Divergent Series - Superman Lives
Superman was another character that was rebooted for the New 52, retaining little to no continuity from before Flashpoint. The New 52 version of Superman actually died during Rebirth, to be replaced by his pre-Flashpoint counterpart who was revealed to have survived during Convergence. Later in the Rebirth era this Superman was merged with his pre-New 52 counterpart to rewrite history with their only being one Superman on the Prime Earth with a variation of the pre-New 52 Superman's history, effectively erasing most of the New 52 Superman stories from continuity.
The DC Heroes Rebirth campaign continuity carries on from the pre-New 52, where Superman had regained his sense of purpose following the events of New Krypton and the War of the Supermen. A variation of some elements from the New 52, mainly the period just prior to and including the Rebirth era, are brought into the DC Heroes Rebirth continuity. The most notable of these are the introduction of Lois and Clark's son Jon Kent (while ignoring his later aging up from pre-teen to young adult), as well as some story elements from events leading up to Rebirth. These are derived from the New 52 H'el on Earth and Krypton Returns stories, which now serve as the foundation for the introduction of Jon Kent through a variation of the Lois and Clark, Superman Reborn, and Superman and Son stories of the pre- and early Rebirth era.
Superman Lives
H'el on Earth
The being calling himself H'el reaches Earth and, seeking surviving Kryptonians, homes in on Superman, Supergirl, and Superboy. He quickly discovers that Superboy (Conner Kent) is not a true Kryptonian but a clone Kryptonian-Human hybrid. Considering Superboy an abomination, H'el attacked and tried to kill him. The Teen Titans rushed in to help Superboy, but in the end he was captured by H'el and taken away. H'el next approached Supergirl and explained his origins. Despite her doubts about what he claimed, Supergirl was still tempted by H'el's claim he had a way to restore Krypton, especially with her recent losses. Together they meet with Superman, who has some doubts about H'el, but listens to his proposal when Supergirl pleads with him. When H'el reveals the captive Superboy and says he will destroy the �abomination� to honor the House of El, Superman attacks. Supergirl attempts to stop the fight, wanting to believe it is all a misunderstanding, but in the end H'el flees leaving Superboy behind.
H'el later approaches Supergirl, claiming he was mistaken but still wanted her help with his plan. Desperate to believe that her world and family could be restored, Supergirl agrees to help him. The two go to Superman's Fortress of Solitude, where H'el will use the ship he arrived in combined with technology from the Fortress to travel through time and prevent the destruction of Krypton from happening. When Superman discovers that H'el's plan will result in the destruction of the Earth he tries to stop it, but H'el seals off the Fortress. Superman and Superboy call in their allies in the Justice League and Teen Titans to help break through as H'el activates his time travel device which starts to drain Earth's Sun of energy.
The heroes eventually break through and must then confront the internal Fortress defenses as well as Supergirl, who still believes in what H'el is doing. Superman and Superboy are able to get to H'el's location, while Wonder Woman battles Supergirl. Diana is able to make Kara realize that H'el's actions will destroy all life on Earth, bringing her around. When Superman and Superboy destroy H'el's device they realize they had been tricked, as he needed their combined power to complete the generation of the time portal that will bring him and his ship to Krypton's past. H'el is able to subdue the two heroes, and when Supergirl arrives and still appears to support him, he believes he is victorious. Supergirl has tricked him however, and reveals that she has a chunk of Kryptonite, which she stabs H'el with. He stumbles back and appears to be torn apart by the now-destabilizing time vortex. The vortex collapses, stopping the energy drain on Earth's Sun and saving the planet.
Supergirl apologizes for her actions, and Superman and Superboy forgive her, understanding how strong the appeal of saving her world and family would have been. Unknown to the heroes, however, H'el survived the Kryptonite blow and the journey through the time vortex and has crash landed on Krypton more than a decade prior to its destruction, where he lies comatose buried deep in a cave.
Krypton Returns
In Krypton's past, the apparently comatose H'el has been found by a young scientist named Jor-El. Appearances can be deceiving, however, as while his body is inactive H'el's mind is not and he is able to project his consciousness and psychically move about. Unfortunately, what H'el discovers destroys what remains of his sanity. Originally believing himself to be a hero of Krypton, an astronaut and dear friend of Jor-El who set off into space to preserve Krypton's culture; H'el now learns that he was simply an experiment, evolved from tissue samples sent on an interstellar journey by the young Jor-El to determine the effect of different forms of stellar radiation on Kryptonian biology. Exposed to the light of so many different suns, the samples evolved into a humanoid form and, combined with the cultural and scientific data in the ship, the being created the history for itself as H'el. With the truth revealed, H'el decides he will not just save Krypton, he will conquer it. Using time travel powers gained by his exposure to the time vortex, H'el begins traveling back further into Krypton's past, seeking ways to stop its destruction and creating new timelines that send ripples through the timestream, threatening all of reality in the future.
