Superman: Death And Alive

Superman: Death and Rebirth
The creature know as Doomsday was a by product of the research that would eventually lead to the Kryptonians mastery of genetic engineering and clone technology. Over hundreds of thousands of years he had bounced from planet to planet fighting Khunds, the Green Lantern Corps and even killing one of the Guardians of the Universe. He was eventually "killed" by Radiant of Calaton and was buried at space bound in a metal cage so his spirit could not escape (as was their tradition). That "tomb" made planet fall on Earth and was embedded deep in the planet for hundreds of years. Reawakened by the presence of Superman (who Doomsday sensed was Kryptonian - one of his old tormentors), he went on the rampage killing hundreds and scattering the JLA as he made a straight line for Metropolis. Superman confronted the monster in an all out brawl that raised buildings and shook the foundations of the city. Neither combatant would give in and in an inevitable conclusion Superman gave his life to seemingly stop Doomsday.
While Lois Lane and the planet were shocked by Superman's death it did not take his old enemies long to make gain from the situation. Lex Luthor (back in a younger cloned body and posing as his own son) used the situation to prove his "civic minded pride" by organising much of the funeral and remembrance proceedings. Paul Westfield of the Cadmus Project stole Superman's body under an executive order that allowed him to collect the bodies of any dead aliens for study, but when he was exposed by reporters the President rescinded the order in Superman's case. With a world wide audience Superman was laid to rest in Centennial Park.
No sooner was he laid to rest that Superman's body disappeared from the tomb. There was stories of him rising from the dead or of Cadmus stealing the body. Shortly afterwards four pretenders appeared in Metropolis claiming each of them was Superman. The body had actually been taken by the Eradicator who was using it to convert solar radiation to energy which he could absorb. Then perhaps due to some lingering connection between the two the Eradicator began masquerading as a Superman meeting out his own violent form of justice. He was joined by Superboy who thought himself a clone of Superman and Steel III who designed his power armour in homage to the man who had saved his life. The fourth and most mysterious of the four "supermen" became known as the Cyborg. He was actually a mentally unstable scientist who blamed Superman for turning him into a freak.
Determined to destroy Superman's reputation after he was dead the Cyborg convinced many people (and the Whitehouse) that he was actually Superman brought back to life and repaired by Kryptonian technology. The Cyborg was working with Mongul and together they decided to turn Earth into the second Warworld. They started by destroying Coast City (killing seven million people in the process) and turning it into a giant rocket engine. Because of the unique nature of his death, the technology of the Fortress of Solitude and the efforts of the Eradicator Superman breathed once more, but was without his superpowers. He returned to Metropolis and with the help of Superboy, Supergirl, Steel and Green Lantern II managed to defeat Mongul and thwart the destruction of Metropolis. The Cyborg had one last trick up his sleeve and exposed Superman to a huge asteroid of pure Kryptonite. The radiation would have killed him in seconds had the Eradicator had not suddenly arrived and placed himself between the radiation and Superman. His energies switched the polarity of the Kryptonite radiation repowering rather than harming Superman. Once again at full power Superman defeated the Cyborg.
The aftermath of being dead was complicated. Clark Kent was assumed to be one of those killed in Doomsday's rampage. He was saved by Superman from under rubble. This was accomplished with the help of the shape shifting Supergirl who posed as Clark so that Superman could rescue her. There were other concerns, Clark returned to the Planet to find that his desk had been given to new reporter Ron Troupe and that his apartment had been relet. After staying with Jimmy for a short time Clark moved into a new apartment and tried to get back into the normal pattern of life. This was further complicated when Conduit tried to kill Clark Kent and his family, if that wasn't enough Brainiac seeking revenge tried to make people believe that Superman's body was still in the tomb.
Superman: Superman Red / Superman Blue
Investigations by Professor Hamilton had shown that Superman's powers were derived from solar energy and if not replenished then his powers would slowly become depleted. This is exactly what happened when the Sun Eater attached itself to the Sun. Removed from the source of his power and fast using up his existing energy supply saving people from related disaster it was not long before Superman found himself powerless. The problems continued after the Sun Eater had been vanquished by Parallax (Hal Jordan) when Clark found that his powers did not return. This coincided with the end of a rocky patch in Lois and Clark's relationship when they almost split up for good. However they managed to work through their problems and were married. The honeymoon in Hawaii was interrupted by a kidnapping but that's what you get when you marry a superhero.
