Superman Movieverse Forum

The AI brought the crystal starship in over what remained of west Kansas. In fact, it tore a swath out of what had been the north field of the Kent family farm. Kal-El stumbled out of the ship, and landed face first in the snow that covered the stubbly ground. After a few moments he managed to get to his feet and dragged himself to the farm house.

It least that’s still standing. Maybe Mom’s okay after all.

The house was cold. Not surprising considering the weather and the fact there was no power. Kal-El rummaged through the laundry room cabinet and found the old emergency lantern his mom kept for emergencies. He lit it and did a quick inspection of the house. There was no flood damage. In fact, everything looked like it had been packed up. The sofa was covered in plastic. The kitchen cabinets were empty except for a few cans of soup and beefy noodles.

The note was under one of the cans of soup.

Clark, Ben Hubbard and I heading to Denver to be with his family.

It was signed simply Mom. No date, no other explanation. He had no way of knowing.

He found a can opener, opened up one of the cans and ate the contents cold. His Kryptonian bodysuit was designed to keep him warm. But he was still weak and he had no idea how long it would take him to fully recover from the kryptonite poisoning.

Kal-El trudged to the upper floor, to his old room. He was surprised to find his bed and clothes were still there. In fact, there were extra blankets folded at the foot of the bed as though Martha Kent had anticipated his return in the dead of winter. She had left food and blankets for him.

He didn’t bother to remove the bodysuit as he wrapped two of the blankets around him and settled onto the old mattress. He breathed in the familiar scents of cedar and lavender as he drifted off the sleep.

Kal-El was awoken by the sun streaming through the bedroom window. He waited without moving as the sun’s rays began to drive the last of the poison out of his system. Normally he felt energized when the sun rose, energized and ready to start his day the same way coffee energized Lois. But now he just luxuriated in the sensation of warmth against his face and hands. It had been so long since he’d felt the simple warmth of the sun, any sun.

He didn’t want to get out of bed, but he finally heaved himself up and went to the closet to get some fresh clothes. Jeans, a flannel shirt, old sneakers. It had been nearly six years since he’d worn the simple clothes of home, even though most of that six years he’d been asleep in stasis. But putting on the old clothes made him feel like he’d finally, really, come home.

His old coat was still in the downstairs closet and he put it on to head outside. The farm was far more weathered than he remembered and a part of his mind started ticking off what he could do to fix it up – a coat of paint on the house and barn, repairs to the fence, hauling away the old tractor that his dad had always intended to fix but had been left sitting by the barn when Clark left to go north to meet his destiny.

Then it hit him again – Armageddon had come while he was gone on his fool’s errand.

He hurried and buried the crystal starship. His powers were back, mostly, so it didn’t take long to bury the ship. But there wasn't much he could do to hide the fact that something had happened in the field, something that had left bare dirt rather than corn stubble covered in snow.

That handled, he went to the barn to look around and spotted a pile of newspapers neatly stacked in the potato cellar. Mom had saved the Daily Planet for him. He skimmed through the papers at super speed. Things hadn’t improved while he was gone, not that he had expected them to. Train derailments, earthquakes, tsunamis, chemical spills, terrorist attacks – all things he had tried to help with before.

Then he spotted it. A front page editorial by Lois Lane titled ‘Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman.’  Kal-El read through the piece at normal speed. Lois must have been really angry to have written this.

“Clark?” A woman’s shout broke through his reverie. He headed back outside to see his high school classmate, Rachel Barnes, looking down at him from atop a handsome bay horse. Rachel was wearing a sheriff’s badge on her coat. He recalled his mom telling him that she had been elected to the post before he left to build the crystal starship.

“It is you!” the woman went on. She dismounted and ran over to him, pulling him into a hug. “We were afraid… well, you know…”

“With all the mess, it took me a while to get back,” Clark explained. “Mom left a note saying she was heading to Denver with Ben Hubbard.”

“Yeah,” Rachel told him. “They left just before Luthor… well, just before all hell broke loose everywhere.”

“I’ve been… well, I’m not up on current events.”

She gave him a skeptical look. “I thought everyone knew about it.”

“There weren’t any newspapers where I was.”

She didn’t seem to believe his explanation but she had the courtesy not to say anything.

“Let’s go inside,” he offered.

It only took a few minutes for Clark to start a fire in the old cast iron stove in the kitchen. With a fire going he could boil water for coffee and warm up the kitchen and living room. He had always laughed about the old stove, but every time he’d suggested to his mom that she should take it out she’d laugh and tell him she wanted to be prepared for power outages. He’d considered it a silly excuse. They had a diesel generator to keep the well, refrigerator, and furnace fan running. And it was an oil furnace as well.

Now he was grateful his mom had kept the stove.

Rachel warmed her hands on the coffee mug and Clark knew she was studying him, trying to figure out what had changed about him from the last time he’d visited Smallville. She was nearly six years older, but he wasn't.

