Absolute Superman

Technocracy

KAL-EL. In the cities worked the klerics of the science league. Harnessing the energies of the red sun and the planet itself to fuel their insatiable hunger… for progress… at all costs.

TEACHER. You… wrote this? Yourself? That’s… Kal, the luminarium contains all knowledge of the science league from throughout Kryptonian history and can answer any question we might ever possibly ask.

LARA. We’re a miner and a mechanic from the Redlands and they’re the science league. The truth is what they say it is.

KAL-EL. I like to think there were tender moments happening elsewhere on Krypton that day. Loved ones who chose to spend their final hours in each other’s arms. Those who waded into the chaos to treat the wounded… or to call for peace, even as flames rose around them.

KAL-EL. For ten billion years, the planet Krypton basked in the blistering red light of its sun. Toward the end of its existence, the planet had become riddled with parasites. Tiny creatures infested Krypton’s star-hardened skin, eviscerating the world one handful of guts at a time. Until its insides became unstable. Until its blackened lungs wheezed and gushed radioactive bile. Ten billion years, my homeworld stubbornly endured. And it only took a few measly million for people to ruin it all.
#environmentalism

HIGHER BRAINIAC. You work here. You are never to leave this room. Your function is to dispose of refuse by shoveling it into the liquidator. This concludes the extent of your required knowledge. Do you understand your function as I have explained it to you, Brainiac 419,732?

#technocracy

Inequality

KAL-EL. Snow began to fall on the favela outside the mine, where the workers lived with their families. A blizzard of carcinogens. When the workers tried to leave, they were reminded they were still under contract to the mine’s owners, Lazarus Corp. They were reminded of this at gunpoint. Lazarus promised hazard pay of 1,500 reais if they would finish mining the ore. Roughly $300. More than a month’s pay. This while working a mine that extracted $200,000,000 worth of karats the previous year. These miners expect that what they do here in this darkness will be the end of them. They do it nonetheless. In the name of family.
#inequality

Heroism

LOIS. In some ways, Superman is very much still a boy, one who hasn’t yet fully deciphered… who he is. In other ways, he is every bit a man. With an ethos that seems… unshakeable. Subject switches from a shy soft-spoken demeanor to a more confident, commanding presence, depending on circumstance. Without either facet coming across as an affectation. Who could never lie… even if he needed to. We know from other sightings that he has traveled the globe. He speaks multiple languages. But somehow he still has the air of a lost child. Of a life in some way interrupted. Of a son without a home.

KAL-EL. I’d spent months weeping for Krypton. For everything I’d lost. But that day, the tears were different. I wept for the world I’d found. The one I could already tell I wouldn’t be able to save any more than I had the last.

KAL-EL. I’ll go to the top of their tallest mountain. Or maybe I can jump to the moon. Some place no one can find me. No one who can possibly need anything from me. No one screaming for me to save them. Join them. Liberate or avenge them. No one lost and in need of salvation. No one else like me.

KAL-EL. That won’t stop him though, will it? Not for good. With little more than a blink I could microwave his brain. Leave him a drooling invalid. With a puff of breath I could shatter his vertebrae, so he’d never walk again. Never pull another trigger. Or I could put my fist through his chest and hurl his heart into space with such speed that he’d still be alive to see it sailing away. I try to think of reasons not to do these things. I try. But all I hear are my father’s words. […]
JOR-EL. The right thing? No, that’s what we like to tell ourselves because it makes our tough decisions easier to live with. Out here in the in the Redlands, there are always tough decisions, Kal. But we must never lose sight of what constitutes cruelty and inhumanity. Especially when we’re the ones being cruel.
#vigilantism

Revolution

MINERS. As you say, he is afraid. But not afraid of you. The Superman fears the day Lazarus will drive him to such anger… he cannot help but save this world… by killing you all. I pray for this. We all pray for such a thing. In every language, in every slum across the world. It is why he has come to us, I know. We pray for the Superman’s rage.
#super-heroes-on-social-order

KAL-EL. There are twenty-three people dead in Orangi Town. Gunned down. For the unforgivable crime of laughing at a man with a gun.
#justice

PEACEMAKER JOE. No.
PEACEMAKER #1. Joe? What the hell are you doing?
PEACEMAKER JOE. I’m from Oklahoma. I didn’t sign up to shoot farmers. Or fight wars in Kansas. Did you?
PEACEMAKER #1. He’s right. This is… This is messed up.
PEACEMAKER #2. Look, let’s just… all put our guns down, okay?

Tyranny

BRAINIAC 419,732. In the days since… as I’ve carved my mark across the face of creation, across countless worlds… I’ve sometimes paused to consider the possibility that it would’ve been better for everyone… me included… if I’d stayed in that room with the shovel. Heh. But where would be the fun in that?

