Chapter One:
From Out The Green Dawn…
The Man Of Steel # 1
July 1986
Written and drawn by John Byrne
'Superman' created by Jerry Seigel and Joe Shuster
Cut to a planet in the middle of space, light years away from earth.
The sky is bright green, lit up by a glowing red sun. The buildings golden yellow, reaching up into the sky, and look almost crystal-like.
A small ship races towards one of the buildings, shaped unlike anything ever seen on earth.
Through a window it flies, greeted by floating, insect-like robots. The door of the ship opens, and a man steps out of it.
He is dressed from head to toe in a black material. The only skin visible his face and fingers. His crystal-blue eyes have a look of sadness to them.
ROBOT: Welcome home, my lord. I trust your journey was a successful one?
MAN: It was, and it was not, Kelex. I have learned what there is to learn. I only wish I had not. Where is the child?
The man walks down a long hallway, with Kelex slowly floating after him.
KELEX: Following your earlier instructions, I have placed the matrix in the third level laboratory, sire.
MAN: Good. I will go straight there. If…when the lady Lara calls, please guide her to me.
He continues down the hallway alone. Kelex begins talking with another robot similar to itself.
ROBOT # 2: The master is deeply troubled, Kelex. You have served him all his life, much longer than I. Have you deduced the origin of his distress?
KELEX: Everyone on Krypton seems distressed, Kelor. But it is beyond the range of my programming to comprehend the cause.
*****
The man continues walking down the corridor until he comes to a metal-crystal mesh basket. Inside is a blue egg-shaped shape.
He walks towards the shape and looks at in tenderly. Within the ‘egg’, something begins to move. The features of an infant child appear within the sphere.
MAN: My…son…
LARA: JOR-EL!!
Jor-el quickly turns towards where his name was called. Standing behind him is a woman dressed very similar to himself. She has a look of panic in his eyes.
LARA: Then it is true! When I heard…when I was told, I could not believe it! But you really did it! You really sent one of your servants to remove the matrix from the gestation chambers!
Jor-el looks at her intently and moves towards her.
JOR-EL: I did. Am I not entitled to do so if I wish, Lara? I am the child’s father. By Kryptonian law I have the right to remove him.
LARA: You speak of a law that has not been invoked for centuries, Jor-el. Why do you invoke it now? Has the tragedy that besets our world robbed you of your sanity? Is this why you endanger the life of our unborn child?
Outside, a green mist begins to rise from beneath the ground.
JOR-EL: ‘Endanger’? What I mean to do will not endanger him, Lara. He will survive. Long after all of Krypton is a shattered ruin, our son will survive.
Jor-el lowers his eyes in sadness, while Lara moves towards him…attempting to understand.
LARA: Wh-what? Even now our greatest physicians seek a cure for the plague, which is destroying us. Within days…
Jor-el cuts her off.
JOR-EL: …Krypton will be no more. I, too, have been seeking the answer, the terrible secret behind this green death, which has already claimed uncounted millions of us, Lara.
Outside, the mist starts appearing more frequently. And the ground begins to glow a bright green.
JOR-EL: Not one hour ago I returned from a journey that had taken me all across the face of our world, and I have discovered the cause of our calamity. A chain-reaction within the core of Krypton has caused vast pressures to build within the planet’s crust. Thos unnatural pressures are fusing the native elements into a new metal. A radioactive metal. It is that radiation that is killing us all, Lara. And as if that were not enough…that same pressure, as it builds and builds within our world, will soon be too much for the rocky mantle to contain. Within a day, perhaps within as little as an hour, Krypton will explode!
At that revelation, Lara begins to panic.
LARA: N-no! That cannot be! We have been ABSOLUTE masters of this world for thousands of years! It does not rain, but that WE permit it! Now you say the world will destroy us?
JOR-EL: Perhaps it is fitting, Lara. As you say, we control the planet. We have filled every nook and cranny, conquered and harnessed every force of nature… And in the end, what have we achieved?
He looks at her with a sense of determination.
JOR-EL: Sterility, a cold and heartless society, stripped of all human feeling, all human passion and life.
LARA: Y-you…you speak obscenities!
JOR-EL: No, Lara. I speak of what was a hundred thousand years ago. I speak of a fullness of life we have denies ourselves…but which I shall give back to our son!
Lara covers her mouth with her hand.
LARA: What do you mean? If Krypton is doomed as you say, our child is doomed also.
