Man Of Steel #1

[Alex]

Man of Steel
An Earth A Title
Issue #1: "Origin and Cycles"
Written by: Fantomas
Cover by: Joe Jarin

Not since the nuclear blasts of the Last War has the emerald planet of Krypton been shaken so, and even then the destruction was never so complete: the great pylons of Urrika folded into vast chasms, the continent shifting and rupturing; the white sciencitadels and golden minarets crumbling and shattering; long, fiery tails of radioactive green tearing through the terraformed surface and stabbing out into space.

Krypton, a planet that a super-evolved people made into a paradise, is torn apart by its super-dense uranium core.

Great masses of the planet's rocky surface are burned up instantaneously, while a few hulking remnants are cast out into the cosmos as irradiated meteorites, toxic debris blazing out like heralds to the end.

It is a verdant flash of light that brings about the end of the Kryptonian society, a perfect people ended against the silent void of space.

But nothing ever really ends.

The child, wrapped in a blanket of crimson hyper-fibres and borne through the fiery demise of his homeworld in a silvery blue rocket, murmurs and begins the long cryo-sleep that will sustain him on the long journey ahead.

In the dying gasps of their civilization, two scientists created a basket in which they would cast their son out from a doomed paradise and to stars and worlds unknown, an experimental craft with no navigational co-ordinates, no knowing what future they granted the sole child of the Kryptonian race.

Krypton had been an insular perfection. A self-absorbed wonder. It was the last irony that their future now rested on the random trajectory of an infant entrusted to the cosmos beyond.

The rocket streaks away from the dead.

Last Son.

The Fortress, The 38th Century

"I think about that moment a great deal. The day my home-world ended. Life...is the most important thing there is."

Superman's eyes flashed, and he hesitated. The floating cluster of pale green nano-bots followed him, the shapeless cloud fluctuating and then contracting into a bipedal formation.

"I remember the first time my super-senses allowed me to really see what life was...I was running through the fields to meet my Pa, when suddenly he dazzled me...I could see his bio-electrical field dancing all about him, could hear his thoughts as neurons fired and the chemical balance of his mind shifted and changed. Life is beautiful. Right now I can sense your wireless sentience, can feel the hum and buzz of your Coluan activity signatures running through the air."

The nano-bot cloud had settled, woven strands of rusty, iron coloured hair combed back over a youthful looking face, a shimmering purple jumpsuit fashioned around a humanoid frame. The green-skinned figure frowned, then spoke.

"They usually discourage such sentimentality from the fifth-level intelligentsia onwards...though I believe I can understand such an outlook given your enhanced perspective."

Superman smiled. They walked along the glowing crystalline corridors, passing a misshapen door marked in Kryptonian as 'THE IMPOSSIBLE ROOM'.

"My super-memory allows me to remember everything as perfectly as if it were all one seamless present. Even memories from my birthing matrix in my parent's living complex on the outer rim of Kryptonopolis. Memories from before my advanced cellular photosynthesis had even truly begun, before my super-memory, memories of a normal childhood in Smallville, all are mapped out again in super-detail, as if they were photos being developed. My first job at the Daily Star, my first meeting with Lois...I live constantly in all times, able to recall everything, experience everything."

"Superior chemical organisation of the brain through minor manipulating thought patterns to achieve infinitely eidetic memory - or your super-memory - is no alien concept to me. While I appreciate the mark of friendship your invitation to listen to you reminisce confers, I am uncertain as to the greater meaning behind it. Is there a pressing danger that the Superman dynasty requires my assistance for?"

They walked on, going through the Living Library, where holographic displays and fluidic super-computers processed a infinitesimally large record of DNA, archiving species known and unknown through constantly evolving conceptual algorithms.

"It would have been the first day of the Nova Cycle Celebration," Superman said. "When Krypton was destroyed. A day to mark Rao's eternal death and rebirth. A time for reflection on the eleven virtues and on things old and new."

"Your cells are showing an exponentially dense accumulation of solar energy. You have been charging them far beyond your usual reserve."

"Yes. I am preparing for things new."