After a long moment, she sighed. “It started September 26. There was a major blackout in Metropolis, ended up taking out most of the eastern seaboard. That’s also when the Explorer space shuttle and its launch vehicle crashed. The EMP or whatever it was took out the controls while it was in the air.” She paused and sipped the coffee. “Then Lex Luthor, that crazy man that tried to nuke California nine years ago… He announced he would cause a bigger EMP if the world governments didn’t turn over control to him. He also announced he had murdered Superman and had access to technology Superman had hidden away. He said he would use that technology against anyone who tried to stop him.”

“What happened then?”

“What do you think? Everyone laughed at him. Sure, Superman’s disappeared, but that doesn’t mean Luthor killed him. Besides, dozens of nutcases claimed to have killed him but not one of them could show a body.”

“So Luthor made good his threat.”

Rachel nodded. “The EMP knocked out power all over the planet. Then the water started to rise, and there were earthquakes. Now Hutchinson has oceanfront property.”

“And the rest of the world?” Clark asked.

“I don’t know about the rest of the world,” Rachel told him. “I know that what’s left of the U.S. government set up shop in Denver. Some big industrialists took Luthor’s threat seriously enough to move as much of their operations as they could out here so there is somebody working on getting power back on. Hell, even the Daily Planet’s up and running. We get daily broadcasts from them on how the search for Luthor’s going and what’s happening in putting a government together.”

“And how’s it been here?” Clark asked. “I mean, given everything that’s happened I’m surprised nobody’s moved in here just for the shelter.”

“Clark, as near as we can tell, nobody east of the Mississippi made it out alive. All the planes were knocked out of the sky, the bridges where taken out by the earthquakes and tsunamis. The people who made it out of Kansas City headed for Wichita and Denver. Smallville got lucky. We’re pretty far off the beaten track. We had a few refugees and we put them up at working farms. Wayne’s got a couple families living at his place, so does John Baxter and Brad Wilcox. And Martha was leasing her acreage to Wayne and Ben so it’s not like the land won’t be worked come spring.” She checked her watch. “I have to get back to town,” she announced. “Do you think you’ll be staying long?”

Clark shook his head. “Not much for me here. I think I’ll head over to Denver, see if I can find Mom. I’ll figure out what to do from there.”

He followed her outside and watched as she went to the barn and retrieved her horse. “His name’s Ananchel,” she said with a grin, patting the animal on the neck.

“The angel of grace,” Clark said. “He was Gabriel’s helper when they went to talk to Mary.”

Rachel smiled. “You remember Professor Lang’s lectures.”

“There are angels and aliens walking the Earth?” Clark chuckled. “Yeah I remember. But tell me this, Rachel. If we all have guardian angels, where were they when Luthor destroyed the world?”

Rachel sighed. “Probably working as hard as they could to save as many as they could. Miracles don’t come easy, even in a world with Superman living in it. And for one without…”  She shrugged. “That is always assuming you believe in such things.”

“And do you?”

Rachel didn’t answer. She straightened in the saddle, looking out past the barn to the north field. Clark knew that all she could see was the bare dirt, and even that now had a dusting of new snow.  He wondered what she was thinking about the bare earth that hadn’t been there yesterday.

After a long moment she turned back to him. “It’s good to have you back, Clark.”



Luthor sat in the dingy church basement shelter and glowered at the other men in the shelter who had the good sense to stay clear of him. He had already finished off the last of the food he had ‘appropriated’ from the distribution center two days before and now he was dependant once again on the unknowing generosity of others.  With the death of the distribution center manager, security had been beefed up at all the ‘stores’ making it even more difficult to get food and materials.  And then the food he had cached had in turn been discovered and stolen from him.

“Impossible to get good help these days,” he muttered to himself. He had planned to use the food and clothes as a bribe to get access to the university library and labs. No news outlet was reporting on what was happening on ‘his’ continent. He had every reason to believe that, despite the havoc the Kryptonian technology had caused, the university had at least one team looking into what was happening there.

And he needed that information.

The ground began to rumble and the building shook. It was the third quake in as many days and this one was harder and longer than the previous ones. He really needed to get to the university and see what their findings were. Earthquakes were one of the predicted side effects the AI had mentioned. But, as with so many other things, the AI hadn’t mentioned how hard they might be.

“Everyone, stay calm,” one of the priests ordered. Luthor tried to recall the man’s name. Father Mike was the one that came to mind. He looked like a younger, taller version of the actor that played Bosley on that girl detective agency show back in the seventies.

The other men settled down at the priest’s voice while Luthor jotted down some notes about the latest trembler. If he was right, and he had no doubt that he was, the earthquakes were only going to get worse until the end.

“A penny for your thoughts,” Mike said. Luthor looked up to see the man standing beside his cot.

“Has anyone ever told you it’s not smart to sneak up on people like that?” Luthor groused. “It could get you killed.”

The priest simply smiled and shrugged.

“You have no idea what’s going on, do you?” Luthor asked. “You have no idea what these earthquakes really mean.”

The man looked at him, infuriatingly benign. “I’m sure you’ll tell me, Mister Luthor.”

