69novels Chapter 339 Where is Superman?
Chapter 339 Where is Superman?
Chapter 339 Where is Superman?
Batman, entrusted by Iron Man, intended to head to his mansion, which was burning down, to see what was going on. However, before he even left the house, he was entangled by this Kryptonian woman.
Looking at the familiar face before him, yet facing a completely different personality, even Batman was somewhat at a loss with the other party.
Fortunately, he soon discovered that he no longer needed to worry about this Kryptonian.
Because Joey is back, Kara is now Superman's problem again:
"Perfect timing—go talk to your cousin about what's wrong!"
That's more like it! Let heroes judge heroes, let good men investigate good men, and let Kryptonians deal with it. If Kara has any objections, just make things difficult for her cousin.
A Rolls-Royce Phantom appeared out of thin air inside the underground base. Joey got out of the car and the first thing he did was to walk past Kara and Batman, who were locked in a standoff, completely ignoring their pointless argument.
He opened the trunk at the back of the car and, as if by magic, pulled out a bunch of incubation pods containing mutants.
Kara frowned again: "What is this?"
"Do you have to put a 'clone' label on it for you to recognize it?"
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Without turning his head, Joey continued to turn the culture chamber containing the clones outwards, not forgetting to first gag Kara:
"Don't try to lecture me with your Kryptonian ethics. I know cloning technology has ethical issues, but this time the situation is truly exceptional!"
When the topic of ethics came up, Kara, who had been lurking on Earth for nearly twenty years and was familiar with two ethical systems, suddenly found herself at a loss for words, and the arguments she had prepared were now difficult to utter.
In a moment of desperation, Carla grabbed Joey's wrist as she lifted the clone incubation chamber, but this action triggered some of her fond yet unpleasant memories.
Both of them instinctively flinched away as if they'd been electrocuted, fearing that this physical contact would cause irreversible consequences, just like on Planet F before.
The two spent enough time on F planet that almost every argument they had about clones turned into another form of communication.
Fortunately, Joey's body is no longer in that strange evolutionary stage, so even without the thick protective suit, he will no longer have any chemical reaction with Kara.
Memories of her time on Planet F flooded her mind, and Kara's originally cold face instantly flushed red, leaving her speechless and stammering.
Kryptonian ethics are indeed different from those on Earth, but not that different.
Benefiting from the legacy of the golden age before the Replicant Wars, Kryptonians have completely eradicated genetic diseases at the genetic level, but that doesn't mean her relationship with Kal'El is anything to be proud of.
To hell with it—Kara steeled herself and decided to stop thinking about these annoying things.
In any case, one of them created a clone of himself that he couldn't destroy; the other's origins are a mystery, not to mention the indescribable relationship between them.
Any one of these things, once revealed, would be earth-shattering news, causing a huge uproar within Krypton and the El family.
"To be honest, I really don't care what you or other Kryptonians think of clones."
As if sensing Kara's thoughts, Joey continued to move the cloning pods with Zhang Parker.
He simply assumed that Kara was still entangled with him because of her blonde clone, just like back on F planet:
"That blonde Kara Hore has suffered for you for over a decade. You can't just throw her away like an object! Besides, she's more of a good person than you are!"
Giving a clone the same personality and value as a natural person is an extremely dangerous act, Kara originally wanted to say, but luckily she was quick-witted enough that when she thought of her cousin, whose background was also shrouded in mystery, she suddenly had nothing to say.
But the problem of another clone, Kara, also had to be addressed. This was not only an ethical issue, but also a consequence of the instability of the initial cloning technology:
"That clone is flawed, we must—"
Everyone has flaws! Even I am!
Hearing that Kara still didn't treat the other clone Kara as a human being, Joey became even more impatient. Why couldn't the two of them talk about something light and normal?
Perhaps it's time to let her calm down: "Could you just go somewhere and stay there for now?"
"This is different." Kara was about to continue explaining when she suddenly paused, her eyes sweeping over the group of onlookers, who were all craning their necks and listening intently. "Hmm?"
Under such murderous gazes, both "big entrepreneur" Kang and Zhang Parker wisely kept their eyes down and slipped away to a place where they could turn a blind eye and a deaf ear.
Professor X slowly guided his wheelchair in another direction. He had already thought through all the most boring things in his life, afraid that his expression might give him away and he would be killed on the spot.
To be honest, with Maximus, that idiot, dying in the first place, Professor X really didn't secretly use his telepathic abilities to find out the whole story behind their argument.
Unfortunately, some things don't require mind reading; you can already tell a lot just by reading facial expressions.
At least what Superman said earlier was indeed correct—everyone has flaws, even a peerless hero like him who can single-handedly crush the Black Order.
"What if I told you that Kara's cloning defect might cause her to completely lose control?"
Kara's words were not an exaggeration. During the cloning process, due to the urgency of the situation, and the fact that Kara was not an expert in technology, especially forbidden technology.
She was incredibly lucky to have managed to create a substitute in such a hurry.