"Further expansion of the Superman progeny? Since our discovery that your body appears to mimic the powers and capabilities of your descendants, the most expedient venture would be to encourage the marriage of one of your progeny to the 5th dimensional queen GZNTPLZK and, given that trans-dimensional conception has precedence-"

"That isn't it," Superman said. They had come to a room with a crystal dais, on which a miniature green planet floated.

Superman inspected the working model of his home-world, his gaze travelling from Fort Rozz, Krypton's Mobile Arsenal, to the Quantum Jungle moving rapidly across the face of the planet.

"I will be leaving the known universe for...what may well be some time. Superman Secundus will take over the leadership of the dynasty, but I wanted to offer you stewardship over the Fortress. There are a great many projects at play here, and as a museum the Fortress contains the largest and most detailed known archive of life in all its forms. This Fortress is my attempt to recreate my super-memory on a grand scale, to grant every detail of everything the importance and respect it deserves. As you move into the fourteenth-level of intellect I believe you will find yourself more than capable of the responsibilities here."

Brainiac 5.3 frowned again.

"Where are you going? Is this one of your adventures as Hyperman in the infant universe of Qwewq? An expedition into the Impossible Room's transtemporal flaw?"

"I can move at a speed that verges on transcending the speed-force itself now. Distance and reality are fast becoming less of an obstacle to where I can travel. There are unknown wonders that I can reach, and unknowable impossibilities I can go to beyond them. I...don't know that I can render this walkabout in terms you would comprehend."

Superman blushed, apologetically.

Brainiac 5.3 processed the information.

"It will have required you time to alter the Fortress so as to accommodate my lesser range of perception. Why choose me, when there are so many in your lineage that would better suit the role?"

Superman, the scarlet slash of the S on its field of black creasing to move with him as he reached a hand down to rest on Brainiac 5.3's digitally assembled shoulder.

"Because I hope that it isn't too late for you to relearn the value of life's sentimentality at the fourteenth-level of intellect."

He left, vanishing in a blur of deep navy blue and rich scarlet red.

Metropolis, Five Years Prior to Present Day

"Clark -mhm!— it is cri-min-al that you can make food this good. I've never even tasted...what did you call this?"

Clark leant his head out of the kitchen, reaching a hand up to push a mop of curling black hair out of his face.

"Uh...it's Pho and Goi Bap Chuoi Chay...they're actually two different dishes, Jim, I'm not sure you were supposed to mix them together like that..."

"Well, it's all good," Jimmy Olsen slurped, lifting the bowl to his mouth. "Where did you -mh- learn to -mm- make this stuff -mwah!- anyway?"

Clark ducked down to the oven, fumbling with over-sized mittens. Looking up to make sure Jimmy wasn't watching, he removed one of the mittens and pressed his hand into the oven. Removing it, he examined his unblemished palm.

"I guess I traveled around a bit before coming here," he called, taking the apple pie from the oven. "I started picking up recipes more when I became vegetarian after...uh, well, after living things stopped seeming quite so appetising, I guess."

"That's two guesses in one speech, Clark," Jimmy said, finishing the bowl and hastily trying to knot a bow-tie around his neck. "You know, when you moved in with me I'm sure you were more assertive. Didn't wear those goofy glasses so much, either."

"I guess my vision's been deteriorating a bit lately..."

Jimmy got up, pulled on a snappy green plaid blazer, and flashed Clark a look.

"Well, Clark," he said, standing in the doorway. "I have my first day's internship at the Planet to get to."

"You can't stop saying it, can you?"

"You shouldn't feel so bad. The Star sounds like a great paper. I'm sure you'll ace the interview." Jimmy pretended to assess Clark's figure, slumped in an ill-fitted suit.

"Wouldn't hurt for you to take a leaf out of my fashionable book, mind."

Clark coughed, and adjusted his glasses uncomfortably. "I'm fine in this, thanks. My Pa wore it whenever he had to come to Metropolis."

Jimmy's smile stayed fixed for a moment, and the two young men avoided one another's gaze awkwardly. Then he perked up, as he always did, and swung a satchel bag over his shoulder.

"You'll be alright moving out on your own tonight? Only I expect I'll have to go for drinks with the Planet's people after work."

