The battle only began to turn around after the two Kryptonians recovered and joined the fight one after the other.
Superman's injuries really weren't that serious. Shane had simply knocked him out with a full-strength punch and the kryptonite fragments he suddenly exposed between his fingers.
Kara's condition had been worse in every respect, but with the futuristic healing orb capable of repairing damage at the cellular level, plus a brief exposure to sunlight, she finally regained consciousness too.
First, Superman stopped Kara, who was roaring fearlessly and ready to charge right back in.
Then he gravely shared the information that the Viltrumite was carrying a small amount of kryptonite fragments.
Shane, who was only using sixty or seventy percent of his strength, finally began to feel enormous pressure.
More than a dozen people coordinated fierce attacks on his hands, while the two Kryptonians stayed outside the melee, firing bursts of Heat Vision at gaps in his defenses that he couldn't cover.
Significant injuries finally began appearing across large areas of Shane's body.
But he still had no intention of stopping.
They had actually passed the test long ago. Aside from the reckless Shazam, who failed, everyone else's performance had satisfied him immensely.
But this opportunity to exploit his growth mechanics was genuinely hard to come by.
The softer aspects of Earth's culture meant these people usually couldn't bring even a tenth of their strength and tactical ability to bear against "friends," "comrades," or "partners." Shane had experienced this firsthand before.
He could use extreme methods to force Superman and Shazam to improve through grievous-injury training, but those two softhearted gentlemen could never put him through the unique Viltrumite mechanism of fighting at the brink with severe injuries-pushing his combat strength even higher under extreme conditions.
In other words, Shane