In the 31st Century, the effects of H'el's actions are causing destructive time quakes. From the Time Institute, Legionnaire Brainiac 5 is able to discover the cause and escapes in a Time Bubble as the world he knows begins to crumble and transform. Brainiac 5 arrives 1,000 years in the past, to a point about two months after H'el's original defeat at the hands of Superman and the others, where the time quakes are also being felt. He sends out a summons that draws Superman, Supergirl and Superboy. He quickly explains what is happening, telling them that they will be protected from the time quakes in the temporal shield he has created from the Time Bubble. Before Brainy can finish his explanation, Superman hear's Jimmy Olsen's signal watch and sees with his telescopic vision that Metropolis is being struck by a time quake. Against Brainiac 5's objections, Superman flies to Metropolis, where he is barely able to save Lois as the city is apparently destroyed in the time quake. The two are caught in the wake of the time quake and nearly pulled back in, but Supergirl and Superboy arrive in the nick of time and pull them free.
With the time quakes causing more and more damage, Brainiac 5 rushes to finish explaining how H'el's actions have resulted in Krypton being saved, but a militant Krypton ruled by him, and the resulting changes to history are destroying reality as they know it. He has pinpointed three points in Krypton's past where H'el can be stopped and the timeline restored and is ready to send Superman, Supergirl and Superboy to those times. To help the three he modifies their costumes to help disguise them as well as adding circuitry that will help preserve the yellow sun radiation in their bodies so they won't lose their powers as quickly under Krypton's red sun. Superman wants Lois to stay with Brainiac 5, but she refuses and insists she go along with him. With no time to convince her otherwise, Superman reluctantly agrees. Working with what little materials he has in the Time Bubble, Brainiac 5 creates the equipment he needs. He has built a time projector to open portals to the three time periods, and three devices he calls Time Rings that should return them to the proper time if they succeed in stopping H'el. Brainiac 5 opens the time portals and the four go through, with Lois accompanying her husband.
Supergirl finds herself a thousand years in the planet's past, during Krypton's Third Age and the War of Clone Rights. She soon realizes she has to keep H'el from stopping the Black Zero terrorist organization activating their Destroyer weapon; in other words she has to ensure the weapon detonates and begins the chain reaction that millennia later will result in the destruction of her homeworld. Superboy emerges mere days before the destruction of Krypton, unclear of what his task is, until he realizes he is in Argo City and sees the younger Kara Zor-El, Supergirl, being stalked by a shadowy figure. Superman and Lois arrive a few years before Krypton's destruction, at the time that the comatose H'el was discovered after his initial arrival following Supergirl's attack that sent him into the timestream.
In the distant past, Supergirl is confronted by Kryptonian forces who think she is with Black Zero. She is able to convince them otherwise and is brought back to their operating base and taken to their leader, Supergirl's ancestor Van-L. Supergirl learns that the forces under Van-L are about to engage in the final battle with Black Zero, except that it is too soon. Van-L talks about a mysterious ally who helped them make quicker progress, and Supergirl realizes that it must be H'el. She is proven right when H'el arrives and, seeing her there he leaps to the attack to get revenge for what he considers her betrayal of him in the future. The battle spills out of Van-L's headquarters, with Supergirl barely holding her own against H'el. She is not sure how long the yellow sun radiation in her cells will hold out, even with the modifications to her costume made by Brainiac 5, and knows it is only a matter of time before she loses her powers completely.
In Argo City, Superboy follows Kara Zor-El and her shadowy pursuer. Kara has snuck out of her parents' house, despite her father (who knows Krypton is in danger but has not told his daughter this) telling her to stay there. The shadowy figure suddenly attacks Kara and Superboy leaps to her defense. Her attacker is an assassin robot, dispatched through time by H'el to kill Kara for her betrayal of him, despite the fact that this is a younger Kara. Superboy and the robot fight, with it proving a more formidable opponent than the young hero anticipated. Superboy is shocked to see that the robot seems capable of apparently almost instantaneously repairing any damage he deals to it. Superboy switches tactics and gets Kara free of the battle, flying away with the shocked teenage girl with the assassin robot in pursuit. Superboy gets Kara under some cover, and as the robot approaches again he notices that the Time Ring that Brainiac 5 gave him is reacting to the robot's presence. Unsure what this means, Superboy again tries to destroy the robot, and this time when it repairs itself Superboy sees the Time Ring flare. He then realizes that the robot is not repairing itself, but is actually replacing itself with an undamaged version from a different time period. Knowing it may jeopardize his ability to get home, Superboy nonetheless takes the Time Ring and shoves it into the robot before using a burst of his Tactile Telekinesis to destroy both the ring and the robot. As he hoped, the energy from the Time Ring interferes with the robot's ability to summon another version of itself, resulting in its permanent destruction as well as unfortunately stranding Superboy. Kara emerges from hiding and hugs Superboy, thanking him for saving her. Just then there is a burst of light as H'el himself appears, looking for what happened to the assassin droid. As soon as he lays eyes on Superboy, H'el attacks.
