…“I get tired of them throwing their panties at me.” Brad Compton’s confession drew a trio of shocked stares from the other men in the locker room.

Will Bennet, aka The Reaper, paused with one foot halfway into his tall, black boot. “You’re puttin’ me on, man.”

“No, really.” Brad folded the bright orange spandex suit he wore while on duty as Molten Man and stashed his own matching boots in his locker. “I’ve rescued seven women this week and I don’t think any one of them really needed saving. Well, except the one who drove her car off the Jefferson Avenue Bridge, but I think she did it deliberately. The Super Groupies are really getting out of hand.”

Will exchanged a glance with Retro Boy, aka Bernard Maltese, who looked up from polishing his quiver of silver tipped arrows long enough to snicker. “It’s part of the job, Brad. Enjoy it while you can.”

“Yeah, someday we’ll all be too old to glow or melt or stir up a stiff breeze and the ladies will drop us like hot lead. You’ve got to have fun while your butt still looks good in tights,” Bennet added.

“Did you get any phone numbers?” asked DemiGog as he removed his gargoyle mask to reveal Earnest Wright’s rather nondescript features.

Brad pulled on his favorite pair of worn denims and a white muscle T-shirt before answering his colleague. “One.” He hated to admit it. As one of the Daring Dozen—Dedicated to Fighting Crime in the Northern Hemisphere—finding female companionship had never been a problem for Molten Man. Brad, however, was batting zero. After a six-month dry spell he’d begun to consider a meaningless fling with a panty-throwing groupie even though that wasn’t his usual style. He wanted to go out with a woman who didn’t expect him to wear his mask and boots to bed or try to wrangle him into a threesome with Speed Demon and Invisa-Man.

“One out of seven.” Will tsked while shrugging into his black leather vest and chains. “You’re losing your mojo, Big M.”

“And what happened?” Earnest asked, closing his own locker on the frightening visage of DemiGog.

“She ditched me when I refused to melt her ex-boyfriend’s Porsche.”

The other men shook their heads in sympathy. Finding a woman who wanted to date a landscape architect instead of a famous crime fighter was harder than battling four-armed aliens from another dimension.

Brad donned his denim jacket and closed his locker. “I’ll see you guys next shift. Signal me if anything exciting happens.”

The others said good-bye and Brad left the locker room. He headed out of the hidden exit of the Daring Dozen’s headquarters and emerged in the flower shop that served as a cover for the clandestine arrivals and departures of the world’s most famous band of super heroes.