The Bat and The Baldy

There’s been a lot of pondering lately on the relationship between Metropolis’ resident genius billionaire, Lex Luthor, and the prince of Gotham, Bruce Wayne. The truth is that there is a connection. Their histories intersect at a particular point in the not too distant past.

They say that most heroes and their arch villains start off as friends. This story is no different.

Some years ago both men were young captains of industry, swashbuckling their way into massive sums of money. They were handsome men, their hair and clothes always impeccable. Bruce Wayne took his fathers fortune and turned it into several fortunes and Lex Luthor took his gift of genius intellect and took the Gotham Stock Exchange by storm, building up and selling off company after company.

It is though these activities that these two became friends. A billionaire has particular stresses that even millionaires can’t fathom. It’s only natural that they gravitate towards each other. They spent many nights cruising the Gotham nightlife together. Of the two, only Bruce harbored a secret so big that even his best friend couldn’t know about it. It was a dark winged secret.

While Bruce maintained an even keel even in the wildest of social circumstances, Lex on the other hand had let his intellectual superiority and business acumen swell his already large ego. It was his disregard for those that he felt were beneath him, which included pretty much the entire population of Gotham with the exception of one man that led to his descent into madness.

On that fateful Friday afternoon, Lex knew that him and Bruce had a long weekend of carousing ahead and wanted to get his hair trimmed to look good for their intended prey. The barber did and adequate job. He was quick and efficient and even Lex admitted to himself that it looked good. However despite his vast fortune, he was a notorious non-tipper, feeling that should they want a tip, they should build it into the price of the service. No one tips him so why should he bother tipping other. He thought it to be a notch above those hoodlums that play that awful folk music down in the park begging for change.

What Lex didn’t know is that he was the 4th person today, the 22nd this week, the 115th, and the 3468th person to refuse to tip in Wally Jergin’s completely mediocre career as a barber. This also happened to be Wally’s breaking point. He shut his shop down and immediately began to formulate the plan that had been festering in his skull all these years.

When Bruce got home that afternoon his butler, Alfred, informed him that according to the local news his friend, Lex Luthor, had been kidnapped by some lunatic calling himself The Follicle. Bruce immediately went down to his secret lair and suited up for another mission.

His superior detective skills soon led him to an abandoned beauty supply warehouse. He jumped down from a roof window landing near The Follicle. Lex Luthor strapped to a barbers chair, and an assortment of evil minions. Bruce briefly wondered to himself where all these minions always come from. Maybe there is a temp agency that farms them out he thought.

“Don’t come any closer Batman. Ol’ Lexy hear has got himself stuck in a hairy situation,” The Follicle announced followed by his best evil cackle. It was a little higher pitched and lacked the menace that Wally had hoped for, but he figured this was a work in progress.

“Let him go. You can’t just kidnap innocent billionaires” Batman replied.

“Oh really? He gets to sit up in his ivory tower with all of his rich buddies, while us lowly slaves waste our life serving him and his ilk, hoping that he might spare just a few crumbs of his bounty with us. But no, he chooses to deny us our hard earned money. Well no more, my winged nemesis.” Wally said. With that he grabs a large bottle the size and approximate shape of a 2 liter of soda and lifts it up. “With the formula that I created, I will get my revenge upon the uncaring men and women of Gotham City. I will dump this into the local water supply causing every man, woman, child, and animal to go bald. No one will ever stiff me again because they won’t need to worry about getting their hair cut ever again. The narcissistic prideful fools so full of bluster will become sheepish wimps ready for subjugation. Muwahahahahaha” Wally was much more satisfied with that evil laugh. He was surprised to find that he quite enjoyed that monologue even though confessing his plan probably wasn’t the wisest thing after all, he isn’t the first bizarre bad guy that Batman’s gone up again. He wondered if other villains ever did the same thing.

Lex started laughing. “That’s it? Your plan is to make Gotham go bald? That’s the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. I can’t believe I got kidnapped for that. Someone of my stature deserves a better villain than this guy.” He said.

“Shut Up! It is not stupid. This will bring me revenge,” Wally screamed.

Suddenly Batman attacked. He tore through the minions and ended up in an epic struggle with The Follicle. He desperately tried to wrestle the bottle away with out breaking it. It was during this struggle that the unthinkable happened. The bottle flew out of their hands and flew through the air and landed on a still tied up Lex Luthor who was unable to stop it. The bottle broke on top of his head and its entire contents spilled down over him causing his hair to fall out immediately. The scream he bellowed out in horror could be heard for miles.

Batman subdued the villain, dispatched his henchmen and disappeared as quickly as he appeared leaving Lex to hold down the fort until the police could arrive and take The Follicle to Arkham asylum.

His hate for Batman began to burn with a white-hot passion. He would destroy Batman for what he had done to him. But how, he wondered, and slowly he began to realize that any plan he could think of required him to go out into the public, where his pride and huge ego would never let him go. How could he been seen like this, a hairless freak? And then he began to see the genius of Wally Jergin’s plan. He would have to leave Gotham and take his fury out on some other do-gooder. His pride would allow nothing less.

And then he remembered overhearing a conversation on a street corner waiting for his limo to pick him up. He remembered the two men talking about a new super hero appearing in Metropolis and saving some new reporter from a crashed helicopter. Metropolis would be ideal. No one there knows me there other than by reputation.

What did they call that superhero he wondered? Then he remembered. Lex said the name out loud. “Superman”. He would be the surrogate for the pain that I wish to inflict upon Batman. He would miss his friend Bruce Wayne, but in Lex’s mind he was no longer his equal and not worthy of his friendship.

“Metropolis and Superman’s death it is”