In Kryptonopolis, Superman is using his x-ray and telescopic vision to keep an eye on the science facility where H'el's comatose body is being held, a facility that also has the lab of his father, Jor-El, who is still a very young man at this point. Unable to quell his curiosity, Superman continues to keep an eye on his father, and witnesses the young man's first meeting with Lara Lor-Van, his future wife and Superman's mother. Superman returns to where he left Lois and discovers that, ever the intrepid reporter, she has been doing her own investigation thanks to translation circuitry built into the suit she was given by Brainiac 5 allowing her to speak and understand Kryptonese. Lois has learned a little of what the scientists examining H'el have discovered, though they appear to be baffled as to his origins and why he is unconscious. They decide to see if they can find a way inside the facility so they can keep a closer watch on H'el rather than wait for him to make a first move.
Despite her unfamiliarity with Kryptonian culture, Lois still manages to bluff her way into the facility while Superman uses his powers to secretly enter himself. Resuming his remote observation of H'el, Superman sees that the guards outside the chamber have been knocked out and there is a hooded figure in the room with H'el. He tells Lois to go and keep an eye on Jor-El while he goes to confront the hooded figure. In the holding chamber Superman challenges the stranger and is shocked when the man reveals himself to be Jor-El, but an older version, one who appears to be older even than Superman's father had been when Krypton had been destroyed. Even more shocking, this older Jor-El seems to know that Superman is his adult son. The elder Jor-El explains that he is from the future of the Krypton that was not destroyed and instead saved and then conquered by H'el. There Jor-El had been a slave to H'el, but had learned the truth about the conqueror and, when the time quakes began there, knew that they were because of H'el's meddling in the timestream. Escaping slavery, Jor-El cobbled together makeshift time travel equipment and has come back to kill H'el before he can alter the timeline, even though he knows from his studies that this will result in Krypton's destruction. Superman tells the elder Jor-El that, despite everything H'el has done, he will not stand by and let him be murdered in cold blood. Jor-El retorts that he has sacrificed everything to get here and will not let anyone, even his own son, stop him from completing what he started. The two prepare to fight, but are interrupted by another voice - H'el is here. H'el reveals that he has been awake and aware for some time and had merely been feigning being comatose while he psychically explored and observed his surroundings until he was ready to make his move.
In all three time periods the heroes are battling with H'el, knowing it is only a matter of time before Krypton's red sun robs them of their powers and H'el will overpower them. In the distant past, Supergirl and H'el's fight rages across the Kryptonian forces' encampment; while elsewhen Superboy is fighting a defensive battle as he tries to protect the younger Kara Zor-El. Superman and the elder Jor-El try to double team H'el, but even with the weaponry he brought from the future Jor-El is no match for their opponent. Within moments most of Jor-El's equipment has been destroyed and he has been badly injured. Superman continues his assault on H'el to give Jor-El time to get clear, and once clear of the immediate battlefield the older scientist realizes that H'el seems to be suffering from new injuries that neither he nor Superman caused. In the other time periods both Supergirl and Superboy notice the same thing, and all of them realize that H'el must somehow exist at all three points in time simultaneously. It is in fact a three-on-one fight and in each time period the three press the attack against H'el.
H'el soon realizes he cannot fight all three at the same time, so he pulls back from the battles against Supergirl and Superboy, merging his multiple versions into one to deal with Superman and the injured Jor-El. With H'el's strength no longer split three ways, Superman finds himself in a losing battle as the more he uses his powers the faster he is losing them. The elder Jor-El, meanwhile, has used his surviving equipment to analyze H'el's time travel ability and realizes it might be exploited. Jor-El calls out to Superman and tells him to buy some time as he works to reconfigure his own damaged time travel equipment. Superman switches tactics, keeping H'el's attention on him so his foe does not notice what Jor-El is doing, even though this means taking more blows. When Jor-El is ready he tells Superman he is ready, but as he readies his makeshift weapon H'el finally realizes what has been going on. H'el lands a massive attack on Superman, sending the Man of Steel reeling and then turns his attention to Jor-El. He grabs the weapon Jor-El is holding and crushes it, then deals a fatal strike on the elder scientist. Dying, the alternate Jor-El merely smiles at H'el and tells him that wasn't the weapon, that was the decoy to get H'el close to him. Jor-El then activates his own time travel device, which he has rigged to interact with H'el's own temporal powers. The device detonates, destroying Jor-El but also shattering H'el, scattering the villain across the entirety of time. H'el makes a valiant attempt to assemble his scattered selves but Superman rallies his ebbing power for one last strike and deals a final blow that finishes the job Jor-El started, sending H'el spiraling into the timestream to be torn to shreds.
