My Superman Is Black Tonight

How is a guy supposed to move on, when he's practically the only one of his kind? My name is Adam Javier, and I'm a guy living in the City of Toronto, Ontario. I wish I could say I was a regular guy living a regular life, but that would be lying. You see, back in the 1980s, a Canadian scientist named Madeline Adelson created this top secret formula which increases strength and speed in ordinary human beings while boosting their immune system by a factor of almost one hundred percent. The Canadian government and their American counterparts formed a joint division called The Union to create super-soldiers using professor Madeline Adelson's research. The experiment was a success. What can I say? I'm living proof.

In September 1982, I was twenty three years old, just a young African-American man from the City of Detroit, Michigan, who crossed the border into Canada in hope of a better life. I should mention that I was a private in the United States Marine Corps but left kind of in a hurry, without regard for proper procedure. Uncle Sam never forgave me that, and that's how I ended up on The Union's radar in Canada. They captured me, and turned me into one of their super-soldiers. I'm 5'11 by 160 pounds. Not a big guy by any means. After they pumped me full of the Formula, I...changed. All of a sudden, I could bench-press 2400 pounds. I could also run at about 40 miles per hour and whatever the Canadian equivalent in kilometers is. The Formula made me stronger and faster, but it also made me healthier. You see, something in the Formula stops the aging process. Or at least slows it down considerably. Without realizing it, The Union had discovered the Fountain of Youth.

That's all fine and good. America and Canada began manufacturing super-soldiers, and they were ready to take over the world. Until I threw a wrench in their best laid plans. I was one of dozens of supermen and superwomen being kept at a facility in the wilds of Ontario by The Union. I escaped, and led dozens of my fellow super-soldiers in a bold attempt at regaining our freedoms. That was July 4, 1983. I never knew what became of the program or the others. I drifted all over Canada, doing odd jobs and never staying in one place too long. Until I met...her. Josephine Magloire. A tall, gorgeous young woman with light brown skin, curly black hair and pale blue eyes. Born and raised in the City of Montreal, Quebec. Her father was Haitian and her mother was white, of French Canadian descent. The gal was simply stunning, and even though I had seen and bedded my share of pretty ladies, I couldn't forget her. I pursued her, and in time, I gained her attention. We began dating, then moved in together. One night, as we were coming out of a bar, a trio of racist thugs attacked us. I made short work of them. It was easy. Man will always lose to superman in a fight, unless weapons are thrown in as equalizers. What Josephine saw that night amazed her. That's when I decided to tell her, about me, the program, the Formula, everything.

It was a lot to take in, that's for sure, but Josephine understood. She thought we were going to be like Superman and Lois Lane, only we were both black. If only she was right. I married Josephine on June 5, 1984. Chronologically I was twenty five years old but I had stopped aging since I got injected with the Formula, I just hadn't realized it yet. I loved Josephine and being with her was a dream come true. She was going to the University of Concordia at the time we met and she encouraged me to go back to school. I ended up studying business administration at the University of Montreal, and graduated with my master's degree a few years later. I wanted to be able to provide Josephine with the best of what I could. This gal was used to the finer things in life, you see. Her father Joseph Magloire was a wealthy businessman and her mom Elaine Tremblay was an heiress. The fact that she married a dirt-poor African-American newcomer to Canada surprised her friends and family. That's alright, though, because my sweetie believed in me. I began working for a corporation.

Yeah, life was going alright for me for a change. I missed my old life in the U.S. for sure but I loved my sweet Josephine and the life we were building for ourselves in Canada. On the first day of 1985, she announced that she was pregnant, which filled me with joy. I was going to be a daddy. Nine months later, our son Jason Javier was born. The joy of first-time fatherhood is one that I will always treasure, ladies and gentlemen. Nothing quite like it in the world. I wanted to always be there for my Josephine and our little Jason. He looked exactly like me, only a bit light-skinned because his mom is biracial. Oh, and he's uncut, like me, because neither I nor my dear Josephine believed in that circumcision nonsense. We were one big happy family. I thought I finally had it all. A good job. A wonderful wife. A son I adored. Oh, and a big house in suburban Montreal with a dog named Sparky and everything. Sounds good, right?

One day, my world came crashing down around me. The Union came calling. Apparently, for the past few years, they'd been rounding up former super-soldiers and reintroducing them into the program, after a little brainwashing ( for loyalty and compliance ) of course. I went with them because they told me they'd kill my wife and son if I didn't join them. The Union was under new management. The new director was none other than Crystal Benoit, a tall, red-haired and green-eyed, 22-year-old genius with degrees in multiple disciplines from Oxford University and Harvard University. The new Director was even more ambitious than her predecessors. Under her leadership, what began as a program with only a few dozen supermen and superwomen became an army. Now there were hundreds of us. She recruited guys and gals with backgrounds in police, firefighting and military service into the program, then sent them back into their former lives, with special handlers if they ever went haywire. They were the sleeper agents.

