Issue 4: "War on Solitude"

Jar Kell awakens from a deep trance, and instantly vomits up the contents of his stomach, the acrid taste of bile scratching at his throat. He wipes his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket and stumbles forward into the light, and then looks around to see the two Guardians Ali Appa and Ganthet studying a green scan of his body.

“The influence has left his body, and there seem to be no traces left anywhere but in the isotope itself.” Appa nods and looks over to his brother Guardian. “What is wrong, Ganthet?”

“We know what is happening, what is coming, yet are powerless to overcome it…”

Jar shakes his head, confused.

“What do you mean?” Appa places his small blue hand on the shoulder of Ganthet’s red robes and looks into his eyes, trying to discern the problem. “Unless… You’re choosing not to do anything to avert this crisis…”

Jar gasps slightly, and then looks down at the small green ring floating beside him and picks it up, places it on his finger, and tries to figure out his next move.

Superman looks down at his shaking hands, trying to calm himself, trying to still the ache coursing over his soul, the ache of letting innocent people die. He clenches his fists, but it stops nothing. His jaw locks and he straightens his arm, shaking the intense cold of space as it moves over him. At last, he releases his rage with an inhuman scream capable of causing eardrums to explode, capable of making brains shake and bones to crack, all if heard on earth, but here, in the darkness of the void, in orbit around the sun, nothing happens, apart from releasing a little steam from inside Superman. He shakes his head, feels the last of the oxygen leaving his lungs, and shakes his head, then heads back to Earth, and back to Clark Kent.

“Luthor!” Superman steps through the wall of guards protecting Lex Luthor, and they scramble to the ground, unable to stop the red, blue and yellow clad superhero. “What happened up there?”

Lex Luthor shakes his head, and rearranges his collar. “My team had salvaged the Tenebrous shuttle that was heading straight for Earth. We lost contact with them and they somehow plummeted to the centre of the Sun. I saw you attempt to rescue them as well, but surprisingly…” Lex leans in close, looking Superman straight in the eye. “You failed. Something I’ve never seen you do before. Is this a new trend for heroes? Big hype, no save? Should people call the fire brigade once more if their cats are trapped in Metropolis trees? Would you just drop them with a feeble attempt at a rescue? Come on, Superman. What happened to YOU up there?” Lex smiles. “You failed, alien. I think you should just walk away right now with your cape flapping between your legs.”

Superman motions forward, his anger and rage building once more.

“You think you’re untouchable, don’t you Lex? But one of these days, you’ll make a mistake. You’ll trip up. Unlike me, you… Are only human.”

Lex shakes his head, smiling.

“That’s where you are wrong. I’m Lex Luthor, and you are but an insect when compared to my greatness. I see through the façade you’ve built.” He points his finger at Superman’s chest, anger growing in his eyes. “This symbol brings hope to the needy. Support to those who cannot support themselves. This S… Is a symbol of lies. You aren’t so super, Superman. When you finally grow bored of wasting your time with averting the deaths of people who will die anyway, you’ll crawl back to your fortress, and mope around there for a while… But… Oh… Hasn’t that been destroyed?” Lex smiles. “Shame. Your life seems to really suck right now, doesn’t it?”

Superman smiles, and straightens his back.

“Keep trying to convince yourself that Lex. I’m always watching. Don’t trip up.”

Superman turns his back, and in a moment vanishes from the room, leaving Lex in the dark.

“One of these days Superman… I’m going to kill you.” He laughs to himself, and walks into his private office, leaving the gathered scientists and security to wonder what had just happened.

“Lois! Lois!” Jimmy runs from the coffee machine, and waves his arms, trying to get Lois Lanes attention.

“What is it, Jimmy?”

“The sensors on the roof… Superman’s up there!” Lois bursts out of her chair, and rushes past the night shift staff, until she’s ran up five flights of stairs, and is on the roof of the Daily Planet building.

“Beautiful night, eh Superman?”

