—after reading Fielding Dawson
I was able to bring the Justice League team to the outskirts of the lair of The Legion of Doom. My detective work made it possible. I’m Batman. Lex Luthor’s surveillance botched our plans, and I took a hit from one of Joker’s gas bombs, a hand grenade. It had my Joker’s face on it, because I have that weird kind of sense of humor. I threw the gas bomb as soon as I saw the screen recording of the Justice League moving in to our secret lair. Batman took the hit from my grenade. When I took the hit, I shouted out to the nearest member of the League, which was Hawkman, and he assured me, Batman, I have you covered, just get your gas mask on, we’ll take care of it. I was flying into the action with my hawk-wings, about to strike the gas bomb out of the air with my mace, but Green Lantern intercepted the bomb with a ray from his ring, which captured it in a small green sphere. I have it, I said to Hawkman, I’ve intercepted it with my power ring, now take Luthor out, he’s coming in behind you. But I blasted Hawkman before he could heed the Green Lantern, and I took him down to the ground with a new device, an atomic blaster I had been developing in my new Luthor laboratories. Luthor does good said Solomon Grundy, Luthor take out Hawkman. I turned on the Green Arrow. I crush you Green Arrow, Solomon Grundy not like when you aim at Solomon Grundy’s friends. The Green Arrow was aiming at the Mirror Master with a special arrow. But before I could confuse the Green Arrow with my mirrors, Superman blasted me with his heat vision. After I blasted the Mirror Master with my heat vision, I told the Green Arrow, forget about Grundy, I’ve got him, now take out Lex Luthor. But it didn’t matter. Batman had recovered from the first blow from the gas bomb. I knocked out Lex Luthor with my Batterang. I’m never down for the count, I told Superman. I’m Batman.
J.T. Whitehead lives in Indianapolis with his two sons, Daniel and Joseph, where he practices law by day and poetry by night. His poetry and short fiction have been published by Home Planet News, The Broadkill Review, Gargoyle, and The New York Quarterly. His first collection of poetry, The Table of Elements, was nominated for the National Book Award.