Chapter Summaries

Lex Luthor learned that a drunk witness had likely seen a small spaceship during the meteor shower and sought military help to capture him. Meanwhile, David revealed to Clark that meteorite-derived substances could still weaken him, leaving Clark warned but recovering his strength.

• Lex Luthor assembled experts who judged that the drunk witness was probably telling the truth, then called General Ryan to offer assistance capturing a special living organism.
• David warned Clark that Super Hearing could be exploited by enemies, even though Clark believed his powers made him safe without meteorites.
• David asked whether powdered stone still counted as stone, prompting Clark to remember that his wish had made the meteorites disappear.
• David showed Clark a test tube of fluorescent green Meteorite Solution, which made Clark weak until David put it away.
• David explained that laboratories had researched the meteorites and that their byproducts might still exist, warning Clark that they could threaten him.

Clark learned that Glenmorgan had planned to bomb a high-speed train, then stopped it at King's Platform and collapsed from exhaustion. The military took the unconscious Clark away, leaving David and Jonathan to watch the news in alarm.

• David warned Clark to be careful around Kryptonite, then went home to rest while Clark helped Chloe with her work.
• Clark overheard Glenmorgan and Olson arranging a bomb attack on a city high-speed train and rushed to King's Platform after learning which train they had targeted.
• Clark searched the speeding AZ187 train for the bomb but could not find it or its sensor, so he went to the next platform to stop the train himself.
• Clark caught the train with his force field and stopped it without injuring its passengers, then fell unconscious.
• A television report said the military had taken Clark away, and David rose from the sofa in alarm.

Lex Luthor and General Sam Lane captured Clark and prepared to test his biology, while Clark’s family learned of his capture. David rushed to the scene, where he confronted the soldiers as Lois arrived.

• Lex Luthor watched the restrained, unconscious Clark and argued with General Sam Lane about how he had been captured.
• Sam Lane ordered a blood sample, and Luthor questioned how they could pierce Clark’s skin.
• Martha and Jonathan revealed they had suspected Clark was Superman, and Jonathan urged David to bring him home safely.
• David sped to Metropolis, reaching the platform where soldiers were processing the scene.
• Lois Lane arrived with Jimmy, and David appeared glowing purple and grabbed a soldier by the throat.

David learned that Clark was being held at Base 604 and raced there after escaping the soldiers who fired on him. He found Clark tortured and restrained, then confronted the people behind the cameras as the chapter ended.

• David forced a soldier to reveal that Base 604 was fourteen miles north of Metropolis, then vanished as the soldiers opened fire.
• Lex Luthor and Sam Lane tried to pierce Clark's skin with a metal syringe, then used electricity and sonic weapons to weaken him.
• Clark realized he had been drugged and accused Lex of not being human, while Lex concluded that Clark was an alien.
• A squad leader warned that an unknown humanoid was approaching the base, and Clark hoped David had come to rescue him.
• David smashed through the base's reinforced walls, found Clark bound to an interrogation chair, and warned the watchers they would pay for probing secrets.

David rescued Clark from a military research base, but his violent escape left Sam Lane preparing to deploy the Zero Armor against him. The chapter ended with the military’s Steel Warrior project poised to confront David and Clark.

• David broke Clark’s restraints and helped his weakened brother stand, while Clark urged him not to kill anyone.
• David blasted through the base and killed soldiers with energy attacks, claiming that some victims had only been sent to another world.
• Sam Lane ordered Dr. Ains to deploy the Zero Armor and have Sergeant Koben fight David and recapture Clark, despite the risks of activating it early.
• Lex Luthor learned about the Steel Warrior project as David destroyed tanks and soldiers continued to flee or fall.
• Sam Lane declared that neither David nor Clark would escape, and the military prepared its ultimate weapon for battle.

John Corbin activated the Zero Armor and attacked David, whose blows revealed the suit’s extraordinary toughness and apparent energy absorption. As their battle devastated the base, soldiers moved to capture Clark.

• Eans warned John Corbin that the neural connection would be painful, but Corbin connected to the Zero Armor and survived the process.
• Corbin powered the armor, broke through the base’s ceiling, and flew toward David, intent on defeating Superman.
• David sent some gravely wounded soldiers to another world, then met Corbin’s attack with a punch that shook the base.
• David discovered that the Zero Armor withstood his punch and seemed to absorb energy, then drove Corbin back with a series of blows.
• While David and Corbin continued fighting, soldiers rushed toward Clark to capture him.

David overwhelmed John Corbin and Zero Armor while Clark fought off the soldiers trying to capture him. David identified the armor as being made from Prometheus Metal and challenged John’s belief that he was an alien, leaving John beaten in a crater.

• Sam Lane insisted Zero Armor would eventually capture David, while Lex Luthor worried their investment would come to nothing.
• Clark fought off soldiers who tried to restrain him and remained unharmed by their gunfire.
• John Corbin attacked David with Zero Armor, but David blocked his blows and absorbed the armor’s kinetic and energy attacks.
• David recognized Zero Armor as being made from Prometheus Metal and continued to overpower John.
• John declared that the armor existed to eliminate threatening aliens, and David accused him of making assumptions and struck him back into the crater.

