Issue #276

"THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE - Part II"

"Oracle, this is Batman. I need a direct, secure link to the Batcomputer."

"Coming right up, as fast as the electrons fly."

"I need it faster than that. Tokyo isn't quite prepared to handle this kind of emergency damage control."

"Batman, I couldn't make out those last few words. This kind of what?"

"Emergency damage control."

"Right. Sorry, you were drowned out by a big boom. What was that?"

"That was the sound of approximately seven-hundred people driving their weight into the ground at once."

"Whoa."

"I see I'm connected, Oracle. Batman out."

The titanic puppet composed of hundreds and hundreds of unwilling Japanese strode down a busy street, followed closely by the Justice League. Screams filled the air as people ran in horror. Green Lantern's power ring erected hasty shelters for the denizens of Tokyo who were unable to escape the path of the colossus' footsteps. The mega-body stepped on each solid light bunker and continued on its way apparently unperturbed.

"All right, this is getting old," Green Lantern complained. "I'm gonna string this thing up in about ten seconds and just hope the people-parts have enough sense of self-preservation left not to kill themselves trying to get loose."

"And what if they lack that sense, under the domination their minds suffer?" Wonder Woman asked, flying beside Green Lantern. He stifled an acidic response, but the expression under his mask was clear to the Amazon princess. "Kyle, you've been preoccupied and unpleasant the whole time we've been here. If you're not up for this mission ..."

"Sorry," Green Lantern lowered his head. "I ..." He looked into Wonder Woman's eyes. "You've never been dumped, have you? What am I saying ... look, point taken. I've got some crap going on at home*, but I'll get my head back in the game."

(* As seen at the end of Green Lantern #215 - DWG)

The colossus stopped in its tracks, and the Leaguers behind it readied themselves for its next course of action. The mega-body raised one of its giant arms and ripped an oversized billboard off a nearby building, throwing it in the direction of the JLA.

"I didn't think it even noticed we were following it!" Steel said with surprise as his bootjets rocketed him to intercept the sign. He drew within striking range and swung his hammer solidly into the billboard, sending it flying back up into the sky. Superman and Martian Manhunter concentrated their combined heat vision on the airborne piece of advertising and vaporized it.

The towering collective smashed its other hand through a window in the building it had stopped beside, too quickly for anyone to try to stop it. Body after body along the creature's arm disappeared through the hole, then began to withdraw a few moments later. The gigantic conglomeration turned to face the Leaguers, and began to retrace its steps.

Superman's eyes narrowed as the colossus approached. "There are screams ... coming from inside the hand that went into the building," he announced to his teammates. Above the thunderous sound of the colossus in motion, and the cacophony of terror from the general population of the city below, no one else would have been able to isolate one screaming voice. "Not the normal moaning of the people making up the mega-body. It grabbed someone, took them out of their apartment. I'll try to hold it still ... someone needs to get that person out of its hands."

Superman dropped through the air and soared between the legs of the monstrous creature. He drew a deep breath, looked up at the colossus, and exhaled forcefully. The colossus was slowly lifted off the ground, caught in the massive updraft created by Superman's breath. The gigantic form began to thrash madly, and seemed about to lose its balance and fall outside of the column of rushing air.

The Flash sped to assist Superman. "Ah, the light touch. Good call, Big Blue," he smiled. Running in a wide circle around Superman and the floating giant, Flash rotated his arm in tight, superspeed movements, firing off gusts of wind at angles to counteract the shifting balance of the colossus.

While the giant was held aloft, Supergirl and Firehawk flew to the end of the armlength of bodies which had entered the apartment building. This close to the colossal limb, they too could hear the terrified screams held inside the layers of human flesh which composed the extremity.

"I've got an idea," Firehawk said to her companion. "Be ready."

Supergirl nodded and allowed Firehawk to approach the giant's arm. Firehawk held her hands slightly apart and created a ball of flames between them. The ball remained no larger than a foot in diameter, but its heat increased steadily, blazing outward and touching the arm of the colossus with its power. The bodies comprising the end of the arm were turned inward, holding their captive in place. Firehawk continued to increase the temperature of her globe of fire, until it burned white-hot as a star. The bodies of the giant's hand struggled to maintain their positions, but ultimately could not withstand the heat radiating over them. Reflexively bodies cringed and drew in their arms, trying to shield themselves or ward off the heat assault, or simply lost their strength as it was sapped by the relentlessly escalating temperature.

A young Japanese woman fell from inside the mass of bodies, nearly unconscious, and Supergirl swooped down and caught her in mid-air. Supergirl swiftly flew away from the colossus, with Firehawk immediately behind her. Hundreds of voices within the mega-body screamed, channeling the anger of whatever force controlled them.

