Superman & Batman: Generations #3

Issue Details

Synopsis

1979: TWILGHT OF THE GODS As Lois Lane is in the hospital undergoing treatments for cancer, she rejoices with her husband Clark that the marriage of Bruce Wayne Jr. and Kara Kent is now public news. Dr. Holurt enters the room, promising that he will enable Lois to live long enough to see the wedding. Leaving Lois in Dr. Holurt's care while he returns to take care of the Daily Planet, Clark changes into Superman, revealing that his human old age is nothing more than mere makeup used to hide his still-youthful appearance. Flying into the newspaper's storage room, Superman hides back in the makeup of "old" Clark Kent as he emerges from it.  On board Brainiac's ship, Bruce Jr. as Batman and Kara as Supergirl work together to prevent the computerized tyrant from taking over Earth by causing his ship to implode. After Batman performed his "tinkering" with the ship, Supergirl pushed it far from Earth's orbit before it collapsed in on itself, grabbing Batman's ship to keep him from being sucked into the singularly the collapsed ship created prior to its explosion.   Meanwhile on Earth in Metropolis, Jimmy Olsen tells Clark Kent that he is retiring from the Daily Planet and will soon go on to work as a novelist. In the Himalayas, Bruce Wayne finds himself taken captive by the very being he was seeking for -- Ra's al-Ghul. Back in Gotham, Bruce Jr.'s mother visits him, saying that she will never miss out on her son's wedding just because she and her former husband had differences. During the visit, as Bruce Jr.'s mother goes back inside his penthouse apartment to get the wedding present she intended to show him, Kara shows up in her Supergirl costume, removing her black wig and taking Bruce Jr. high above the building to make love with him, dropping her Supergirl costume on Bruce Jr.'s mother as she re-emerges. In yet another place, a warrior in a green and purple battle suit prepares himself and tries to bring comfort to an Asian woman protesting his desire before he flies off.   The wedding finally takes place at Wayne Manor, and everyone is in happy spirits, with Dr. Holurt invited to the event as repayment for his services in keeping Lois alive. Suddenly, a man wearing green and purple armor attacks Clark Kent with Kryptonite radiation, making it impossible for him to breathe, and exposing Clark as Superman. Kara quickly changes into Supergirl in public, believing the masked armored man to be Luthor, and is ready to confront him, but he blasts her away a great distance with a powerful burst of energy from his chest. After he flies off to deal with Supergirl, Clark and Lois find themselves trapped in a force field with Dr. Holurt. As Bruce Jr. goes off in the hopes of going after Luthor, Dr. Holurt reveals himself to be Luthor, casually pushing the weakened Clark aside and breaking Lois' neck before he transports himself away.   The armored man finds Supergirl at a spot where she crashed down and causes his armor to break apart, revealing himself to be Joel Kent, believed to be dead but is now alive. He tells Kara that though his troops shot him and left him for dead, a Vietnamese woman found him and nursed him back to life. When she contacted Lex Luthor, whom Joel considered to be a father to him, she came home with Joel and became his wife. It is then that Joel engages in a fight with his sister Kara, saying that their father purposely exposed him to Gold Kryptonite for fear that his son would have greater powers than his own -- powers that Lex Luthor had seemingly restored unto Joel, which he demonstrates by plunging his hand into Kara's chest, ripping her heart out.   As Batman finds and mourns over his dead wife's corpse, Joel returns unto Luthor, finding his body beginning to shrivel up. Luthor then revealed to Joel that it's the side effect of the formula that he gave to Joel that restored his powers, a side effect that he claimed Superman had lied about when he told his son he couldn't find any way to restore his powers without killing him. Superman soon after arrived, finding his son dead and angry enough to kill Luthor when Luthor transports himself away yet again, revealing his form to be nothing more than a hologram. Joel's wife Mei-Lai Kent appears, showing Superman his grandson -- her and Joel's son -- whom he discovers also has no powers. Bruce Wayne Jr. as Batman shows up, telling Clark that his grandson will no longer carry the burden that Joel did, and also saying that even as they both suffered losses in their families, this may be the opportunity for them to rebuild and start anew. 1989: CRIME AND PUNISHMENT President Harold Jordan watches in disbelief a transmitted video recording of Superman, now with graying temples and a black border around his S-symbol, as he strikes Lex Luthor dead with a piece of metal piercing through his body and hitting the computer behind him, electrocuting him. He knew Superman had undergone such a tragedy, losing family members and having his secret identity exposed, which would eventually drive Superman to such an extreme drastic action. Nevertheless, the President takes his cabinet to a secret place built at great taxpayers' cost, where it houses a sample of Green Kryptonite that Superman had entrusted the United States Presidents since the time he gave it to Richard Nixon to use in case Superman would ever become a danger to humanity. However, upon reaching the chamber which required the use of special radioactive suits to even approach, the President discovers that the Kryptonite sample is gone.   Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne Jr. as Batman flies the Batplane toward Superman's Fortress of Solitude with the stolen Kryptonite sample, ready to use against Superman should he find him inside the fortress. Unfortunately, his tri-di scanner is unable to pick up Superman's unique bio-signature in the fortress, so Batman resorts to a bit of vandalism of the fortress artifacts to get Superman's attention, though he pauses when he sees the statue of his dead wife Kara as Supergirl. Superman suddenly emerges and fights Bruce Jr., who then notices that the Man of Steel isn't fighting at his full strength and is now sustaining wounds from Batman's blows. Superman then tells Bruce Jr. that he is now no longer Kryptonian, that his powers had been stripped away.   Superman explains how this happened: as he had spent the past ten years looking for Lex Luthor and not being able to find him, he suddenly discovers him hiding out in a metallic structure and flies in, ready to deal him justice. Luthor then shows Superman various deaths that have occurred since he had been so busy tracking down Luthor: first Jimmy Olsen, then his wife Lucy, then their two children, then Perry White Jr. -- deaths that he himself had orchestrated. As Superman grabs Luthor out of the wheelchair singlehandedly, he groans in pain as his shoulder is now dislocated. Luthor reveals that the gold cuffs he is wearing are made of Gold Kryptonite, and that the wheelchair is simply to help him conserve energy long enough for him to exchange minds with Superman. This part leaves Superman puzzled until Luthor tells him that the person inhabiting Luthor's body is actually his old nemesis, the Ultra-Humanite.   He now takes Superman back to their last encounter to explain how he survived: as the rocket he and his henchman Lex Luthor tried to escape in was destroyed, his robot servants found the bodies of both the Ultra-Humanite and Luthor in the wreckage. Ultra-Humanite's body was destroyed, but his brain is still alive, whereas Luthor's brain was destroyed, but his body survived. Using his robot servants, the Ultra-Humanite surgically transplanted his brain into Luthor's body, but as there was a glitch, the transplant was imperfect, and the Ultra-Humanite was stuck in a body that was aging. Now the Ultra-Humanite has the equipment to transfer minds between bodies, with which he hopes to use to transfer his mind into Superman's body and gain all his powers.   As Superman tried to stop Ultra-Humanite from using the machine, he finds out that the villain has encased him in an electrical cage where he hopes to keep him in until the transference is complete. Superman realizes at this point there is no way out until he sees a piece of metal on the floor next to him, and so distracts the Ultra-Humanite by getting him to tell Superman how he managed to evade him all those years. The Ultra-Humanite simply tells Superman that he skipped over the years through a time warp he created. As the villain gets ready to use the mind-transferring machine, Superman picks up the piece of metal and strikes the Ultra-Humanite, hoping to pin him to the machine. Instead, he accidentally caused it to electrocute his adversary, which shut down the electrical cage. Superman then used one of the Ultra-Humanite's flying machines to retreat to the Fortress of Solitude, only to discover that the villain had his death purposely recorded in order to frame Superman and then had the machines' electrical components fused beyond repair to destroy all evidence of Superman's innocence.   Despite this, Superman chose to appear before a governmental grand jury and declare himself guilty of killing the Ultra-Humanite as Lex Luthor, stating that he feared his emotional state at the time may have led him to commit this action. With the judge unable to sentence Superman to a suitable punishment for Earth criminals, Batman presents an alternative for his case: ten years in the Phantom Zone. As the judge permits, Batman activates the Phantom Zone projector and watches as his friend and mentor vanishes, saying that hopefully in ten years Batman will make the world a better place.