After resolving his conflict with Captain Atom, Joey had Cyborg move ahead first—locating, one by one, the more than three thousand individuals hiding inside lead-lined underground shelters. Joey would then personally relocate these vermin to where they belonged.
Beneath secret military bases scattered across North America, the bunkers were unearthed directly by Joey, who tunneled through the earth with ease. Built since the early Cold War era, these shelters were of exceptional quality, capable of withstanding nuclear strikes.
But they were useless against a Kryptonian who could fly and burrow.
Joey began with the largest one—digging the entire structure out of the ground in one piece, its immensely reinforced frame ripped free and hoisted onto his shoulder before being transported to the open ice fields of Alaska.
As simple as moving a boxed cage of hamsters.
By the time Joey took off again to search for the second bunker, four F-22 fighter jets scrambling from a central airbase had only just arrived.
The pilots were still requesting permission to fire over the radio when Joey accelerated out of their visual range in an instant.
Then came the second bunker. The third. And so on—until the last one.
Whenever Joey carried a bunker through the air, the jets couldn't risk firing. And when he set one down and left, their targeting systems couldn't even find a window to lock on.
Sometimes, while transporting them, Joey could hear furious shouting from the commanders inside—plans being proposed and immediately shot down one after another.
Captain Atom's sudden disappearance had left them at a loss. Even the so-called 'ultimate weapon' they kept mentioning no longer seemed capable of turning the tide. Without Captain Atom to simulate red solar radiation, that thing alone couldn't defeat Superman.
A secret weapon?
Joey scanned the entire planet again—still finding nothing that posed any serious threat to him.
Admittedly, he couldn't see through lead. The number of people inside each bunker had been deduced through external deployment patterns and observable personnel counts.
But even if a few slipped through the cracks, it didn't matter.
Unlike Joey, these people had real identities—and that was a fatal weakness in front of Cyborg.
The absolute ruler of the cyber world needed only a thought to make them unable to function in modern society, which depended entirely on the internet.
As Cyborg had once joked, he could wipe out a person's bank accounts—and even their identity—effortlessly.
But Joey had already pushed these vermin to the brink. Whatever secret weapon they had left, it would reveal itself soon enough.
Time to open the mystery box.
Start with the biggest one.
By Joey's estimation, this bunker—unearthed from beneath Southern California—most likely housed the core technical team supporting the entire operation.
Not the commanders, but the industrial and scientific backbone behind them.
If that secret weapon truly existed, it was probably here.
The thousand-square-meter, three-level bunker's thick walls were no more substantial to Joey than paper.
Floating forward, he carved a human-shaped opening through nearly half a meter of reinforced concrete.
As the frigid Alaskan wind surged inside, the already on-edge security personnel opened fire immediately, unloading everything they had at the breach.
"Kryptonite ammunition? What a waste of extremely rare strategic resources. Everyone who fired just now gets an extra three hundred years added to their future sentence."
Through the smoke, Joey melted every weapon in the room with his heat vision and slowly floated inside, finally taking in the full view of the facility.
Judging by its layout and personnel composition, this bunker was more of a research complex.
It looked almost identical to the underground laboratory in Metropolis where Kara had once been imprisoned.
Rows of lamps capable of emitting red solar radiation lined the space, alongside numerous cylindrical biological containment chambers.
Under Joey's super-vision, the contents of those chambers were unmistakable—
Grotesque, malformed alien organisms… each infused with Kryptonian DNA.
They had studied Kara for twenty years. They had more than enough genetic samples.
Even though Joey had incinerated everything in the Metropolis lab before, it hadn't stopped them from continuing their reckless pursuit of Kryptonian-level power.
Even if that path required these disgraceful biological experiments.
The ethical boundaries of scientific research and biotechnology aren't just restrictions—they're safeguards.
A truly rational person would recognize this, and avoid meddling with forces beyond their control.
The problem is—
Truly rational people rarely end up in places like this.
"This is exactly the same old trick—completely unsurprising! The only reason bastards like you are still alive today is sheer dumb luck."
Looking over the lab-coated researchers and the fully armed security personnel, Joey couldn't help but marvel at their absurd fortune.
The fact that they had achieved nothing beyond these half-baked, grotesque clones proved they were utterly incompetent at this line of work. For them, producing no results was probably the best possible outcome.
If they had actually succeeded in creating something… even just a Kryptonian clone wouldn't be the worst-case scenario. But if they had made something with Kryptonian traits and no rational mind, Earth might have already been wiped out long before Joey ever arrived.
…Wait.
Joey's gaze suddenly caught something off.
At the center of the facility's third level stood a biological containment chamber, positioned prominently and connected to a dense network of cables and pipelines.
Judging by the wear on the interfaces and the scrape marks on the floor, this chamber had only recently been moved to the center and hooked up to additional resources.
What concerned Joey even more—
The chamber was empty.
There was only one possible explanation.
Whether by blind luck or the culmination of years of research, they had created something worth pouring massive resources into.
And that something was no longer in Joey's sight.
A violent gust swept through the lab as Joey instantly snatched up the bald man wearing a badge labeled 'Chief Researcher' and dragged him outside the facility.
Glancing at the name on the badge, Joey read it aloud:
"Thaddeus Sivana. What's with that empty containment chamber? What was contained in it?!"
The two of them hovered over a hundred meters above the ground, Joey gripping the frail, scrawny old man by the collar while the latter trembled violently in the freezing Alaskan wind.
"Talk! Or I'll drop you right now!"
Just like how Shazam shares many similarities with Superman, his enemies often mirror that pattern.
The bald mad scientist in front of Joey—commonly known as Dr. Sivana—was much like Superman's arch-nemesis, Lex Luthor. In most universes, he had been one of Shazam's primary foes.
In mainstream timelines, Black Adam's release and subsequent revenge against Shazam had also been orchestrated behind the scenes by him.
At this moment, Dr. Sivana simply threw his head back and laughed maniacally:
"Hahaha! You'll soon be torn apart by Black Adam and my most perfect creation—"
BRRRRT—
In the distance, the F-22 fighters finally received clear authorization to engage. The Vulcan cannons mounted on the aircraft spun to life, and 20mm depleted uranium rounds instantly tore Dr. Sivana to pieces in Joey's grasp.
Joey didn't even bother trying to hear the rest of Sivana's rant. If these jets insisted on attacking like flies buzzing around him, he might as well let them turn this piece of human trash into literal scraps.
These hastily deployed fighters weren't equipped with kryptonite ammunition. Their ability to harm Joey was effectively zero.
And then—
From beyond the distant horizon, from a point near the sun, a figure streaked toward Joey at a speed even faster than the solar particles reaching Earth.
When Joey locked onto the figure and saw her face, even though he had anticipated it, he still froze for a brief moment.
"Kara?"
He knew it wasn't Kara.
But she had a face identical to the Kryptonian Kara Zor-El.
The difference was that she appeared older—more mature—and her hair was white instead of blonde.
Her outfit was also distinct. While Kara and Joey both wore red and blue—colors symbolizing diplomacy in Kryptonian culture—this figure wore a red cape as well, but her main suit was white, accented with gold, red, and blue.
And on that familiar face—
There was undisguised hostility and killing intent directed straight at him.
This… must be the secret weapon they had been talking about.
A Kryptonian creation, born on Earth?