At first, there was a panic. But by now the riots had subsided, and most had gone inside to pray, or hug, or panic indoors. No one went to the old bomb shelters, following the procedure of the drills perfectly. By now, the few who considered it reasoned, the technology had advanced to the point that there would be no place safe to hide, so why bother? They could all see the light streaking from the missile’s boosters like a comet, even in the middle of the day.

            Jack had closed his blinds hours before, but there was still enough light to read comics as he lay on his bed. The adults were al downstairs crying. They had declined to tell him why, but his teachers all said he was bright, and he figured it out soon enough. It didn’t seem as important to him as they were acting. Superman would just come along and push the missile into space, like in the comics. But adults always acted weird. He didn’t get them at all.

            There was a knock on the door, and before he could get up to answer it, his mom poked her head through the entrance with tear-stained cheeks and a wavering voice.

            “Jack, honey. Are you okay?” Nose deep in Avengers, jack didn’t look up before answering “I’m fine.” She sidled over to him, slowly running a hand through his hair as she spoke. “Jack…Jack, look at me. Everyone is downstairs.” “Is Dad here?” That shut her up, or at least flustered her for a few seconds before sobbing out, “Please, honey, this isn’t the time for that. Come downstairs. Everyone wants to see you.” He looked up at her for the first time. “I’m reading, Mom. I’ll come down in a minute.”

            She might have said something, but he didn’t hear it through the tears, and he was already back in his comics before she stumbled out the door, slamming it behind her. Of course Dad wasn’t here, but he almost wished he was. At least he left him alone, especially when he was trying to read. If he went downstairs, his aunts and uncles would just hug him and kiss him and suffocate him in their arms all night, the same way they did when war was declared. If he wasted all night with them, he would miss his chance to see iron Man shoot the missile out of the sky – that didn’t happen every day.

            It started to get dark while he was reading, even through his blinds. By now the adults had stopped crying, and Jack couldn’t hear anything from downstairs but the steady ticking of the grandfather clock. He put away his comic book before he even finished it, and got up off his bed to walk to his window and raise the blinds. All the lights were off in the city for once, except for a few candles in the windowsills. The moon hung low in the sky, and the sun was still holding on tightly enough that stars were invisible. The brightest thing in the sky was the missile’s comet trail, so much closer than it was when he closed the blinds to shut it out. There was no sign of Superman. For a moment, jack had an idea of why all the adults were acting so weird.

            He looked at his door for a long minute. It had been a long time since he had seen his Aunt Sally, or his Uncle Bill. Then he looked at his comic books, lying in a heap of read material at his bedpost. Jack only had to look at them for a second. He took a deep breath. “Adults are wusses,” he told himself, then he opened the window, climbed onto the seventh-story windowsill, and jumped.

            The missile’s tail gleamed brightly, sinking further away for a heart stopping second before drifting slightly closer. The cool night air sped past Jack’s body at increasingly rapid speeds to match his accelerating heartbeat. The part of him that wanted to see his family again screamed that it wasn’t happening, but failed to make a persuasive case. His usual frame of mind laughed as the missile grew ever closer at the end of its parabolic arc. “If Superman isn’t going to do anything, another hero is going to have to pick up the slack.” He announced in his most heroic voice to any passing bird who would listen. It was getting colder now, and the air was thin, with barely enough oxygen to concentrate. The metallic menace was in sight now: just close enough to be struck on the body with a double dose of his fists of steel. It groaned reluctantly as he pushed with all his might, but he finally managed to gain enough initiative to charge up a mighty haymaker. As if admitting defeat, the screaming missile was sent careening off course on its way to a date with the Sun.

Just like in the comics.