Jor-el walks towards a machine in the middle of the room.
JOR-EL: No, Lara. No. Sealed within the matrix orb, he has been shielded from the poisonous radiation. True, the orb could not survive the explosion of our planet…but it is resilient enough to survive a journey through hyperspace.
LARA: What?
Jor-el motions towards the machine.
JOR-EL: Come, see for yourself what has occupied my every waking hour, since first I suspected the fat of our world, months ago.
He presses a button on the control panel, which causes a hologram of a planet to appear above their heads. Forms into the familiar blue-and-green appearance of the planet Earth.
Jor-el motions to the hologram.
JOR-EL: Across the reaches of space I have searched, and found at last a distant world, a world not unlike Krypton of millennia past. A world the natives call…Earth.
She looks at the image, her face twisted into a look of part awe, part fear.
LARA: It looks so…so wild, so uncontrolled, what manner of beings could dwell on such a world?
Jor-el presses another button, and the image changes. It now shows a wheat field, with shirtless farmers bailing hay.
JOR-EL: See for yourself. In a nation called America, in a sub-section called Kansas…
Upon seeing this, Lara screams out in terror.
LARA: OH-HHHH!!!!!
She covers her eyes and turns away…horrified and disgusted. Jor-el goes to her…concerned.
JOR-EL: Lara…what’s wrong?
She uncovers her eyes and looks up at him.
LARA: Th-that savage! He…he bares his naked flesh…his hairy flesh…bares it to the air! He…touches unprocessed soil! Oh, Jor-el, what kind of hell do you seek to send our child into?
Jor-el presses another button on the panel, and the image changes again.
This time into a close-up of Earth’s sun.
JOR-EL: Not a hell, Lara. For him at least, more of a heaven. For the planet called Earth orbits a yellow star. Exposed to the radiation of that star, his Kryptonian cells will become living solar batteries, making him grow ever more powerful. In time he will become the supreme being on that planet, almost a god!
Lara’s eyes start to light up again.
LARA: Then…he will rule them? He will shape them to proper Kryptonian ways?
They walk back towards the matrix, where Kelex and Kelor and constructing something around it. It now resembles a rocket.
JOR-EL: Perhaps. But, see now. My servants have almost completed the adaptation of the matrix. The hyper-light drive has been attached.
LARA: But…Jor-el, is there no time for reconsidering? Is there no other way for our child to…
At that moment, the ground beneath them starts to rumble.
JOR-EL: No, Lara. There is no more time for anything at all. The eruptions have begun.
Outside, the ground begins to erupt. Giant geysers of green glowing fire appear from the ground. Buildings start to collapse, and people are running in a panic.
Back inside, Lara looks out in terror.
LARA: Oh no! Oh, no no no! Per…perhaps this is not the end! Perhaps it is only…only…
Jor-el runs across the room to another control panel, switching on the main panel.
JOR-EL: No, Lara. Do not clutch at straws. Krypton is doomed. Only our child can hope to save the legacy of all that was once great in our world. I must launch the capsule…NOW!
He presses one last button, and exhaust forms beneath the rocket. With one burst of flame, it shoots into the air.
JOR-EL: Farewell, my son. Farewell!!
*****
The rocket continues to travel, speeding faster with each passing second. Around it, the eruptions continue. Becoming louder and higher, the entire sky seems covered with explosions.
*****
Back inside…
LARA: And so it must end, Jor-el? In fire, and pain, and madness? Without my ever knowing…the touch of my child’s hand?
JOR-EL: Lara…we…we are together, at least, at the last.
She looks on out the window and the world being destroyed around them.
LARA: Jor-el?
He moves close to her as she turns to face him.
JOR-EL: From the moment I was first shown your holo-image, and told your seed and mine would be mingled in the matrix, I have felt an unknown emotion stirring in my heart.
He uses one hand to hold hers, and the other to touch the side of her face.
JOR-EL: Our world has not had a place for what I feel. Not in a hundred centuries. But I have studied well the habits of the earthlings, and I have learned from them an understanding of what I feel. And even though we die, I am content, so long as we die together…for I have always loved you.
And with that, he kissed her.
*****
The ship flew higher still. Then, as soon as it left the upper atmosphere…
…Krypton exploded it a burst of green flame.
As it sped away, a small green rock attaches to the base of the ship.
Then it flew into the depths of space.