Superman and the Authority (Full Story)

A new Authority for a new era! Sometimes even Superman needs to enlist help. Sometimes tasks require methods and heroes unfit even for the Justice League. So Clark Kent seeks out Manchester Black, the most dastardly of rogues, to form an all-new Authority tasked with taking care of some business on the sly. But can the Man of Steel hold together and inspire a team of rogues to become the heroes he needs?

This story comes in a total of four issues.

issue number 1:

In 1963, Superman has a meeting with President Kennedy at the White House. Kennedy congratulates Superman for truly representing the spirit of America even in the harshest of times and calls him "The Man of Tomorrow". Kennedy himself is committed to the advancement and progress of America just like Superman is and tells Superman that should anything happen to him, Superman and his allies will be entrusted in leading the way towards a better world and Superman agrees. Superman helps with the Moon landings, but unfortunately, during a visit in Dallas, Kennedy is assassinated by an unknown assailant.

In present-day London, Manchester Black is sleeping at a rundown apartment until he is awakened by the sounds of the British police, who have discovered his location. As the special teams break into his apartment, Black is unworried and uses his telepathy against them, forcing the special teams to shoot each other while Black attempts to escape. Unfortunately, he takes shots from gunmen on helicopters and falls to his knees, until the United Kingdom's mysterious ally tells the special forces to stand down because he will take it from here.

Sometime later, Black awakens at the Fortress of Solitude and discover that Superman himself helped the United Kingdom in his defeat. Superman reveals that his own powers are diminishing and that he failed to deliver on his promise to President Kennedy to create a better world. Even so, he is committed towards fulfilling that promise and now, he needs Black's help. Superman used Kryptonian science to nurse Black back to health and save him from paraplegia and Black will only need a wheelchair for a few moments before Kryptonian nanomachines finish fixing his spine.

Until the process is complete, however, Superman takes Black to observe a red sphere, which Superman explains is a portal to the Phantom Zone, the ancestral prison to all of Krypton's criminals. When the Phantom Zone was first discovered, Kryptonian scientists used robots to explore and map the Zone, but now, those robots have gone rogue and they will break into normal space in just 12 minutes. Superman still remembers the times where Kryptonian criminals have broken out of the Phantom Zone and tried to take over Earth and destroy Superman. Now, Superman needs Black's help in stopping them.

Black is angry that Superman has the gall to ask for his help even when the world now hates Superman as much as it hates Black. Despite this, Superman believes that, under the right conditions, Black can do good, which is why he asked for Black's help in the first place: to stop the Zonedroids from causing damage. This is Black's chance to become a hero, but Black rejects it and leaves the Fortress.

The Phantom Zone portal opens and, sure enough, the Zonedroids break out and attack Superman. Superman recognizes Ursa and Xa-Du as some of the Zonedroids' pilots and continues to fight, even with his reduced powers. The Zonedroids overwhelm Superman through superior numbers, but suddenly, Black returns to the Fortress and saves Superman. With the Zonedroids destroyed, the prisoners are forced back into the Phantom Zone and Superman thanks Black for his assistance, as he never lost hope that Black would return.

Meanwhile, on Earth's orbit, a legion of villains is gathered by a mysterious leader who claims that Superman has grown weaker while the leader himself has grown stronger. According to the leader, Superman has lied about so many things: his secret life, his son and even about Kryptonite; but the leader knows the truth about Kryptonite and he knows how to destroy Superman.

Superman takes Black to King Arthur's Round Table, the actual Round Table, which Superman took with Arthur's permission. He tells Black that Superman made Arthur the same promise he made to Kennedy. The Justice League failed in this regard, but Black can truly make a difference. Black has a few contacts that could help on Superman's mission but still is upset that Superman doesn't want revenge on the people who badmouthed him and wronged him. Superman, however, is still committed to his mission to create a brighter and finer world and shares a toast with Black. Unfortunately for Black, the cups are filled with mineral water, which causes Black to vomit.

issue number 2:

At Fort Superman, Manchester Black kills time by smoking some cigarettes while Superman tries out some weightlifting. Unfortunately, with his powers severely reduced, weightlifting isn't as easy as it used to be. Black tells Superman that he has received some calls from people interested to join their group but one of Superman's contacts is busy at Metropolis, which means Superman and Black will have to do the recruiting by themselves. Knowing that Metropolis is in safe hands, Superman and Black travel to their destination using Superman's aircraft: the Super-Mobile.

Meanwhile, the city of Metropolis is attacked by digital lifeforms that embody negative concepts from the Internet, such as trolling, body-shaming and edgelords, forcing Natasha Irons, the new Steel, into actions. Thanks to her knowledge in cybernetics and information technology, she is able to keep the cyber-villains at bay.

