Hey, why are warrior angel and black diamond fighting?
I mean, they're friends. It doesn't make any sense.
Didn't you read issue 126?
No, I didn't have any money that week. Why? What happened?
Okay, so you know how
black diamond's father is like this super villain, right?
Well, in 126, he busts out of jail, and warrior angel has to take him down.
But there's this accident, and the guy dies and...
Look who it is, boys.
Weirdo angel and his trusty sidekick, greaspa.
Greaspa, I like that.
Give it back, Ollie.
That's Mr. Queen to you, little man.
It's okay, Lex. I'll just get another one.
Yeah, Duncan will just get another one.
Oh, wait, he can't.
Oh, yeah, that's right.
His mommy doesn't have any money.
That's why he's on a scholarship.
Shut up, Geoffrey. Shut up, Alden.
Give it back...
- Mr. Queen. - Oh.
Sure.
You know what?
- Let's make this a two-parter. - Don't...
Whoa.
Nice haircut, cue ball.
Come on. These girls aren't even worth it.
Ha-ha-ha. Loser.
One day I'm gonna get those guys.
We had a stuffed crow at Smallville high.
Two different worlds, huh?
In this case, I think I prefer yours.
If that's how you feel, why come to this thing?
Lana, some of the deepest pockets in the country went to excelsior.
These alumni socials are good for business.
Well, then let's be social, so we can get the hell out of here.
Lana.
Your billionaire drag you to this thing, too?
Oliver's here?
I don't get it. You put a bunch of pubescent boys in silly jackets
and cram them full of pomp and circumstance,
you're asking for a round of lord of the flies.
I don't know. We all turned out all right.
- Didn't we? - Hey.
I can only speak for myself.
- Geoffrey. Alden. - Lex.
- How's business? - Not as good as you, but, hey.
And you guys were all friends?
Something like that.
Man, after ten years...
- Gang's all here. - Except for Duncan.
Who's Duncan?
You know what, maybe you ought to lay off, huh?
- You weren't all thinking about it? - Alden.
Alden, come on.
Yeah, whatever.
Good to see you, Lex.
You did all right for yourself.
Duncan, if you were here...
You'd still be a loser.
Oh, my god.
- You all right? - It just missed me.
Must be my lucky day.
Somebody save me
let your warm hands break right through
somebody save me
don't care how you do it
just stay, stay
come on
I've been waiting for you
just stay with me
I've made this whole world shine for you
just stay, stay
come on
I heard what happened.
Are you all right, son?
Nothing a little dry cleaning won't cure.
That's distasteful, Lex, even for you.
Well, what can I say?
It's a nice suit.
You weren't Alden's close friend, Lex, but still...
I should muster up some tears anyway?
Thanks, but I'll save them for someone who deserves it.
I know, I know. Your life at excelsior wasn't easy.
And I know that memories can haunt us...
But the best way to deal with them is to leave them behind us.
Bury them where they belong...
In the past.
Along with everything else...
Right, dad?
I'm glad you're all right.
- If you need anything... - I won't.
Perhaps, uh, miss lang will have better luck, uh, comforting you.
Would you give her my regards, please?
What are you gonna do when you get out of here?
I don't know. College, I guess.
Then what?
My dad wants me to learn how to run his business.
Are you gonna do it?
Hell, no.
I can't stand that old bastard.
What about you? What are you gonna do?
I'm gonna help people, like warrior angel.
Better hit the gym. Spandex is tough to pull off.
No. I don't mean like the cape and stuff.
I'm talking like a doctor or a lawyer or something.
- Lawyer? - Yeah.
Working pro bono for the poor.
Don't let my dad hear you say that.
Why? What's your dad got against poor people?
Everything.
He thinks "poverty" is just another word for "lazy."
What do you think?
I think it would drive my dad nuts if I got a job working with the poor.
Got room for a partner?
Allenmeyer and Luthor?
Luthor and allenmeyer.
Deal.
Now all we gotta do is graduate in one piece.
- Come on, come on. - Shh.
