The Greatest Failure

On the outskirts of San Francisco, in the Federation.

At a European-style manor with Baroque architecture.

A gray-haired man in his seventies was walking along a garden path in front of the villa. He held three leashes and followed three German shepherds at an unhurried pace.

He was enjoying the scenery as he walked his dogs when someone called from behind him, "Dr. Vogelbaum."

The old man turned. A blond man in a blue skintight suit stood beside the path, smiling at him.

His eyesight had deteriorated badly with age, so the man walked slowly toward him.

As the figure before him came into focus, the old man's expression grew grave.

Seeing his silence, Homelander smiled. "Surprised? I've been meaning to visit you. You look well."

The old man's expression gradually returned to normal. He looked at Homelander. "How long has it been since we last met, John? So long I almost didn't recognize you."

Homelander smiled. "It has. So long I'd almost forgotten I used to be called John."

His smile was strained.

John. No one's called me that in a long time.

The name brought back memories that were anything but pleasant.

Homelander glanced at the German shepherds beside the old man. "What are these? More test subjects?" he asked with a mocking smile.

"No." The old man shook his head. "They're pets I got after I retired. I wouldn't get too attached to a test subject."

Homelander nodded. "That's the truth."

He looked around at the scenery. "Seems you're enjoying retirement."

The old man shook his head.

"If I had to choose between this life and spending eighty hours a week in the lab, I'd choose the lab without a second thought."

Homelander gave no sign of agreement or disagreement. "So, do you still keep in touch with your old colleagues at Vought International?"

Homelander had not come to see Dr. Vogelbaum just to pay him a visit. He wanted answers.

If not for the series of recent events, he would never have visited the damned old man.

His feelings toward Vogelbaum were deeply complicated.

The old man had made him what he was. He had given him immense power, but he had also left him with a broken soul.

In a sense, Vogelbaum was the only family Homelander had.

The old man gave a cold laugh. "Come on, John. Can we skip this?"

"Skip what?"

"The games." The old man looked at him. "Ask me what you want to know. Stop beating around the bush."

Homelander nodded.

"After me, did you and your colleagues make any breakthroughs in your research on Compound V?"

The old man shook his head. "John, you know more about Compound V now than I do."

He had been out of the picture for years. Compound V, one of Vought International's most closely guarded secrets, was now firmly in the hands of a select few, including Homelander and Madelyn.

Homelander surely knew more than he did about the thirteenth or even the fourteenth phase of the Supervillain Project.

"No. I'm asking whether, after me, you ever found a more remarkable test subject," Homelander pressed.

The old man shook his head. He looked Homelander in the eye. "Listen, John."

"You are my greatest success."

"And my greatest failure."

Regret weighed on his voice, and his expression was hard to read.

Given the chance to start over, Vogelbaum was confident he could raise Homelander to be a true superhero.

If I'd shown my test subject some affection, perhaps I could have given him what he lacked. Perhaps he wouldn't have become so cold, arrogant, and cruel.

But it was too late now.

What was done could not be undone. There was no way to repair the emptiness in Homelander's soul.

Homelander was so furious at the old man's judgment that he laughed.

His greatest failure?

He didn't see it that way.

He had spent his entire childhood locked in a cold laboratory with nothing but a thin blanket for company, yet he had survived and grown strong.

He had become Homelander, the most powerful man in the world and its brightest star.

But now there was a question mark over "most powerful."

Homelander had no time to argue. He needed an answer.

"Did you ever encounter a test subject with Psychic Powers of the Psychokinesis-Type?"

"Psychokinesis?" The old man frowned.

Powers of that kind were rare, but he seemed to recall a few cases.

"Any other distinguishing features?"

The old man had not dismissed the possibility outright, and hope rose in Homelander's chest.

"It's a Girl with curly green hair," Homelander said, searching his memory. "I'm not sure how old she is... Maybe in her twenties. But she doesn't seem to age. She still looks like a Young Girl of thirteen or fourteen..."

The old man shook his head.

None of the test subjects he remembered matched Homelander's description very well.

Homelander frowned at the gesture.

"Doctor, I hope you're not hiding anything from me."

"John, I have nothing to hide from you. You could kill me without effort, and I know you want me dead." Vogelbaum's expression was calm.

"But what you've become is my fault. I can no longer make up for what I denied you or the harm I did to you as a child. Whatever you want to know, I'll tell you the truth."

Homelander's expression darkened, then shifted again.

Like a boulder washed away from a dam by a surging river, something inside the old man gave way. He suddenly wanted to tell Homelander everything he had kept buried for years.

"Not a moment goes by when I don't regret how I treated you. A child raised without family can become violent, aggressive, full of hate."

The old man held Homelander's gaze.

Just like you are now.

Homelander shook his head. The doctor's words had struck his deepest secret.

He had always used his strength and coldness to conceal his vulnerability, to hide how desperately he longed for family and a mother's love.

Growing up without a mother had twisted that longing into an unhealthy attachment. His obsession with Madelyn was the shadow of his past reaching into the present.

"You should have grown up in a home with a family who loved you. Instead, you spent your entire childhood in an empty laboratory, with no one but me, a man who gave you no affection..."

"Enough. Stop talking." Homelander cut him off.

Tall, handsome, and coldhearted, Homelander now had tears welling in his eyes.

"If you keep going, I really will kill you."

The old man ignored the threat. "When I think about what I did to you, and what you do to other people now, I..."

"What are you trying to do?" Homelander interrupted again, his voice raised. His chest heaved as his temper flared.

"What good does saying any of this do now? Are you looking for God's forgiveness, or mine? After raising me like a lab rat?"

Homelander seized the old man by the collar and hauled him up. "Listen to me. Don't even dream of it. Remember this: you made me what I am. Every person I've killed, every dirty thing I've done—you had a hand in it."

Homelander gave him a chilling smile.

"Doctor, you're going to hell."

"And I'm going with you."

The old man sighed deeply.

"I know I can't ask for your forgiveness, and God won't forgive me either. I'm only an old man nearing the end of his life, reflecting on the mistakes he made."

"Mistakes?" Homelander lifted his head proudly. "I'm the greatest superhero in the world."

The old man shook his head. "You're the greatest failure of my life."

Whether he went to hell no longer mattered to him.

He only hoped someone else could do what he could not.

Could anyone stop the appalling atrocities Homelander committed in secret?

The old man hoped such a hero existed, though he knew the chances were slim.

He understood Homelander's power and how terrifying he was better than anyone.

He had never imagined that the monster he had created with his own hands would change the world so profoundly. To the public, Homelander was a revered superhero. In secret, he did nothing but despicable things.

The man who had driven and carried out the Supervillain Project—the source of the world's fear of supervillains—was standing right before him. He was the same blond boy who had once huddled in a corner of the laboratory, wrapped tight in a blanket, small and helpless.

He let those supervillains slaughter ordinary people at will. Homelander believed that extreme fear bred extreme dependence. From behind the scenes, he used an invisible hand to manipulate the delicate balance between good and evil as he pleased.

Under Homelander's control, the world had gone rotten beyond repair.

The doctor sank into deep self-reproach.

I started this. I'm the source of all this Evil.

Could anyone truly put an end to such powerful Evil?

Would this world, so desperate to be saved, find a savior? Would it ever have a brighter future?

The old man knew he might not live to see that day. Only time would tell.