“Lois. You shouldn’t really rush around like that…” he taps his ear and points to her chest, and she’s clenches her fist, trying to get her breath back without being obvious.

“What… brings you… up here?” He smiles and sighs, looking up to the stars.

“You, actually… You were up there… in space… and you tried to save the platform…” She looks down at her notebook, and then back at Superman. “But you failed… Something I thought… You’d never do…”

She puts the notebook down by the stairwell door and smiles, walking over to Superman.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Superman smiles and looks over to Lois. “I…” He smiles again and looks to the floor. “How’s Clark?”

Lois shakes her head.

“Smallville… Eurgh…” Her body shakes, in a shiver of memory and discomfort. “We had a human conversation… Do you believe that? Him and me. Talking like real people. Not just me berating him for no reason at all.” She smiles and laughs. “But sometimes I think he enjoys it? In a sick freaky way…”

Her laughter grows and Superman joins in.

“I doubt he enjoys it in the way you’re suggesting.” He looks at her, her body shaking from the cold. “Lois, you’re cold…” he removes his cape and wraps it around her.

“Thanks Superman…” She looks around, and then turns to the hero next to her.

“Uh… Superman… haven’t you got a shorter name than… Superman?”

“Oh. Call me Kal. That seems to work.” He nods. “Kal. Yeah.”

“Alright Kal. Do you want to talk about what happened?” She smiles. “Off the record. One friend to another?”

He laughs and smiles, trying to shake off the negative feeling rippling across his soul. “I don’t know. I failed… I reached for the station… And was thrown back… I think I may have hesitated… But by the time I looked back up… All those people… They were gone. Dead. Burned to death in the Sun.”

Lois shakes her head and looks up. “My dad… Sam Lane…”

“The general. Yes?”

“He always said to me… He always said… ‘Go with your gut. Go with your first feeling.’… It’s something that’s stayed with me throughout my life, Y’know? As a journalist… I always go with my gut.”

“I remember. First time I met you… you shouted…”

“‘It’s SUPERMAN!’” Lois laughs, smiling. “Yeah, I remember. Superman. I gave you that name, didn’t I? It must mean we’re pretty close.” She smiles and puts her hand out over towards his. “I’m sorry about what you went through Kal. But that hesitation you felt. The feeling of being thrown back… Maybe it was something external that did it, never mind something internal, through you… Something on the ship?”

Superman’s eyes light up slightly. “I… You may be right…” he places his hand over hers and holds her slightly, being careful not to crush her fingers with a slight twinge of his hand.

“Thank you Lois.” He looks up at the globe and nods. “Oh and for whatever reason Clark had to leave you… I bet it was an emergency… Just like right now!” He points over to a building opposite, and to a woman running towards the edge, ready to jump.

“Look after my cape!”

He runs forward, picking up speed, and then lifts off into the air, flying through the skies of Metropolis. He whisks the woman out of mid air, and flies back over to the Daily Planet, but before he reaches the roof top, the woman smiles and looks him in the eye.

“I have found you Kal-El, Last Son of Krypton.” Superman looks at her, confusion covering his features.

“Who are you? What do you mean?”

She smiles and pushes her self out of his grip, but not before unwrapping a small bundle of the black meteor in her arms. Superman screams in agony as the rock’s radiation seeps into his being. The woman plummets towards the street below, but Lois grabs her arm, and drags her up to the roof, knocking her out with a single punch across the jaw.

Superman spasms in mid air, trying to control his body but to no avail. He shakes his head, trying to dislodge the anger and pain that has gripped his soul, but feels his entire being weighed down by the agony of the meteor, with a wave of his hand he flies out of Metropolis, and to parts unknown.

“…Kal?”

Lois shakes his head and looks down at the woman on the floor, whose skin slowly seems to turn to black, and then without warning, vanishes in a gust of dark wind.

“What the hell?”

She shakes her head and looks around for any evidence of the altercation, but with Superman gone, and the woman vanished into thin air…

What had just happened?