In Yemen, Apollo and Midnighter are spying on a group of terrorists that have kidnapped a bunch of innocent children and performed terrible experiments on them in order to harvest their body parts and create a humongous beast. Apollo is concerned that Midnighter has forgotten about their anniversary, but Midnighter denies this, as he leaps into action. Midnighter easily kills the terrorists but finds himself in deep trouble once he realizes that the monster is super-intelligent and can anticipate every single one of Midnighter's moves. Fortunately, Apollo immobilizes the beast with a stream of energy blasts and Midnight reveals that he remembered their anniversary. He is giving Apollo the best gift ever: a membership on a team led by Superman, who meets up with the duo and Black says that their next teammate will be their most difficult yet.

The next member of the team is June Moone, who has been confined to a mental hospital, where she will receive a frontal lobotomy. June has been hallucinating that her boyfriend Alan has been dating her evil alter-ego, the Enchantress, behind her back. In her shattered psyche, the doctor about to perform the lobotomy is D'z'amor of the Bleak Ones, a demon that feeds off good people like June. Fortunately, Superman and his allies free her from the hallucination and include her into their team.

issue number 3:

Superman and allies struggle against the demons created by June's unstable subconscious to the best of their ability but realize that their only hope to survive and save June is to get June to regain control of her mind. Even Natalie Irons' arrival only delays the demons and Superman tries to reach out to June, who is still tortured by her own alter-ego, the Enchantress. Unfortunately, June is too disturbed to listen to Superman's words, forcing Superman to ask Black for help. Black tells June that since the demons were created by June herself, that must mean she must be more powerful than she herself realizes, so he tells June to accept her dark side as a part of herself. The plan works and June and the Enchantress merge into one being, destroying June's personal hell and saving Superman and his group.

Sometime later, Superman's team has safely transferred June Moone to Fort Superman, a new base of operations Superman himself had established in Alaska. With her psyche stable, June can use the powers of the Enchantress with no noticeable drawbacks. Black informs everyone that they are still one recruit short: Lightray, but before the search for Lightray begins, Superman talks to the team about how are they gonna handle lethal force. Black expects another "killing is wrong and there's always another way" lecture, but Superman admits that his son and his peers are more aware of social issues than Superman and his team ever were, so he advises the team to be creative in the use of their powers and avoid casualties whenever possible. Opponents can't learn anything if their dead, after all.

As for Lightray, Superman tells Apollo and June to talk to Lightray directly, while Black, Midnighter and Steel will remain on standby should something bad happen. Superman himself will remain in Fort Superman as bait, because he expects trouble will come looking for him.

Meanwhile, at Earth's orbit, the mastermind targeting Superman, the Ultra-Humanite, transfers his brain to a new body. He knows that Superman himself has become irrelevant in recent times, humanity itself is declining and Superman's son will not be a problem in his plans. Even so, he refuses to take any chances with Superman, so he will attack the Man of Steel when he is weak and vulnerable.

At Fort Superman, Kelex informs Superman that Dubai will face some sort of big problem, so the Man of Steel sends his teammates to their respective missions.

Meanwhile, Lightray remembers her glory days as the shining star of Mars, the girl that embodied hope and optimism; but unfortunately, the pressure finally got to her and right now, she's planning to commit suicide. Suddenly, a dark entity offers Lightray a way to escape her problem, a mysterious gem shrouded in shadows. This dark entity is Eclipso.

Apollo arrives at Lightray's home but finds no trace of her. Suddenly, he is attacked by an unidentified woman, who demands to know what happened to Lightray.

Black, Midnighter and Steel arrive at Dubai and find the city under attack by a group of upgraded robots. Just as the team is about to act, however, they find themselves in conflict with another metahuman group.

Meanwhile, at Fort Superman, Ultra-Humanite ambushes the Man of Steel, revealing to have transferred his brain into the body of Solomon Grundy. Superman attempts to fight back using the Supermobile, but Ultra-Humanite quickly wrecks the vehicle and incapacitates Superman, intending to transfer his mind into Superman's body in an attempt to take vengeance for all the times Superman has foiled the Ultra-Humanite's plans. To do that, however, Ultra-Humanite needs to take Superman to a place where surgical equipment is as indestructible as Superman: the bottled city of Kandor.

issue number 4:

As Ultra-Humanite prepares to transfer a copy of his brain into Superman's cranium within the halls of the bottled city of Kandor, he tells Superman that it was the Ultra-Humanite who was Superman's first real enemy, not Lex Luthor or the Parasite. It was their rivalry that started the conflict between superhumans for control of the future, and that conflict ends now. As far as the Ultra-Humanite is concerned, Superman is history.