Hurry.
- Did you get it? - I got it.
Let's go.
Oh, man, this is too cool.
- Sweet. - Nobody saw us.
Awesome.
What are they doing?
Stealing answers to the midterms.
You know, you really didn't have to go to all this trouble, Mrs. Kent.
You can't live on coffee three meals a day, Chloe.
I mix it up with the occasional blueberry muffin.
- What? That has a food group in it. - Barely.
- Did you find anything new? - Tons.
There've been reports of unusual occurrences happening
all over the world.
It's like the wall of weird went global.
The worst attack was on a small village in the kashmir region of India.
The entire village was nearly destroyed.
Villagers said they saw something fall from the sky the night before.
That's the same time I escaped from the phantom zone.
Do you think whatever it was got out when you escaped?
Like that park ranger.
How about a trip to the ice castle?
Maybe jor-ei could help track down the zoners before they do more damage.
Zoners?
Escaped super criminals from the phantom zone's a bit of a mouthful.
The fortress is dead. There's no way to contact Jor-El, ask for his help.
- I should have just listened to him. - And done what, Clark?
Killed Lex to stop Zod from taking over his body?
You're not a murderer, Clark.
What about those people in that village, mom?
They might have died because of my actions. I need to know for sure.
Then we need to find more crater impacts...
Like the one you made when you came out of the phantom zone.
I think our best bet would be satellite images.
I thought all the satellites were down on dark Thursday?
All except for a few owned by queen industries.
Now, if we could get the access codes, I might be able to find an image
of whatever it is that came down before the attack on that village.
Oliver queen still owes me one.
Maybe it's time to collect.
Seeing somebody you laughed with, shared so many good times together...
Seeing them laid out on a table like that...
At least they say he didn't suffer.
Yeah. But I'm guessing it didn't tickle, either.
You know, Alden called me a month ago.
Said he wanted to go out for a drink and I, uh...
I told him I was busy. Said I'd catch up with him later.
You couldn't have known something like this was gonna happen.
All the more reason to live for today.
Keep in touch with old friends?
Why don't you all get together while you're here?
And what about Duncan guy? Does he live in Metropolis?
Not anymore.
I actually have to be getting back to Gotham, anyway.
You got a great gal there, Ollie.
Don't screw it up.
Smart guy. You should listen to him.
I'm all ears.
Clark.
I was wondering if my security system would keep someone like you out.
Looks like you need an upgrade.
Or you need to learn how to knock.
It's okay. You know what? You can keep that arrow. I've got a new one.
I was thinking about developing a boxing-glove arrow, and then I thought,
"come up with something a little fancier."
Contained electromagnetic pulse.
Knocks out everything electrical within an eight-foot radius.
Cameras, laser systems, pacemakers.
The last one was a joke, Clark.
I'm laughing on the inside.
Maybe we'll get lucky one day and it'll bubble to the surface.
To what do I owe the pleasure?
I need to talk to you about queen industries.
Their satellite grid.
What about it?
My friend Chloe, she's doing a story on the global effects of dark Thursday.
She needs satellite images from that day, but none of them were working.
Except mine.
Now, how'd you manage that?
It's a trade secret.
Tell you what...
I'll give your friend Chloe the access codes to the grid archive
if you do one small thing for me.
What would that be?
Help me figure out how Lex caused the accidental death of two of my friends.
You think Lex killed them?
I've known Lex a lot longer than you, Clark.
I've seen who he really is.
I'm just saying we should think about this.
What's there to think about?
We tell the headmaster what we saw,
and then queen and those two jerks are out of here.
But we have something on queen now.
No way is he ever gonna try anything again.
We can use this.
Force him to act like our friend so we can have some respect in this place.
You don't pretend to be friends with somebody, Lex.
You either are or you aren't.
I'm gonna turn them in.
I thought you said you were gonna handle this.
You told them?
This is our chance, Duncan.
We don't have to be on the outside anymore.
I... I never felt that way, not when you were my friend.
