Snowflakes whirled gently against the window of Cyrus Foley's room at the New York State Recovery Center. He drummed his fingers against the arm of his chair, sighing impatiently.
Edmund O'Hurley sat on the bed, looking nervously around the room.
"You got some pretty flowers, Cyrus."
Cyrus continued to look out the window.
"The nurses bring 'em. Everyone has the same ones."
A silence descended in the room. The wind whipped angrily outside.
"Cyrus...I'm sorry I ain't been around much to see you. It being the holidays..."
Cyrus finally turned from the window.
"They told me you came. While I was out."
"You were out for a real long time. I just didn't want to see you like that."
July 4th, 1936; Cyrus Foley was the lone person inside the First Manhattan bank when the first floor collapsed, trapping him inside. American Justice quickly rescued him from the rubble, and he was whisked off to the hospital. But by then, the damage was done. The L1, L2, and L3 vertebrae were completely crushed. He sustained internal damage, and surgery was necessary to stop several massive bleeds in his organs. His spleen was damaged beyond repair and removed. He also suffered from a skull fracture that resulted in a hemorrhage and stroke during surgery. Luckily, he survived the surgery, but remained in a coma for over a month and a half, and was not aware of his surroundings for another two weeks. After nearly five months of rehab in the hospital, he was transferred to the recovery center for further treatment.
"A nurse was sayin' you're doin' really well, Cyrus."
"Not well enough to walk."
Edmund looked down bashfully. Cyrus saw the look.
"I'm sorry Edmund. I'm sorry. It's just such a bitch of a thing being in this chair. Such a bitch. Y'know it just changes everything. Not one single thing is the same now. I can't even look you in the face when you're standing."
The 6'6" Irishman smiled. "Not that you ever could."
Finally, a small smile broke across Cyrus' lips.
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Gerald Bryce had always been an avid reader of newspapers. He read as many as he could get his hands on, sometimes four or five a day. The day after he walked away with 500,000 dollars in cash, all six of the newspapers he managed to find ran his heist on the front page. He clipped out all the stories, posting them on the wall of his apartment. But it wasn't until the last clipping, a late edition, that he found a detail that was not in the others. He had known that people would get hurt. He had even figured that someone might die. But the thought of a man being stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of his life was something he could scarcely comprehend. Bringing death to capitalism was one thing. But sentencing a man to a life of imprisonment was something entirely different. And horrific.
He read the newspapers avidly in the coming weeks, searching for any clues about Cyrus' status. After awhile, the papers stopped reporting. The story ran cold. And Gerald Bryce began to have nightmares.
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With Cyrus in recovery, both hero and villain were frozen in stasis. But the nation around them was moving. And it had not forgotten the newest sensation. The New Yorker pitted American Justice against all sorts of theoretical villains in it's weekly cartoon, while on the west coast, the topic was getting an even more popular treatment: the still blossoming world of talking pictures.
Twentieth Century Fox (recently merged, pulling Fox studios out of the gutter) released the very first super hero picture in 1937: The Face of Justice. The film, starring leading man Tyrone Power, was essentially a super hero remake of the uber popular Tyrone Power film "The Mark of Zorro" (which was itself a remake of Douglas Fairbanks' hit). Power played the mild mannered socialite Jonathan Summers who shed his foppish exterior during the nighttime to assume the moniker Justice.
The film was an absolute smash, almost rivaling The Mark of Zorro. At the Academy Awards it was, to the surprise of many, nominated for Best Picture, though it lost to The Life of Emile Zola (dir. Henry Blanke). It did, however, win an award for Best Cinematography and set the stage for decades of super hero films that would follow.
With the success of The Face of Justice, the idea of vigilantism became more widespread:
In California, an unknown performer from Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus began to do work as a hero in the streets of Sacramento. The masked hero was a rather impressive acrobat, and although he didn't do much in the way of catching criminals, he was an excellent showman, and did much to pave the way for "L.A. Heroes" that would come after him. Some believe that he was the famous clown Emmet Kelly, but Kelly denied this even until his death in 1979.
Elsewhere in the Golden State, highway patrolman Larry Cecemsky decided to trade in his regular uniform for a bright blue and red outfit his wife had sewn for him, including a large cape featuring the American Flag. Drivers caught speeding were stunned by the bright character riding behind them and pulled over immediately. Cecemsky was at first suspended for a day for failing to wear his uniform. Though later on he would attend events at schools in his super hero outfit preaching safety.
However not all acts of early super heroism turned out with such bright results. In Idaho, a firefighter named Blake Underhill donned his firefighting gear, called himself The Forester, and proceeded to break up a bar fight. With an ax. He was sentenced to death, marking him as the first "hero" ever punished by the law and with the worst consequences. (As an interesting note, Underhill is one of two people ever put to death by law in Idaho.)
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Cyrus Foley could do nothing but smile as he sat in the dark movie theater. He was one of thousands of people who saw Tyrone Power in his newest blockbuster. And the story seemed plausible enough. He supposed that it actually made less sense for the beloved superhero to be an immigrant that had kids he had trouble feeding all the time. That would have felt like fiction. Who would really believe that the pride of the neighborhood was a guy who would have been laughed out of most of the banks he stood guard in?
Cyrus wheeled himself out of the back row and through the doors before the movie was even over. He didn't have the patience he used to, and spending a long time in the chair made him fidget. Besides, he knew how the story would end. The bad guy would end up in jail. Tyrone Power would lay a big kiss on that dame in the picture, and they'd go off together. Of course next year she'd get kidnapped or something and Power would have to put his costume back on to save her. Truth can be so much stranger than fiction. Yes indeed.
Cyrus didn't notice, or even think to look around for, the thin, almost gaunt figure that followed him out of the theater and on to the street.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
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