A thousand years earlier, Supergirl realizes that H'el is gone for good and assesses the situation around her. She is worried that the timeline has still been impacted, because H'el had already accelerated events so that Van-L and his forces would stop Black Zero before they had a chance to damage Krypton's core. After a look around, however, Supergirl realizes that her fight with H'el did so much damage to the Kryptonian encampment that it will delay their final assault on Black Zero enough for events to play out as they should. She does not want to dwell on the fact that her actions have helped guarantee the destruction of her homeworld, so Supergirl activates her Time Ring and returns to the present, the events already becoming fuzzy in her mind as the timeline corrects itself.
At Argo City, Superboy realizes that the younger Kara had been injured in the battle, suffering a blow to the head from flying debris. He flies her back to her parents' house, handing the unconscious Kara over to a worried Zor-El before flying off before anyone can ask him any questions. Finding a hiding place, Superboy contemplates his situation. With the Time Ring destroyed he can't get home, and Krypton will explode any day now. He knows that Argo City survives the destruction of Krypton, so Superboy's immediate plan is to hunker down somewhere out of the way in the city and worry about how to get home later. Sure enough, less than two days later a series of massive quakes begin and the planet starts to tear itself apart. Zor-El raises the force field he had built for the city from salvaged Brainiac technology and then activates the anti-gravity engines to lift Argo City clear of the explosion. Something is wrong, however, as the engines do not appear strong enough to get the city to orbit. From his hiding place Superboy notices the problem as well and flies out to investigate. After a quick assessment he realizes what he needs to do, and Superboy flies beneath the city and, pushing his Tactile Telekinesis to its limit, he gives Argo City the boost it needs. As he tumbles out of the sky he looks up to watch the city vanish into the sky, then readies himself for death, sad that he won't have a chance to say goodbye to his friends. Just as he is about to impact, however, Superboy thinks he hears Brainiac 5's voice for a second and then everything goes white.
Back in Kryptonopolis, Lois arrives at the aftermath of the battle with H'el, the younger Jor-El a few steps behind. Despite Lois' best efforts, Jor-El had witnessed at least part of the battle on the facility's security systems, including witnessing the apparent death of his older self and that older self referring to Superman as his son. Superman introduces himself to his father using his Kyrptonian name of Kal-El, but says he and Lois must go before the facility security recovers and starts asking questions. He and Lois flee, leaving the puzzled young Jor-El behind. They find a secluded area and activate the Time Ring, Krypton starting to fade from view to be replaced by Metropolis. Suddenly a dense mist surrounds the pair and the phantom-like form of H'el appears. It is the last fragments of H'el, held together by sheer willpower and hatred, making one last desperate attempt to exact revenge as Superman and Lois traverse the timestream to return home. Superman tries to fight off the phantom H'el, but must do so while keeping ahold of the Time Ring so he does not get lost in the timestream. In the end Superman manages a burst of super breath, enough to scatter the phantom H'el and disperse him for good, but not before H'el manages one last telekinetic blast, targeting the Time Ring. The Ring explodes, but Superman and Lois still apparently manage to safely materialize in Metropolis in the present.
The damage from the time quakes are nowhere to be seen, and Superman and Lois are soon joined by Supergirl just before Brainiac 5 arrives in a Time Sphere. He tells them they were all successful, but Superboy was lost in the timestream. Brainy has to return to the Time Institute in the 31st Century to see if he can locate when and where Superboy wound up, but assures the three that he will find him. He also lets them know that the effects on the timestream means they won't remember much detail from the adventure as he steps into the Time Sphere and departs. Supergirl then takes her leave, needing time alone to deal with the trauma of her recent losses that have resurfaced because of these events. Back under the yellow sun her powers seem to be returning at a decent rate, so she flies away before Superman or Lois can reach out.
Lois heads to their apartment to get a change of clothes for Superman, since his powers have not returned yet so he'll need to go in the front door as Clark Kent. Once they get in, Lois gets some ice and bandages to treat Clark's wounds he sustained in the fight with H'el, since it might take time for his powers to return and accelerate his healing. Unknown to both, a figure is observing them from the top of the building across the street, a figure that is revealed as a bearded, black-costumed Superman! He takes to the skies and flies off to a remote farmhouse, where he quickly changes into civilian clothes before going into the kitchen where an older looking Lois is waiting, saying to her "Lois, honey, we have a problem."
