American comics: What kind of evil intentions could Batman have?

Chapter 772 A Gentle Story

Chapter 772 A Tender Story (Part Three, Part 2)

Strictly speaking, Batman: Dragon has already exhausted all the conventional methods for persuading Superman Supreme.

Superman the Supreme didn't deny his responsibilities; he simply denied all his identities.

All my interactions with him were not, in essence, a clash of ideas, but a struggle for the right to define myself.

However, it seems that Superman is getting a little tired of the process.

"What do you want to talk about?" he asked first, then turned his head away somewhat listlessly: "I don't understand why I have to be a human being."

"No, strictly speaking, you have to be a hero."

Hero Day scratched his head: "I'm not human either, but I'm a superhero too."

Indeed, the race of Heroes of the Day cannot be strictly speaking called Kryptonians; they should be classified as biological weapons.

"Alright," said Supreme Little Monkey, "Why do I have to be a hero?"

"Well……"

Hero Day was slightly speechless when asked the question. If Chen Tao were here, he would emphasize a lot of things like responsibility to Supreme Little Super Monkey. But Hero Day knew what Supreme Little Super Monkey was asking. In some ways, they were very similar.

"Because you have an 'S' drawn on your chest, understand? 'S' stands for Superman, and Superman is a superhero."

"It could also mean 'Stupid monkey,'" said Superman Monkey. "But I know it definitely means Superman."

Super Monkey asked himself why he had to be a superhero, but Hero Day didn't answer him directly, instead emphasizing the symbol on his chest. This wasn't a positive response to Super Monkey.

Symbols are essentially mandatory definitions of individuals. For example, a person's name is also a symbol, but these symbols are not something that individuals can choose.

By using symbols as the guiding principles for their actions, heroes are essentially relinquishing their right to choose and handing over the responsibilities of their role to an external symbolic system.

The symbol of Super Monkey wasn't something he wanted; it was given to him by the former Superman. Hero Day intended to compress the meaning of Super Monkey's existence into the mark on his chest.

This is equivalent to a mentally ill person asking his doctor why he is a patient at Arkham Asylum, and the doctor showing him his admission notice.

Then the lunatic retorted, "Why does my hospital admission notice say this? Can this piece of paper define me?"

So this is the problem with the Supreme Little Super Monkey:

"I don't understand why there's an 'S' on my chest? Does it define me?"

"Because..." Hero Day cannot say, "Because back then, the Supreme Superman wanted to become Superman."

Because, in essence, the current Supreme Little Monkey and Supreme Little Superman are completely different individuals due to the time-space fork, just like Hero Sun, who has intelligence on the forked timeline, and Doomsday on the main universe timeline are not the same person at all.

The "S" mark on Superman's chest is accidental; it was just a graffiti mark he made during one of his outbursts, declaring that he brought fear and power.

But how can chance become an essential inevitability?

There was no way to reply to Hero Day, so he could only change the subject in the end.

"Hey, think about it. We all live in this world, and this world loves us, right? Without this world, we would have nowhere to live. When the entire multiverse was in crisis, who should have stepped in to save the world from disaster?"

"Uh..." said Supreme Little Monkey, "Batman's Dragon?"

"No, it's not him, it's Superman—the guy with an 'S' on his chest," Hero Day said.

"Superman is the center of the universe. So you should understand that you are very lucky now. You now have the opportunity to become Superman in the main universe. You will leave a significant mark on the great history of the DC multiverse. Everyone will remember you, no one will forget you, and the entire multiverse will be grateful for your kindness!"

He said, "When you successfully save history, everyone will know what you did, and they will all say in unison, 'My God, we can never repay Superman Supreme's kindness!'"

This is a rhetorical trap set by Hero Day. He mortgages the value of Supreme Little Monkey's existence to future emotional futures, but such a promise is ultimately false.

The Supreme Little Super Monkey is drooling.

"What?"

Hero Ri slapped his forehead. He already knew how stubborn the monkey was, but for some reason, he was still a little irritated.

