500

Superstar (#star)

If you ask anyone who the greatest superhero of all time is, they'll tell you the same thing. Scarlet Star.

She's never been on any adventures or fought in any battles. She's never risked her life challenging supervillains or stopping invading aliens. There's a good reason she's the best, though. Her superpower is the ability to be the greatest superhero of all time. With a power like that, you don't need to do anything else.

I wonder - and I'm sure I'm not the only one- how ethical this all is. Shouldn't we each be able to choose who the greatest superhero is? Has Scarlet Star unintentionally sapped our free will? Certainly, yes.

Sure, she hasn't done anything sinister like made us all her slaves or turn us into slugs, but the idea that we're all somehow under her thrall is very disturbing. Something has to be done. Maybe she needs to be killed.

Since I'm technically a supervillain, I might as well do it. No self-respecting superhero would get their hands bloody, so it's up to me. I put on my Cloak of Many Places and teleport to her penthouse apartment.

She's also the most beautiful, stylish, sexy-you get the idea -person on this planet. Scarlet Star walks to meet me in beat up baggy soiled pajamas and spinach between her teeth. I'm enthralled.

"I think you better leave," she says. "I am Scarlet Star, the world's greatest superhero."

"I can't argue with that, " I say with deference. "But I'm the world's best anti-hero. Let's see who is better."

I have the Ring of Reality. She has a hangover. No contest.

The Ring doesn't just defeat someone. It's not a laser blast or enchanted hammer. It actually bends reality to my will.

Wait, you say. Isn't something like that even more controlling than Scarlet Star's power?

I wouldn't say more. Maybe just as. But I'm not really here to quibble.

I point my ring finger at Scarlet and command the forces of reality. She throws up on the ground.

Then she's gone.

Yes, gone. As in never existed. Poof.

I still remember her because I'm wearing the ring which is the Fulcrum of Existence or something equally mystically scientific. I recall the world as it was. For the rest of the planet, Scarlet Star never existed. Or, if she still does, she's in a trailer park somewhere that she can't control humanity.

I look out the window and am overjoyed. People have their free will again. They are discussing who their favorite superhero is because they now all have different favorites. They're even punching, shooting and killing each other over their differences. But they're free.

Scarlet Star, I kind of miss you.