His world exploded before his birth. Propelled by a futuristic craft powered by a science beyond mans comprehension he arrived on 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 #26

All the kings horses...

By Ralph L. Angelo Jr.

A warmly glowing hand touched Superman's shoulder as the owner of that hand spoke. "Superman, we have to talk"

With a move faster then the eye could see, Superman backhanded the figure from his sitting position atop the rooftop corner, smashing the unseen being backwards, through a brick chimney, obliterating it instantly.

"I told you to leave me alone, Luthor." Superman uncharacteristically growled as he stood. He was bedraggled. A stubble of a beard covered his face, his cape was in tatters, and his costume dirty. He had been through so much the last two days. His wife's death. His newborn son being artificially grown to adulthood and used as a weapon against him by Brainiac. His fathers subsequent death at Braniacs hand, and finally his sons death as well, and then his maddened unleashing of the full scope of his powers and fury at the mechanical demon who had bogged his way for so long, ending in that creatures ultimate destruction, being burnt to atoms and beyond. It was enough to drive a man mad, more then enough in fact.

He stomped like a juggernaut towards the crumpled figure in the bricks and pulled it out by one hand. Raising the other up in a balled fist to smite his opponent once more, and then Superman stops, his eyes go wide and he stares incredulously at the man he holds like a rag doll in his hand.

"You!" Is all he can say...

"Futura City, the world of tomorrow. A new beacon towards the future, as its name implies. At least it will be if it is ever completed." The man speaking turns back from his window overlooking Futura and back to his guest, Gold'n. "It is a city in need of a champion, my dear, a city in need of you."

"I-I don't know what to say."

"What is not to know my dear? Say yes. You will be compensated handsomely. Your own penthouse apartment, money to do with as you will. Your only responsibility is to the welfare and well being of my new city."

"So I'd be like your own private police force?"

"No, no my dear. More like my cities own private security detail. You would protect Futura City from all manner of evils that even now seek to attack us as you have seen with that monster Catalyst." Matthias Strombolt paused and silently lowered his considerable bulk into his chair, his tufts of red hair bouncing slightly as he seats himself.

"I-I'll have to think about it Mr. Strombolt. I really have to give this some thought. I mean I'm Superman's partner and all. I don't want to leave him in the lurch.

"Child, Superman did his work long before you ever showed up. Believe me, in his mind you need him far more then he needs you."

He leans back in his chair and smiles warmly at the glowing golden girl who silently begins to reflect on this.

Back in Metropolis, Superman holds the figure he batted away by the front of his shirt, then carefully puts the man down so he is standing on his own two feet again. "What are you doing here, Waverider?" The man of Steel asks the glowing figure before him.

"Uhhh, before you pounded me nearly to death, I was going to offer you my aid. I can help you Superman."

"Help me how? What can you do for me? My family is dead, killed by a monster; the world knows my identity. My life here is ruined."

"What if I can change all that?"

"Just like that? That easily?"

"No, not that easily. I can make it right, change what happened, but there is a cost to it."

"There always is. What is it Waverider? What is the cost to get my life back in order? To make things right again."

"There's no easy way around this Superman. For all this madness to go away, you'll have to die."

The man of steel stares stoically at Waverider, the man who rides time like a surfer on the ocean, and furrows his brow.

The Daily Planet building. Inside, Jimmy Olsen types a few last words then hits print on the computer screen before him. Behind him stands Perry White. Sadly reading the words as Olsen was typing them.

"Damn fine bit of work Olsen. It's a shame you had to start your journalistic career writing about Superman's life being ruined."

"I know Mr. White, but better me then someone who doesn't know him, I owe him that much. He's my friend, and I didn't want just anyone writing about him this way."

"I know Jimmy, he will appreciate it, I'm sure. You did very good Olsen, very good. C'mon son, lets get out of here. It's late, and tomorrow's a brave new day for everyone. We have no idea what it will bring."

Superman stared at Waverider, his face unemotional. "I have to die? That will put everything back where it should be? My life, my family will survive? But I won't. I don't see I have any choice. I'll do anything to bring them all back, whatever the cost. I'm not even surprised."

"You misunderstand me Superman, you will cease to exist, but Superman will live on. "

"What are you talking about?" The man of steel asks his eyes red from stress and sorrow.

"I can take you back in time to the moment Brainiac attacked, and it has to be that exact moment for this to work, and you can stop his attack on Lois and yourself. But once you defeat him, if you can even in your current state- "

"Make no mistake about it mister, I can and will."

"Okay so you will. Getting back to what I was saying, When you defeat him, you will cease to exist. You'll die. You'll fade away. But the other you, the one who will still have Lois and your son and your father all intact will live on."

"I have no choice in this at all, Waverider. If there's even a glimmer of hope that three of the people closest to me in the world will continue to live, I HAVE To do this."

The former Matthew Rider sighs, his glowing mane bobs slightly as he does. "I knew you'd have that answer Superman. I just wanted you to know what would be involved, so we were clear on this."

"We're as clear as we're ever going to be, Waverider. Let's get this over with. If I die, at least Superman will live on, and it will still be me, and my family will be right beside me."

"Alright lets begin then." Waverider grasps Superman's shoulder as he begins to move the fabric of time. "I'm sorry about having to touch you, but I have to be in direct physical contact for something so delicate like this.

"I understand completely Waverider. Continue with what you have to do."