"That's fine, Jim," Clark assured him. "I think I can manage a few boxes."

Jimmy waved and disappeared through the door and down the stair-well.

Clark sighed and sat down, jerking off the glasses and throwing them aside. The smell of freshly cooked apple pie wafted across the room, threateningly. Clark closed his eyes and tried to remember every other time he'd smelled that alluring smell, all the times he'd come home to the farm and found a slice waiting for him at the table.

He couldn't make them quite like Ma could.

He'd never get them quite right.

Smallville, Twelve Years Prior to Present Day

The sunlight spilled over the cornfields, turning yellow into blazing gold.

The boy was fourteen now, a mop of dark black curls swept back across clear blue eyes as he launched himself whooping and yelling through the air.

He reached the pinnacle of his leap, arms and legs whirling, momentarily weightless, then began to fall back down to Earth again. His feet found the ground first, throwing up a cloud of soil and dirt as he landed, then he jumped again, hurtling up into the blue sky.

From the porch of their newly painted red farmhouse, Ma and Pa Kent watched their adopted son bounding through the fields towards them.

Pa shivered, then stopped his wife as she turned in to fetch his coat.

"Don't be troubling yourself on my account, I ain't so cold as that..." he said, fishing in his shirt pocket for his packet of tobacco. "It's just..."

"There's no-one around for miles, and Clark can spot a snooper better than anyone. He's fine, Jonathan."

Pa struck a match against the doorway and set to lighting his pipe. "It ain't that either."

They watched as Clark, his red jacket flying out in the breeze behind him, cleared the tall grain silo.

"We knew the boy was different when...well, when we found him like that. But all these...powers...he can lift the car above his head, did you know that? I caught him racing the express from Metropolis the other day, almost had a heart attack."

"Special. You mean special, Jonathan, not different," Ma said, firmly.

Pa sucked on his pipe, watching. Ma disappeared inside and returned with his denim coat.

"Thank-you," he said, resigned. "I just don't know what to say to the boy. He's got to know...we'll have to tell him that I'm not...that we're not..."

"Hush now," Ma chided him again, helping him pull his coat on.

"We're his parents, same as before. And he's still our boy, who needs all the good words and lessons we can provide him with. Jumping high, running fast, being strong, that doesn't change it none."

Pa clamped his pipe between his teeth and gave his wife a kiss on the cheek.

"Here he comes now. We'll be taking the car into town to see Chief Parker, apparently his roof is leaking and I'd like to show the boy how to fix up a bad tiling job. Then when we get back, we'll all talk about it to him over lunch."

"Well, don't you go saying anything you shouldn't to him until then. You know what you're like with these things...oh, Clark!"

The blurred streak of dust that had been racing through the fields towards them had come skidding to a halt, and the youth in the red jacket and bluejeans that it revealed was kneeling, his mouth gaping and his eyes bulging.

"Clark?" Pa repeated, dropping his pipe and running to the boy. "Clark, what is it?"

Clark blinked, tears beginning to well up in his shimmering eyes. He stared at the rough, honest man who grabbed him by the shoulders, and cried.

"I can...see you...really see you, Pa...you're glowing! All the detail, all the colour...you're beautiful, Pa!"

In the Kents' driveway an alien charged with solar energy broke into tears, held by a man he called his father, blinded by the sudden new wonders his enhanced vision opened up to him.

Metropolis, Five Years Prior to Present Day

"I actually knew your parents, Clark."

Clark fumbled with the papers in his hands, bumping into the chair and dropping them as he reached out to catch it from tipping over.

"Is that...ah...so, Mr. Taylor?" He sat down, gathering up the pages of photocopied newspaper clippings from the floor around him.

The thin, balding man behind the desk frowned, scrutinizing the young man with large round glasses that sat across from him. Clark had picked up the last of his papers and now held them crumpled in his hands.

"Yes, it is so - sit up straight, Clark, there's a good man - they used to stop by when I was doing the paper there, the Smallville Sentinel. My first job as editor, the Sentinel. I suppose that's what you've got for me here, is it? Cub reporter work done after classes?"

