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Watchtower Bulletin:
From: The Man Flash!
To: All you newbies up here!
Okay, ladies and gents. Welcome to the Justice League. I'm Flash, and following a little chat with everyone's favourite Martian, I'm gonna be giving you your basic survival tips for working in this madman's outfit. Pay attention, because you'll only be getting this once, and any subsequent screw-ups on your part will not be my concern. You have been warned.
Now, we're all heros here, and you wouldn't be here unless you knew what you're doing, so I'll leave training and rules and stuff for later. What I'm here to tell you is how to live with each other, and with us guys on the senior council. You know who we are. Most of the world knows who we are. Well, not secret identities or anything, but you know what I mean. What you may not know is how to deal with us on a daily basis. So here are some rules of thumb that apply mostly to us, but in all likelihood to you guys as well.
Firstly, remember that you are now going to be spending a large amount of time with each other. That means you're going to have to learn how to live with each other, and remember that we're talking about one of the most jazzed-up, downright weird collection of people this side of Accountants International. You're gonna have to deal with everything from anal-retentive perfectionists to pumped-up demi-gods to royalty to ghosts to magicians who show up once every hundred years to buy a new hat. It ain't gonna be easy. In fact, it's going to be the hardest thing about your time here.
I don't know most of you, so I can't tell you how to deal with each other. But I can give you a few general hints, and I can tell you how to deal with us:
1) Watchtower is a fight-free zone, and we mean it. If someone puts your nose out of joint, if someone sleeps with your girlfriend, steals your wife, insults your baseball team, calls you alien scum or a fascist pig or a whore, whatever it is, you take it planetside, or else. If you start a brawl, in all likelihood we are gonna finish it, and believe me, you so do not want that to happen. But if you feel like taking on Superman or Wonderwoman or me, go ahead. We won't be paying your hospital bills. And if you start trashing the tower, remember, Batman pays for it, and he will come for you!
2) On the subject of 'office romances', you should probably be aware that Batman designed most of Watchtower. What that means is that the most paranoid man in the universe designed the rooms you are eating, talking and training in. It means security devices up the wazoo. It means eyes and ears in every hallway and rec-room. While that doesn't necessarily mean that Big Brother is listening to your every word and watching your every move, it does mean that unless you want your pre-crisis snog-fest to be reviewed by the jaded and critical eyes of the world's greatest detective, we'd advise you to keep it lowkey.
In the event that this advice is too difficult for you to take, copies of the recordings will be made available for a modest price to all comers, with accompanying commentary by yours truly. And if it was really bad, you might just be lucky enough to get a critique by the man who's been up close and personal with the likes of Poison Ivy, Catwoman, and every decadence Gotham has to offer. And don't believe he wouldn't do it.
3) For all the guys in the audience, unless you happen to be invunerable or, like me, the fastest man on earth, DO NOT sneak a peak through the keyhole of the ladies changing rooms. I mean, sure, whatta way to go, but knowing the ladies, they wouldn't even have the decency to kill ya. And while Hawkgirl or Wonderwoman going all She-Ra on the battlefield may be a helluva sight, when they're going She-Ra at you, believe me, your first reaction's gonna be to piss your pants.
4) For all the ladies in the audience, Superman ain't single. Sorry. I, however, am, and I'll be around to talk if you're interested. *wink*
5) Most guys up here have what I like to call their 'Batman moments'. In other words, every so often all of us feel an urge to go all dark and broody for a while. Happens to the best of us. You can tell when this is happening by the dark looks, the tendancy to gravitate to windows so you can stare broodingly at the planet or out into space, the lack of appetite, and the trail of smashed machinery leading from the training rooms. When this happens, DO NOT attempt to talk to the afflicted hero. Leave that to their lover/friend/invunerable colleague. If you try it, you'll only get hurt. More experienced guys than you have fallen afoul of a mace from a twitchy Hawkgirl, or Superman's killer 'I'm-a-lonely-alien-you-can't-possibly-understand' glare. It ain't pretty. Don't mess with them.
6) Don't mess with Batman. Ever. Under any circmstances. Not unless you are really, truly, nothing-on-this-planet-or-any-other-can-harm-me invunerable. Or suicidal. People who think that he's a pushover just because he doesn't have any powers tend to come out gibbering and/or missing important parts of their anatomy. If you do decide to be stupid, you will be subject to torments to make the Spanish Inquisition flinch, and there ain't no-one here willing to wade in to help ya. Even Superman thinks twice about going toe-to-toe with the Bat, and he's nearly indestructable! Me, I don't think about it at all, and if you're smart, you won't either.
7) If you happen to see someone going at it with Bats or Supes, or them going at it with each other, you find the nearest table and hide under it. Or if you happen to have a bit more dignity, you try to be elsewhere ASAP. Whatever you do, DON'T get involved, no matter what clever ideas you have to solve the problem, or who you think is right. Opening your mouth in those circumstances is a wonderful way to greeting you maker that much faster. Same goes for Hawkgirl. GL, Wonderwoman, J'onn or me might listen to you, but for those three, you're better off alerting someone like J'onn, and heading for the hills.
8) Anyone who thinks they're better or cooler or more important than someone else, lose the idea, and fast. We're all here because we've got something to add to the team, be it strength, smarts, or a winning sense of humour. If you think you're here so you can lord it over anyone else, you'll be booted out so fast I'll be the only one who can follow it.
9) Don't get killed. That may sound like a 'duh' suggestion, but I'm serious. Aside from the horrible fact of, you know, being dead, you don't know what effect it's gonna have on the people you leave behind. So don't do the whole dying-for-others thing, unless there is no, and I mean no, other choice. Any self-sacrificing gesture had better be either a 100% failure, or 100% successful, because if you're gonna try and get yourself killed when there was any other option, you are gonna want to be dead or comatose before me or Bats reach you. We DO NOT react well to stunts that put you or anyone else at risk.
10) Don't forget to have a good time. We're superheros! We've got the best job on the planet, and we're livin' it up at the Mile High Club. We're the best in the biz, and we've got the honking great space station to prove it. Sometimes the life gets hard, but you can't let it keep you down, not when you've got all these other fantastic guys and gals to live it with. We're the Justice League! We rock!
Watchtower Bulletin: Addendum
From: Green Lantern
To: All you newbies up here!
11) If any of you are cursed with that particular condition that I like to call The Flash Syndrome, which makes those affected immediately start looking for ways to bend, ignore or break the above guidelines, for the love of all that is good and holy, DON'T do it when I'm on duty and will be forced to deal with it. Or I'll make you wish that Batman had caught you.
Watchtower Bulletin: Private Message
From: Hawkgirl
To: Flash's corpse
Changing room keyhole? *Twitchy*? She-Ra???
Watchtower Bulletin: Systems Analysis
From: "Big Brother"
To: all concerned
All files have been copied under secure protocols to back-up systems. All contents have been ... noted. Delayed-Response Initiative (DRI) has been activated.
You have been warned.
