Somewhere in Africa.
The ruins of a capital.
More than two thousand Resistance fighters gathered beneath a ruined government building.
The mechanical clicks of machine guns being cocked blended together.
Clark hovered in midair.
His Kryptonian Battle Suit was entirely black.
There was no emblem on his chest.
The Resistance leader was a man whose face was covered in scars.
He raised his assault rifle.
"Open fire!"
Muzzles spat flame, and rockets rose into the sky, trailing long plumes of smoke.
Countless bullets struck Clark's chest.
The metal rounds ricocheted off and fell into the sand.
The leader roared, "You spineless lapdog!"
Clark lowered his eyelids, his dark red eyes looking down at them.
"Superman is dead!" someone shouted from the crowd. "Now he's just a butcher!"
"We won't kneel!"
"Bring him down! For our homeland!"
Curses mingled with the explosions.
Shrapnel burst around Clark, but he did not even blink.
He lifted his head, and two scarlet beams shot from his eyes.
The beams swept across the ground.
Everything in their path was swallowed by waves of searing heat.
"Run!"
"Cover..."
The cries for help had barely begun before the beams' heat vaporized them.
Clark turned his head.
His gaze sliced through the insurgents' defensive line like a hot knife through butter, then split the hill behind them in two.
One minute.
All that remained was scorched earth and bubbling pits of glass.
A charred flag fluttered down at the edge of a glassy pit.
No prisoners. Not a single unnecessary movement.
Clark turned, a sonic boom erupting in midair as he flew toward the next purge coordinates.
Gotham.
The One God Temple.
The dark tower pierced the clouds.
On the plaza at its base, three thousand fully armed soldiers stood in formation.
These were the elite troops each