BRAINIAC 419,732. At 8:35pm, I will command one of my Brainiacs to immolate himself. So I may spend three minutes watching him die. Watching a piece of myself as it blackens and shrivels. Saturn will be visible in the night sky at 9:03pm.

KAL-EL. He’s killed before. And been rewarded for it. Incentivized to do it again. His enemies have been othered and dehumanized. He is the hero of his story. And he will keep on killing. Unless he’s stopped.

RA’S AL GHUL. The Demon’s Head, they called me. But like Lazarus… I was reborn. You may call me the God’s Head now. The god with the power to heal the lame. To restore the old. To save this planet from the billions of leeches who bleed it dry. My only regret is that I have no son through which to do this.

LOIS. Would-be despots with God on their side. How original. You want the rich getting richer, the poor getting angrier, until the whole system explodes. Starting a war that nobody wins. Nobody but the Al Ghuls, that is.
TALIA. Yes, I will stand at my father’s side as we forge a new world from the slag of the old. A world or order and merit, with resources and purpose for all. Once we’ve thinned the herd by a few useless billions. But I am not to be my father’s instrument of change. The Superman shall lead the way. As we speak, Brainiac is dragging him brain-first down the road to Damascus. Soon that sweet little child of Smallville will turn this planet red.

BRAINIAC 419,732. A man who rewrites hardwiring with his whispers. And inspires rebellion in a walking pack of toasters. It is a privilege to pillage the brain of a being such as this.

References

1. Absolute Superman #1: Last Dust of Krypton. Part One: Down In The Dirt. Jason Aaron; Rafa Sandoval; Ulises Arreola. www.hoopladigital.com . dc.fandom.com . Nov 6, 2024. Accessed Mar 14, 2026.
2. Absolute Superman #2: Last Dust of Krypton. Part Two: Sun of Nothing. Jason Aaron; Rafa Sandoval; Ulises Arreola. www.hoopladigital.com . dc.fandom.com . Dec 4, 2024. Accessed Mar 14, 2026.
3. Absolute Superman #3: Last Dust of Krypton. Part Three: Boy From the Purple Prairie. Jason Aaron; Rafa Sandoval; Ulises Arreola. www.hoopladigital.com . dc.fandom.com . Jan 1, 2025. Accessed Mar 14, 2026.
4. Absolute Superman #4: Last Dust of Krypton. Part Four: Chasing the Storm. Jason Aaron; Rafa Sandoval; Ulises Arreola. www.hoopladigital.com . dc.fandom.com . Feb 5, 2025. Accessed Mar 14, 2026.
5. Absolute Superman #5: Last Dust of Krypton. Finale: Ad Astra Per Aspera. Jason Aaron; Rafa Sandoval; Ulises Arreola. www.hoopladigital.com . dc.fandom.com . Mar 12, 2025. Accessed Mar 14, 2026.
6. Absolute Superman #6: Last Dust of Krypton. Epilogue: Son of Smallville. Jason Aaron; Carmine Di Giandomenico; Ulises Arreola. www.hoopladigital.com . dc.fandom.com . Apr 2, 2025. Accessed Mar 14, 2026.
7. Absolute Superman #7: Son of the Demon. Prologue: A Mind is a Terrible Thing. Jason Aaron; Rafa Sandoval; Ulises Arreola. www.hoopladigital.com . dc.fandom.com . May 7, 2025. Accessed Mar 22, 2026.
8. Absolute Superman #8: Son of the Demon. Chapter One: Lazarus, Come Forth. Jason Aaron; Rafa Sandoval; Ulises Arreola. www.hoopladigital.com . dc.fandom.com . Jun 4, 2025. Accessed Mar 22, 2026.
9. Absolute Superman #10: Son of the Demon. Chapter Three: The Beast in the Mine. Jason Aaron; Rafa Sandoval; Ulises Arreola. www.hoopladigital.com . dc.fandom.com . Aug 6, 2025. Accessed Mar 22, 2026.
10. Absolute Superman #11: Son of the Demon. Finale: Man of Steel, Mind of Ash. Jason Aaron; Carmine Di Giandomenico; Ulises Arreola. www.hoopladigital.com . dc.fandom.com . Sep 3, 2025. Accessed Mar 22, 2026.
11. Absolute Superman #11: Son of the Demon. Finale: Son of Nowhere, Nothing, and No One. Jason Aaron; Rafa Sandoval; Ulises Arreola. www.hoopladigital.com . dc.fandom.com . Dec 24, 2025. Accessed Mar 22, 2026.