Reign of the Supermen #266: Superman at Earth's End

Source: Kamandi: At Earth's End 4-6 (1993) and Superman: At Earth's End GN (1999)
Type: ElseworldsAside from a brief glimpse in (almost immediately contradicted) History of the DC Universe, Kamandi's first post-Crisis appearance was in Tom Veitch's At Earth's End mini-series, something which may or may not have started life as an Elseworlds, but almost certainly, DC Comics wasn't comfortable with putting into the standard timeline. The year is 2102, and Kamandi, wearing a leather jacket (it was the 90s), is looking to kill "the Man", the greatest enemy of his adoptive Machine Mother. Little does he know that Machine Mother was responsible for the Second Apocalypse and that "the Man" is Superman.

Superman's seen better days. He's old, his powers have been drained by the polluted cloud cover, and he's forgotten his own name. So Kamandi kills him, no problem. Except you can't kill a Kryptonian that easy, and the Ben Boxer androids restore Superman to health with a little sunlight above the cloud cover. Supes finds his way back to memory and power level, jogging such powers as flight the hard way.
It's at this point that he sort of takes over the mini-series from Kamandi, being the only one who can fight Machine Mother and her mutated creatures. In the end, he stays with the Ben Boxers to help them restore the Earth's environment, though he knows he'll never see the goal achieved in his lifetime. Six years later, T. Veitch came out with a graphic novel to continue the story, and this one is, quite literally, bat-shit crazy, as Superman tries to find a reason to save Gotham City from the Ben Boxers' nukes, but instead finds himself using a ridiculous gun (above; again, it was the 90s) against Hitler's twin clones and an army of bat-mutants in the Bat-Cave. All he manages to do is save Bruce Wayne's bat-corpse, and then he immolates himself.
Some people will do anything not to do another sequel, right? For the record, you did the right thing, Else-Superman.

For Kamandi fans, that original mini was something of a disappointment since it bore little but a cosmetic resemblance to Jack Kirby's original. However, it should be noted that the original Kamandi's ONE LINK to the standard DC Universe WAS Superman. Yes, in issue #29, Kamandi came upon apes who worshipped Superman's uniform as a sacred object.
It's like "The Omega Glory", only, y'know, awesome.

Comments

Hey, thanks for writing about this one. I've come across this the Kamandi sequel when I was younger, and was very confused by the whole idea. Still, it was indeed crazy, as clones are made from Batman's DNA, and Superman looks more like a Santa Claus than his regular self.
The whole cloning from Batman idea might've been aped by Grant Morrison during Final Crisis, but who knows, maybe not.
Toby'c said…
Gotta say, I'm surprised you had nothing to say about the infamous "I AM A MAN! *Punch*" panel.
Siskoid said…
Did it need to be said? ;)