Luthor felt the blood drain from his face. If the priest knew who he was, then it was only a matter of time before someone turned him in for the reward on his head, even though it certainly wasn't going to matter in the long run. What good was a reward if there wasn’t anywhere to spend it?

“I’m afraid you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” Luthor managed to stay.

The priest maintained his mild expression. “Mister Alexander, then?”

Luthor took a deep breath and blew it out his nose. “What do you want?”

“To talk,” Father Mike said. “You look like a man who needs to talk.”

“Confession is overrated as solace for the soul,” Luthor stated.

“Your confession is between you and whatever higher being you believe in,” Mike said softly. “As for myself, I don’t believe I have the authority to grant you absolution for your sins.”

“You assume I believe in a ‘higher’ being?”

“Everyone believes in something.”

“And if I tell you I believe the world will come to an end in just a few days?”

“I hope you’re mistaken.”

Luthor studied the man through narrowed eyes. He had never liked the quietly self-assured ones, the ones who were so sure of their place, so sure of their future, so sure of everything. Chances were that the most this man had ever had to struggle was getting an A in high school algebra and turning away his seminary teachers’ advances.

“What do you intend to do?” Luthor demanded, keeping his voice low.

The priest sighed and looked around the basement. “There are so few left, the past doesn’t mean all that much any more.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” Luthor hissed.

“See that man over there?” Mike asked, nodding toward a haggard man in worn slacks. Luthor studied the indicated man. He could have been anybody, a mechanic, a banker, a teacher. Anybody but Lex Luthor.

“His name is Joe Morgan. He lived in Gotham City and he was in Denver on business when his world came to an end. His mother, his son, his ex-wife, his employer… they were all in Gotham and he wasn't. Now he wonders why God chose him to live.”

“And why did he?”

“Why did nine billion people die in one day?”

Luthor chose not to answer that question. It hadn’t been a mistake. At least it hadn’t been his mistake. The damned AI had betrayed him, betrayed every human on the planet. So much for the vaunted superior ethics and technology of the great Kryptonian civilization.  And the Earth’s leaders, short-sighted stupid men, had refused to see the beauty, the logic, of what he offered them – Lex Luthor’s benign and brilliant ruler-ship. They had condemned Earth’s billions, not him.

Father Mike grimaced and Luthor almost suspected the other man had read his mind.

“Let’s go for a walk,” the priest said instead.

Outside the church there was little damage from the latest quake - surprising considering the strength of the trembler. There was even a black limousine parked on the street, gleaming in the sunlight. Luthor wondered briefly at where the owner had gotten the gasoline to run it. Supposedly supplies for frivolous uses had been cut some weeks ago. But then maybe ferrying around the master of Wayne Industries wasn't considered a frivolous use by the powers that be.

“What do you intend to do?” Luthor asked once again. He was getting tired of asking the same question. If the priest was going to betray him to the authorities he wanted to know now, so he could make his escape.

“Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,” the priest quoted.

“An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth?” Luthor asked back.

“There are those who would call that justice including, I’ve no doubt, our Mister Morgan,” Father Mike stated. “However, that would demand that the perpetrator of this… this mass destruction die nine billion times. I doubt his mind would survive past the first dozen or so.”

There was something chillingly pragmatic in the man’s statement. Luthor stopped and stared at the man. Father Mike’s expression was calm, maybe even a touch amused.

A trick of light against the door of the limousine caught Luthor’s eye. He could see his distorted reflection in the black door panel. But where his companion should have been standing in his black clerical uniform was something tall with wings and shining armor. Something terrifying and alien.

“They say that a mortal who sees an angel’s true form is doomed,” the priest was saying.

Angel? The reflection was impossible. There were no ethereal beings or angels. “Is that what you are? My guardian angel?” Luthor asked, trying to keep his voice from shaking.

The creature chuckled but there was no humor in it. “Hardly. The poor being that had that dubious honor is now in the equivalent of a padded room screaming about monsters that walk on two legs.”

“Then what are you?”

“An old warrior trying to keep the madness at bay for a time.”

“Not fighting the forces of darkness and evil?”

There was sadness in the priest’s eyes. “You assume that they’re not the same.”

“And the war in heaven? What about that?”

Another humorless chuckle. “The fancies of ancient writers who wished to absolve humans from their part in creating the madness.”

“And what about Lucifer? Wasn’t he cast out of heaven for daring to face down God and corrupting humanity?”

“He would not have considered it had he not been seduced by the excesses of humanity.” The priest’s face took on a stern look. “Do not blame Lucifer for what you have done to yourselves. And do not mistake your sins against your people for his against his own.”

‘A mortal who sees an angel’s true form is doomed,’ the creature had said.

“So, when do you kill me?” Luthor asked.

There was no answer. He looked and realized the priest or whatever was no longer walking beside him. Instead, a uniformed cop was standing a few feet away, frowning.

“Lex Luthor?” the cop asked.

“No… No, you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” Luthor said, trying to sound authoritative.

“I don’t think so,” the cop insisted, grabbing his arm. “Lex Luthor, you’re under arrest for suspicion of murder…”