"Well, Mr. Taylor, yes, some of them are, sure, but-"

Mr. Taylor held up a hand to silence Clark, then took the papers from his hands. He smoothed them out on the desk, then put on a slim pair of reading glasses and began to read.

"Hmm.[/i] Clark, you were reporting on the invasion of the Lebanon?"

Clark adjusted his glasses and leant forward to try and peer at the printed clipping in the editor's hands.

"Uh...yes, Mr. Taylor. For the English-language paper there."

"You reported from the action?"

"Yes, Mr. Taylor. I was travelling in the area and kept notes of the things I saw. I managed to meet some journalists there when the fighting started, and I just attached myself to them. They were nice enough to print some of the interviews I got, with the...um...residents and combatants..."

Mr. Taylor flicked through the pages more quickly now, listing off places and names as he passed them.

"Tibet, Libya, North Korea, Venezuela...Clark, you've put these stories in with clippings about crop disputes from the Smallville Sentinel. You don't need the hayseed stuff, these world event stories are more than enough. You really have travelled, haven't you, son?"

Clark took the papers that were offered back to him and nervously looked through them. "I don't know, Mr. Taylor, I always thought they were just as good..."

He stopped, hesitating over a clipping about an agricultural fair. In the photograph a white-haired Pa Kent could be made out, wrestling with a startled bullock as the crowd scattered to make room. Pete Ross, his oldest friend, was caught with a startled expression running just off towards the camera.

"I like this material, Clark. You've got an eye for the little details. And it seems like everyone you met wanted to tell you their life story...and you listened, too. That's good. But you need an editor. There's too much here that needs trimming."

"Yes, Mr. Taylor."

"I can't promise you a great wage, Clark," Mr. Taylor warned. "The Daily Star isn't exactly the biggest paper in town any more. Once, maybe, but certainly not now that Luthor has shown interest in buying the Planet. Their stock has soared and they're selling more papers than we can print."

"Then you're offering me a job, Mr. Taylor?" Clark said, his eyebrows raising.

"Sure. We'll start you on the crime beat, with Troupe. Rumour is that Perry White at the Planet has set his eyes on Troupe, so you might get your shot at taking his job if that happens."

"You don't seem...um...all that optimistic about the Star, Mr. Taylor. I always thought it seemed like a respectable city paper."

Mr. Taylor grinned and stood up. "Respectable stopped selling in the 30s, Clark."

He raised the blinds of the window behind him and gestured across the city streets below.

"Respectable isn't what Metropolis wants any more. Old fashioned hacks like me, we're just reporting as we see it and we'll keep on until we're turned out of our offices, but that city out there doesn't care."

"I'm sure they do care," Clark said. "Truth never went out of fashion, Mr. Taylor."

"Ah, young idealism," Mr. Taylor chuckled, leaning against the window and surveying the slow crawl of traffic. Good for you, Clark. I'll tell Troupe you'll be shadowing him on Monday...hmm. That truck is cutting it awful close... Great Scott!"

There was a crashing and a screech of metal against metal, and Mr. Taylor spun around, whipping off his reading glasses.

"Clark, did you see-"

He frowned. His office was empty.

Should have known I couldn't expect this to go as planned, Clark thought, dashing through the newsroom of the Daily Star. Heads turned as a brown blur shot past them, and the door of the stairwell slammed shut, suddenly.

Please don't let this look stupid.

Clark burst through the main doors of the Daily Star and swung his head around, narrowing his gaze. Two blocks down the truck continued to tear along the side of the street, ripping through the glass fronts of two shops and smashing a fire hydrant clean off the sidewalk. He spotted the busy café, the outdoor seating packed with lunch-time customers, now panicking and fighting to clear the way as the juggernaut came screeching towards them.

"Excuse me!" Clark brushed past a gawking on-looker and dived into an open phone-booth

Moving at a blur he threw off his suit jacket and tore open his shirt, revealing a shield emblazoned with red and yellow across his chest.

Smallville, Twelve Years Prior to Present Day

The shovel bit into the dirt, then came back with mechanical ease, casting the clod of earth away behind the digging boy.

Again it came down, but this time it stopped short, ringing with a metallic clang!