The quest to regain Superman's powers took a number of twists and turns. The origin of the problem was tracked down in part by the robots of the Fortress of Solitude who registered Clark as fully human and not Kryptonian. This stemmed from the side effects of the battle with an alien sorcerer called Tolos in which Superman received the Bottle City of Kandor. The city exists in an extra-dimensional pocket so when Tolos tried to draw Superman forcibly across the dimensional gap it left him "out of phase" with the normal world. It was this phase shift that stopped Superman's normal Kryptonian abilities repowering. In a desperate gamble to regain his powers Superman, with the help of the New Gods, opened a Boom Tube into the heart of the Sun. The sudden exposure to such enormous amounts of solar energy jumped started his powers and seemingly returned Superman to normal. Shortly afterwards Superman joined new Justice League of America during their battled with Known Man.
The effect of the phase shift and the sudden repowering were not evident at first, but over time Superman began to notice sudden electrical surges in his presence and at one stage he even became intangible. Eventually it reached a point where he had become a literal energy being with little form or mass. Troubles with his new abilities started when he started causing power cuts in Metropolis as he blew power lines by accident but more serious problems arose when it became evident that this new form was not stable and that he was beginning to discorporate. STAR Labs and Professor Hamilton used technology from one of the Fortress robots and a special fabric provided by the new C.E.O of Lex Corp. Contessa Erica Alexandra to construct a containment suit for Superman. Bonding with the suit gave Superman physical form and help from the second Ray began to teach him about his new powers. He could also alter the phase shift created by Tolos. When fully out of phase with normal reality he was the electric-Superman and when he was fully in phase with reality he was normal powerless human Clark Kent.
The new energy powers were readily accepted by his comrades in the Justice League, but he forced them to put him through the standard membership tests because of doubts over how well he could control his new powers. The powers were also the cause a of strain in his relationship with Jimmy Olsen as Superman and as Clark Kent. Jimmy at the time had been working in TV as a high profile ratings grabbing action reporter and had used information that Professor Hamilton had given him in good faith in a news report. The detailed analysis of Superman's new abilities almost allowed Metallo to defeat him. Jimmy's next stunt was even worse as he revealed that he was going to expose Superman's secret identity on live television. Jimmy drew up a short list that he discussed on air, but when the crunch came he bottled out of revealing who he thought Superman was. Clark Kent was on the short list that Jimmy drew up and it remains to be seen if any new evidence will jog Jimmy's mind towards the truth.
Lois and Clark had handled the new form of Superman well living as a normal couple for once, but things began to get strained when the Toyman and Cyborg split the energy Superman into two near identical Supermen. The two different Supermen could not have been more different, the Red Superman was quick to jump into a situation and was over confident while the Blue Superman was took too long to assess a situation and lacked confidence. Lois was confused as both claimed to be the real Clark Kent but neither was the man she had married. Blue and Red got in each others way as they would both try to use the same tactics in an emergency unaware that the other was there. The twin Supermen had little time to despair on their situation as the Millennium Giants appeared across the globe. The JLA and other heroes were powerless to stop the three Giants from absorbing ley line energy and according to legend purging the Earth of all ills. Various claims were made linking the twin Superman to saviours from Hawaiian legends and that Superman's current unnatural forms were responsible for awaking the Giants, but no hard facts were ever established. The Supermen stopped the Giants. In the aftermath it was revealed that the Giants were a symbolic part of the Earths renewal and the twin Supermen were forced to expend all their energies to do the task that the Giants existed to do. A side effect was to remove the phase shift that Tolos introduced leaving Superman whole and back to his normal Kryptonian self.
Other worlds...