Martian Manhunter joined Supergirl and Firehawk as they alighted atop a nearby building with the colossus' intended target. Supergirl laid the young woman down on the rooftop. She was probably in her late twenties, and was dressed in a fashionably cosmopolitan skirt and blouse, and one shoe. She had a pretty face, with short black hair, and a trim body. She teetered on the brink of consciousness.

J'Onzz made telepathic contact with the young woman, attempting to reassure her: We are here to help you. You will not be harmed. Be calm.

The young woman closed her eyes, but nodded as if she understood. Her body seemed to relax.

Do you have any idea why you were the target of the giant creature?

The young woman shook her head. The corners of the Martian's mouth dropped slightly as he concentrated. The woman's head fell to the side as she finally passed out.

"She does not know why the creature chose her," the Manhunter from Mars told Supergirl and Firehawk. "She opened her mind to me completely, and her life is an ordinary one. I cannot surmise a reason for her to be targeted. It may have been completely random."

"Or maybe not," a voice from behind a large air conditioning unit insisted.

Superman expelled the last of the breath from his lungs, quickly filled them again and continued to force air under the colossus to keep it off the ground. Flash again provided buffeting winds to contain the giant creature. Wonder Woman watched with a concerned expression; the situation was becoming a stalemate, and her warrior's instincts cried out for a more decisive victory. "We must find a way to dismantle this beast!" she shouted.

"But our best try at that was J'Onn," Steel countered grimly. "That construct is somehow psionically controlled. J'Onn's the only one among us who has that kind of power and experience, and when he tried to get at it he almost fried his brain. He said the binding between the bodies was emoto-kinetic, and he couldn't undo it."

"So what if Flash and Supes do the opposite of what they're doing right now?" Green Lantern offered. "Suck the air away from the giant instead of blowing it towards it? If everybody in the mega-body passes out without air, they won't be feeling emotions while they're unconscious, will they?"

"The human body doesn't react very well to a vacuum, GL," Steel pointed out.

"But," Flash interjected suddenly, "that does give me an idea. Be back in a sec. Tell Superman he can set the big bad population problem down." Ribbons of golden lightning trailed after Flash as he sprinted out of the city.

"That better be one heck of an idea," Steel said skeptically. Then, using the built-in voice amplifiers in his armor to reach Superman's ears, "Superman! Flash says to let it down!"

Superman's face betrayed some surprise, but his trust in his fellow Leaguers was implicit. He reduced the flow of air upward until the feet of the colossus had come to rest on the street. Immediately, the gigantic form began to lurch toward the building where Supergirl and Firehawk had brought the young woman.

The Flash raced into sight at that moment, rejoining his teammates. "You're back," Green Lantern observed wryly. "What didja bring me?"

"An old friend," Flash replied.

High overhead, a cloud of black smoke unfurled from nothingness. At its center appeared a glowing avian shape, wings spreading wide. The inverted silhouette of a bird dived for the colossus, expanding in size as it approached the target. The colossus stopped its forward motion and swung its arms furiously at the bright attacker, which was now nearly the same size as the towering mass of bodies. The giant arms passed harmlessly through the intangible form of Raven's soulself, and Raven wrapped her wings around the massive creature.

"Is this ... wise?" Wonder Woman asked, her eyes piercing Flash's meaningfully.

"Raven's all right, Wonder Woman," Flash assured her, wishing he was as confident as he sounded. "She's probably the most powerful empath on the planet, so if anyone can undo what's afflicting the people in the mega-body, it's her. And she won't let herself hurt them." Wonder Woman continued to stare at him tight-lipped, and Flash finished, "Trust me."

Raven's soulself was translucent, and the colossus was visible through her folded wings. The component bodies wailed loudly, writhing against one another. Raven showed evidence of struggle herself, her color flaring at times. Then, without warning, Raven fell away from the giant, rapidly shrinking to her normal size. At the same time, the colossus blew apart. No explosion or other visible force marked the separation of the bodies, but in an instant they were flying apart from one another at high speed, and plummeting to the street from heights up to ten stories.

Superman caught a few people who were nearest to him. Wonder Woman and Steel took to the air and gathered more falling bodies, apparently physically unharmed, in their arms. Supergirl, Firehawk and Martian Manhunter flew over from the rooftop to assist, but there were hundreds of bodies falling and gaining speed as they approached the unforgiving pavement and solid rows of cars.

Green Lantern was restrained by Flash's hand on his shoulder. He turned to his friend to demand to be let go, but Flash silenced him with a look. "There's not enough hands here to catch everyone. I'll snap people's necks trying to catch them all and put them down safely myself. So think fast." As Flash spoke, Green Lantern became aware of a palpable energy suffusing his mind. He turned away from the speedster and saw that the bodies falling from the Tokyo sky appeared to be falling in extreme slow motion, almost not moving at all.