Lois and Clark
The phantom H'el shatters the Time Ring and Superman and Lois find themselves back on Krypton. After recovering from the initial shock that they were trapped decades in the past on a planet light years from Earth, Superman and Lois take a moment to assess their immediate predicament. They are back in Kryptonopolis, in the same place where they had activated the Time Ring. Superman gathers up the remains of the ring and he and Lois leave to search for a more secure hiding place. Their knowledge of the city is limited, and with Superman injured and his powers all but gone it is up to Lois to do a lot of the legwork. She locates a shelter that will be suitable for the short term and gets Superman there, then has to head out again to find supplies.
Feeling she has no choice, Lois seeks out Jor-El for help. He is able to provide her with some food, water and medical supplies, and warns Lois that the authorities are looking for Superman because of the battle with H'el at the science facility. She and Superman keep a low profile, which also gives her time to treat her husband's wounds. Jor-El gets word to them that it is too dangerous for them to stay in Kryptonopolis, but he thinks he can get them out of the city. Once Superman has had a chance to recover, Jor-El smuggles the two to Argo City under the pretense of visiting his brother Zor-El there.
Once in Argo City, Jor-El provides forged credentials for the pair, under the aliases Klar-Ken and Lois Lane-Ken. He also arranges for "Klar-Ken" to get a low-level support job at the lab his brother works at. Superman and Lois thank him for his help, but warn Jor-El that for his own safety he can't risk being caught associating with them, not to mention the potential risk to the timeline if they continue to interact closely. Though still curious about the time travelers and what knowledge his future son has for his own destiny, Jor-El reluctantly agrees and returns to Kryptonopolis. Superman and Lois settle into their humble new residence and prepare to start their new, but hopefully only temporary, lives on Krypton.
As the weeks pass, Superman slowly familiarizes himself with the facility he now works at, hoping to eventually leverage some of the technology and resources there to repair the Time Ring and get he and Lois home. Feeling stir crazy while Superman is performing his drudge work at the lab, Lois learns how to access children's educational programming to teach herself how to read and write Kryptonese. Once she feels comfortable enough with the language, Lois decides to try and earn her keep by writing children's stories about heroes she names Nightwing and Flamebird, basing them on dramatized versions of Batman and Robin and their adventures.
Almost two months after arriving in Argo City, Lois falls ill and soon realizes the reason is that she is pregnant. Initially shocked and concerned at the news, Superman soon realizes that being on Krypton is an advantage, as there is no risk to Lois' health from the fetus developing super powers while in womb, and the advanced medical technology here can help with any complications that might develop with a Human-Kyryptonian hybrid child. His concerns addressed, Superman is overjoyed at the chance to become a father.
At the science facility where he works, most of the scientists simply ignore Klar-Ken, as part of the Labor Guild most of them consider him beneath their attention. There is one scientist, whoever, that is happy to talk with Superman, though not for a particularly good reason. The scientist Dal-Zel likes lording his "superiority" over those he considers lesser, so Superman has learned how to cache his questions about temporal mechanics and other scientific matters as if he were ignorant. He lets Dal-Zel drone on at length on the topics, casually voicing a seemingly innocent question to guide the conversation towards the information he needs to continue the work on the Time Ring. For parts, Superman is equally careful, trying whenever he can to salvage them from equipment that has been damaged or that is being decommissioned.
Just shy of a year since they had become stranded, Lois gives birth. They do it at home, though Superman stands ready to summon medical assistance if it becomes needed. The process goes smoothly enough, and soon Lois gives birth to their son. Lois wonders about giving him a Kryptonian name, but Superman wants to honor his Earth heritage and so they name the child Jonathan Samuel Kent after Superman's adoptive father and Lois' father. With the child safe and healthy, Superman now wants to redouble his efforts to get them all home. Despite still a few years yet to go before Krypton's destruction, Superman knows that the time preceding the event includes sickness and natural disasters, so wants to get his family clear sooner rather than later.
Finally the last piece Superman needs falls into place. He believes he has repaired the Time Ring sufficiently to function, but he needs to program in the time and space coordinates for Earth at the time they had left. Earth's spatial coordinates are easy to determine, Superman having long ago located the Solar System in the sky. Now he thinks he has the time coordinates, thanks to temporal probe research Dal-Zel has been conducting. Their probes have detected a sure of time energy at a point decades in the future centered around the spatial coordinates Superman identified as Earth, and he believes this is from H'el's actions.
With Jonathan barely a month old, Superman has everything ready. There is no way to test the Time Ring, his repairs are only good for a single shot. He has some doubts, but Lois is confident in her husband's abilities, and holding Jonathan tight to her she grabs hold of the ring as Superman activates it. There is a flash of light and, though rougher and nowhere near as instantaneous as the first time, the Time Ring seems to do its job. Their home in Argo City disappears, and the three find themselves in a forest at night, with rain pouring from the sky. Still without his powers, Superman cannot tell if they made it, but the trees around them are Earth vegetation, so he thinks it worked. He scouts around on foot and finds what looks like an abandoned farmhouse, so Superman gets Lois and Jonathan there. The roof leaks, but it is dry enough, and with some effort he is able to get a fire going in the fireplace to help them warm up.
