At the End of Days is an Action Comics storyline starring Superman. It was published as part of The New 52, following the timeline reboot in Flashpoint. It establishes Superman's position in that new continuity.
Synopsis
Superman's landlady Mrs. Nyxly, explained the truth about herself and the enemy who was attacking Superman throughout his entire life. Lord Vyndktvx had been the court magician in the Fifth Dimensional Kingdom of Zrfff, but found himself replaced by a more charismatic Mister Mxyzptlk, who won the princess Nyxlygsptlnz's heart, and excited the king with stories of his battles of wits with the Superman of Earth. Superman was the only one of Mxy's victims who ever found a way to trick him back - though Clark hadn't yet met him even once. Vndktvx was so jealous and enraged by Mxyzptlk's success that he stole three powerful weapons from the king's vaults in an attempt to get revenge. Inadvertently, he thrust the Multispear into the king instead of his intended target, killing him and destroying 230 worlds in an instant. Only two fought back and survived. That resistance burned his arm, and he swore revenge on Superman both for being Mxy's favourite, and for hurting him. His revenge would take place across all time. Nyxlygsptlnz escaped into the Third Dimension, hiding as Mrs. Nyxly, and using the first of three wishes that Mxy had given her to have him join her on Earth - unfortunately, he soon fell into a coma. The second wish was to erase the memory of Clark Kent's death from everyone's mind, so that they wouldn't hate him when it turned out he'd faked it. Before she could use her third wish, though, she was shot dead by Maxim Zarov, who had been hired by Vyndktvx and discovered her when she revealed herself to Clark.[1]
Meanwhile, Superman's imminent death at the hands of Vyndktvx and the Anti-Superman Army caused a future to form in which Universo controlled the United Planets, and the Legion of Super-Heroes became fugitives. With many of their number dead and no alternatives, the remaining three used a Time Bubble to follow Vyndktvx's attacks through time and save Superman's life.[2] Their first stop was to Mrs. Nyxly, to ask about the exact date of the death of Clark's parents, arriving at his apartment just moments after he'd rescued an apartment building from destruction at Luthor's hands, early in his career. Unfortunately, they were too late to save the Kents from from being killed in car accident caused by Vyndktvx. All Saturn Woman could do was relay a dying message of love from Martha Kent to her husband. Having failed there, the Legionnaires travelled into the future to have Superman - five years into his career at that point - help them go back in time and stop the theft of the Kryptonite Engine from the rocket that brought him to earth. However, they had only found him just after Vndyktvx had Maxim Zarov shoot Superman in the head with a teleport rifle.[3]
The Anti-Superman Army, whom Vyndktvx had recruited in the meantime, was then sent back in time to a point at which the Fortress of Solitude - housed within the remains of the Collector of Worlds' ship - could not defend itself against time-travellers, and stole the Kryptonite Engine, escaping before Superman and the Legionnaires could stop them.[4] Without the Kryptonite Engine, the rocket's loss of power would allow the Collector of Worlds' intelligence to resume control over the ship. While Vyndktvx auctioned off the Kryptonite to the members of the Anti-Superman Army, Superman himself helped the Legion repair their Time Bubble in what was then his old Fortress, but they were attacked by Erik Drekken. Saturn Woman's power allowed her to enter his mind and learn that the Anti-Superman Army's secret hiding location was inside Superman's brain, thanks to the lead-lined teleport bullet. The Legionnaires entered Superman's brain and took back the Kryptonite while it poisoned Superman from the inside. He then used the radiation coming from his own head to keep the rocket alive until they returned with it - just in time to escape before the Superman of that era returned to find nothing amiss.[5]
Not long after defeating the Multitude - the destructive force from whom the Collector of Worlds had been trying to protect cities like Kandor. Jor-El of Krypton had helped to imprison the mad scientist Xa-Du in the Phantom Zone for unleashing the Living Death on innocent people. He swore revenge on Jor-El, but twenty years later - on the day of his first parole hearing - Krypton was destroyed, and he remained trapped there long after Jor-El's death. It was not until decades later, when Kal-El retrieved the Phantom Zone Projector from the bottle city of Kandor that Xa-Du escaped and trapped the son of Jor-El within the Zone. There, he was reunited with his childhood pet Krypto, who protected him from the other prisoners until he discovered another trapped innocent like himself in the Phantom Stranger, who explained that while he could escape easily, there was only one other way out - and only Superman could use it. Using willpower to take control of Xa-Du's suit, Superman fought his way to the Phantom Zone lens and freed himself, as Xa-Du was displaced back into the Zone. Using the remains of Xa-Du's hand, he pulled Krypto back through the lens, and carried him up to the sun to heal him. Despite that victory, the Vyndktvx found his way into the Zone and recruited Xa-Du into his army.[6] Moments after defeating Xa-Du, Superman was visited alone by Saturn Woman, who warned him that the time had come to finally face the Multitude. If he succeeded there, the fight for their future would depend on him alone. If he failed, the Legion's fate was sealed.[3]
