Superman - Handbag Snatcher [PARTE SIX]

So it was, that Clarke found himself almost powerless. Sure, he coudl still outrun most people, and was stronger than most people, but his powers were greatly diminished. As such, he reverted to handbag snatchings and petty crime in order to maintain his now addicted body. Harold and the other Gremlins helped where they could in the occassional muggings, Seven Eleven robberies and beating up old ladies who pushed in line. Clarke realised that maybe he needed to have a good think about his life. He decided to head back tot he old farm to talk to Jor-L, to see if he could reverse the Kryptonitic effect of the funny powder. 'Daggnimitty darn it,' said Jor-L, who's program had got mixed with Jonathan and Marthas. 'I'll back you some cookies and tuck you in.' 'I don't need tucking in, I need my superpower restored.' 'Daggnammmity nimmity noobity,' said Jor-L. 'Those darn FBI agents scrambled the database when they were trying to work out how the computer worked on the spaceship. Now I have no idea what I'm up to. Anyway dear, don't worry about those nasty bullies. If you turn the other cheek, eventually they'll realise what a sweet boy you are and will become yoru friends.' 'Stop it,' said Clarke. 'If you won't help me, I'll return to Metropolis and revert to stealing handbags some more!' 'Daggnammititty Clarke, if I had my database in order, I'd know exactly how to sort this all out. In the meantime, have some milk and cookies. Problems are never as bad as they first seem. Dagggnammmmity!!!!' So, Clarke went to Gothopolis (which was a City between Gotham and Metropolis). He and Harold couldn't snatch enough handbags that night to afford a room, so the decided to hunker down in an alleyway with some down and outs. 'Huh,' said one of them hobos. 'You'd never believe how good I used to have it. My own mansion in Gotham city. I invented everything. I owned that city. Remember the M-Pod. Yeah, I invented that. Best seller for a while. Helecopters, boats, weird shaped cars. I owne them all.' 'Huh! I wish I ever had it that good,' said a second hobo. 'I was poor, but at least I was happy. Lived with my aunt Elsie and stuff, till one day a radioactive, genetically mutated spider bit me. Had problems ever since.' 'Sounds bad kid,' said the first hobo putting his arm around the second one. 'Tell me more about it.' 'Well, I was pretty sick for a while. Then these funny hairs grew on my fingers. I found I was able to climb walls, like a real spider.' 'Hey, I bet you were able to make spiderwebs fly out your wrist or something!' 'Huh! I wish, you ever seen a spider spin webs out it's wrist? Nah! They spin that stuff out their butts. I started to grow a weird gland near my butt-hole. At first I thought it was just bad hemoroids. No way. I kept putting cream on it. Didn't help. Then this white sticky stuff started coming out of it.' 'So, you can spin webs out your butt. That doesn't make a kid run away from home.' 'Nah, it had to do with the girl next door. A sort of ... incident happened. I was standing there, and forgot to close the curtains. I was checking the gland out and had a heap of white stuff on my fingers ... sticky web stuff. Anyway, I looked out the window an across to Mary Janes window. She was standing there staring at me. I sort of waved at her, and she saw all the sticky stuff on my hands. Called the police. I've been a fugitive ever since.' 'Here, let your Uncle Bruce comfort you for a while,' said the hobo named Bruce, as he gave poor Peter [the other hobo] a reassuring hug with his arm. 'Anyway Uncle Bruce,' continued Peter. 'You were some rich millionaire in Gotham. What happened to you.' 'It's a long story,' said Bruce. 'As a millionaire, philanthropist I was trying to do my best for the community. I built a big mansion and filled with all sorts of fun stuff. Lyrca suits, masks, gadgets. heaps of gadgets. Everything a young ward might want. Well, I really wasn't hurting anyone. I took in a young orphan named Dick. Well, as you can imagine, one thing lead to another. Probably all that running around in lycra suits did it. But, we became close, as guys often do. You know, doing guy stuff. Anyway, somewhere along the way, people just got the wrong idea. Became worse when some young upstart photographer from the Daily Planet, I tihnk his name was Jimmy Olsen or something. Anyway, he snapped some photo of me giving Dick a fatherly tonguey and that was it. Photo got published, people stopped buying Wayne products. The authorities too Dick away, and my fortune dwindled to nothing.' Somewhere in the telling of the story, young Peter had struggled loose, leapt up and ran down the alley. He almost tripped on a green scaley guy flopping around at the back of an alley. Someof the other hobos had found him in the river and hauled him out. Seeing he was all sort of green, they assumed he'd drowned, btu he'd started flopping around and struggling to breath. They figured placing him close ot one of the open fires in the alley might help him, but the guy just seemed to keep getting worse. Clarke and Harold entered the alleyway and pulled up a position next to some thin scientific looking guy. 'So, nice night,' said Clarke to him. 'Yeah, guess it is.' 'You, ah, hang here often?' 'Just when hiding from the US army.' Really? You AWOL?' 'Nah, I have an anger management problem ...' 'Really? You can't be that bad when you're angry?' 'Oh, you won't like me when I'm angry. I turn into a monster. A Big green ugly one.' 'A weedy looking guy like you? Don't make me laugh.' 'Please, don't call me weedy. I'm not weedy, Okay. Don't make me angry!' 'Oh, gees,' said another hobo. 'Everyone, get out of here, he's stiring up hulky again!' With that, the rest of the hobos took to their heals and ran. Clarke was lucky he still had some superpowers. He didn't know what hit him, but to any onlooker it would have been obvious. Hulky had picked up Harold and rammed him somewhre Clarke didn't want him. Clarkes super power to leap tall buildings returned that instant!