Clark looked up at his Pa, who looked up from his shovel too. From above the lip of the hole, Ma Kent clutched her scarf closer to her face, pressing it against the tears that were beginning to swell and fall.

Bending down, Clark swept away the dirt with his hands, scrabbling away until a large triangular section of the metallic surface had been revealed.

Across a brilliant yellow ochre a crimson line wound around, coiled and swelling in a complex curve across the revealed shield of metal.

They stared at it, all three of them, while around them the corn waved and dipped in the gentle midday sun.

"What is it?"

"We don't know for sure," Pa said, slowly.

"We think it might be your name," Ma said. They all heard the strain her voice as she fought to keep it from faltering. "Your...other name."

"My alien name?"

"Yes," Pa said, flatly.

Ma scowled at him. "Clark...this doesn't mean anything unless you want it to. You will always be our Clark, this just...just adds to you."

"Like my alien parents?"

They stood over the twisted shield in the dirt and said nothing, neither able to meet Clark's brilliant blue gaze.

Then Pa's hand reached out and grasped Clark's shoulder.

"Yes. It just means you have two sets of parents who want the best for you."

Clark bent down, quickly, and continued to dig. He didn't use the shovel now, finding his hands strong enough for the task as he worked away the strange, electric blue metal shape that the shield was stamped on.

He worked, and Pa helped where he could, until the thing was uncovered.

Then he hauled it clear, lifting it easily above his head and flattening the corn as he placed it down.

"This is what we found you in. A rocket ship, that fell from space and right into the fields out across the way."

"You were so beautiful," Ma sniffed, stepping over to wrap her arms around Clark. "Such clever eyes, and with that curl of hair already growing over your forehead...we just wanted to make sure you were safe."

"And then we realised that this wasn't something from Earth," Pa said. "That...you weren't something from Earth."

Clark stared at the alien craft, a tapering engine built into a rounded bowl, like a basket, in which a small bubbled cot was housed.

He looked up, into the sky.

"Clark, we don't want you to feel like this changes anything," Pa insisted.

"Not unless it's a good change," Ma corrected him. "Maybe this will help you figure out what you're meant to do with those...special gifts of yours."

"Pa," Clark said, his voice rasping. "You're scared. I can hear it...see it in the vibrations your words make...what are you scared of, Pa?"

There was a ringing, and all three stopped speaking and stared at the craft as it began to glow, lit up by a dim green glow from some source unknown within.

Long crystals began to grow from the craft, shards that sparkled with a multitude of colours and lights, until the rocket ship from another world was crowded by the shimmering glassy outcrop.

They heard, together, alien words that spoke, words in a syntax that rang like song, like an orchestrated symphony of language, and all three forgot their doubts, their fears, and held one another until the voice died down and stopped.

"You must have come from a good place, son," Pa said.

Clark took his hand and squeezed it.

"I'm already in a good place, Pa."

Smallville, Nine Years Prior to Present Day

"I can't believe we're out of that place."

"We're in the big wide world now," Lana grinned, wrinkling her nose up. "Time to get serious, Pete."

"I'll leave the serious to Clark," Pete retorted, flicking beer at her. He caught Clark's eye and blanched.

"Clark, he didn't mean-"

"It's okay, Lana," Clark offered them a wan smile. "I know what he meant."

They sat huddled together on the bright red upholstery of the booth with a sudden solemnity, the bottles of beer in their hands suddenly feeling less exciting than they had been moments before.

The door opened, letting in a draft, and a grey-haired man walked in and stood leaning against the bar.

"These old drunks bothering anyone, Lawson?" he asked, winking at them.

The man behind the bar gave a guilty smile. "They just graduated, chief. Thought it'd be alright to let them have one beer where they're safe before they go looking for it in those house parties all the kids have now."

Chief Parker chuckled and pushed his broad-brimmed hat up with his thumb. "I suppose we can let them get away with that. Why, I can't count how many times I've seen you three whispering away like cosy conspirators in that booth around milkshakes and sodas...happiest kids in Smallville."

He smiled kindly at them, then his eyes fell on Clark.

"Of course, you've got to try and be happy now, too, Clark. Your Ma and Pa would have been proud of how you've done, since...you've done right by them, Clark. Very right."