Hearing the cries for help from Earth, Superman arrived on Mars to stop an attack on a terraforming colony by Metaleks. Though he saved the colonists and convinced the Metaleks to work with them, the long-expected attack by the Multitude had finally come. The embodiment of the Multitude appeared as a horde of angels, but Superman soon realized what his father had, back when he'd faced it on Krypton: the Multitude are not many, they are one. They would therefore have to be attacked as though it was a Fifth Dimensional object. Using the planet's terraforming array, he sent out a 10 Gigawatt blast that burned away the Multitude all at once. Having succeeded, he discovered that Vyndktvx was among them, and his hand had been burnt off. He revealed himself at last, killing the colonists and promising his revenge.[7]
The Anti-Superman Army's attack brought Superman back to Earth from Mars, and he crash-landed in Centennial Park. Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen happened to be on the scene, and he warned them to go and find a man called Mister Triple X at Metropolis General Hospital. As they escaped, Lois ran into her niece Susie, who had joined the Anti-Superman Army under threat against her parents - but it was too late to turn on Vyndktvx. He had already manifested before all of Metropolis and offered the citizens eternal life if they would just choose not to help Superman. Upon their arrival at the hospital, Lois and Jimmy couldn't find a way to wake Mister Triple X from his coma, but were surprised when the Legionnaires arrived to help.[3] Saturn Woman roused Mxy, who was at that same moment, visited by his son Ferlin - who had been carrying around a shirt stained with his mother's blood for years as a memento of his loss. His father explained that Nyxly had used the shirt as her escape route. Saturn Woman realized via her telepathy that Ferlin was, in fact, just a 3rd-dimensional representation of Vyndktvx's burnt fifth dimensional hand, and the Legionnaires placed him under arrest, thought he was not entirely responsible.
Superman, meanwhile, was under attack by the Anti-Superman Army, and weakened by the light of the artificially red sun. Narrowly escaping them to his base in the Yucatan, Superman called for help from the Legion of Super-Heroes, Comet and the Wanderers, and from Krypto. It was the dog who first came to his aid, but before long, Vyndktvx had Krypto in Kryptonite chains, and Superman was at the mercy of Superdoom, whom Vyndktvx had brought to this world through the Transmatter Cube that Lex Luthor had built.[1] He was surprised, though, when Lex Luthor used a remote-controlled battle-suit to help fight off Superdoom, as he wished Superman's death to be at his own hands.[3] This distraction allowed Superman to rescue Krypto, just as the Wanderers arrived in answer to his call.
As a result of Vyndktvx's temporal distortions, Clark was even given the opportunity to go back in time and say goodbye to his father on his prom night, knowing full well that he would not survive it, and unsure whether he would survive the battle he was in the midst of.ref name="AC17"/> Simultaneously, Lex's machine was defeated by Superdoom, and Superman was caught in the beast's grip, refusing to die. He called out to Vyndktvx that while this - and every other attack on his life - was just one attack for the Fifth Dimensional mastermind, he had built up a lifetime of experience defeating that attack as it occurred all across his personal timeline. He had learned his enemy's weaknesses in all that time, and he knew that if he could get everyone on Earth to speak in fifth-dimensional words at once - he could really and truly beat Vyndktvx. Using a telepathic link that Susie had created between him and every other person on the planet, he urged them all to say their own names backwards. The pain of that sound caused Vyndktvx to retreat to his own dimension, where he was immediately arrested for the murder of the king. Afterwards, Mrs. Nyxly revealed that she had survived death by hiding in the second dimension within the Red of the S-symbol on the blood-stained t-shirt, and offered to use her third and final wish to undo the damage to his timeline. Clark refused, and instead asked that she return the people of the Mars colony to life, which she did.
As a result of his victory, the Legion's timeline was restored, and Nyxly and Mxyzptlk were able to return to their own dimension and live happily ever after.[8]
Issues
- Action Comics (Volume 2) #13
- Action Comics (Volume 2) #14
- Action Comics (Volume 2) #15
- Action Comics (Volume 2) #16
- Action Comics (Volume 2) #17
- Action Comics (Volume 2) #18
Notes
- While the order of the issues in this story had their own sequence, the story itself is told out of sequence, owing to the time travel of the Legion, and the villain's extra-temporal nature.
Links and References
  This event or storyline is specifically related to Superman, or to members of the Superman Family. This template will automatically categorize articles that include it into the Superman Storylines category. |