In January 1990, Jerry White---actually the son of the second Luthor and Alice White, but raised as the son of the third Perry White---was killed. Also, for the first time, Superman encounters the half-demon, Blaze, who later claimed to be the child of the wizard Shazam.

In April, he suffers "The Krisis of the Krimson Kryptonite" and loses his powers for a time. During that same time, though they have had a long-standing affair, he finally proposes, formally, to Lois. Despite their long-standing romantic involvement, their mutual unagingness, there had always been enough differences between them, to make Lois, at least, doubt they could ever be formally married. Yet here she accepted---perhaps because she didn't know if he would ever recover his powers.

In June a relatively new friend, Bibbo Bukawski, an ex-prize fighter and ex-alchoholic, wins the lottery, and buys the Ace of Clubs.

Around this time, Lex Luthor seems to "die".

In August 1990, Sam Foswell, the nephew of Frederick Foswell, the Fixer, Spider-Man's old enemy, takes over the editorship of the Planet from Perry White, who is ailing.

In September, 1990, Superman was bounced around the timestream by a rogue member of the time-travelling group, the Linear Men. He visited the Legion's time---repeatedly---sixth century England, the time of the historical Arthur---World War II. He tried to contact his old allies the Justice Society, but the Spectre sensed he was out of his time and instead sent him---with the same mystical shield that would temporarily protect him against the Spear of Destiny's influence that both Spectre and Doc Fate used in one Justice Society adventure--to Germany, where a prototype atomic bomb was being made. Superman destroyed it, and would have done more----but the Spectre knew the shield would only hold for a short time, and he was "bounced" to another era.

In January 1991, he suffered the "Red Glass Trilogy", a series of hallucinations caused by a crystal he found on the moon. (He flew there with the Legion flight-ring.)

In February, he fights the Krypton Man---the Eradicator---returned from the sun.

In April he first met Agent Liberty, and the Australian "Lex Luthor Jr."---although he didn't know that it was a cloned body of Luthor's, with the same mind. He also met a new Atomic Skull---a delusional one, yet with nuclear powers. At the end of the month he had a blackout/amnesia caused by Professor Hamilton's inventions, but he recovers.

In May 1991, Superman leads a huge contingent of Earth's heroes to fight Warworld, which is now being run by the biological Brainiac. In that adventure, Supergirl returns. She would fall in love with the new, younger Luthor and become his corporate tool as well as his lover.

Soon after this, during the summer of 1991, the Justice League reforms, with Superman leading the American contingent. They journey to Almerac, Maxima's homeworld, and fight Starbreaker. Superman has many confrontations with Guy Gardner, and is not as comfortable with this more "unprofessional" JLA compared to the one he remembers.

Then in September, 1991, Doomsday surfaces. Doomsday was a biological weapon made by an alien who had landed on Krypton hundreds of thousands of years ago. By far the toughest, strongest foe Superman has ever faced--and remember, he had twice faced the Hulk---he decimates the JLA, and then Superman turns his full attention to it. Superman has the toughest battle of his life, and gets cut numerous times. (Doomsday will return three more times, and one ability of his is to "evolve" to conquer his foe---so each time he is more powerful, and Superman is comparatively weaker.)

Their final battle was not directly in NYC, but in the Jersey swamps. Yet NYC would have been next if Superman hadn't stopped him---but both combatants seemingly "died", to Lois' horror.

Superman did not have the huge public funeral depicted in the comics, yet President Bush (not Clinton, as shown in the comics, which were published a little over a year later) did allow a private ceremony in which many of the world's superhumans gathered to mourn the first and greatest of their own.

In the next month, there were no less than four superhumans who in one way or another "replaced" Superman. A young kid from the Cadmus DNA project, looking roughly fourteen, claimed to be Superman's clone. (It was later revealed that he was the clone of Director Westfield of the Cadmus Project and had tactile telekinetic powers, giving him direct control of anything that he touched or touched him, enabling him to simulate super-strength, invulnerability to bullets---but not to forms of energy---etc.)

An African American ballistics and munitions expert named John Henry Irons formed an Iron Man-like battle suit and called himself Steel.

Two others claimed to be the original: one was a very confused Eradicator, who secretely took Superman's body and nursed the tiny spark of life back to full life at the Fortress, using advanced Kryptonian medical methods. Yet he was driven half-insane by the near-death of the last living Kryptonian, and for a while thought he was Superman, albeit with altered powers and his traditional coldness.

Another was a half-cyborg Superman, endorsed by the President---again, Bush, not Clinton---who turned out to be Hank Heywood, growing a Kryptonian body from Superman's cells in his rocket, and madder than ever. Much madder. He had humbled Mongul, and was going to turn Earth into another Warworld.

After a month, a relatively powerless Superman (well, he was still recovering) returned in a Kryptonian battle suit and emerged in black and silver-- and fought the Cyborg, with the aid of the superclone (who would be renamed Superboy and relocate to Hawaii), the new Matrix-Supergirl, Steel, and ultimately the Eradicator, who in its "passing" gave Superman his full powers back.

Matrix imitated Clark's form, and it was explained that while covering a disaster,(not Doomsday, a natural disaster like a hurricane or earthquake) Clark had taken shelter in a fallout shelter, waiting to be rescued, where there was plenty of canned food.

Superman did not resume leadership of the League. That would be several years away. He had fought, perhaps, his greatest battle, starting with Doomsday, his recovery from "death" and his confrontation with the Cyborg. Instead, he tried to get his life back together...

While another's was...falling apart.