David destroyed John Corbin’s Zero Armor, rescued Clark, and confronted Lex Luthor and Sam Lane at the base. After threatening Luthor and destroying his android, David turned to Sam, conflicted because Sam was Lois Lane’s father and Clark’s future father-in-law.

• David battered John Corbin’s Zero Armor until he punched through its chest plate, leaving Corbin fatally wounded.
• David rescued Clark from an RPG attack, then raced through the base and killed the soldiers guarding its command room.
• David found Lex Luthor and Sam Lane, seized Luthor, and discovered that he was an android.
• David destroyed the android and warned Luthor to stay hidden, threatening that he could kill him without finding him first.
• David faced Sam Lane and wondered what to do with him because he was Lois Lane’s father and Clark’s future father-in-law.

David rescued Clark from a military base and brought him home, where their parents welcomed them and accepted Clark’s crime-fighting mission. As Metropolis debated the mysterious Purple Light Man, David noticed his template fusion had reached 99%.

• David spared Sam Lane after threatening him, then took Clark away from the wrecked military base and returned home.
• Martha and Jonathan welcomed Clark and David, and Clark apologized for hiding his vigilante activities before his parents affirmed their support.
• David warned Clark to be more careful after the military captured and tortured him, while Clark acknowledged his younger brother had repeatedly saved him.
• Metropolis residents and newspapers speculated about the Purple Light Man’s identity, abilities, and connection to Superman.
• Clark jokingly suggested that David join him as a vigilante, but David declined and noticed his template fusion had reached 99%.

David refused Clark’s proposal to form a vigilante team, then asked him to watch for Lex Luthor’s robot attacks. David traveled to Steve Dayton’s laboratory, where he found Steve testing a helmet that could grant mental powers and showed that it could not read his mind.

• David declined to join Clark’s vigilante team because he wanted to protect his family and feared they would eventually fight.
• David told Clark that Lex Luthor had likely used a robot to lure him into a trap, and Clark agreed to destroy any robot Lex sent into public.
• David warned Clark that finding evidence against Lex would be difficult because the military was involved, then said he needed to visit someone before traveling.
• David infiltrated Steve Dayton’s guarded laboratory and found him completing a helmet designed to enhance brain function and grant telepathy or mind control.
• Steve put on the helmet and tried to read David’s mind, but David told him the helmet worked and was simply too weak to affect him.

David used Steve Dayton’s mental amplification helmet to read his thoughts and obtain the formulas and activation method for mutable Prometheus Metal. After taking canisters of the metal and wiping Steve’s memory of the encounter, David discovered that his Black King template had finished fusing.

• David overcame Steve Dayton’s mental defenses, took his helmet, and learned the Prometheus Metal formulas by reading Steve’s thoughts.
• David discovered that mutable Prometheus Metal had to be implanted into a severe wound, with a strong will needed to endure the awakening of powers.
• David mentally controlled Steve to retrieve canisters of mutable Prometheus Metal, then made him forget the encounter.
• David left the helmet behind and sped through the Mexican wilderness with a backpack full of Prometheus Metal.
• David sensed that the Black King template had reached 100% fusion and began loading a new template.

David loaded the Graviton template and discovered he could control gravity, fly, and manipulate massive objects. After testing the limits of his power, he raced through the sky and realized it would remove the obstacles he expected to face in Atlantis.

• David sensed a vast gravitational field around the planet and used it to lift objects, flatten the wilderness, and fly.
• The Graviton template loaded at a 30% fusion rate, and David recalled that Franklin Hall had been a powerful Avengers enemy.
• David uprooted a mountain in front of a shepherd, then returned it to its original position after finding the feat strenuous.
• David compared gravity manipulation with Magneto’s powers and considered abilities he might develop as his fusion rate increased.
• David accelerated to nearly Mach 260 and concluded that his gravity field would let him move and fight effectively in the deep sea on his way to Atlantis.

David searched the North Sea for Atlantis and the Seven underwater kingdoms, while wondering whether his recent public actions had accelerated the Black King template’s fusion. In Xebel, Vico told Mera that the Lost Trident was real and could lead Arthur to the throne, but a mysterious force seized the ancient recorder he had brought.

• David put the Prometheus Metal beneath his bed, visited Themyscira, and then used gravity manipulation to search the North Sea for Atlantis.
• David found the outline of an underwater city and set aside his questions about the template’s increased fusion rate.
• Vico urged Mera to help Arthur claim the throne, arguing that the Lost Trident could give its recognized wielder authority over the seven seas.
• Vico showed Mera an ancient recorder said to contain the first king of Atlantis’s final message and a path to the Lost Trident.
• A current seized the recorder, and Mera insisted that she had not controlled it.

David seized Mera and destroyed Vico’s recorder, revealing that he already knew where The Trident of Poseidon was. He left Atlantis with Mera, ordering Vico to tell Orm that he would return and take the throne.