The man behind the bar nodded in agreement. Clark said nothing, but gave Lana's hand a squeeze when she found his under the table.

"What are your plans now, Clark?" Chief Parker asked, offering him another, fainter smile.

Clark swallowed. He looked thoughtful. His face was angular, clear eyes over a strong jawline, this being before he took to wearing glasses and carrying himself with a slouch.

"Sell the farm, I guess. I don't want much for it, and Mr. Fry from across Reeves Dam is facing foreclosure on his own place, so I was going to offer it to him. Then I have some places I want to go, do some travelling. Then...I don't know for sure yet. Maybe keep up the journalism work I was trying out at the Sentinel."

Chief Parker and the man behind the bar exchanged a glance, then nodded, as if satisfied.

"Well, don't let me keep you kids - sorry, I should say folks now, shouldn't I? I'll be stopping by your dad's shop tomorrow, Pete, for that ointment. Now, Lawson, if you can set me up with one of what they're having, I've got a paper to be reading."

Pete looked from Lana to Clark, as the old police chief wandered away with his paper and beer, and shook them by the shoulders.

"Come on, guys. We're out. Let's drink up and go around to the Sullivan's, they're meant to have a keg of this stuff."

Clark and Lana tipped back their bottles with him, their eyes meeting as they drank.

"Clark, what do you mean, you'll be travelling?" she asked, as they put the bottles down on the table.

Clark shrugged. "I just...have somewhere I need to go."

Under the table, Lana let his hand go.

The Arctic, Eight Years Prior to Present Day

The figure emerged from the snowstorm and stood, one hand held out tentatively, as if his sense of direction came from dowsing with the strange, glowing crystal shard he held in his hand.

Across his shoulder he carried a satchel, the contents of which glowed and sung quietly.

Beyond that he wore a simple blue hooded top and jeans, his black curls bedraggled and marked white with snow-flakes.

The snowy wastes were flat, empty, and desolate.

I think...I think this will do. He held his arm out, then dropped the long shard of crystal into the snow. It fell away, disappearing into the thick white layer.

Clark stepped back, slowly. He frowned, breaking the ice that was forming across his brow. He crouched down.

I can't understand it fully, but I remember, somehow these crystals. They were the building blocks, computers and machinery that made up everything that...that my alien parents used. I...dimly...remember...

There was a rumbling, and then the ground began to shake. Clark stepped back, clutching his satchel.

Long, towering cyrstal formations erupted from the snowy wastes, spikes that burst from the snow and ice and rose up to cross one another, locking together far above Clark's head.

A vast, crystalline fortress had grown from the ground, and Clark now stood before a huge, open doorway.

He thought of the other crystals in his satchel, all taken from the rocket ship he had been found in. All of them...could do this? More? This structure looked so...raw, so unrefined. If he could learn how to cultivate their growth properly...

He walked inside the fortress, and into a great, irregular hall deep within.

Colours danced through the walls, light slipping between the uneven, random angles and shapes that the crystalline growths produced.

He stood in the centre of the hall, and marvelled as a crystal dais rose up where he stood, raising him up and bringing two crossed shards up to his hands.

He touched the shards, gingerly, and they twinkled in response.

There was a shifting, and the colours and lights that shimmered and danced across the crystal walls moved and shaped themselves, forming the benign, strong face of a man with strange head-gear.

And then the voice rang out.

"So, my son. Speak."

"I...I understand you...I can understand..." Clark said.

"Of course. You are Kryptonian. This is the language of your people. Of our people."

"Where are you? I don't see you..."

"I am, if all went as I foresaw, long dead now. This is simply a simulation, a fabricated substitute for my mind made up of recorded data and hypothetical calculation. I have put this in with the ship that bore you from our home-world in the throes of its destruction because there must be some record, some memory of who we were. Some instruction for who you are."

"My home-world’s...destruction?" Clark stepped back from the dais, raising his hands.

"Krypton, and all her people save you, are dead. You are the last of us. You, Kal-El, son of Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van. My son."

Clark fell to his knees. He put his hands to his eyes and closed them.

"Kal-El...my name is Kal-El?"

"Kal-El."