Slowly, before Superman's very eyes time slows and stops, then begins to rewind, as if he were watching a tape going in reverse. He stands stoically, watching his son die again, his father then as time begins to rewind to the spot where Lois dies Waverider shouts "NOW!" and releases Superman, who is suddenly hurtling uncontrolled through Metropolis's skyline, instantly the man of Steel gets his bearings about him and stops his flight, then he scans the air above his city, almost immediately he sees what he is looking for, without any hesitation he hurls himself at practically light speed into the giant head ship as it is about slam it's steely tentacles into the room where Lois is about to give birth. With a roar of anguish, Superman shatters the hull of the ship, and begins to attack Brainiac!

"You will not succeed Brainiac, and your scourge ends here once and forever!" Superman punctuates his last word with a punch to the gleaming, multi faceted Brainiac robots head that shakes the ship like an earthquake!

"Your reign of terror is now forever over, monster. There will be no more from you, ever again. No more deaths, no more sorrow. No more period."

"This is unprecedented." The cold calculating voice of Brainiac responds as Superman blasts it full in the face with heart ray vision so powerful it turns the room into a raging stars core! Everything turns white hot, as the nanobots that control Brainiac's regeneration are tasked beyond their capacity to heal. "How could you have known I would attack you? I am Brainiac. All my calculations are absolute. There was no conceivable way you could have known I would come for your child. It is illogical to believe I erred, and yet somehow I did." The cold, mechanical voice continues to try to understand what is happening to it even as Superman tears its left arm off in a Herculean display of force and begins to batter the robot with its own practically indestructible appendage, all the while continually blasting his heat ray vision into the ship at it's full unfettered fury!

Control consoles explode; the interior turns to slag. All around the combatants the room is white hot and metal runs like water, as both are thigh deep in the stuff.

"NO!" A mental blast from Brainiac explodes in Superman's head! "You will not defeat me! I will have your child, and through him dominion over the universe!"

"No monster your day is done, I promise you that." Superman punctuates this with a double handed blow from above, smashing Brainiac into the molten steel at their feet headfirst. Then Superman inhales mightily and expels frigid, freezing air, as cold as the depths of space itself, freezing Brainiac into the bulkhead, his head and shoulders are no longer visible.

"I have to move fast" Thinks Superman, "as soon as his nanobots repair themselves and begin to repair the damage I've done, he'll be able to reform himself in another part of the ship. Right now it's so damaged he's trapped, this HAS TO buy me enough time!"

Spinning his indestructible body like a drill, Superman shatters the inner hull heading out, leaving a gaping hole in the hull that is not repairing itself, so catastrophic was the damage he has done. Then he grasps several flailing tentacles and rockets towards the Sun, dragging the powerless headship behind him.

In his mind he hears a whimpering pleading, "Superman let me go, please. It is I, Milton Fine. Please release me. I have been trapped in Brainiacs mind for so long. Please Superman."

"No Brainiac. It won't work you are done your kind of horror can only be dealt with in one way. Permanently. That much you have taught me." Superman replies in thought, knowing the failing robotic horror can hear him.

Superman, the last son of Krypton turns towards Earth one last time staring at it, knowing his beloved Lois is alive down there, as well as his father and his newborn son, and he smiles. Then he turns towards the Sun and plunges in, dragging the slowly decomposing head ship in with him.

"Waaaahhhh!" The baby cries as the Doctor smacks its rear end, and hands the child to Clack Kent and his tired but excitedly beaming wife Lois. Both are happy, so amazingly happy. It is something that Clark never thought to experience, and yet he has.  Lois holds the baby and notices Clark turn towards the window suddenly.

"What is it? Do you have to go?" she whispers.

"No. Never now, no matter what there are other heroes on patrol who can handle things, but it's not that. I just felt as if something was about to happen. As if I heard something, or rather felt like someone was walking on my grave. It was not a good feeling, but it's gone now. Probably just nerves from the stress of all this."

His tired wife smiles "Stress? The man of steel is stressed?" she quietly mocks him. "Buck up, Smallville." She kids him as she begins to hand the child back to him.

A moment later their parents walk through the door, the Kents and the Lanes as well as Lois' sister Lucy and her husband Ron Troupe. That night they are visited by their many friends, and all is right in Metropolis, and in Superman's world.

Epilogue: He floats outside their hospital, easily a half mile up, staring into the room with his telescopic vision. He is unshaven and ragged. His always in place hair is now everywhere. He turns towards a glowing figure who floats next to him. "You said I would cease to exist. You said my pain would be over, that Superman would live on, and that everything would be all right again. You lied to me Waverider, you lied!"

"Now hold on Superman," Waverider begins, holding both hands out in front of himself. "Everything I know about time travel and dimensional flux says you should not exist right now. That you should have dissipated into the time stream. I don't know what went wrong. Your kryptonian make up maybe, or the fact that I took you back in time I don't know It could even be all the energies that Brainiac exposed you to, the Kryptonite he used. I don't know. But you seem as healthy as ever. I-I don't know what to do for you."

Superman grabs him by the front of his shirt. "What do you mean you don't know what to do for me? You have to do something or I'll go mad! Fix this!"

Waverider casts his gaze aside. "Superman, I can't I can't do anymore. Don't you see? We tried to fix things and this is the outcome I can't keep trying to cheat fate. I honestly don't know what to do here."

"My. God." Superman speaks slowly. "So I now have no home, no life, no wife. I am an unknown outsider in my own world. What do I do Waverider, where do I go? How do I start over?"

Waverider doesn't answer as he quietly furrows his brow, then he turns towards the devastated Superman and quietly says, "Come with me. I know where to take you." And in a flashing nimbus of light, both men disappear.

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