• David seized Vico’s recorder with water, crushed Vico to the floor with gravity, and stripped Mera of control over the water.
• David destroyed the recorder and explained that it had pointed toward The Trident of Poseidon, whose location he already knew.
• David captured Mera and ordered Vico to tell Orm to gather the Atlanteans because Atlantis would have a new king when he returned.
• David flew through Atlantis with Mera, repelling the guards and warriors who tried to stop him.
• King Nereus pursued David, while Vico emerged from Mera’s palace and faced Nereus’s questions.
• David accelerated to Mach 10 after leaving Atlantis and planned to return with the trident to face the gathered Atlanteans.

David abducted Mera and flew with her to Sicily, where he revealed that he intended to retrieve Atlantis’s lost Trident of Poseidon from the Trench dwellers’ territory. Mera recognized the island and asked what he planned to do there.

• David carried Mera through the sky in a force field, and she warned him that her disappearance could give Orm an excuse to wage war on the land.
• David dismissed the threat and explained that he wanted the trident as a legitimate claim to the throne, not as a weapon against Orm.
• David arrived with Mera at Sicily, which she recognized as the home of the Trench dwellers.
• David told Mera that Atlantis’s lost Trident of Poseidon lay beneath the island.

Clark intercepted Lex Luthor’s android and discovered that his eyesight and abilities were recovering rapidly under sunlight. Underground, Lex saw a successful Typhon Project experiment and decided to join the research himself so he could modify his own body and return to the surface.

• Clark stopped Lex Luthor’s limousine, exposed Lex’s android with his heat vision, and left after telling the bodyguards to keep their jobs.
• Clark returned to Metropolis, found that his vision was beginning to recover, and realized his abilities were growing faster after his recent exhaustion.
• Lex learned that Sam Lane and his contacts could not help him obtain materials or information about the Steel Warrior Project.
• Dr. Jones showed Lex a subject with three meteorite-induced abilities that could turn invisible, withstand bullets, and melt a rifle.
• Lex told Dr. Jones he would join the Typhon Project research to speed up its work and suggested he might modify himself to escape his underground fortress.

David took Mera into Atlantis’s abyssal trench, where he fought through enormous numbers of Trench dwellers with his gravity powers. At the trench bottom, he found a magical vortex leading to a small world where the Trident of Poseidon and its guardian, Karasen, awaited.

• Mera warned David that the trench held tens of millions of dangerous Trench dwellers and urged him to turn back.
• David used Gravity manipulation to descend into the trench, drawing the Trench dwellers into a huge vortex that crushed many of them.
• As the Trench dwellers overwhelmed the vortex, David accelerated through them and carved a bloody path toward the trench bottom.
• David and Mera reached a swirling blue vortex that Mera sensed was filled with powerful magic.
• David told Mera that the vortex led to a small world containing the Trident of Poseidon and the sea monster Karasen.

Orm learned that Mera had been abducted by someone who claimed Atlantis would have a new king, and he ordered the Seven Seas searched. David brought Mera through a magical vortex into Hollow Earth, where she discovered that Atlanna, the late Queen of Atlantis, was alive.

• Nereus told Orm that Mera had been abducted and relayed the kidnapper’s message that Atlantis would have a new king.
• Orm vowed to find the kidnapper and ordered his army to search the Seven Seas.
• David entered a magical vortex with Mera and arrived in Hollow Earth, where he killed an attacking mosasaur.
• David and Mera encountered an armored woman who recognized Mera.
• The woman removed her helmet, and Mera recognized her as Atlanna, whom she had believed sacrificed to the Trench dwellers.

David found the Trident of Poseidon guarded by Karasen, the beast Atlanna said no one could defeat. He used overwhelming force to tear open the island and drag Karasen from the seafloor, leaving Atlanna and Mera stunned.

• Mera told Atlanna she had been abducted by David, who had come seeking the Trident of Poseidon.
• Atlanna revealed that Karasen guarded the Trident behind the canyon waterfall and warned David that the beast had defeated every challenger.
• David refused to abandon his quest and told Mera to be careful because she was still useful to him.
• David rose into the air and used an invisible force to rip open the island and expose the deep sea beneath it.
• David dragged Karasen from the seafloor as it roared and struggled, while Atlanna and Mera stared at him in shock.

David fought Karasen in the underground dark sea and overwhelmingly defeated the giant monster, leaving it barely alive. His final blow shattered the island, and Mera and Atlanna watched in shock as the battle ended.

• David dragged Karasen out of the sea and threw it onto the island to demonstrate his strength to Atlanna and Mera.
• Karasen attacked David, but he blocked its tentacle, wounded it with heat beams, and evaded its blows.
• David struck Karasen repeatedly, overpowering the monster despite its attempts to escape back into the sea.
• Atlanna reconsidered her belief that only Arthur could approach the Trident of Poseidon as she watched David crush Karasen.
• David’s final blow blasted Karasen into the air and shattered the island, leaving the monster barely alive.
• Mera stared at David in disbelief and said the battle was over.