Power was a poison. People often said so.
But what kind of poison was power, exactly? Was it a neurotoxin that could kill someone in an instant, or an addictive drug?
Anyone with even a little experience should know that power's toxicity lay somewhere between the two. Though it could leave someone dead without a grave at any moment, countless people still flocked to it and became addicted.
How, exactly, did power become addictive?
Some people might think that status itself brought material pleasures, enough to make one happy. Others believed that the spiritual satisfaction of being respected was the key.
But regrettably, at least in human society, the pleasure brought by power was more often achieved through satisfying a person's desire for control.
And the psychological states tied to the desire for control were usually not particularly healthy. An excessive desire for control could lead to all kinds of mental problems.
But the human mind itself was a program forced to run on countless errors. Satisfying any need could seem like doing evil, so it was hardly avoidable that it would be linked to pathology.
So did power give rise to a stronger desire for control, or were those with inherently strong desires for control the ones who desperately pursued power?
At least when it came to the Justice League, it was the latter that needed discussing.
If one had to pick a representative of someone with a strong desire for control, everyone would naturally nominate Batman. He controlled the Justice League and held an irreplaceable position within it, so naturally he possessed power.
But that was precisely what showed that the others in the Justice League did not have such strong desires for control. If their desire for control had been the same as Batman's, they would certainly