There was a rippling and the great face morphed, turning into the red and yellow shield that had been planted on the rocket ship.

"El being of the Star. A bright light, blessed by the sun, who stands above others so that they may lift themselves up with him."

Clark stared at the symbol, rising.

"All Krypton's history, its arts, sciences and culture is contained within these crystals. You have the necessary assets to rebuild a part of your home wherever you find yourself, Kal-El."

Clark stood, and placed his hands over the raised crystal shards once more.

"Teach me everything."

Metropolis, Five Years Prior to Present Day

The truck's horn blared, the driver in the cab pressed against the glass as it tipped and skidded side-ways, bearing down on the panicking crowd outside the café.

A woman, scrabbling on her knees for an up-ended pram, screamed as the truck's steel body screeched along the sidewalk, flattening plastic chairs and-

They would later say that the young man in the red cape had come out of nowhere, but the truth was he had had to rush to make it in time, running only marginally faster than a speeding train down the road to where the truck came down.

The truck's body crumpled against his back as he braced against it, and he fought to keep his feet planted on the ground as it dragged slowly to a stop.

The woman, her baby found and pressed to her tightly, looked up from the ground and squinted as the sun blinded her.

The young man in the rough bluejeans, workman's boots and t-shirt gave her a smile through his grimace as he pushed back his shoulders and stepped out from where the truck had folded up around him. A scarlet, red cape hung from his shoulders, draped across his arms.

He reached down a hand, a single curl of black hair falling across his face as he did so, and helped her to her feet.



"You..." she began, but he waved her away.

"A runaway truck, speeding out of control? Pft! It was nothing. Just-"

His voice fell away as he spotted something from the corner of his eye.

"Oh no...my zoom vision..."

The woman stuttered. "Your what?"

Clark moved, grabbing her and her baby and springing through the air. They landed, the next block down, and Clark put her down, jumping back.

"You have to move!" he shouted, waving his arms at the crowd that had first fled then regrouped and congregated around the scene. "The truck, it's going to-"

He was moving again even as the truck's bulky cargo hold began to rupture around the fault that had been bent around his body as he stopped it. He smashed the window of the cab and jerked the truck-driver free, swinging him out and leaping.

He squeezed his eyes shut and drew the driver in, twisting his body around the man as the explosion lifted them both up and flying through the air.

Maybe this will help you figure out what you're meant to do with those...special gifts of yours. Ma's voice echoed in his mind as he tumbled with the man, crashing into the stone edifice of a building and bouncing off.

A bright light, blessed by the sun, who stands above others so that they may lift themselves up with him.

They hit the road and the tarmac tore up, jagged cracks spreading out from the little crater where they had landed.

Pain. Haven't felt that in awhile. Clark opened his arms, drawing back the folds of his cape to reveal the truck driver, safely shaking in his embrace. Clark had managed to land on his back.

As the truck driver was pulled to safety, the crowd stared as the man of steel climbed to his feet.

His hair was dishevelled, his jeans torn, but otherwise he was untouched. No horrific burns, no broken limbs, not even bruising.

Someone said something, and pointed. Clark looked down at the red and yellow shield printed on his t-shirt.

The child repeated it, and another in the crowd responded.

It looks like an S. That's why they're calling me...

He jumped away, his leap taking him high up over the towering roof-tops of the Metropolitan street.

"Superman!"

The fat man behind the desk fell backwards from his chair, knocking his computer to the floor and clattering away as he struggled to press himself into the corner.

"That's what the papers call me," the figure said, advancing into the office through the shattered stone and plaster of the hole he had just crashed through.

"What are you...hey! What's the idea?" the fat man squawked, kicking his legs as Superman grabbed him by the arm and lifted him up. He could have been weightless, insignificant, for all the effort the angry young face showed.

"You've been moving highly volatile chemical waste through populated urban areas in vehicles that you know aren't designed to contain them safely."

The fat man's eyes bulged, and he made shocked, choking sounds. "What! No! It...we...the mayor and I have an understanding, why should you-argh!nodontplease"

Superman turned, carrying the fat man with him as he strode across to the open hole that had been punched through his office wall.