"You're Clark Kent too, you understand? You don't know how rare the opportunity to be Superman instead of a substitute was, during the Gogol Wars..."

What was the Gorgon War?

Hero Day fell silent. The flaws in his theory were found by Little Super Monkey. No one remembered the High Kingdom War, nor did anyone remember that there had ever been a Hero Day who fought in the darkness for 200 years.

But none of these things made Hero Ri feel most hesitant and fearful. What made him most uneasy was that, deep down, even Hero Ri himself didn't believe what he had just said.

The Buzz Lightyear toy couldn't understand the inspiring slogans coming from its own built-in voice box at all. At that moment, Hero Day felt a slight doubt about its own existence...

But you wouldn't really doubt that you're just a fake person, so in the end he attributed it all to the possibility that someone had tampered with his memories.

Then he spoke and began to tell his story to the Supreme Little Super Monkey.

"Want to hear my story? The story of the Gog Wars. Superman was captured by the Gog, while the originally chaotic beast Doomsday gained intelligence and became Superman, the protector of the world..."

"...So at the end of the story, I chose to abandon my own history, at the cost of turning back into the Chaos Beast, to save the entire multiverse and erase the 200 years of erroneous history. But somehow, I reappeared here to witness the world I saved."

After Hero Day finished telling his story, Supreme Little Super Monkey listened very attentively.

Then he said, "Your mission is complete?"

"Yes, I was supposed to fulfill my mission after completing the task and then enter into eternal peace."

Hero Day was still immersed in his own story when he suddenly heard the voice of Supreme Little Super Monkey.

"Heroes' Day, I know where your problem lies."

He looked at the happy monkey in front of him with a somewhat blank expression: "You know?"

"Yes, you're just like me." The Supreme Little Monkey revealed a wise look in his eyes:

"A monkey!"

Hero Day wanted Supreme Little Monkey to accept his identity as a hero, but unexpectedly, the monkey analyzed his problems in reverse.

He didn't actually believe what he was saying at all.

The Hero Day before him was not the real Hero Day; it was essentially a dummy created by the World Builder based on the true Hero Day. Although he possessed the memories of the true Hero Day, he could not truly empathize with it. His will and thoughts were merely forcibly instilled in him by the World Builder.

A true Hero's Day is based on one's own choices, where one becomes a hero who saves the world without complaint or regret. However, the Hero's Day created by the world's creators lacks this process. It's like a baby being fed a wonderful first-person movie, but it's not his life after all.

The tragedy of Hero Day was not that he was given an identity he did not identify with, but that he never realized that his identity had never been defined by himself.

He originally came to persuade and lecture the Supreme Little Super Monkey, but at this point, he could no longer continue.

The enormous monster was curled up, his golden-age heroism mixed with his melancholy heart.

He resembles a hero of the Golden Age, but he is ultimately just a replica, one of the models created by the world's foundries, even if he himself doesn't understand this yet.

He stopped talking, and instead, the Supreme Little Super Monkey crawled over on all fours and sat down beside him.

"Don't be sad," he said. "You feel like that's not your life, right?"

Supreme Little Super Monkey's perception was so sharp that he could almost immediately discern the real reason for the other party's sadness.

It wasn't because no one remembered them, but because Hero Day discovered that they didn't believe what they were saying.

This means he denied the awareness he had made in his memory, which is what makes Heroes' Day so confusing.

Now, Little Super Monkey has become the comforter, looking at the dejected Hero Day with some worry.

"Even though those things are in the past, you still have a choice, my friend," said Supreme Little Monkey. "If you still want to be a hero, then be a hero. Just like I wanted to be a monkey, so I am a monkey."

"Ugh, what's your strange connection with monkeys?" Hero Ri slapped his head.

Supreme Little Super Monkey revealed a wise expression. He jumped down from the monkey throne and rolled around among a group of female monkeys. The monkeys were initially very afraid of Supreme Little Super Monkey, but now they have completely accepted him.