The Union wanted to take over the world, and they were practically manufacturing their army. We did missions all over the place, from Afghanistan to India, from Pakistan to South Africa, from Brazil to Haiti, from Morocco to Spain, from the United Kingdom to Saudi Arabia. We had the best soldiers, the best technology and the will to use both to achieve wealth and power. I had to prove my worth as a field agent before being allowed to go back to my former life as a sleeper agent. When I returned to Josephine and Jason, after a six-month absence, my marriage was on the rocks. I explained to Josephine what had happened and why I did what I did. Out of love for her and our son. She wasn't happy about it but she stayed with me. Until that fateful afternoon on November 17, 1998, when I came home and found my wife and son gone.

I thought The Union had something to do with it and I stormed the Director's office. It took several super-soldiers to restrain me, among them my good friend Nicole Hauser, a big Australian lesbian ex-cop who got recruited into the program. The Director told me she had nothing to do with my wife and son's disappearance, and for once she was telling the truth. Now, people in our business have a lot of enemies, so I thought an old enemy might have kidnapped my wife and son. It wasn't until I returned home and found a hidden letter from Josephine that I realized what was going on. Josephine left because our son wasn't normal, and she was afraid I'd bring him to my employers, and she didn't want that life for her son. I read and reread the letter. Damn. She could have told me! And what did she mean by our son being not normal? He was a perfectly fine, healthy young guy. Nothing wrong with him physically or mentally.

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. How my world crashed and burned around me. For years, I searched for my wife and son. And I had the help of the governments of Canada and America, along with Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. My wife Josephine had learned from me a bit too well, and she covered her tracks admirably. I prayed that one day I might be reunited with my wife and son. In the meantime, I continued fighting for king and country, against terrorists, or people The Union said were bad guys. Made no difference to me. I killed everyone from Al Qaeda affiliates to Hezbollah thugs, rogue Mossad agents, African warlords, Latin American guerilla fighters, European eco-terrorists and others. I didn't discriminate. Male or female, black or white, straight or gay, Christian, Jewish, Muslim or Atheist. If I'm given the order, I will kill you. End of story.

I had relations with other women, but I never stopped loving Josephine, or hoping that someday I'd seen my son again. One day, I was off-duty, hanging out with this cute blonde-haired white chick at the University of Florida in Miami, when I ran into a young man who looked almost exactly like me. Thaddeus Wilkinson, University of Florida football demigod. One of the most talked about athletes in the world of NCAA Division One football. It was 2005, and the young sophomore was knocking down record after record. I dug up information about him, and discovered that he was indeed my son. He lived with his mother, a certain Dana Wilkinson, in Dade County, Florida. I followed him home, and lo and behold, "Dana" was my long-lost wife Josephine Magloire. I approached them both, and Thaddeus immediately challenged me. I told him the truth, that I was his father, and only wanted to help him. Dana/Josephine's face had changed through the years, but I still recognized my wife. She asked our son to stand down, and we finally had that long talk.

That night, my world changed again. Thaddeus was indeed my son, and he inherited certain abilities from me. He'd never been injected with the Formula but he had superhuman strength and speed along with accelerated healing, just like me and my fellow super-soldiers from the program. That's why he was such a force to reckon with on the gridiron. That's my son! When Dana/Josephine finished explaining why she did what she did, and I understood. I could never forgive her from taking my son away from me but I can't hate her for wanting to protect him. Thaddeus understandably had many questions. I tried my best to answer them. My son was a grown-ass man, as they say. I can't tell you how much I loved him, or how much it hurt when I walked away from him and his mom, again for their mutual protection. If the program knew of their existence, they'd be in perpetual danger. I still wanted to be in their lives, but we had to be discrete. We decided to risk it all to be a family again.

That was in 2004. Fast forward eight years, we're in 2012, and my beloved Josephine is dead of breast cancer. Her death nearly destroyed me. I have the potential to live forever, but I couldn't save the woman I loved. My son Thaddeus Wilkinson, ex-professional football player and multi-millionaire, is now the youngest ever elected Congressman in the history of Florida state. He's an ambitious young man who wants to become Governor or perhaps even President someday. My son now looks older than I am, because the Formula keeps me forever young. The program has been expanding in the past decade, and we're now about ten thousand strong, with divisions on four continents. The Western world is gearing up for Armageddon, the final Clash of Civilizations between East and West, and I'm one of the foot soldiers in the coming apocalypse. As before, all I want to do is protect my son. Wish me luck. Peace.