His world exploded before his birth. Propelled by a futuristic craft powered by a science beyond mans comprehension he arrived on a our world as a baby. Raised as a human by loving, caring parents who instilled in him the difference between right and wrong, he derives his powers from our yellow sun that give him enormous and unheard of abilities ! His massive strength and incomprehensible powers are matched only by the great and true heart that beats within his chest ! He is one of the most powerful champions for truth, justice , and the American way that has ever lived ! A man from the stars ever seeking to make the Earth his home, and to protect that home from evils no one else would have a glimmer of hope against ! He is the man of steel, the man of tomorrow...he is..

Superman #9

"....And in related news,"

By that Super kinda guy himself,

Ralph Angelo !

Superman, the man of steel has been on a bizarre tear of late. He's been sighted stopping a volcanoes lava flow from demolishing a Mexican village, to saving a dropping twin engined plane from certain destruction. What is driving the Man of Steel to ever dizzying displays of speed, and helpfulness this past month? He has always gone out of his way for the common man, but now he goes far beyond what any would even consider his so-called limits would be. He has been everywhere from Paris, stopping terrorists who had bombs rigged around the Eiffel tower, to saving an 8 year old girl who fell down a well in Mississippi. That is the question the world is asking itself tonight. This is Susan Steinmetz-Lebowitz reporting."

The lights fade as the blonde anchor woman stands from her desk and walks over to a soda machine. A few quarters are plopped into the machines hungry face, and a diet something or other is in her hand a moment later. She takes a long , unlady-like swig on the can as a young man approaches holding a pile of print outs.

"Sue, you should see this. Instant ratings are almost off the charts for tonights newscast. This is incredible!"

Sue smiles at the young man.

"You shouldn't be so surprised Bobbie, Supermans' been acting like a man on a mission for over a month now. This week alone he's stopped an avalanche in Paraguay, saved Earthquake survivors in Polynesia, stopped a monsoon threatening Okinawa, and grabbed a cadre of international spies crossing the Canadian border headed God knows where with all sorts of military secrets . I'd say he's working overtime, wouldn't you?"

Bobbie grins as he snakes his arm around her waist.

"I guess so Sues, so are we on for later? "

She looks around and gives him a quick kiss before continuing.

"I don't know hon, Jerry's getting home tonight from his trip, and I have to play the good little wife . I have to be there for hubby, if you know what I mean."

"I understand Sues."

The two separate and go on about their business, with the man looking over at his lover occasionally across the crowded room.

"Soon Sue, " Bobbie thinks to himself, "I'll do what you want, and we're going to be together forever then."

Across the globe, in the Pacific basin, a Submarine of decidedly nasty intent glides through frigid waters, its weapons armed, it approaches the undersea habitat known as "Realm". A joint American-Japanese subsea colony whose sole purpose is to scientifically investigate possible colonization techniques for both space and undersea. The colony is un-armed and totally a passive scientific research center. That doesn't stop the Sub from doing what it does next....

Fwoooosh!

With a roar of undersea thunder, twin torpedoes of death fly from the dark subs bow, to impact the dome covered dwelling instantly, splintering it like an egg shell! Within minutes the colony is destroyed, as survivors rush away in tiny two man escape pods

The sub turns and slowly makes its way after the pods, guns trained on the small, helpless escape vehicles, when suddenly---

"*Captain! W-We cannot move. The Sub has stopped dead in its tracks."

*Translated from the Chinese

"What are you saying ? More power to the engines! Free us from whatever is holding us here."

The pilot shakes his head quickly side to side.

"We are already at full speed Captain. Something is holding us in place."

The Captain moves to another console and activates a battery of cameras along the ships hull.

"NO! HIM!"

On the view screen is a familiar red and blue caped figure, holding the ship in place, as the propeller spins mightily. His eyes glow as beams of red energy leap from them, slagging the propeller .

His hands bite into the hull of the ship for better purchase, and he's suddenly flying upwards, carrying the ship out of the water , and into the air. Within moments, at a United States Naval base, the Sub is on dry land, as Superman tears the hatch open, and begins to drag the crew out man by man. Within moments the crew is surrounded by armed Navy officers, and Superman is talking to the OIC .

The usual posturing will ensue, denials and threats. In the end the Captain and his command crew will be tried by an international court and found guilty, while the general crew will be sent home in embarrassment, never to be heard from again.