- Just listen to me. - Get out of my way.
Hey, where do you think you're going?
Just keep your mouth shut and everything will be okay.
Get off of me!
Whoa!
Get him, Lex! Yeah! Get him! Get on him!
Why do you have to be such a loser?
Why can't you be like everybody else?
Are you okay?
Yeah.
Bad dream.
What was it about?
I don't remember.
Lex, it's normal to be upset. Alden died right in front of you.
Yeah, well, maybe he finally got what he deserved.
How can you say that about your friend?
I only had one friend at excelsior.
And it sure as he” wasn't him.
Do you wanna talk about it?
Not really.
Lana, I'm all right.
I'm the last thing you have to worry about.
The last thing, huh?
Well, at least it didn't break.
Did you see that?
I'm sure it's nothing to worry about, Lana.
See?
Lex.
Lana!
Lana?
Lana.
She sustained a fairly serious concussion,
but the cat scans are negative.
- Couple of days' rest, she'll be fine. - I'll make sure she gets it.
- Where's Lana? - She'll be fine.
That's the only thing that matters.
I wanna talk to her.
You lost your visiting rights a while back, Clark.
I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you, Lex.
Since you've been with her, she has a funny habit of getting hurt.
And how many times did she wind up in the hospital when she was dating you?
Save yourself the trip next time, Clark.
Just send flowers.
Ouch.
That was harsh.
It's not like he's wrong, though.
I've hurt Lana more than anyone else.
She wouldn't be with Lex if it wasn't for me.
Lana made that questionable choice on her own.
Stop beating yourself up. That's my job.
And my other one is sniffing out a good story.
That's why you're here?
I don't think Lana's chandelier run-in was an accident...
Or that she was the target.
In the past 24 hours, two of Lex and Oliver's old friends
from boarding school died in violent accidents.
And you think Lex was almost the third?
I think it has something to do with a kid named Duncan they all knew,
but Oliver won't tell me anything.
Listen, I don't want you to end up sharing a hospital room with Lana.
Get some distance between you and Oliver, just for now.
Or I could man up and get to the bottom of this like a real reporter.
Preferably before the grim reaper
drops something very heavy on my hot boyfriend.
Is Lana gonna be okay?
I think so.
Looks like you were wrong about Lex being the one behind the attacks.
Unless he orchestrated this one to throw off suspicion.
If Lex was the only one hurt, then I'd probably think the same thing.
He loves Lana too much to risk her life.
These attacks aren't random.
Lois seems to think it may have something to do
with the kid you went to school with, back at excelsior.
Duncan?
It's not Duncan.
How can you be sure?
Because Lex and I killed him ten years ago.
Why do you have to be such a loser?
- Lex, stop it! - Lex, that's enough!
- Lex, stop it! - What are you doing?
Come on, stop!
- Dude. - Psycho much?
There's something seriously wrong with you.
- Duncan. - Get away from me!
You wanna be one of them so badly, Lex?
Is that it? You can't stand being a loser like me?
Well, congratulations, buddy. Now you're their friend.
And you can now all...
Duncan!
Oh, my god.
Duncan suffered massive brain injuries.
Is there anything else that you haven't told me?
Just the dénouement.
Lionel Luthor sweeping in with the best doctors in the world to save Duncan.
Lionel?
I thought it was an act of kindness.
Now that I'm older, I realize it was just an act.
Lionel was trying to cover up what happened between Lex and Duncan.
Trying to cover up the stink off the Luthor name.
How did he know about all this?
He got the whole story from Lex.
Duncan was on scholarship.
His parents couldn't afford a band-aid, let alone a team of neurosurgeons.
So Lionel promised to take care of the whole thing.
- As long as everyone kept quiet. - Not that it mattered.
Duncan died two days later.
It was an accident.
It just happened.
No, I told myself that same lie for years.
The truth is, all of us might as well
have pushed him out in front of that car.
Alden, Geoffrey, Lex, me...
We all killed Duncan allenmeyer.
What about his family?
If you killed him, one of them might be behind this.