There are other worlds and universes that mirror the history and development of our own. The infinitely evolving continuum of theses "Hyperzone" exist within a self-consistent scheme called Hypertime. The existence of this continuum was unknown to the heroes of Earth until events from a parallel hyperzone of Earth-Kingdom spilled over onto Earth-Zero. The Superman of Earth-Kingdom had retired some years before, but had been called out of solitude by a new generation of rampant metahumans that threatened to destroy the world. A nuclear explosion in the heart of Kansas had precipitated a near apokolips before that universe's Captain Marvel gave his life to demonstrate to everybody the error of their ways. One of the few survivors of the Kansas Tragedy was a child called Matthew. Twenty years later he became that Superman's most devoted disciple and literally worshipped him. Awkwardly that Superman was forced to explain that he wasn't a god and Matthew really should do something else with his life.
Matthew was shattered and was easy prey for a quintet of cosmic being called the Quintessence who sought to transform him into their agent. They gave Matthew knowledge and power so that he could precipitate the Kansas Tragedy early and they could then turn the event to their own ends. Unfortunately the power only unhinged his mind further and transformed him into a monster called Gog. He set out across time and killed a future version of Superman, he then journeyed back a day and killed another Superman. He rampaged across Hypertime killed consecutively earlier and earlier Supermen until he reached Earth-Kingdom and discovered that this Superman had had a child by Wonder Woman. He kidnapped the child and journeyed to Earth-Zero where he hoped to create an identical explosion to the Kansas Incident in our era. It took the Superman, Wonder Woman and the Batman from both Earth-Zero and Earth-Kingdom to stop Gog and free the child with the help of Rip Hunter and the grown Jonathan Kent II (the kidnapped child). For the first time the heroes of both Earths realised that there were other Earths out there.
Connections with other apparent Earths would grow as Superman found himself caught up in a war between cosmic beings. For sometime Superman had had dealings with the entity called Kismet. She was a being that existed between the Lords of Order and Chaos, titled the Illuminator of the Ways, it is her job to show people the different paths that their actions may lead, the patterns that their destiny could form if they choose certain courses. She had previously appeared to Superman and Jonathan Kent.However she had a mysterious rival called Dominus who sought to replace her. Knowing her connection with Superman he put Superman into four different time periods modelled after the second world war, the 1950s, the 1970s and the far future. In each era Clark Kent became Superman and faced versions of his old foes.
Kismet intervened to stop the manipulations and was attacked by Dominus. She reverted to a healing state in a cocoon but Superman managed to break free. While Superman distracted Dominus Waverider took the dormant Kismet back into time and hid her in the body of Sharon Vance (a childhood friend of Clark who would have otherwise died in a playground accident had she note been joined with Kismet). Thwarted Dominus released Superman and vanished. In the meantime the Daily Planet had been under serious financial strain as circulation dropped. In its weakened state it was easy prey for a Lexcorp buy out. Luthor fired the majority of the staff including Clark Kent and Perry White while retaining Simone DeNeige, Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane and Dirk Armstrong. They were transferred to a new entity called LexCom, a free on-line news source updated around the clock operating primarily on the internet.
With just his syndicated column and his novel contract Clark began to spend more and more time as Superman. He also began to suffer from horrific dreams of disasters and destruction which began to come true. He began acting on his dreams stopping the disasters that he dreamed and even stopped sleeping to escape the nightmares. Pushed by those dreams he became more proactive and spent more and more time as Superman. What nobody knew was that the dreams were being manipulated by Dominus as he toyed with Superman for revenge. Clark's personality also began to shift under the manipulations as he lost his more reserved human side and became ruthlessly efficient. He even began interfering in the internal operations of countries as he deposed a dictator in a third world country starting a civil war.
As Superman became more and more active the world's media began to take notice and the United Nations even began to watch him more closely. Pushing himself further and further be found himself butting in everywhere. He even dumped his Clark Kent identity prompting Lois Lane to contact Batman and the Justice League to talk some sense into him. After an argument Clark warned the League to stay out of his way. Later Steel, Supergirl and Superboy tried to do the same thing, but met the same reception. As Superman solved every problem on the Earth he effectively made himself a super-guardian over riding national boundaries and international law. To further extend his influence he created a army of robots in his image that turned the Earth into a police state with him as the controller. His absence from Metropolis opened up space for Luthor to launch a youth movement called the Supermen of America that received Superman's tacit support. Led by an elite brigade they mirrored Superman's actions and became a world wide vigilante organisation under Luthor's control.