Superman flies away, leaving all of this in others hands. His departing figure is seen once again on a TV screen, as Sue Steinmetz-Lebowitz continues reporting.

"And once again today, Superman quickly acted as international treaties were threatened by a supposedly rogue Submarine that destroyed the "Realm" subsea colony. The loss of life, while always catastrophic in any case , was kept to a minimum by Supermans timely intervention. Superman has acted selflessly for weeks now, being everywhere at every time. Almost like he has no existence other then to protect the innocent. While he has always performed as humanity's protector, of late he's stepped up his efforts, and has re-doubled his work ethic as it were, almost as would a man who has lost a loved one, and is trying to hide the hurt. Is this the case Superman? Have you lost someone dear to you? Or do you even have anyone of that sort in your life? You are called the man of Steel, is that your hearts composition as well? Only time will tell I suppose. This is Sue Steinmetz-Lebowitz reporting. Have a good evening."

A slender hand shuts the TV set with a tap of a remote, as the anchor woman disappears from view. The hand holding the remote drops it, as the lithe woman stands and walks towards a window. Moving the curtain aside, the brown haired beauty stares out into the Las Vegas afternoon, a single tear running down her cheek. Behind her , an empty bottle of wine rests on a night table.

"Oh Clark." Lois Lane begins, "what have I done?"

Back in Metropolis Superman flies silently over Hobbs bay, before gently landing in front of "Bibbos' Ace 'O clubs" Opening the door, Superman enters and heads topwars the bar amid the stunned clientle. The proprietor comes out from the behind the bar with a big grin on his face.

"My fravrit! Hello Sooperman!"

Superman smiles , but it's not his usual jovial grin. It's pained.

"Hello Bibbo, how are you?"

Bibbo frowns while looking at his friends face.

"I guess um better'n you Supes. What's eatin' you buddy? What happened?"

Superman sighs, but then begins to tell Bibbo about his recent problems.

"Bibbo, there's someone in my life, a woman, who's left me of late. She hasn't said she won't return, in fact she pretty much guaranteed she would. But she's been gone a month now, which is a lot longer then I thought she would be. Anyway, what I came down here for was your perspective on this whole situation. You're a friend of mine , who's probably more street wise then any other, and I assumed you might have a better view of this situation form the outside looking in."

Bibbo smiles and slaps Superman on the back.

"You wanted MY help?? Me? Well there's a good reason yer my favrit! And I'm gonna tell ya what I think... Now what happened ta this dame, why'd she leave ya, didja have a fight or somethin'?"

Superman sits at the bar, and Bibbo gets him a club soda while he goes around to his usual spot behind the bar.

"No fight Bibbo, she had a job related problem, and felt that she lost her worth because of it. The thing is, I can not seem to understand what she hopes to gain by running off like this. If I could only be with her I could help her work this all out."

Bibbo holds his chin in thought, then grasps his ever present cap and pulls it off his head, crumpling it in one motion and scratching his head with the same hand.

"Mebbe, mebbe she don't want yer help fer once Sooperman. Mebbe she needs ta work out dis mess herself. Mebbe she want's ta do dis witout' leanin' on yer shoulders. I tink dis has nothin' ta do wit you personally , but I bet it all has ta do wit her. I tink she'll be comin' back to ya when she gets her head screwed on right, don't sweat it. Dere's someting's ya just can't help peoples wit. Is dat why youse been tryin' ta be everywhere at once? Tryin' ta help out everybody everywhere? Cause a yer dame makin' ya feel helpless in a way?"

Superman smiles, this time genuinely, as he stands up from the bar and takes one last pull on his club soda.

"I knew coming to you for advice was a good idea Bibbo . You're a far more intelligent man then most give you credit for, and more importantly, your a good friend."

Superman shakes Bibbos' hand, as the stunned patrons look on while the Man of Steel exits the establishment, and flies into the waning daylight.

High above Metropolis Superman cuts through the early evening sky, when suddenly his super acute hearing detects the sound of gunfire, arcing away and down towards the sound, as his super vision focuses , first with telescopic, and then with X-Ray he scans the area he first heard the sharp retorts of gunfire from, and pinpoints the spot immediately!

"Good God , NO!" He shouts as he streaks towards the spot. Smashing through a wall in a well to do suburban home, Superman comes upon a scene of nightmare , A young man stands aiming a gun at a familiar womans head. She kneels , holding an already dead mans body on the floor as she weeps.