I thought about that, but the only relative I could find was his mother.
- Where's she? - Granville cemetery.
She passed away a month ago.
Well, there must be someone else. Someone else you may have missed.
I don't know.
The only one who had contact with Duncan's family was Lionel.
I'm not exactly high on his buddy list.
Not a good chance of him talking to me.
I was just on my, uh, way down the street to pastis for lunch.
- You hungry? - No, this isn't a social visit.
Oh, that's a pity.
The owner's wife does a souffle au fromage that is, uh...
Well, it is out of this world.
Duncan allenmeyer.
How do you know that name?
Oliver queen filled me in.
Oh, yes, the queen boy.
He should know better than to dig up old skeletons.
I'm not sure he's the only one with a shovel in his hand.
These attacks, I think someone who was close to Duncan
- is trying to settle the score. - Lex was the only one close to him.
No other family members besides his mother?
- Mmm, he didn't have any. - There's gotta be someone.
What is it you're not telling me?
- Ha-ha-ha, Clark... - Two people are already dead.
Do you wanna add Lex to the body count?
Now, please tell me.
It, uh, was a tragedy, what happened to Duncan.
I did everything possible to help him.
I have continued to do that for the past ten years.
Duncan's alive?
My medical team was able to keep his heart beating.
But the, urn, injuries from his accident
have left him in a permanent vegetative state.
Why did you let everyone believe he was still dead?
Clark...
I didn't want Lex to be crippled by his mistakes.
I decided to, uh, make an arrangement with, uh, Duncan's mother
in exchange for her silence, going along with the story...
I agreed to fund a research program dedicated to...
Reversing the damage to her son's brain.
This is still going on.
The best research minds in the world
have tried hundreds of different treatments but, uh...
What if one of them worked?
It's time for your treatment, Duncan.
Smallville?
Lois, what are you doing here?
I'm following a lead. I checked out Duncan's mother.
- She's dead. - I know that, Sherlock.
On a hunch, I dug up all her old phone records.
And every day, while she was still kicking,
she placed a call to this facility.
She was checking on her son.
Duncan? I thought he was dead.
Yeah, so did everyone else.
- I think he's in this room. - How do you know all this?
- You're not the only one with hunches. - Nice work.
Lois?
Uh-uh.
It's my story. I don't share bylines.
It's locked. You stay here. I'm gonna flirt us up a set of keys, all right?
Lois.
It was just stuck.
Fine. Ladies first.
Yes?
He's arriving now, Mr. Queen.
Thank you.
Lex, I was wondering how long it was gonna take you to pop up.
I've been busy at the hospital.
I heard about Lana.
- Is she gonna be all right? - She'll be fine.
Not that you really care.
No, I do care.
I care that a nice girl like that ended up with a guy like you.
Ever since you came to Metropolis, I've been kidnapped,
my life put in jeopardy,
and now the woman I love is lying in a hospital bed.
And you think that's my fault.
Sounds to me more like bad Karma.
Go back to star city, Oliver...
While you still can.
I've seen that look before.
When was it?
Oh, yeah.
When you almost beat your only friend to death back at excelsior.
That's good.
The first one's free. The next one's gonna cost you.
Poor little Lex.
Always blaming everyone else for all of his problems.
Only when they're the cause.
You never could take responsibility for what happened to Duncan.
Like your hands were clean.
Not even close.
But since then, I've been scrubbing them real hard.
Yours just keep getting dirtier.
Look out!
Lex.
I'm not a doctor, but I've seen enough discovery channel to know
you don't get the squiggly lines when you're in a vegetative state.
Unless your new treatments are working.
What new treatment?
Something called 128. It's experimental.
It's derived from refined meteor rocks.
Clark, they started giving him this stuff two days ago.
- Look at the injection times. - They coincide with the attacks.
Maybe we just found our killer.
No, wait a minute.
These treatments, they might stimulate brain activity,
but he's in a wheelchair.
His body is, yeah. But look at his charts.