OPENING THE BOOK OF OA.

Data Banks Open: Reference point, file: 10.781.000.0200<

The planet of Krypton, in orbit around the sun known as Rao, was one of great promise. Their scientific breakthroughs came thick and fast, and soon they would be able to engineer craft to travel the stars, if it were not for a disorder imposed on their genetic codes hundreds of years earlier by the Science Council. The residents of Krypton lived in unknowing bliss of their forced residency of the planet, and strived to make breakthroughs in every field of science they could, utilising whatever they could to make strides in their industries.

>>>rewind<<<

Data Banks Open: Reference point, file: 10.773.235.100<

Before the Kryptonians became great pioneers in Science, there was a time of monsters and supposed myth, where strange mutated beings roamed savage wastelands on the planet. One such creature was the-

>>>end transmission. corrupted data.<<<

Superman contorts his body in agony, the strange meteor having terrible affects on his body and mind. The pain is all too familiar… Kryptonite. But this new form… Something he has never seen before, let alone experienced… what is this… ‘Black’ kryptonite? And what is it doing to his mind?

He heads into the higher atmosphere, trying to calm the raging storm consuming his soul. Where can he go? Where? Images flash through his minds eye… Krypton… The Phantom Zone… The Fortress…

Yes, the Fortress.

Superman clenches his fists, spits the black blood out of his mouth and heads to Antarctic, where the reformed Fortress of Solitude is hidden among the snowy plains.

Superman lands roughly outside the large sphere that houses his Fortress. Weeks ago, the Fortress was scattered across the icy plains of the frozen tundra as the Phantom Zone collided with true reality, unleashing three of the worst criminals Krypton had ever known. Total decimation. Superman had recovered the bits and pieces and reintegrated them into his tesseract, and made it a grander place than before. He placed his shaking hands on the gold sphere, pressing in a secret code that only he, with his super strength, could push in. There was a bright light, and he fell inside, the Antarctic wastes behind him vanishing as the shiny metallic walls and floors of the Kryptonian Fortress of Solitude appeared in front of him.

Superman stumbles through the threshold and into the main chamber of the Fortress, his once home away from home now a dusty museum of lost worlds and alien cultures. There were still small ghost readings of rogue phantom zone energy that still lurked in the darkest areas of the fortress, small wraiths swooping in the metal walls, small tears opening up passages to other places… Superman stumbles forward, trying to reach a small chamber in the main hall of the Fortress, somewhere he can contain himself, but he suddenly pauses, coming to a stop in front of a large golden statue of the planet Krypton. He clenches his fist, feels a spasm of pain reach down his spine…

And then the real agony begins. His skin splits, something pushing its way out of his body. His bones seem to splinter off; his molecules are torn from their bodily threshing, and then wrenched from his body like a bolt of lightning. He spasms once more, falling to the floor with a wet thud as his body seems to double in size, and then reject itself, and then, once he lies still, blood seeping from his eyes and mouth, someone smiles above him, a malicious smile on his lips. Superman looks up, tears streaming down his eyes, blurring his vision.

“Z-Zod?”

The man throws Superman against the indestructible walls of the small room, and watches as the hero slides down, blood streaming from his body, his cells depleted of the solar energy that he had stored over the years to create… him.

He grabs Superman with an iron grip, and drags him off the shiny floor, then lifts him above his head, always smiling.

<Enough. >

Superman tries to get out of the grasp of the man, but his bloodied hands slip off the dark material of his costume, and his arms fall limply to his sides, strained breathing filling the air.

“You speak… Kryptonese… Who… Who are you?”

The man laughs, and as Superman’s vision clears up, he gasps in surprise and terror.

“My God!”

<Yes. >

The man in front of Superman, clad in a darker version of his uniform, is his exact duplicate. His dark eyes glow with crackling red energy, and his skin seems to glow with a dark hue. He holds Superman with one hand, and with his other he draws back, his fist clenched.