"That clone used almost entirely my memories. Our brainwave frequencies are too similar, which leads to a problem—memory infiltration."
One question after another, Joey was already numb, and just listened expressionlessly as Kara continued, "Explain yourself."
How many technologies do Kryptonians actually possess that they can't master?
Joey felt that at least 75% of the difficulties he had encountered in his life were caused by this group of Kryptonians.
"Just as a high concentration of substance will always diffuse into a low concentration of substance, as a clone whose memories have been edited, her mental capacity is far inferior to mine. This may cause some of my memories to appear in her mind inexplicably, and she may even mistakenly believe that these memories are happening to her."
Upon hearing this, Joey immediately broke out in a cold sweat: "Does this phenomenon of memory infiltration include things that happened before?"
Honestly, in Kara's eyes, he was incredibly tall and imposing. She was practically the first person of her kind Joey had encountered, and the kind who perfectly matched his image of a super-Kryptonian. What if Kara's memories were to spread back?
Don't do this kind of thing!
Yang Yi's inner screams didn't escape Kara's notice; she grabbed her cousin by the collar:
"Are you referring to the first, second, third, or fifth time this has happened?"
When this was mentioned, Kara seemed to grit her teeth, her nose almost touching Joey's face. The two looked at each other, the distance between them almost as close as when they were intimate before.
However, Kara's face was flushed red, and she seemed to want to kill Karl El on the spot.
"As long as you don't solve the problem with that clone, this kind of thing is always possible!"
"So what do you want? You can't really kill me to cover it up!"
"How could you be so extreme!" Kara cried out, "I mean, don't let her be driven insane by these memories!"
Compared to the somewhat inappropriate relationship she developed with Karl El, the existence of that clone was almost a minor issue.
Regarding technical flaws like this, Joey believes that technical means must ultimately be used to solve them: "I know so many smart people, she'll be fine, and your privacy will be fine too."
"Wait a minute!" While discussing this topic, Joey suddenly remembered something else—the death of a Green Lantern:
"Who killed Abin Su?"
The moment those words were spoken, the slight ambiguous atmosphere that had existed between the two vanished without a trace.
"—Karl, do you really have to ask?"
Kara thought there should be no doubt about this kind of question.
Joey suddenly understood—there were only three Kryptonians on Earth at the time. Joey didn't do it, and the blonde Kara was honestly a bit weak in combat. So who else could it be?
"Why did you do this, Kara? Abin Sue is a good man, and this has made me wrongly accuse another version of you!"
"By your standards, almost every Green Lantern is a good guy."
1
On such matters of principle, Kara would not be ambiguous with her cousin in the slightest:
"But it's not like that for Kryptonians. They are just the Guardians' lackeys. If they work for those little blue men, they have to be prepared to die a violent death."
"Damn it."
Joey rubbed his temples, at a loss for words. The troubles from the Flashpoint universe, which he had temporarily distanced himself from, seemed to have caught up with him, making his heart clench.
He had almost forgotten about the war that was about to break out on Earth in another universe, a war that would determine the fate of the entire universe. "I just hope the other Kryptonians aren't as crazy as you, and the Guardians too—"
While Joey was worrying about things in another universe, Batman's communication came in:
"Superman, you have to come here!"
He found something in the ruins of Tony Stark's destroyed mansion—or rather, half of it.
A long, slender spaceship, cut in half by some unknown force, with only its stern remaining, crashed onto Tony's mansion.
Based on the impact marks at the scene, Batman concluded that this half of the spaceship was the main cause of the mansion's destruction.
Most of the spaceship was no longer recognizable, but Batman could vaguely make out a logo enclosed in a circle painted on the central axis, which was now split in two along with the hull.
The remaining half of this logo is "down".
If Batman were to guess, the other half of this logo, which is only half intact, should be a "1".
On the other side of the universe, Joe Al, who had just given Fiora instructions due to the time difference, impatiently glanced through the porthole of the command bridge at the unidentified half of the spaceship that the emergency defense unit had salvaged from space.
He was losing his patience. He knew his son would come up with some ideas to rebel against him, but he never expected his ideas to be so wild, even venturing into outer space.
Judging from the composition of various elements and the subtle differences in radioactivity, this spaceship clearly does not seem to be a product of this universe.
The spaceship was split in two from the middle, and the original logo in the center of the ship was reduced to a left-leaning triangle.
If we use Kryptonian script to deduce the meanings that such symbols could have, there are countless possibilities. But if we use Earth script to deduce the missing half, Jor-El immediately thought of one possibility: "4".
Batman also solved the puzzle at a glance, which was nothing compared to the Riddler's challenges.
Soon, evidence proved his claim.
Seemingly sensing the approach of living beings, a compartment inside the spaceship, enveloped by an energy field, was opened from the inside, and a tall, blonde woman emerged from it.
The protective barrier opened, dispersing the flames surrounding her. The number '4' was clearly printed on the front of her uniform. Susan Stone, the Invisible Woman, survived the spaceship crash, and her first words to Batman were:
Where is Superman?!