globe atop the Daily Planet’s rooftop Clark Kent would get a stern lecture from his boss but there was nothing even the Man of Steel could do about it Clark opened the rooftop door He walked down the two flights of stairs to the Daily Planet Building’s newsroom floor He walked past the main elevators and began to head down the hall toward the main room and his cubicle But as he approached the end of the hall and the glass double doors that led to the newsroom he noticed an odd smell with his enhanced senses the scent of lilacs At first Clark assumed he had forgotten someone’s birthday One of his co-workers must have received a bouquet for the special occasion As Clark reached the doors he quickly moved out of view of anyone in the main newsroom Clark looked at the wall in front of him and used his X-ray vision Inside he could see four men holding cattle prods That’s not good Clark thought He scanned the rest of the room No one was hurt But even still everyone looked terrified He could see his old friend Jimmy Olsen his boss Perry White and even Lois Lane Clark exhaled a sigh of relief that Lois was safe Now it was time to get to work Clark concentrated and used his super-hearing He could hear a woman’s voice It sounded familiar to him He knew the person talking but he couldn’t quite place the voice has gone on long enough said the woman Clark searched the room and zeroed in on the speaker She was a redheaded woman wearing a green leafy uniform He recognized her instantly as Batman’s old enemy Poison Ivy I don’t know what you’re talking about said Perry White He was facing Ivy He looked scared and frustrated Do you have any idea what kind of impact you’re having on the world asked