Superman tells Ultra-Humanite that history can wait, as he breaks free from his restraints and brawls his old enemy yet again. The Man of Steel had anticipated the Ultra-Humanite would attempt to use Kandor against him, so he shut down Kandor's Kryptonian environment, which means that Superman has more than enough strength to handle Ultra-Humanite. He also prepared one final surprise for Ultra-Humanite, a white Kryptonite blast from a weapon held by none other than Lois. White Kryptonite is a special kind of defoliant, extremely dangerous for plant-based lifeforms like Solomon Grundy, whose body Ultra-Humanite is now occupying.

Superman and Lois' plan worked perfectly and all they had to do was to stroke Ultra-Humanite's ego. Superman then tears Ultra-Humanite's head off Grundy's shoulders, knowing that Grundy will be able to regrow without Grundy's control. As he places the Ultra-Humanite's severed head into his computer's analyzer, Superman uses his teleband to analyze the genetic modifications used by Ultra-Humanite to implant his head into Grundy's body and realizes that Ultra-Humanite wasn't capable of such procedure on his own. He had help, and now, Superman has discovered his benefactor: Brainiac.

The Coluan scientist, realizing his involved has been discovered, directly contacts Superman and states his intention to save Earth from humanity itself, a rapacious omnipredator capable of destroying its own environment, and of course, Superman remains the single biggest obstacle in achieving that goal. Superman doesn't buy Brainiac's rhetoric for one second, for he knows that Brainiac merely wants to preserve the Earth's biosphere in a controlled environment, much like what he did to Kandor.

The Ultra-Humanite fought by Superman was merely one of thousands of clones mass-produced by the real Ultra-Humanite, who works alongside Brainiac and boasts of having achieved eternal life. His war with Superman has only just begun and the entire planet is their battlefield.

Meanwhile, Superman's team faces difficulties in Dubai. Midnighter is unable to establish contact with Manchester Black, while Steel discovers that the fog was actually caused by xenotechnology. An army of robotic drones, emerging from the fog, and demand the governments of the world to hand the world over to a more deserving people. A towering brute calling himself Iron Cross enters the battle, carrying Black's unconscious body with him. What Iron Cross doesn't realize, however, is that he is merely holding one of Black's mental copies. The real Black is still conscious and has summoned an army of mental clones against his foe.

The team is attacked by superhumans, such as the cybernetically enhanced scientist Siv and the French special agent Fleur de Lis. According to Brainiac, Siv fights to raise awareness for her home Haven, a place forgotten by Superman and the Justice League even after they promised their help. Siv shuts down Steel's armor, but she activates her spare. Meanwhile, Black is ambushed by his former teammate Coldcast. As the fight progresses, Superman is aware that Brainiac was behind the fight in Dubai and it was just a distraction for his real objectives in Kandor and Los Angeles.

While Apollo manages to calm OMAC down and tell her they're on the same side, Eclipso holds Lia Nelso hostage. Fortunately, Apollo arrives just in time to weaken Eclipso with his solar powers. In Dubai, Superman's team decisively ends the battle by defeating their opponents, just in time for Enchantress to teleport into the city and disintegrate Ultra-Humanite's army of robots, rendering them as little more than motionless brains.

Brainiac and Ultra-Humanite proclaim that their conflict with Superman continues but Superman has little time for their games as he and Lois return to their normal sizes back at the Fortress of Solitude. Superman understands that Jon will face hardships and will need his mother at his side, while he goes on to assemble his team. He says that each one of them has reasons to lay low, and for now, Earth is not safe for them. Sooner or later, they will have to return, but for now, there are other worlds where they can impose a meaningful change.

Superman recruited them for a special mission in deep space: they will liberate Warworld, a serious contender for the most dangerous planet in the galaxy. Sometime later, as Superman puts on his classic uniform, he speaks with Black about a special artifact from the New Gods found by Superman during the Metal Wars: a fragment merely referred to as "the Wall." He takes Black to a pocket dimension and tells him of a cosmic entity merely known as the "Hand of Fire", which writes messsages on the Wall during times of great cosmic upheaval. The Hand has been writing the exact same thing for the past 11 days: "Lightray is..."

And here our story ends, so let me know, my friends, what you think of this story and how you interpret its ending. Thank you for watching, and if you liked the story, subscribe to follow me with the latest updates. If you have any story suggestions, share them with us here .