“The main color is deep blue, standing for the sky and for vastness.
No mask.
That face of his is the best calling card there is.”
“On the shoulders, add two gold eagle pauldrons.
They stand for absolute power and lofty, towering authority.”
“The gloves and boots are dark red.
And finally…”
Leon drew, with firm strokes, a long cape behind the figure, trailing all the way down to the calves.
“This cape has to be the Stars and Stripes.
But he isn’t wearing the flag on his body, he’s wearing it draped behind him!
He carries the nation’s hopes, but he himself stands above the nation.”
The pen stopped.
The Legend and Madelyn stared at that somewhat rough sketch, saying nothing for a long while.
A fervent light gradually burst out in the Legend’s shrewd old eyes.
As an old hand who’d spent the better part of his life knocking around the comics business, he saw at a glance what made this design so terrifying.
The classic pairing of blue and red could call up the public’s trust in the traditional hero.
But those high gold eagle pauldrons and the Stars and Stripes cape invisibly raised his sense of class, making him look both approachable and untouchable.
“Genius…
a stroke of pure genius!”
The Legend rubbed his hands together in excitement.
“So what about his codename?
Since he won’t wear a mask or hide his identity, he’s got to have a name that rings out!”
“Homelander.”
Leon leaned back in his chair and let the word out slowly.
“He’s the strongest power this land has ever given rise to.
He is the rules themselves.”
“Homelander…
a good name!” Madelyn nodded too.
“The President will love this concept for sure.
Leon, you’re a born PR master.”
Through all of this, John sat quietly off to the side.
He watched the grown-ups argue heatedly over what he should wear and what he should be called.
He’d only caught, sharply, a few of the words in what Leon had said just now.
Carries the hopes.
The rules themselves.
John reached out and touched the tall, imposing figure on the drawing paper.
“Leon, is this the suit you designed for me?” John tilted his head up to ask.
“Yes, John.
This is your suit.”
Leon rubbed his head.
“When you grow up, you’ll wear this suit and show the whole world what a real hero is.”
“If I put on this suit and go fight bad guys, will the big boss keep protecting you, the way he rewarded you with the stone?”
John’s voice was very soft, low enough that only Leon could hear.
Leon’s heart skipped a beat.
He looked at John’s eyes, seemingly innocent yet already treating the world as one enormous transaction, and for a moment he had no idea how to answer.
“…Yes.”
In the end Leon nodded, his tone a little dry.
“As long as you wear it and do what you’re supposed to do, I’ll be perfectly safe.”
When John heard that answer, his whole face lit up with an extremely brilliant smile.
“Then I like this suit a lot.
From now on, I’m Homelander.”
A week later.
Vought’s tailoring workshop worked overtime to rush out the first “miniature” Homelander suit made to Leon’s design.
The moment John changed into it in the fitting room and pushed the door open to walk out, everyone in the lounge held their breath.
The deep-blue high-strength fiber clung tightly to the boy’s body, young but already clearly defined, and the two small eagles of pure gold on his shoulders gleamed under the lights.
The Stars and Stripes cape behind him fluttered faintly as he moved.
Add to that his head of brilliant blond hair and his deep blue eyes, and this boy of only six and a half somehow, miraculously, gave off a holy aura that made you want to bow down and worship.
Madelyn nodded again and again in satisfaction, and the Legend went further, working the camera shutter like mad.
John paid no attention to the flashbulbs.
He walked straight up to a full-length mirror and quietly looked at himself in it.
He saw the gold eagles, he saw the Stars and Stripes, but what came to his mind was not the nation, nor protecting the weak.
In his head there were only the rules Leon had set, and the logic that following the rules was what bought Leon’s safety.
He turned his head, looked at Leon standing off to one side, and showed that perfect, cold “hero’s smile” he’d put on display during the live combat tests.
“Leon, look.
I’ve put on the rules.”
Leon watched the mini Homelander standing under the spotlights, listened to the words coming out of his mouth, and felt that the air the basement’s AC was blowing out seemed a little colder than usual.
…
Time slipped by, and two years quietly passed in this secret base buried deep underground.
The tail end of the late eighties was about to pass, and the world outside was heading into the nineties, full of electronic synthesizers and neon colors.
For the two residents of the Sector B underground apartment, the biggest change time had brought was that the little golden retriever who’d once been no bigger than two cupped palms was now a grown, giant dog of over seventy pounds who walked around like a little bear.
“Buddy, you need to lose some weight.
Yesterday you even got stuck in the gap in the couch.”
Eight-year-old John, in a comfortable set of pure cotton loungewear, was sitting cross-legged on the carpet.
He’d grown quite a bit taller, his features more finely cut, that head of blond hair smooth and shining under the bright lights.
Right now he had his head pillowed on Buddy’s furry belly, flipping through a freshly published comic book.
On the cover was a superhero in a Stars and Stripes cape with high gold eagle pauldrons, the title written in exaggerated red lettering: Homelander: Dawn of Justice.
“It’s not Buddy’s fault, it’s that the premium dog food logistics sends over has too many calories.”
On the open floor not far away, Leon finished his fiftieth proper push-up, breathing a little hard, then stood up and took a towel to wipe the sweat off his forehead.
After the Yasakani Blood Jade merged into his chest, it hadn’t turned him into a Captain America who could rip a car apart with his bare hands, the way the super serum would have.
It was, after all, only an auxiliary sort of spirit artifact.
But the changes it had brought Leon were real and solid all the same.
In these two years, the neck problems and the stomach trouble he’d picked up from all those nights of overtime had all healed on their own without treatment, and even his nearsightedness had gone back to normal.
His stamina and reaction speed had been gently raised to the level of a top athlete, and he was full of energy every day, hadn’t so much as caught a cold once.
“Leon, the guy who draws this comic is a liar.”
John held up the comic book and pointed at one of the pages to complain.
“He drew me spending three whole pages soothing a kitten to save it from being stuck up a tree.
But in reality, if a cat really were stuck up a tree, the most efficient method would be to just pull the tree out of the ground.”
Leon went to the fridge, grabbed two bottles of ice water, tossed one to John, and explained with a smile, “That’s not lying, that’s artistic license.
Ordinary people like to see a hero show his patient, gentle side, because it makes them feel that if even a kitten can be treated gently, then if they themselves ran into danger, the hero would surely save them with that same patience.”
John thoughtfully twisted off the cap and took a sip of water.
“So comics exist to make ordinary people feel safe.
The big boss sees the comics selling well, figures I’m safe too, and keeps giving you good things and protecting you.
That’s the logic, right?”
“…It sounds a little too calculating put that way, but in essence, yes, that’s what it means.”
Leon sighed helplessly.