His new cocktail is whipping up a hell of an electrical storm.
Now, I read this article in the inquisitor
about brain waves and astral projection.
Astral projection?
Do you have a better explanation?
No. When was his last injection?
Twenty minutes ago.
Oh, my god. It's happening again.
Smallville, I...
Hey.
What happened?
You went awol while things heated up, as usual.
I went to go find a phone to warn Oliver and Lex.
Did you get a hold of them? Are they all right?
A little worse for wear.
Oliver said whatever happened just suddenly stopped.
Well, Duncan went flatline, like he blew a fuse or something.
I wonder what caused it.
Ah, you need that for your article?
Well, it would be good, if I were still going to write one.
But you're not?
It would make a juicy story for the inquisitor,
but considering the outcome, an exploitation piece
on a catatonic patient astral-projecting his way to revenge
might be in bad taste.
Would you feel the same way if Oliver wasn't involved?
We've all done things we're not proud of.
I just wish that Oliver didn't feel like he had to hide it from me.
You know...
Sometimes, in order to protect the people we love...
We keep secrets.
That is...
Totally retarded.
I wasn't the most popular kid at excelsior.
The way I looked...
The rumors about what happened to my brother, Julian...
But Duncan didn't care.
He was my only friend.
And I betrayed him.
Lex, you were just a boy.
What matters is the man you've become.
You're early.
It's not often I get invited into the lion's den.
I didn't want you changing your mind.
I'm sure you two have a lot to discuss.
Mr. Queen.
Miss lang.
You're a lucky man.
In more ways than one.
I should be dead...
But here I stand.
Well, you would have done the same thing for me...
Right?
I wanted to say thank you.
And that's all I wanted to say.
I'm sure you have business to get back to.
Lex.
What happened to Duncan...
The way I treated both of you...
It's not something that I'm proud of.
I want you to know how much I regret it.
And I regret ever thinking I needed friends like you.
Why'd you lie to me?
All those years you let me think he was dead.
What would you have done if you had known the truth?
Make daily pilgrimages to the poor boy's bedside?
Yes, I let you think he was dead.
I was giving you a chance to move on with your life.
- To go fonnard, not back. - You didn't do this for me.
You convinced Duncan's mother to declare him dead
so you could use him as a Guinea pig.
And one of your treatments tapped into a very powerful part of the human brain.
All right. All right. Let's assume that's true.
Would that have made a difference?
You were responsible for what happened to Duncan allenmeyer.
Nothing is ever gonna change that.
Well, like you said, dad...
The only thing I can do is look fonnard.
I wanna see the data on Duncan's last treatment.
Have it on my desk first thing in the morning.
So that thing that attacked us,
Duncan's astral body, or whatever you wanna call it,
must have been some form of electrical manifestation.
Yeah, it got fried by your electromagnetic arrow,
along with what was left of Duncan's brain.
Yeah, I guess you're right.
You know, making the wrong choices and living with the consequences,
it's not easy, is it?
Speaking from experience, huh?
More than I'd like.
You know, we all make bad choices, Clark.
All we can do is hope to make the right ones in the future, right?
Clark.
I... I'm sorry. I didn't realize you had company.
Chloe, Oliver queen.
Oh. Hi. I feel like I know you already.
Lois talks about you all the time.
I was actuallyjust gonna go see Lois right now.
Maybe it's time I did some talking.
Well, look, I'm, uh, looking fonnard to your article on dark Thursday.
- I hope my satellite images helped. - Yeah.
Good.
It's good to meet you.
Clark.
Wow. In person, he is really...
Wow.
Chloe. Were you able to pull anything off the satellites?
Oh, yeah. Um, well, I'm still sifting through the images,
but I already found a handful of craters that matched the one you made
when you busted out of the phantom zone.
Which means more zoners on earth.
Did you find the one in India?
That was just a smoking hole. But I did find another one in Australia
that I thought you might wanna take a look at.
Is there someone in the crater?
I blew it up as much as I could. It's not very clear, but...
What is it?
Raya.