Myrtle crawled to a corner of the roof, reached into her inside jacket pocket, pulled out a bag of powder. She pinched some powder between two fingers, spoke some words, blew the powder into the air. Much of the smoke cleared.

The others, those who had been choking, were now able to take in fresh air, and to see Gladys and Dante being overwhelmed by Beekeepers.

October was near Myrtle. Her eyes wet from coughing, she asked “What the hell is happening?”

“Seems like we’re fighting Beekeepers,” Myrtle said. “I can’t do much more to help. What have you got?”

There’s a lot of mistakes on the Internet, and nobody ought to be surprised by that. I am not smart, so I don’t always catch the mistakes. Sure, I’ll notice if a lyrics page has the wrong words to a song I like or whatever, but most of the time I just innocently wander the Internet and assume that somebody knows what they’re talking about. I’ve probably taken in all sorts of incorrect information from such mistakes.

But not all incorrect information on the Internet is a mistake. Some of it has been put there on purpose. Yup. Sometimes, people on the Internet lie. (It’s okay, take some time to deal with the shock you are feeling to learn that.) And some of those lies relate to Superman.

For example, the DC Fandom page for Bash Bashford, a minor Superboy supporting cast member, insists that he is named Bradley. There’s no basis for that in the comics. But someone who edited that page decided to claim he is named Bradley.

Similarly, several sources on the Internet think that the minor Superman villain called the Archer was named Fenton Quigley. The surname is correct, he was called Quigley in the comics, but given name Fenton comes from someone claiming it once, and it propagating from there. (In fairness the the DC Fandom page, they correctly do not call him Fenton.)

Even the mighty Wikipedia, which has mostly overcome its former reputation for being inaccurate, has such errors, one example being on the “List of Superman enemies” page, where the one-appearance villain Mr. Sinister (who predates the Marvel villain of that name by decades) is given the real name “Lylo”. Again, this is the invention of someone outside the source material.

I have my suspicions about why people make such “mistakes” on the sites: I think they are hoping the inaccuracies will become real. I think that they think that some writer who wants to use an obscure supervillain or reference an obscure Superboy cast member might search the ol’ Superhighway for easy information, see the lies about character names, and use them in official books unknowingly. On some level I can respect that. I don’t particularly like that the Superman franchise is entirely controlled by corporate interests, so I can almost root for these people to add a dash of the common folk into the lore. But it’s also dishonest. The Internet doesn’t need more inaccurate information.

I don’t think I’ll ever call Bash Bashford “Bradley” (Smallville is already home to Brad Wilson and that’s Brad enough for me), but I admit the name “Fenton Quigley” has kind of grown on me over the years. If that or Lylo were mistakenly added to official canon in some way, I’d be conflicted. It would be a victory for some regular fan person who wanted to get their fingerprints on a part of Superman’s world, no matter how small that part is. But it would also be a victory for a jerk. That’s not as good.

“All his life Albert Taylor had been fascinated by anything that had to do with bees. As a small boy heoften used to catch them in his bare hands and go running with them into the house to show to his mother, and sometimes he would put them on his face and let them crawl about over his cheeks and neck, and the astonishing thing about it all was that he never got stung. On the contrary, the bees seemed to enjoy being with him. They never tried to fly away, and to get rid of them he would have to brush them off gently with his fingers. Even then they would frequently return and settle again on his arm or hand or knee, any place where the skin was bare.”

Albert is a Beekeeper who appeared in the short story “Royal Jelly” by Roald Dahl. In many ways I feel like he had potential for a solid Beekeeper by my standards. Sure, he does have any of the adventure-related stuff that I like to see, but he’s genuinely good at keeping bees. He even keeps up to date on articles in Beekeeping magazines, following the scientific research pertaining to the field and the “miracles of the hive”. But it can’t be as good as it seems, of course.

Scientific research and experimentation are things that pair well with Beekeeping, both in the real world and in fiction, but Albert’s attempt to use that knowledge is somewhat irresponsible. When Albert and his wife Mabel have trouble starting a family, Albert sees research about the benefits of taking royal jelly and it does indeed help them to have a daughter. When that daughter is sickly, he treats her with royal jelly as well. That’s all well and good, but Albert goes much further than just treating their issues. He devotes a significant portion of his hives to the production of royal jelly and he takes and gives his daughter so much jelly that it begins to have a mutagenic effect, making them more beelike. And Albert considers this the ideal outcome. He is to become a drone and his daughter a queen.

Albert is not a victim of Beekeeper Rage, far from it, but he’s got an issue I don’t think I’ve come across before, a sort of zeal to become a bee. Beekeeping is about working alongside the bees, human and insect each bringing their own talents to the team. Albert’s attempt to become a bee is something other than Beekeeping. Something unhealthy. We don’t see how it ends, but I doubt it goes well.

Three Honeycombs out of Five.

Through his ‘fancy killing’ mask, Dante said, “I’m afraid the store isn’t open today, dickholes.” While pulling on a glove, he jumped and kicked the Beekeeper who had Gladys pinned.

In a single motion Gladys jumped back to her feet and hit the same Beekeeper. “Yeah. Come back after we’re done renovating. We’ll have a Grand Opening sale.”

The assassin and the robot stood side by side, his gloves extending into claws and her left fist sparking.

A single Beekeepers stepped forward.

The assassin and the robot lashed out. The Beekeeper fell.

Eleven Beekeepers remained standing. They took combat stances.