They settle in for the night, but a few hours later there is a shout from outside, demanding to know who is in there. Superman opens the door to find a man standing there with a shotgun and a flashlight. Superman apologizes, telling the man they had made a long trip and were just looking for shelter from the storm. The man sees Lois and the baby and relaxes a little, lowering the gun. He introduces himself as Sheldon Montgomery and tells them that the farmhouse is on his land, though it hasn't been used in years. Lois and Clark introduce themselves and Jonathan by their first names only, waiting to get a better feeling of when and where they have arrived. Sheldon tells them they can stay the night, and he brings them a little food and water from his truck. He asks if they are refugees from the disaster, as he's heard a lot of people are homeless because of it. Lois and Clark hesitate, and Sheldon continues, telling them he thought it was the end of the world with the red skies, and that on the news they are calling it the Crisis. Lois and Clark look at each other in shock, they have returned to Earth, but the time coordinates have brought them to just after the first Crisis; they are nine years in the past.
The next morning the sun is out, and Clark's powers slowly return. He uses his increased strength and speed to do some quick repairs around the farmhouse. When Sheldon returns with some blankets and old clothes along with a little more food and water he is impressed with the quick work Clark has done. He tells them that he will talk it over with his wife, but based on the work Clark has done at the farmhouse already, if they have nowhere else to go he is willing to let them stay there a while longer in exchange for Clark doing more work. When he asks their names again, Lois thinks quickly and gives them as Lois and Clark White, with Clark mentioning that Sheldon can call him Joseph or Joe, from his middle name, and that only his mother and wife call him Clark.
The pair soon learn the farmhouse is near the town of Lancaster in California. Once the situation has stabilized, Lois and Clark have a serious conversation over what to do next. The Time Ring was destroyed in the return trip, as Clark expected, and is beyond repair. They question if he should approach some of Superman's friends and allies to see if there is a way to reach their proper time, but Clark knows time travel is difficult, and that potentially any contact with someone they know could have an effect on the timeline. In the end they decide that it will be safest if they simply keep a low profile for the next decade, staying out of the way until they reach the point in time of their departure. They accept Sheldon's offer and settle into the farmhouse. Though his powers have not fully returned, even after several weeks, Clark makes quick work of a lot of the major repairs, but tempers it some when Lois points out that Sheldon might get suspicious if the work gets finished too quickly.
While Clark works the farm, Lois recognizes that they will need some form of income. When Jon is a few months old, Lois starts writing articles for the local newspaper. For the first year or two, Lois and Clark live a contented life raising their young son, but eventually both of them could not help themselves. Despite potential risk to the timeline, Clark would still use his powers to secretly help out, usually with natural disasters but occasionally taking on super villains. For her part, Lois resumes investigative reporting, publishing exposés anonymously as "Author X". She also cannibalizes the remains of their uniforms from Krypton to create a black costume for Clark, while he also grows a beard to reduce the risk of being recognized as Superman or Clark Kent.
As the years pass, the two often have to fight the urge to intervene in events, especially in cases they know things will end in tragedy, but ultimately they realize the danger of changing the history they know is greater. Clark also has to deal with instability in his powers, which never seemed to recover after his time on Krypton. The two also deal with keeping secrets from young Jonathan, who is getting old enough to recognize some of his parents' strange behavior. Things come to a head when Jon is nine; Lois' latest book will expose an international crime cartel, and the cartel is not pleased. They are able to track Author X by going after the book's publisher, eventually kidnapping Lois and Jon. An attempt to kill them by locking them in a burning building is thwarted when Jon discovers he has super powers, demonstrating super strength when he snaps the ropes he is tied with and then invulnerability by opening a red hot door without harm. Clark is also forced to use his powers in front of Jon to rescue he and Lois from a follow-up attack by the criminals. Once they are safely back at the farmhouse, Lois and Clark reveal the truth of who they are to Jon, who must now figure out what it means to be the son of Superman. As for the crime cartel that attacked Lois and Jon, Lois' book is published and the revelations inside lead to the arrest of all of the cartel's senior leadership.
Finally the time that Lois and Clark have been waiting for approaches, the point in time when they were sent back in time by Brainiac 5 to stop H'el. In anticipation, and because Lois' cover as Author X had been blown, the family relocate from California to New York, settling at a new farm in Hamilton County as the "Smith" family. When the day finally comes, Clark flies to Metropolis to make sure everything has worked out properly. From a hidden vantage point he keeps watch, and despite his diminished powers, Clark's super senses still register the blip that is all that remains of the time quakes. He is just about to return to Lois to give the all clear when he spies activity in his and Lois' old apartment. What he sees are himself and Lois, looking exactly as they had after they had just defeated H'el and activated the Time Ring to return home. Something has gone wrong, and Clark flies back to the farm to tell Lois.
