Late Night Date Night - Interlude: Strongest for a Decade (Patreon)

(A/N - Another free peek into the world of Lady Dark. Every superhero universe needs an ultra-powerful do-gooder, right?)

June 18, 202X

Excerpt from The Donnel Standard’s Sunday feature for the third week of June. Written by Lynn Rainey.

We like Strongest. We always have. There’s never been a time when he’s polled below 81% approval in nationwide surveys. He gets consistently good press, and not just because he personally came to our rescue when the press corps got stranded at the top of the Gateway Arch during the St. Louis riots. After writing 409 articles about him since his debut (as confirmed by our own fact checker), this reporter has come to believe that he is genuinely earnest, a man who sees his abilities as a sacred trust rather than a gift.

That might be unique among his fellow exceptionals in the 99th percentile.

But is it time for Strongest to take a step back? Has our symbol become a crutch? Do his exploits—eagerly spread by his legions of fans and newspapers like the Standard—make it easy to ignore the growing cracks beneath the glittering surface? This feature is not about Strongest’s undeniable good deeds. It aims to dive deeper, to examine the complete impact of our “Greatest Super” (as chosen by participants of EIDB’s annual poll for eleven straight years).

There is no doubt that he has accomplished tremendous things, but sometimes those accomplishments have had a hidden cost. And being the longest-serving sanctioned hero has put Strongest at risk of becoming something he never wanted to be: the symbol of a government trying to side-step accountability.