Residents of the Fortress of Solitude, the Bat Cave and other superhero hangouts had been on edge lately.
Batman and his friends had been bracing for an increased workload, ever since word got out that Valley superhero Star had outgrown her crime fighting uniform.
On Monday, things started looking up for defenders of justice everywhere when members of the Boise Police Department invited Star and her family, mere mortals, to the police station.
They presented her with a new mask, cape and boots with room to grow into.
By day, Star is Aubrey Matthews, 8, a third-grader at Cole Elementary School in Boise. She gained nationwide fame last year when the Make-A-Wish Foundation helped create an elaborate citywide adventure.
Matthews has a tumor behind her optic nerve. She didn't wish to meet anyone famous or go anywhere glamorous when Make-A-Wish gave her a choice.
She wished instead to be someone magnificent - Star the superhero - to stay in Boise and rid the city streets of crime and injustice.
Local volunteers and businesses orchestrated scenarios all over town. Star spent a day rescuing people and clearing the names of Zoo Boise ferrets wrongly accused of a crime. She arrested her arch enemy - the scary looking guy on neighborhood watch signs - on the Capitol steps.
Since then, Star, whose parents call her Aubrey when she's not in uniform, has been staying in superhero condition with exercise.
"I have a punching bag at home," she explained. "I get on it and pow, pow, pow."
Wearing a mild-mannered "Hello Kitty" shirt with deceptively girlish rhinestones, Aubrey - but maybe it was Star - tried out a few kickboxing moves as her family and police officers, members of the Neighborhood Contact Team, stood by.
The team has been close to the Matthews family all year, said Officer Shelli Sonnenberg. Police couldn't give Star what she wanted for her birthday, a device to change traffic lights from red to green.
"I have places I need to go," Star explained at the time. Most members of the team keep pictures of Star on their desks.
That the young crime fighter has outgrown her uniform is good news. She's one year post-chemotherapy. She's still slight, but her weight has nearly doubled in the last year.
Now she's 60 pounds of muscle, she said, rolling up her sleeve, flexing her bicep, and taking a few punches on the arm of her willing uncle.
Star's uniform includes a helmet, sleek and stylish, made by Eric Nagy.
Nagy works in the film industry in Florida. He read Star's story on the Make-A-Wish Web site and got to work. The helmet arrived at the station, via Fed-Ex from Florida, on Christmas Eve.
On speaker phone from his home, Nagy described using his own young daughter's head to size the helmet that Star put on immediately after unwrapping it.
Sonnenberg, in league with Aubrey Matthews' mom, Elisa Matthews, lured Aubrey to the station for the surprise.
"I told her we had a situation and needed Star's help," Sonnenberg said.
Aubrey Matthews, a distinctly unflappable girl of few but decisive words, asked Sonnenberg what kind of situation it was, before agreeing to come.
"It's top-secret and you have to be here, ASAP," Sonnenberg answered.
Star agreed. Because it was her duty.
Anna Webb: 377-6431