Final Days
The time-displaced Clark and Lois try to understand what has happened. Had they inadvertently made some minor change to the timeline, just enough to result in their counterparts successfully returning where they had become trapped in Krypton's past, or was there another explanation? For the near term, they elect to continue watching their counterparts to see if any more information comes to light. For their part, the other Lois and Superman step back into their lives. Like his counterpart, this Superman must also take a few days to recover his powers.
A short time after returning, Superman is plunged into a new crisis. A traitor on the Justice League poisons him with a Kryptonite sliver, before the Crime Syndicate of Earth-3 invades and exiles the League. The League is eventually freed and Superman's life is saved by Lex Luthor of all people. Like his older, time-displaced counterpart, this Superman also began seeing some instability in his powers, though he assumed it to be an aftereffect of the Kryptonite poisoning, tinged with a little suspicion that Luthor might have done something to him during the surgery to remove the sliver.
Superman has had little time to work on his power problem when things get worse. During a conflict with a new enemy named Ulysses, Superman manifests a new power, the ability to project a solar flare like energy burst. While powerful, the burst also expends most of the solar energy in Superman's cells, leaving him almost powerless in the aftermath, and each time he uses it, the longer it takes afterward for his powers to recover. Despite efforts to avoid using the new ability, Superman frequently finds himself in situations where he has no choice, until finally it seems to have permanently debilitated his powers. Though his powers are reduced, his super senses almost completely gone, Superman is still faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Even with his reduced powers, Superman still continues to battle for justice. With his invulnerability affected, Superman is more prone to injuries now, injuries he must learn to disguise when in his Clark Kent identity. Lois becomes concerned as her husband continues to risk his life as Superman despite the loss of much of his power. This leads to tension between the two and they separate. Superman starts to become desperate to regain his powers, arranging a voyage to the sun to expose himself directly to the solar rays. This does not work, and it becomes apparent that his cells no longer absorb solar radiation. His next plan is to expose himself to Kryptonite as a form of chemotherapy to try and destroy the non-functioning cells. This effort also fails and the near-powerless Superman suddenly finds himself in a confrontation with Vandal Savage. Their conflict ends in a battle at Superman's fortress, where some Kryptonian devices are seemingly able to finally restore his powers, just in time to defeat Savage.
Superman appears to have regained his powers at an opportune time, as he and the Justice League soon find themselves in the middle of a war between Darkseid and the Anti-Monitor that threatens Earth. During the crisis, Superman finds himself trapped on Apokolips with Luthor, his powers again fading because of the lack of sun. Desperate, Luthor drops Superman in one of the Fire Pits in an effort to recharge his powers. The exposure to the dangerous energies does restore Superman's powers, but also nearly drives him insane. He regains control of himself, but after the Apokolips energies are drained he discovers that the exposure has fatally damaged his cells. Superman is dying, and there appears to be nothing anyone can do about it.
While many of his friends and allies hold out hope. Superman accepts his fate and begins to say his goodbyes. After asking Supergirl and Superboy to carry on his legacy, Superman is called to Metropolis where a man exhibiting energy powers like the solar flare ability Superman had manifested was on a rampage. The man, a criminal named Dennis Swan, seemed to think he was Superman and was screaming about impostors and betrayal. Trying to track Swan, the Justice League finds a secret lab in China, where the scientist Dr. Omen has harnessed some of the residual solar energy thrown off by Superman's flare powers to empower individuals, but she was not responsible for Swan. Swan returns to Metropolis and finds Lois, still believing he is the real Superman.
Swan wants to show Lois something secret, and takes her to the Smith farm in Hamilton County, where he has sensed the presence of the time-displaced Superman. The older Clark is there with Jon, but their Lois is absent. Swan attacks the older Clark to prove he is a Superman, starting a fight that quickly destroys the house. The dying Superman arrives on the scene with Batman and Wonder Woman, attracting the attention of Swan and allowing the time-displaced Superman to break away from the fight and get Jon and his Lois, who has just returned, to a place of safety. Batman gets the other Lois away from the fight while Superman and Wonder Woman fight with Swan. Wonder Woman is knocked down and Swan flies off, with Superman in close pursuit.
Swan's powers are becoming unstable, risking a catastrophic explosion. Feeling his own powers and life fading fast, Superman makes one last attack, grabbing Swan and trying to take him into Earth's orbit so the explosion will not harm anyway. His strength is not enough, however, and the two start to fall back to Earth, but the time-displaced Superman arrives and lifts them both up out of the atmosphere. Just as Swan explodes, the dying Superman lets off his own solar flare burst, dispersing the energy from Swan's explosion. The time-displaced Superman brings the dying Superman back to Earth. As this Superman's body slowly disintegrates he says his last goodbyes to those who have gathered, including his Lois, Lana Lang, Supergirl, Superboy, Steel, Batman and Wonder Woman. Finally, in a flash of light his body crumbles to dust.
