[ WP ] The hero beats the villain by stooping even lower .

Even with unlimited strength, I get tired. 
 
 That's what normal people never understood. That I, with my godlike strength, could ever be tired. A plane malfunctions in the sky, I'm there. A bus goes careening off a cliff, I'm there. A bank robbery. Another bank robbery across town. The Daily Planet is taken over by kidnappers. I stop them all. 
 
 And that was just last week. 
 
 In the end, it was n't the pressure mundane life-saving rescues that made me do it. Or the tears and lawsuits of a thousand, thousand families whom I could not save, could not hear quickly enough, could not fly fast enough to help. Not even the supervillains could break me. Brainiac, Lobos, even Doomsday, I handled them all without resorting to this. None of them could separate me from my obsession with truth, justice and the American way. 
 
 No, in the end, it was just a human being with the capacity to be absolutely soulless. He did n't care about money, power, or fame. He only cared about his own satisfaction. He just wanted to be the one to finally beat the invincible Superman. 
 
 He lived in his mother's cramped basement on the southeast side of the city, I later found out. He had researched me relentlessly. Photographed me. Read transcripts. Pored over interviews, sightings, speculations, theories. Catalougued every single one of my powers over the past three years. 
 
 Then he started watching me. Of course, I noticed when I saw him in person, but I dismissed him as another avid fan, another person grateful for the Herculean might of Kal-El. I was foolish, distracted. 
 
 Then he sent a bomb in a package to Lois. I was n't even there to see the explosion. Some kind of acid was in it, lye, the doctors said. She was barely alive, horribly disfigured. 
 
 My parents got a package that same day. Fortunately, theirs only contained a handwritten letter with something too sick to repeat here. 
 
 I had to find him. I had to, before he hurt someone else I loved. 
 
 But I could n't. He knew of my excellent hearing, so he simply never spoke aloud. He also figured out that my x-ray vision could be blocked by lead, so he lined his mother's basement apartment with lead aprons stolen from a doctor's office. Besides, I did n't know who he was. Worse, he had no demands. He never contacted me, never gave any reasoning, but I knew what he was waiting for: he wanted to see me unravel. 
 
 But I would n't. I could n't give him that. So I left. 
 
 The Fortress of Solitude was dank, dark. I laid in the darkness, listened to Metropolis slowly descend into chaos. Luthor had staged a hostile takeover. Petty criminals ruled the streets. I had been gone three months. 
 
 I laughed to myself. In his own sick way, he won. Little shit could give Bruce a run for his money. Bruce... 
 
 Before I could give it a second thought I burst through the icy walls of the cave, flew so fast I caused a sonicboom, melted the mountains, and pushed and pushed and pushed until I ended in the Batcave. 
 
 I've been expecting you, he said. Of course he had, he kept track of everything. I could feel the Kryptonite in his utility belt. He did n't trust me not to act irrationally. He was right: I was n't rational. 
 
 `` I need a name,'' I choked. My voice sounded strange, gravelly. I had n't spoken to a soul for months, not since I heard Lois be permanently hooked up to a ventilator. I was too cowardly to go back and tell her I had not, *could not* bring that bastard to justice. 
 
 `` No.'' I felt myself tense up, but his next words enraged me even further. `` Besides, I do n't have it.'' 
 
 `` What?'' I was in disbelief. 
 
 `` Whoever this is, he's been covering his tracks for years. I've narrowed it down to the Southeast side of the city, about three square miles between the bridge and Main Avenue...'' 
 
 He kept going, but I was n't listening. He was predicting what I would say. Predicting what I would do. He thought I would never act on that information. Just like that kid that ruined Lois' life, ruined my life, he thought he had me figured out. 
 
 I was tired of being one step behind. 
 
 I shot down the tunnel to Wayne Manor's secret entrance as fast as I could. I knew I did n't have much time before Bruce realized what was happening and called the rest of the Justice League to stop me. 
 
 There! Right between the bridge and Main Street. I hovered above, staring downwards at the dilapidated houses. He was somewhere here, scheming. 
 
 BOOM! One house destroyed completely by my laser vision. I could have shut out the screams of the elderly couple inside, but I did n't. 
 
 Chances are, I had n't gotten him yet. 
 
 CRUNCH! This time I smashed through a home completely, caving in the wall on the man inside. People's ears in the rundown neighborhood began to perk up. They had noticed the sounds of destruction. I could hear their heartbeats speeding up, the adrenaline pumping through their veins. 
 
 SMASH! This time I punched a house into the ground as loud as I could, though there was no one inside. 
 
 Methodically, I crushed and destroyed home after home. Life after life extinguished while the sun slowly set in the background. Eventually, the neighborhood people came outside to see what was happening. 
 
 It was just a peek. He never came all the way outside, no, he was too cautious. But he peeked from in the window, and even from 800 feet up I recognized a piece of that face. It only took a cursory super-speed run through the house to confirm what I already knew. 
 
 In an instant, I was on him. I held him up above my head with one hand, squeezing his neck ever so slightly, gradually throttling him. But I was dissatisfied. It was n't enough to just kill him. 
 
 I beat him to a pulp in front of that great cloud of witnesses, and it still was n't enough. He was half dead, but his eyes and nose still worked -- enough to watch, and to breathe. 
 
 I went after his family. The mother, first, because she was the loudest. Her back was broken in one swift move. 
 
 Then the slobbering, crying father. A laser lobotomy. 
 
 The little sister I had mercy on. I simply threw her a mile in the air -- who knows, maybe John or Diana might catch her before she hits the ground in a minute or so. Then again, with the lack of oxygen, she might have died immediately. 
 
 The dog distracted me. It had started barking and growling as the neighborhood stared in horror. 
 
 BANG! I looked down to see the kryptonite bullet lodged just beneath my heart. Normally Bruce's bullet would n't have penetrated so deep, but John had used his Green Lantern ring to speed it up. 
 
 I'm caught. Deep down, I'm glad I did n't kill this kid. He looks about 15. He'll never walk again, never breathe without a tube, never use the bathroom alone ever again. But he'll always remember what happened to his family, to his life. 
 
 In his own sick way, he won. He broke me. So I broke the rules.