Green Lantern raised his ring hand toward the cloud of scattering bodies. A fleet of cars and trucks, all in shades of green, began to race out of the power ring, starting out smaller than matchboxes but quickly growing to the size of normal automobiles. The emerald vehicles flew through the air, as many sports cars, jeeps, motorcycles, cargo vans and semis as the bodies which had comprised the colossus. In flight, the cars and trucks folded tires under their chassis, opened doors, and thrust mechanical arms and legs out of hidden hatches, converting into large robots. Green Lantern felt unhurried as he gave each robot a distinct set of facial features and body type, and equally capable of instructing every robot in turn to gently catch one of the falling men and women, land on the street, and place the person safely on the ground. His attention and will moved fluidly from solid-light construct to solid-light construct, until a slender viridian robot with multi-jointed limbs and the body of a Miata convertible brought the last person to Earth.

The green fleet of robots evaporated, and Flash took his hand off Green Lantern's shoulder. The rest of the Justice League looked around in astonishment.

"Is everyone safe?" Supergirl asked urgently, scanning the empty sky.

"I just saw ... it was like everything went green for half a second," Steel remembered.

"My eyes move a little faster than yours," Superman replied, "but that's close enough." Superman nodded toward Flash and Green Lantern.

"Maaaaaaan," Green Lantern said, wiping his brow. He turned to Flash and said, "Hal and Barry could have been SO much more dangerous together."

"They did all right for themselves," Flash assured him, then sprinted to Raven's side a short distance away. Her soulself lay shuddering on the street as Flash kneeled beside her. "You OK, Raven?"

"Wallace ... I am sorry ... the mind behind that abomination ... so powerful ..." Raven responded weakly.

"No need to apologize, lady. You did good. Now tell me if you're OK."

"I will be ... I ... should go. Wallace... Thank you... for trusting..."

"No Problem. Go. I'll see you." As Flash said good-bye, the black smoke engulfed the shimmering bird-like shape, and it disappeared.

"Well, what do we do now?" Firehawk asked the assembling heroes. "The people-zilla is out of commission, and the people seem fine, but we don't know what caused all of this."

"That's because we're starting at point Z," a deep voice answered. Batman swung down to the street on a grapple line, with the young woman the colossus had absconded with held under one arm. Batman set the woman down on the ground, then stood up, allowing his black cape to fall around his body like a shroud. "We need to go back to point A," the Dark Knight finished.

"I take it you know where that is now?" Superman asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I suspect my theory will be confirmed," Batman responded. "When we first arrived in Tokyo, while the conglomeration of bodies was standing still, I got behind it and was able to get some fiber samples from the individuals at the bottom of the legs. I did some remote analysis and found soil, plant fibers and other elements which would only be found in a certain region in the mountains in the northwest part of the country. This led me to believe the colossus was probably the majority of the population of one mountain village in that area."

"Batman asked me if any mountain villages meant anything to this young woman," Martian Manhunter continued, indicating the colossus' victim. "It did not stand out as significant in her consciousness, but she did once vacation in the area, perhaps two years ago. She met a young man there, who made romantic advances toward her which she rebuffed."

"Are we to believe that the same young man used hundreds of people to wreak havoc on Tokyo, all because of unrequited love?" Wonder Woman asked incredulously.

"Stranger things have happened," Batman said implacably.

"Do we know which village we can find this man in, one way or the other?" Steel demanded.

"The name of the village was in her memory - Jisho," Martian Manhunter supplied.

"Then we'd best be on our way," Superman commanded, rising into the air.

The Justice League of America entered the village of Jisho, shortly after determining that the emergency medical technicians in Tokyo were capable of tending to the hundreds of people released from the giant mega-body. In contrast to the teeming metropolitan cityscape of Tokyo, the village consisted of humble structures along dirt roads, and appeared completely deserted.

"So far Batman seems to be on to something," Supergirl commented.

"Stay alert," Batman ordered, leaping down from the emerald flying Batcycle on which Green Lantern had been carrying him. "Our mystery psionic may still be here."

J'Onn J'Onzz landed on the ground with a grunt. "He ... is here. I may not be of much use as we approach his location. I must use most of my concentration to shield myself from being overwhelmed by his raw mental presence." The Martian Manhunter proceeded on foot, his head lowered.

The League continued through Jisho cautiously. Flash ran ahead, checking inside every building. As he crossed the muddy street after several inspections, he stopped suddenly and raised his hand to his head.

"Flash!" Firehawk cried out. "Are you ...?"