They stood, balanced on the precipice, the traffic of the street below a dim and distant sound from this high up.

Superman extended his arm, holding the fat man so he could dangle. A secretary was shouting and screaming from the office behind them, and two men in suits had come to gape at the door.

"You cut corners for profit, and a crowd of people almost lost their lives last week because of it. There's no reason why I shouldn't do this."

The fat man met the cold steel gaze of the youth holding him up above certain death, and gripped the arm - which was like an iron pole - tightly.
"NopleaseIlldoanythingIcanchangeIcanfixthispleasedontIhaveafamily."

There was a splintering and a cracking as someone broke a chair over Superman's back. Looking at the broken legs in his hands, and at the unwavering man before him, the culprit ran from the office.

Someone was calling the police, shouting and roaring with an outraged anger that was muted discretely enough that he thought the man with the flowing red cape wouldn't hear it.

Superman smiled, a wild and crazy smile, and leaned forward until his face was inches from that of the fat man.

They rocked, dangerously, as he leaned closer.

"Do right by the people," he warned.

A security guard had arrived now, and there was a ker-fuffle as one of the many posturing men in suits tried to make an excited grab for the guard's gun, jerking it pointedly at the man in the cape.

There was a blast, and screams, and somewhere in the rush to help the gun went off.

The fat man squealed, and shut his eyes. He heard everyone gasp.

When he opened them, there was a closed fist before his eyes.

The fist opened, and a bullet, crushed and flattened, was revealed.

"Stings," Superman said, simply. Then suddenly the fat man was thrown back into his office and Superman was gone, his red cape flowing out behind him as he landed on a roof-top far below.

The fat man lay flat on the floor, as all around him men in suits argued over who they could sue and how many other security guards they should fire and called out 'Anarchist!' and 'Terrorist!' and 'Communist!'. The fat man brought his knees up to his chest and hugged them, his eyes wide.

"Man's a menace, he can't do that to Dunson, he's one of the biggest men in the city ferchrissake's!"

"What did Dunson ever do to deserve a great big hole in his office wall? He worked for this office!"

"Get the police! Get the army! Get a nuke, this guy isn't human!"

The fat man didn't say anything, though. He was thinking about what the crazy young man with the brilliantly clear eyes had said. He was thinking about something he'd heard...something that he was reminded of...in church, maybe? Or in a childish game of make-believe he'd used to play, long ago in some hick town outside of Metropolis.

He was thinking about heroes again, and the fat man hadn't done that in a long time.

The Colony of Outer <UNRENDERABLE>, Sometime After the 700th Century

They say that among the argo-speheres and the cyclical dyso-vats that ring about the star-world of <UNRENDERABLE> a great golden light shines, an unimaginably brilliant light that has been travelling from outside the known universe for centuries, on a questing journey that accumulated light of shades incomprehensible from life-forms that exist beyond.

This great golden light shines, and arrives, as it always did before, when it is needed most.

When the dread tyrant sun Solaris and all the host of Super-Villains wage open war against the whole spectrum of the known universe, and against the Superman dynasty that has sworn to protect it.

In the moments of the final battle, when all seems lost for the forces of good, this golden light streaks in from the unknown, a Mighty Solar Fortress which carries with it the original of the dynasty, the first and greatest of them all.

Superman Prime. Bathed in a super-suit of hyper-real golden thread he returns from his travels, as he said he would, and he joins the greatest battle ever known yet.

Superman, the star, returns again.

Though time has a very different meaning in the centuries after the 700th, it would be a reasonable approximation to say that it would have been the first day of the Nova Cycle Celebration on Krypton when Superman Prime returned to the known universe.

Just as it would have been when he fell, in his rocket ship...

Just Outside of Smallville, Twenty-Seven Years Prior to Present Day

A rocket ship from an alien world streaks across the cosmos, destination unknown.

It comes down, drawn in by the yellow sun and thrown down through the stratosphere of a blue and green planet, crashing into a muddy field just outside a quiet little town in Kansas.

A car, broken down just where the rocket's fateful descent could be seen, is abandoned as two good people go to see the falling star.

Two good, kindly people.

They find a baby.

Their First Son.

[Alex]

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