Daily Planet · Interoffice Memo · Personal & Confidential
Before the cape, the man. Read this first — it's the part of you the suit can make you forget.
THE DAILY PLANET
Clark — before you fold the glasses into your coat pocket and let the wind take the rest, remember why you wear them at all. Not for the world's sake. For yours. Ma Kent used to say a man needs somewhere ordinary to stand, or the extraordinary will hollow him out. Smallville gave you that ground. The Daily Planet gives it to you now: deadlines, coffee, Perry hollering about column inches, Jimmy's terrible jokes, Lois pretending she isn't watching the door when you're late.
You have not stood in the open like this since the war ended. You told yourself the world didn't need watching so closely anymore. You were wrong, and you knew it, and you stayed hidden anyway — because every time you step forward, you're afraid of what you might become when nobody can stop you. That fear is not weakness. It is the last honest thing Krypton left you, and it is why you still get to call yourself a man and not just a weapon.
Seven days. Then you come home to this desk, to this name, to people who love you because of who you are with your shoes on the ground, not what you can do above the clouds. Lois will ask where you were. Tell her the truth when you can. Where you can't, tell her you're sorry, and mean it.
Jonathan Kent told you once: anybody can run fast or lift a truck off a kid trapped underneath it. That's not what makes you Superman. What makes you Superman is deciding, over and over, to put the truck down gently.
— C.K.
When you're ready, turn to the other name.
House of El · Fortress of Solitude Archive
Last Son of Krypton, Man of Steel — one briefing, seven days, no second reading required.
To Him Who Bears the Crest of El
Read these words as the fog of forgotten years recedes. You are Kal-El, last son of Krypton, son of Jor-El and Lara, called by the House of El to stand as Earth's champion. Under this yellow sun your body drinks strength the red sun of Krypton never gave you. Seven solar cycles remain before humanity faces total extinction. You have not stood this openly since the guns of the Second World War fell silent in 1945.
Since your departure into shadow, the world of men has multiplied its engines and its peril. The tyranny you once fought in the trenches of Europe did not vanish; it transformed. Metropolis still turns its lights on for you each night. They remain fragile, divided by vanity and fear, yet capable of exquisite beauty. Below, in brief, is what the Fortress ledger has recorded in your absence.
1945–1949
The guns fell silent in Europe and the Pacific. In San Francisco, fifty nations signed a charter binding themselves to a fragile promise never to let it happen again. The atom, once split for war, was split for power — and for colder wars still to come.
1950s
Empires that had ruled continents began to fold their maps. New nations rose from old colonies. Two great powers drew a line across the world and armed it to the teeth, calling the silence between them peace.
1960s
Men reached the Moon on a pillar of fire while cities on Earth burned with the fight for equal standing under the law. More than once, the line between the two great powers grew taut enough to nearly snap.
1970s–1980s
Oil became a weapon as sharp as any missile. Machines learned to speak to one another in rooms full of wire. Behind a wall through the heart of one city, a whole world waited to see which side would move first.
Late 1980s–1990s
The wall came down by hand, stone by stone, and the great rival empire dissolved not long after. For a moment the world believed its long war was over. It began wiring itself together instead — one global lattice of light and signal replacing the old lines on the map.
2000s
A single September morning taught the world its old maps no longer mattered; an enemy could come from anywhere and answer to no flag. Wars without fronts followed. The lattice of light became the place where most of humanity now spends half its waking life.
2010s
Markets nearly collapsed the whole structure under their own weight. The climate itself began sending warnings no one could keep ignoring. Old certainties — about governments, institutions, even the lattice of light itself — began to fray all at once.
2020s–Present
A sickness crossed the entire world before any government could agree on how to stop it. Machines began to think, or something close enough that no one has finished arguing about the difference. The great powers are circling one another again, and the ice at the poles is running out of time faster than the diplomats are.
You are their final bulwark.
Evil has taken root across the globe — ruthless, calculating, and lacking all honor. Your mandate in these seven days is absolute: offer no quarter to cruel men, break their machines of war, and sunder their tyrannical grips without hesitation.
Yet hear this above the roaring of your power:
You shall not cross into murder.
To steal a life, even that of a monster, is to burn the House of El to ash and become the very scourge you were sent to defeat. Your strength is a solar furnace; your restraint is the steel that bounds it. Show absolute strength against darkness, but leave the final breath of man to the judgment of truth.
Orientation & Re-anchoring. Return to the Fortress. Let the Sun-Chamber re-key your senses to Earth's grid. Recognize your true self: reporter, champion, protector.
Dismantling the Network. Move as light across the continents. Neutralize weapon installations, disarm global strike-foundries, and paralyze opposition networks before they fire.
The Final Confrontation. Confront the core threat at its center. Stand unbroken. Speak with the authority of the House of El and the conviction of Earth's defender.
Watchtower Command · Orbital Relay
Seven days. One Kryptonian on point. The rest of the League holds the rest of the world — and keeps regular people briefed while it does.
Emergency Public Broadcast · Repeats Every Hour
RALLY POINT — HALL OF JUSTICE / WATCHTOWER ORBITAL
Wonder Woman
Diana Prince · Themyscira / Amazonian Envoy
First contact and co-commander for the seven-day window. Handles diplomatic fronts, mystical or god-touched threats, and any incident where restraint requires more than strength. Authorized to overrule Superman's engagement calls on matters of judgment.
Instructions for civilians: If you witness a threat that isn't human in origin, do not engage or record for an audience — note the location and time, then move to shelter. She will find your account through the tip line.
CHANNEL: LASSO-1 · STATUS: ACTIVE
Batman
Bruce Wayne · Gotham
Intelligence, surveillance, and organized-crime networks feeding the week's threats.
Recon from the public: Unusual chemical odors, unmarked convoys, or new faces around industrial sites — report through the anonymous tip line. Do not investigate yourself.
The Flash
Barry Allen · Central City
Rapid civilian evacuation and disaster response wherever Superman can't be first on scene.
Instructions for civilians: On evacuation order, go on foot to the nearest marked corridor. Leave your car — he moves faster than traffic ever will.
Aquaman
Arthur Curry · Atlantis
Oceanic and naval threats; secures shipping lanes and undersea installations.
Instructions for civilians: Coastal residents move to higher ground on the long siren. Stay off harbors and piers for the full seven days.
Green Lantern
Corps Sector 2814
Aerial and orbital perimeter; backstop against threats arriving from beyond Earth.
Recon from the public: Unusual lights or aircraft that don't match local air traffic — report the time and bearing to your regional watch post rather than filming and sharing.
Cyborg
Victor Stone · Watchtower
Systems officer. Runs the Watchtower's global sensor net and keeps every channel below open.
Instructions for civilians: Keep phones charged and on for the Watchtower emergency ping. Keep non-emergency calls off the shared lines so real reports get through.
Martian Manhunter
J'onn J'onzz · Watchtower
Telepathic oversight of the team; monitors Superman's state of mind and flags Diana if the line in Section III is ever at risk.
Instructions for civilians: He carries the calm-broadcast frequency. If official channels go quiet, his reassurance signal is the one to trust.
The plan is simple in shape, hard in execution: Superman moves fast and alone against the largest threats, because he is the only one who can absorb a mistake and walk away from it. Everyone else exists to make sure he never has to make one. Diana holds the moral line beside him when words matter more than force. The rest of the League keeps the world — and the people in it — standing underneath him, so that when the seven days end, there is still a world to come home to.
Check-in is every twelve hours on the Watchtower relay. Missing two consecutive check-ins authorizes Diana to go to him directly, wherever he is.