Daily Planet 10 April 2987
Science
WAYNE GRANT UNDERWRITES SCIENCE RESEARCH IN NUEVO MUMBAI
by Alia Igo
Dean Sanjay Pérez announced today that the University of Nuevo Mumbai will construct a new state-of-the-art facility for the study of Science! thanks to a multi-billion credit grant by Wayne Industries Earth. The new laboratory complex will begin construction immediately and is expected to be ready to open by year’s end. Dean Pérez at the same time confirmed that the new facility will be named for donors Alessandra and Thomas Wayne.
The centerpiece of the Alessandra and Thomas Wayne Science! Complex will be research laboratories dedicated to the study of the mysterious element atmospherium. Previously, experiments on atmospherium had been conducted by EarthGov-owned facilities in Nuevo Mumbai, but after a disastrous accident three years ago and the villainous Universo’s use of the element in his takeover of Earth and the UP, EarthGov has ceded research rights to the University. However, many of the same scientists who studied atmospherium under EarthGov auspices will continue their work in the new complex.
Discussions concerning the grant reportedly began before the tragic death of Thomas Wayne earlier this year and were continued afterward by his wife Alessandra (formally Alessandra Maria-Luisa Alvarez Blanca Sanchez de Carrillo Wynters). “My dear late husband, Thomas, believed strongly in the power of science to improve the lives of sentients everywhere, and atmospherium from all initial studies has the capacity to transform the United Planets. I’m proud to partner with the amazing scientists in Nuevo Mumbai to continue their work on this extraordinary substance,” the CEO of Wayne Industries said during the announcement of the grant. Given her recent marriage to Earth President Kel Wynters, the transfer of EarthGov resources and the atmospherium itself from government facilities to the new complex will likely be free of any red tape.
Thomas Wayne and Alessandra Maria-Luisa Alvarez Blanca Sanchez de Carillo at 2983’s Nine Planets Ice
Cream Golden Globes Awards Ceremony to honor innovations in frozen confections. Wayne was murdered
more than a year ago under mysterious circumstances, and his murderer has not yet been apprehended. In
addition to his wife, Wayne left behind three children—Ian, Yoana, and Diana—and, strangely, no known
mistresses or kept boys of any species. Given de Carillo’s recent marriage to President Wynters, it is yet
unknown whether the president will be adopting her children.
Dean Pérez brushed aside questions about rumors that a fragment of atmospherium in the university’s control went missing last year, claiming that all of the sample is in a secure location as the Wayne Complex is being constructed. He reported that the university and EarthGov are working together to provide the highest security possible for the new labs.
Discovered in 2981, atmospherium (atomic number 173) is so-called because of the theory that, irradiated properly, it will be able to aid in terraforming newly colonized planets by replicating within the existing atmosphere and adjusting it to a combination of gases most conducive to human life. Alternately, it could be programmed to form, for example, a methane-heavy atmosphere or whatever other balance is desired. Based on its use by Universo, its properties also seem to magnify extranormal powers, including mind control, thus raising concerns about the element’s possible uses other than terraforming.
A formal reception will be held to launch the Wayne Science! Complex at the end of the month when construction is complete.
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Op Ed
WHITHER THE LEGION?
by Alefia Santiago, Professor of Xenosociology, Metropolis University
The question in the headline is not meant just spacially, though that of course is to be wondered. Since the Legion of Superheroes’ banishment from Earth last year, their surprisingly mobile headquarters has slowly meandered through space in the direction of Mars. With their current speed and heading they will reach the orbit of Mars’ moon Deimos within a couple of weeks. What then?
But no, my question is meant in a much more philosophical sense. Since the retirement of the three founding Legionnaires—Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Lightning Lad—a few years ago, the team has seemed to flounder. Remember the early Legion, with the clean-cut lads and lasses that saluted their flag and showed respect to the United Planets and its sentients? Now, they flout authority, fight amongst themselves, and even fornicate publicly. They even have their own line of pornographic holovids! It’s no wonder that EarthGov banished them and even stripped them of their training academy, turning it into an adjunct of the Science Police Academy.
Once they had charming codenames, such as Colossal Boy, Light Lass, and Bouncing Boy, names that spoke to simpler, more innocent times and the heroics of the Golden Age of Heroes in the 22nd Century, when figures such as Superman, Wonder Woman, and Sandman kept the Earth safe. New Legionnaires now have “cool” names like Vanguard, Dynasty, Quantum Cat, and Quislet. What do those even mean? Colossal Boy gets big, Light Lass makes things light, Bouncing Boy bounces. Duh. Dynasty appears to make energy constructs and perform magic. How does that even relate to her name? And what even is a “Quislet”?
What might be the final straw is their latest leadership shake-up. The team has voted in Invisible Kid and Kid Skid as Leader and Deputy Leader respectively. The former, notoriously publicity-adverse as his name might imply, is by all accounts “a nice guy” who harkens back to the team of old. But does he have the leadership skills and presence to control this band of rambunctious, horny teens? He hasn’t even been seen, on missions or elsewhere, in months, perhaps speaking to the efficacy of his powers, but is this really what the team needs in a leader right now?
The opposite is true of Kid Skid. He is the Prophet of Howardism, a religion that has swept the United Planets in the last years as planet after planet has adopted it, and its mantra “Wood Be Good” can be heard across the galaxy among everyone from the downtrodden of Rimbor to the high-rollers of Ventura. His holopic shimmers alongside Howard’s in shrines and households on dozens of planets. Even though he seems to have turned over the organizational duties of the religion to his son, Kid Skid Kid, is he indoctrinating the Legion to turn them into his own Army of the Faithful that will be serving Howard rather than the United Planets?
So I ask, whither the Legion? Will the team remain a symbol of the United Planets as a group of youthful sentients from different worlds with different abilities mirroring the union of disparate worlds joined together for a better galaxy? Or will they continue their slide into degeneracy and irrelevancy and become a footnote in history like the Global Guardians, the Myrmidons, the Venusian Five, and other forgotten superteams of the past? Howard only knows.
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