"Oh no." she cries repeatedly, as Superman , faster then the human eye can see snaps the gun from the young mans hand and crushes it, grasping the man by the collar, he slaps him into a chair, stunning him unconscious with barely a tap.

The womans sobs uncontrollably, as Superman walks over to a phone and calls the necessary authorities.

Later....

Ambulances pull away from the shattered home, as the distraught woman is brought to the hospital , and the murderer is taken into custody. Superman talks with SCU chief Dan Turpin, who heard the call on his police radio . And knowing Superman was involved arrived at the scene moments after the call was put in.

"Dan, that woman , she's very familiar. Where have I seen her?"

Turpin snorts derisively ,

"Her names Sue Steinmetz-Lebowitz, she's that lady news anchor on the CNS network who's been reportin' on you the past month. Seems she had a few ghosts in her closet . Guess she shoulda been more worried about her own dirty laundry, and not yours huh?"

Superman shakes his head sadly, as the body is wheeled out of the home on a covered stretcher

"All I've done in the past month, all the major catastrophes I averted, and this one ,so close to home I couldn't stop."

"Hey, Yer called Super-MAN, not God! Stop tryin' ta blame yerself for everything in the world. This poor sap had no idea his ol' lady was cheatin' on him, probably was off somewhere alla the time workin' his butt off, while she made a career fer herself, then started ta feel neglected when he was doin' the business trip route ta keep her in diamonds and champagne. Ya don't know, that's my point. Ya can't be everywhere at once, and even though ya can fly to the moon and back faster then I can put my socks on in the mornin' , yer still one man. The whole world ain't yer responsibility alla the time. Learn yer limits big blue, you got 'em too ya know."

For the second time in an hour Superman is humbled by one of his friends wisdom. Clasping Turpins hand he shakes it and without another word alights into the night, heading home for perhaps his first real nights sleep in a month. Little does he know it may be his last for some time.

Epilogue: The lab/home of Emil Hamilton. Another of Supermans longtime friends sleeps heavily. It seems that's become a habit of Emils' of late. One he can't understand the why for. Slowly, like a mechanical spider, his cybernetic hand detaches itself from his arm and crawls across the room to a communication device on the far side . Once there the hand extrudes a prong and plugs itself in. Within moments a screen hums to life as a shadowed figure appears on the monitor.

"Is all in readiness my ally?" A voice seems to roar quietly from the screen.

"Yes." answers one mechanically created by the hand. "All the ground work has been laid. When your timetable is begun, this world, as well as the Kryptonian will be ours!"

"Good . Then let our assault begin as scheduled."

The monitor shuts down, and the hand crawls back into place , as Hamilton rolls over restlessly.

Next: The Company wide crossover called "Cold Armageddon" begins here!

Kryptonian Komments

C/O CptMarvell@aol.com


Finally got around to reading SM#8 today. I must say, very, very nice. A
good blending of the best old and new elements of this classic Superman
villain. I wish real DC would follow suit. I trust that Brainiac will be
showing up in your up coming big space villain cross-over? He certainly
qualifies as a space based threat with an Earth grudge. The Clark/Lois thing
was a good touch. The letter itself was a little... clunky in places. You
are a talented writer my friend, but I don't think you've quite got the hang
of speaking as a women. It just "sounded" like a man writing what he thought
a woman would say, not a woman baring her soul to her husband. Not that I
think it diminishes the issue, or that I've thought you were writing Lois
badly to this point, or that I thought the letter itself was badly done. It
was in character and all, it just didn't "sound" like it came from a woman
to me.

Miry




Hey buddy! Well, I loved seeing the new Brainiac being such a major
threat to even Superman and Maxima combined. Luthor's righteous
indignation toward the aliens playing him for a fool was very well
done. The epilogue, however, was truly powerful. I have to admit, Clark
scared me pretty badly there. I can't wait until next issue! Speaking
of which, has the most recent Captain Marvel been finished? Someone
told me so, and I'd love to see it if it has. Keep up the great work!


TJB

Thanks for the comments guys! Miry, I'll be working on the writng like a woman thing, (though I don't believe I have a "feminine side", so I may never be able to write one properly) :-)  And TJ, I hope this issue answered everything you were wondering about.

Till next time

--Ralph