All the time Superman was driven by his nightmares to make the world a crime free utopia, but at the same time he began to loose the humanity that had always held his actions in check. With no other option the Department of Extranormal Operations and Lexcorp used a trap with synthetic Kryptonite to try and kill him. It failed and Superman responded by destroying the Lexcorp skyscraper and putting the upper portion of it (containing the Kryptonite experiments) into orbit. Shortly afterwards he confiscated the world's nuclear weapons and threw them into the Sun. That was the last straw and the UN authorised lethal force against Superman. In a battle royal the JLA, Steel, Superboy, and Supergirl faced off against Superman, the robots and the Supermen of America Elite Brigade. Superman left the robots and returned to the Fortress where he was confronted by Lois. Her pleas began to crack the illusions that Dominus had been using to control Superman. Before she could finish her pleas Luthor used the building the Superman had placed in orbit as a Kryptonite missile crashing it into the Fortress of Solitude.
Amid the devastation Superman regained his full senses and saw what Dominus had made him do. No longer needing him Dominus threw Superman into the Phantom Zone and would have killed Lois Lane had she not been saved by one of the Superman Robots. Drifting in the Phantom Zone Clark slept for the first time in months with out the nightmares fed to him by Dominus. In the Zone he encountered a trio of aliens who revealed to him that Dominus was once the lover of Kismet when they were both mortal. They were all priests together and one of they was to become the Illuminator of the Ways, Kismet was chosen over Dominus. This angered him so he swore to replace her. He sought out ancient magic and in the process destroyed his mortal form. To save him Kismet transferred him to the Phantom Zone where he found the holographic spectre of Kem-L (the Kryptonian that had first used the zone).
Thinking Dominus a friend Kem-L equipped him with Kryptonian technology to give him corporal form. Dominus escaped from the Zone when the Eradicator first created the Fortress and started in his pursuit of Kismet. The aliens told Superman that Dominus could only alter reality with images from people's waking minds. Forewarned Superman returned to normal reality with the help of Kem-El and was captured by Dominus. Dominus then hid Superman and began impersonating him. He convinced the JLA and UN that Superman's actions had been caused by Dominus and manipulated then into making him head of the search for the villain. In this guise Dominus made the image of Superman effectively King of the World as leader of the search for himself. In reality he was using the searches to look for Kismet. Lois Lane and Lex Luthor teamed up with Outburst to penetrate the citadel that Dominus had created in Metropolis. Once inside they found the real Superman hidden in the basement.
While he had been imprisoned Superman had used the time to perfect an ancient Kryptonian technique that allowed him to control his brain waves allowing him to go into a Theta State where his mind was so calm that Dominus could not pull images from it to manipulate. In the final battle Luthor and Lois managed to broadcast the struggle to the world showing Superman to by innocent. To capture Dominus Superman allowed him access to images of Krypton. He then kept changing the versions of Krypton over and over again meaning the Dominus became overloaded within his own realities. Kal-El then used a phantom zone projector from one of those realities to trap Dominus. Trapped in a phantom zone in an artificial reality of his own design Dominus was removed from all waking minds and his powers neutralised. Instantly Lois, Luthor and Superman found themselves back in normal reality.
Once the smoke had cleared Superman was back as Clark Kent, Lois and Jimmy were back at the Planet and Luthor was an enemy once more. However the trust that the world had in Superman was severally damaged. While relations with Wonder Woman and the League were easy to repair only continued good deeds and actions on his part would rebuild the trust that the world had in Superman.

Kunjungi www.investasi-saham.com untuk investasi saham dan bermain saham. Panduan Lengkap dalam Berinvestasi di Pasar Modal, Bursa Efek Indonesia, Saham, Obligasi, ORI, SUKUK, Reksadana, Derivatif, Investasi Syariah dan Produk Investasi Keuangan lainnya serta Belajar Menjadi Investor/ Trader (Main) Saham.