"It's so heartwarming!"

"Supreme Little Super Monkey said."

"Oh, that's a bit disgusting."

"It's very heartwarming."

A large group of male monkeys handed fruit to the Supreme Little Super Monkey, their new monkey king.

"Maybe."

"I feel so safe!" Supreme Little Monkey jumped back onto his stone throne and exclaimed, "It's as if someone is whispering in my ear, 'Everything will be alright!'"

"Hey, wait a minute." Hero Day suddenly realized something.

Then he said, "This is how it feels for everyone in the multiverse to be saved by you, to be saved by a hero."

Supreme Little Super Monkey stared dumbfounded at Hero's Day.

The two of them looked at each other in bewilderment.

"Really?" asked the Supreme Little Super Monkey.

"That's right!" Hero Day answered him loudly.

The little super monkey maintained a blank expression.

Finally, he said:

"Let me think." He jumped down from the throne and started counting on his fingers.

"You mean, the multiverse thinks I'm very warm?"

"right."

"Very cozy?"

"That's right."

"Sometimes it's covered in mud, all sticky?"

"Uh, well, yes, that's right."

Immediately afterwards, Supreme Little Monkey began to tremble with excitement.

"I get it! I understand now. I am a monkey from the multiverse!"

"Yes, that's right, wait... what did you say?"

Ultimately, the Supreme Little Monkey came to a strange conclusion: he is a monkey from the multiverse. This is actually an extreme interpretation of logic that he himself didn't believe in before Hero Day.

Since their existence depends entirely on the needs of the multiverse, just as the meaning of an object depends entirely on its owner, then the Supreme Little Monkey doesn't actually need to give up his monkey identity. He only needs to make the concept of a monkey conform to the needs of the multiverse. It's a kind of logic game, but anyway...

The Supreme Little Monkey has been unlocked!

"The entire multiverse needs me! As a monkey, I must protect the multiverse! A monkey should protect his zoo!"

The Supreme Little Super Monkey shouted, "Hey multiverse, I'm here to save you!"

With that shout, he leaped from the Monkey Throne and shattered the stone throne. The surrounding monkeys screamed in terror. The Supreme Superman flew high into the sky, then threw a punch into the void, cracking space itself, and was about to jump into the spatial rift.

Hero rushed up from behind and suddenly hugged his back.

"Wait, where are you going?"

"Go save the multiverse!"

"But you just pointed in a random direction and then crashed through space and flew away. I mean, shouldn't we have a plan?"

"That's right, friend," Supreme Little Monkey agreed.

So he asked, "So, what's our plan?"

"Batman will prepare a plan for us," Hero Day said. "That's Batman's job and responsibility."

"Okay," said Supreme Little Monkey.

When he finished speaking, the bewilderment and stupidity on his face, like that of a monkey, suddenly disappeared for half a second.

"Hey, Hero Day, I'll call you that for now."

Hero Ri stared at him blankly.

"We're friends, right? At least we are now. I know you feel confused and strange, and frankly, I sense it too. There must be something wrong with you, do you admit that?"

Heroes nodded.

Although he has already proven himself in front of Batman Dragon, isn't that kind of bottomless and unyielding way of proving himself a strange kind of alienation?

Hero Day was definitely not stupid. Even though he hadn't felt it so deeply before, when Supreme Little Monkey said that he was also a monkey, he had completely realized the disharmony within himself.

He was gripped by deep fear, but so far, the toy named Buzz Lightyear had not seen a television, nor had it received proof that it was nothing more than a mass-produced replica.

So at least he still has the ability not to break down.

"Want something to eat?" asked the Supreme Little Super Monkey.

"Let's go find something to eat in the feed bins. Listen, what I want to tell you is... it's okay, friend. My new friend. Even if you're completely fake..."

"But at least our friendship is real now, right?"

The monkey reached out and patted the other monkey, comforting him by saying:

"Don't worry, we're friends, I'll help you if I have the chance."

(End of this chapter)