<I am you. All your darkness, all your pent up rage and anger… Unleashed. >

He smiles, and punches Superman across the face, alien blood spraying across the wall.

Superman rolls his head, slowly drifting into darkness.

<That fleshling human Lane would make a good bearer of our child, do you not think, Superman? > He laughs. <Child bearing hips. I know your desires… And Kryptonian childbirth was so boring… This would be an interesting melding of our cultures, do you not think? >

The evil shade of Superman brings his fist down hard on Superman’s head, but Superman grabs it with his own arms, finding new pools of strength inside him.

“Never… Ever… talk about my friends like that.” He throws his attacker back, colliding with another wall of the Fortress. “NEVER!”

The doppelganger smiles, and his laughter fills the ruined area of the chamber.

<Friend? FRIEND? You cannot have friends here, Superman. We… I am above them all. They are insects. You and I are more like Luthor than you would like to let on. >

“SHUT UP! I AM NOTHING LIKE LEX!”

Superman pummels his enemy through the walls of the fortress, until his double throws him into the menagerie, deep in the bowels of the fortress. Showers of purple wasps flood out of the shattered cages, and Shrieking Moths of Venus hit both of the Supermen with unheard of force. Superman tries to fight through the floods of insects, but his shade just cackles insanely, and burns through them with red eyes. The moths fizzle out of being with a pop, and red ash hits the floor silently.

<You always have to be nice. Always pent up your anger. Never again! I am unpent. I am released. I am fury and you are dead! >

He slams his fist across Superman’s chest, shattering his ribs and sending him flying.

“I… Am an example to these people… Try to live my life the best I can… You know nothing!”

He uses his Arctic breath to stop his shade in his tracks, but he just smiles beneath layer upon layer of ice, and then allows his eyes to glow brighter. He throws himself in anger at his attacker, crashing through another set of walls, landing them in the armoury. Superman scrambles away, diving behind a small alcove, and grabs a small grenade device, activating it, then tossing it behind him. There’s a loud whine and a purple explosion wracks the area, and as the smoke clears, a shaking Superman looks over his shoulder, surveying the damage. There’s a massive crater, and futuristic weaponry is wrecked among the rubble created by the explosion. He slides down his blockade and sighs slightly, only to be met by a straight punch to the face, his opposite super speeding out of the shadows.

<We are better! We are truly the last of our kind! I know what you think and feel when you deal with the criminals you apprehend. ‘What if I tightened my grip? What if I forgot my own strength? What if I killed this insect and the rest of them, what then?’> He resumes his laughter, punching Clark through another wall, straight into the monitor womb of the fortress with a thud. <You’ve been raised as a human. And these thoughts you have are totally unkryptonain. You’re pathetic. A dog that needs to be put down. > He rises up a bloodied fist and smiles. <But that would be too nice. Too sweet an ending. > He picks up a cluster of crystals scattered across the room, and punches Superman a few times to make sure he’s more docile, then super speeds straight through the tesseract entrance, and through Earth’s atmosphere.

The dark shade of Superman holds his good self by the neck, dragging him through one of the Green Lantern Corps wormholes. He talks directly into Superman’s mind, their shared being somehow acting as a link to their heads.

<A Green Lantern, heading to Earth… Probably there to screw someone up like they did the true master.> He shakes his head. <Too late. We are here now. > He flings Superman onto a small rock, and laughs as his dazed good self tries to get up. <I would not try. You are staying there for the foreseeable future.> The evil shade of Superman vanishes in a flash of light, moving faster than he had ever travelled…

Somehow breaking all the self imposed restrictions he had set for himself. Superman stumbles up, tries to fly away, but cannot… He falls into the dusty rock and coughs as the meteor turns to face the sun. Red light floods Superman, and he grimaces as the small planetoid orbits a Red Sun. He’s trapped. Powerless. Alone. And by the looks of things… Heading straight for the centre of a Sun!

This story continues in Action Comics #2