"I'm fine," Flash nodded. "That hurt, but not like 'most powerful psionic in the universe' hurt. A mind blast from Grodd hits a lot harder." He looked around rapidly.

The sound of yelling in Japanese drew the attention of the Leaguers to a home off to the right, where a young man stood on the thatched roof. He wore plain, dingy clothes on an average-sized frame. Much more striking was his facial structure.

"Whoa. Is that the guy from her memory, J'Onn?" Supergirl asked.

"He did not look quite like that two years ago," J'Onzz answered.

The young man appeared to suffer from advanced acromegaly of the cranium. Three huge spurs of bone rose up from his brow, one over each eye, and one dominant spade-like protrusion in the center of his forehead. The bony crown gave his countenance a tragic aspect, compounded by the rage with which he screamed at the Justice League.

"Anybody speak Japanese?" Flash asked.

"He says we shouldn't have come," Superman translated, "and that we cannot deny him ... he calls himself 'Shikikan Yuann Kumaguma' ... it translates to 'Master of the Dark Recesses'."

"Ah, Japanese, such a poetic language," Green Lantern rolled his eyes.

The Master of the Dark Recesses flung his arms out at the heroes, and a telekinetic bolt slammed into each of them, knocking them back. As they recovered, Wonder Woman asked, "What are we going to do if he tries to combine all of us the way he did his village neighbors?"

"I don't think he can," Batman answered.

"No," Martian Manhunter confirmed. "The power emanating from him ... it dwarfs anything else we could know ... but it takes time and concentration to focus. He may have meditated for weeks to transform Joshi into a walking colossus."

"Well, we're not about to give him that kind of time, are we?" Steel asked, hurling his hammer at Yuann. At the same time, Green Lantern projected a fifteen-foot tall samurai in ceremonial armor, striking out at the Master with an emerald katana. Firehawk added a column of flames.

The Master dropped to one knee, but formed a telekinetic bubble around himself which repelled the incoming attacks. He laughed, and boasted in Japanese with a wild, ragged edge to his voice.

"He says we can't reach him through his outward-facing thoughts," Superman translated again. "Unfortunately for him, we don't have to."

The last son of Krypton flew backward several feet, and then charged with both fists forward directly into the telekinetic bubble. Yuann's shield held, but the man within it lost the expression of confidence on his distorted face. Superman continued pounding on the bubble with force enough to shatter reinforced steel, and Yuann seemed to be faltering. Finally Superman drew back one hand, aimed carefully, and delivered a precisely-placed fist-strike that echoed across the mountains. The force of Superman's punch moved inexorably through the solid telekinetic energy and broke across the head of the Master within. He dropped to the thatched surface of the roof.

"Nice to see you remember one of the things I've tried to teach you," Batman commented.

"Whatever works," Superman assented.

Green Lantern retrieved the man on the roof, encasing Yuann in a green sarcophagus. "I really hope that somebody, somewhere has the right kind of restraints for this guy's skull."

"We will make certain of it," Martian Manhunter affirmed. "We will work with the authorities to construct an appropriate countermeasure to seal off this man from the Dark Recesses of others' minds."

"I hope so," Firehawk grimaced. "Unless he's kept in check, this guy's the world's most dangerous stalker."

"Eros drives men to unconscionable acts at times," Wonder Woman agreed, with a quick flash of her dark eyes in Green Lantern's direction. Green Lantern discreetly nodded in understanding.

"Oracle is already looking into the best course of action for dealing with a wild talent of this magnitude," Batman informed his teammates. "In the meantime, the League's work here seems to be done. Now, Superman, perhaps we could resume our converstaion from earlier today?"

"The United Nations is offering to rebuild the New York Justice League embassy, as a gesture of thanks for the League's role in repelling the alien invasion, and recent missions such as the one in Japan," Superman said, reviewing messages received by the Watchtower communications systems.

"The reasons are probably far more political than that, friend," Batman grumbled.

"Perhaps," Superman conceded. "Still, I would think you would appreciate the availability of a secondary base of operations, should anything untoward happen up here."

"Hmm."

"We should discuss the pros and cons in a full JLA meeting. As well as the short list of potential new members you and I have drafted," Superman suggested.

"Fine. Did you talk to Diana about Kyle?" Batman glowered.

"She says he's all right. She asked him if there was anything we could do, and surprisingly he took her up on it. He suggested something which should help not only him, but the League as a whole."

"Did he?" Batman allowed the thought to sink in for a moment. "This should be interesting ..."

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NEXT ISSUE: What do you get when two groups of heroes with the most sheer power imaginable collide head-to-head? I'm not sure either, but you'd better hope it doesn't happen in your neighborhood! Preferably not on your planet! If morbid curiosity still compels you, be here next issue, and be ready to rumble!