The others are in mourning, but also in shock and disbelief at the presence of the older looking, bearded Superman. Both Lois and Batman demand to know who he is, and the older Superman explains that it is a long story, and that even he is not completely sure of it.
Superman Reborn
Once he is sure that Lois and Jon are safe, Superman agrees to go off with Batman and the Justice League. At the Hall of Justice, Superman explains who he is and how he and Lois found themselves trapped a decade in the past, electing to keep a low profile to not interfere with the timeline. Superman also allows Martian Manhunter to scan his mind and Wonder Woman to use her Lasso to help prove that what he is saying is the truth. The League reluctantly accepts that this man is also Superman, but now they have a mystery to solve.
Needing some technical and scientific advice, the Justice League calls in Steel and Mr. Terrific. The two conduct a detailed examination and analysis of the older Superman, but this just further confirms that he is who he says he is and offers no clues as to why there were two of him. With the first round of tests concluded, Superman leaves to go back to Lois and Jon but tells the Justice League he is at their disposal.
Meanwhile, there are reports of a new Super-Man in China. The Chinese Super-Man is discovered to be the result of Dr. Omen's experiments with the solar flare energy captured from the recently deceased Superman. In Metropolis a new Superwoman appears, secretly the younger Lois Lane who somehow gained Kryptonian-like powers due to absorbing some energy from the younger Superman during his death. Barely a week later, however, the younger Lois dies while using her new powers, disintegrating similarly to the other Superman. At the same time it is revealed that Lana Lang has also developed powers from exposure to the dying Superman's energy, in her case energy-based powers, which she reluctantly starts using as another Superwoman.
Shortly after the death of her younger counterpart, the older Lois starts suffering mysterious health problems. At the same time, the older Superman has started showing greater instability in his powers, including mysterious energy bursts. Mr. Terrific and Steel, now with help from Rip Hunter, are able to pinpoint a cause. They surmise that the attack on Superman and Lois as they attempted to return to the present from Krypton resulted in a disruption that split them into two. One Superman and Lois successfully returned to the present while the other pair were trapped in Krypton's past. In reality they were each two halves of a whole, which explained the instability in his powers that the older Superman had been experiencing ever since he and Lois had returned to Earth a decade in the past. Additionally, both pairs had been slowly dying ever since they split. The younger Superman's death was accelerated by the Kryptonite poisoning, massive power fluctuations, and exposure to the Fire Pits of Apokolips, while the younger Lois' was similarly accelerated by her human body's inability to properly contain the power she had absorbed.
The older Superman's limited use of his powers over the years, and his Kryptonian physique kept him alive, but the disintegration of his quantum pair has now brought on a similar fate. The League is unsure of how the older Lois has survived all this time, until Mr. Terrific remembers that a fetus can exchange cells and DNA with the mother, so the older Lois has had Jon's hybrid human-Kryptonian cells in her blood helping to protect her over the last decade. Steel and Mr. Terrific determine that they must somehow merge the two quantum duplicates in order to stabilize Superman and Lois. Green Lantern and Flash retrieve the last remains of the dead Superman and Lois and attempt to collect as much of the residual energy from the pair as possible.
Working against time, Mr. Terrific and Steel are able to construct a device to hopefully restore both Superman and Lois. When it is ready, they use the collected elements from the deceased younger versions and recombine the quantum states of the two. As an unexpected side effect of the stabilization process, both Superman and Lois gain the memories of their counterparts and also have their bodies reset to the state at which they had originally been split, effectively restoring them to the physical age they would have been had they not been trapped a decade in the past. While the outcome to this is better than either could have hoped, the event is clouded by some troubling information about their son.
Because his parents were not fully stable, there also seems to be an inherent instability in Jon as well, and because he has no quantum duplicate to merge with like his parents did, Mr. Terrific is not sure there is anything that can be done about it. Where science cannot provide an answer, however, perhaps magic can. Dr. Fate and Zatanna work together and are able to craft a spell that anchors Jon to this reality. The spell also has the additional benefit of creating a mystical memory trail for Jon, such that anyone close to Lois and Clark will accept Jon as their natural born son, to the point of them "remembering" his birth and early childhood despite some discrepancies because of his age.
With Jon out of danger, Superman formally introduces his son to his extended Super family and his allies in the Justice League. With his powers manifested, Jon is eager to follow his father's example and start his own super-hero career. Superboy is willing to offer up his codename to the new hero, but Jon says he would rather be known as Superman Junior. Clark and Lois step back into their lives, returning to the Daily Planet (though thanks to their duplicates it was as if they had never been gone) and preparing to move back to Metropolis, while Clark also dons his old uniform to reassure the public that Superman is alive and well.