Picking up on page 188, we find Jimmy Olsen broadcasting an emergency alert for the citizens of Metropolis to evacuate the city, as an automated airplane carrying Luthor Lux’s nuclear bomb circles the city. According to the information that they have received, it will detonate in the next two hours. People across Metropolis are in a panic as they attempt to flee the city.

Superman arrives at the right moment and crashes his way into Luthor’s subterranean lair. Sounds a bit familiar, doesn’t it?

Once Superman makes his way into the lair, Luthor activates a holographic program that pulls up multiple copies of himself, Eve, and the henchmen in order to distract Superman. But Superman can see right through all of the holograms and catches Luthor in his hands, telling him that he will let Luthor go if he reveals the location of the nuclear bomb. Once Luthor tells him the location, Superman goes into action and hurtles the bomb and the airplane into outer space.

Three days later, in Washington, D.C., the President awards Superman the Congressional Medal of Honor, with Clark, Lois, and Morgan Edge in attendance and Lois accepting the medal for Superman.

That night, during a celebration in Superman’s honor, Lois starts trying to remember something important, but Clark immediately stops her from remembering. They go outside, and Clark uses his x-ray vision to look into outer space. What he soon sees startles him.

Clark soon excuses himself from the banquet, changes to Superman, and flies to the Fortress of Solitude to consult the Kryptonian memory banks about anything and everything related to the Phantom Zone. The computerized program of Jor-El tells him everything about the villains, how Krypton had no death penalty, and how these antisocial beings were imprisoned in the Phantom Zone for all eternity.

Jor-El then tells his son that an atomic explosion could possibly trigger a chain effect for the Phantom Zone to explode, freeing the villains from imprisonment.

Superman then asks his father some hard questions: Can another Phantom Zone be constructed? Can the villains be reformed of their antisocial ways? Can they even be killed? And in each case Jor-El’s answer is the same: no.

This leaves Superman with little choice but to put on the lead-lined suit and the kryptonite belt and confront the villains once and for all.

Next time: it’s the showdown in Metropolis.

(Some of the screenshots in this blog are used courtesy of CapedWonder.com.)