"Coast City", Hal Jordan's hometown, was obviously Los Angeles. Yet in the "Reign of the Supermen" end, Coast City was ....destroyed. Obviously no major West Coast city was destroyed in 1992. We could overlook that as hyperbole, a desire by the comic book writers to exagerrate and make fantastic, except that Hal Jordan, driven by guilt at not preventing it (he had been in space) and the desire to recreate Coast City, eventually goes mad, killing some of his fellow Green Lanterns (whom he loved like brothers), and his beloved and respected masters, the Guardians of Oa. The creation of the new Green Lantern, Kyle Radner, hinges on that, as does the subsequent adventures of Grant Morrison's JLA...to say nothing of all the characters who came out of Zero Hour.

How can one throw out one--- and not invalidate everything that happened afterwards?

Well, what really happened is that Mongul's ship settled in relatively unsettled desert in Eastern California. A few farmers and country folk were killed, but nothing like the destruction showed, and that destruction was hushed up. Mongul's ship "burrowed" under the earth. (There is speculation that the 1994 Northside Los Angeles earthquake might have been from the aftershocks and displacement caused by that, months later.) Yet the writers didn't entirely make it up...

You see, Hal Jordan did come from space,and did fight Mongul, just like shown. But you have to realize the sort of odds he was fighting. Mongul has strength in Superman's class, and had yellow skin to boot. A solid blow would have killed Hal, without a force shield brought up by the ring....

Unfortunately, in one of the blows Mongul's fist did a glancing blow through the shield, since his fist was yellow---and grazed Hal. Not enough to kill him, but enough to give him massive brain damage.

Hal became convinced that his worst fears had come true, that "Coast City"---Los Angeles---had been totally, utterly, destroyed. Remember, we are dealing with real-life people. Hal is totally fearless, and has been in many battles. Despite his ring, the mightiest weapon in the universe, he was still mortal. Sooner or later, your luck runs out.

The writers decided to use Hal's delusion, as a neat story idea, but they thought he would snap out of it soon. (Besides, they were a little afraid of what he might be able to do to them if they contradicted him. He seemed more...dangerous, somehow.) Little did they know...

That brain damage explains his sudden irrationality afterwards. Despite such a huge loss, many readers commented that the Hal Jordan they knew, the one written about by John Broome and Steve Englehart, would have never acted that way. It was wildly out of character....

Well, yes...it was.

He was brain damaged. He became much more irrational, much more delusional, and much more hard to reason with. He was, in many ways, not the Hal we knew.

This picture below was probably the blow that did it. Hal remarks later that the "ring protected me"---from mortal injury---but we know from Guy Gardner that it does not protect against brain damage. Both his knee and his arm got shattered by his fight with Mongul. Is it so surprising he would have come out of a fight--- with someone who could take on Superman hand-to-hand-- with massive brain damage?

The talk of Hal seeing Coast City/Los Angeles destroyed, Engine City rising from its ashes, was told in retrospect to the writers--who probably gave each other odd looks, but didn't want to contradict him.

Now do you realize the urgency behind Zero Hour? Hal wanted to "recreate" Coast City---unable to realize that it had never been destroyed. (Or rather, Los Angeles had never been destroyed.) If he had "recreated" Coast City he would have killed all the existing Los Angeles residents! Many of us sympathized with Hal rather than the other heroes. But Hal was brain-damaged, much worse than Guy Gardner ever was. It's one thing to give near-omnipotent power to someone you trust. Yet to have it wielded by a delusional madman...

Hal was great once. He fell in battle, and unfortunately, in this case, his protection against mortal harm in his ring, nevertheless allowed brain damage. Thus was a great hero---undone. In many ways, Hal after his encounter with Mongul was never, ever, the same.

In June 1993, Cat Grant's young son Adam was killed by the now-insane Toyman.

In September Luthor and many other clones fall ill. He creates a Bizarro to examine its DNA-process, and Superman clashes with this new Bizarro.

In December much of Lexcorp is destroyed by the ailing Luthor (although not NYC proper, despite what is shown in the comics about the "Fall of Metropolis"). During this, Superman and Superboy and Steel, among others, have a meeting with Blood Syndicate, Icon, Rocket, and Static. To keep others from getting too close to the reality of such heroes, an old ploy was used and they were placed on another, parallel world in the comics.

In March 1994, the event known as Zero Hour happened...as the now-insane Hal Jordan tried to meddle with time and rewrite history for the better. He was stopped, although Superman played only a small part in the actual battle, being overwhelmed by Hal/Parallax's power, the combined power of the Prime Power Battery of Oa.

Afterwards, Superman fights Kenny Braverman, an old friend of the original Clark Joseph Kent (the current Ma and Pa Kent's dead son whose identity he assumed), who had always resented him. Braverman had been remolded by secret goverment agents to a deadly assassin called Conduit. He discovered that Superman was using Clark's identity, and unsure where the two merged, transferred his resentment to Superman, and Clark's parents, and tried systematically to destroy Clark and Superman. Of course he got destroyed in the process, but driven by his own father's disregard, Superman couldn't help but feel a little pity for him.

In March 1995, the Roman known as Alpha Centurion lands and is greeted by Superman, who met his alternate in another timestream during Zero Hour.

In May 1995 Superman was "arrested" by the alien Tribunal because his ancestor Kem-L created the Eliminator, which they held against his descendent, which helped keep Kryptonians from spreading to the stars, and thus resulted in their genocide when Krypton exploded. (During this same time Luthor met the demon named Neron and became young and strong again.)

In 1995, Superman fought the Hulk again, in the series of clashes eventually shown as the miniseries Marvel vs. DC. They were forced to battle by two cosmic entities, supposedly brothers. For a brief time, the villain known as the Kingpin bought the Daily Planet, and tried to replace Perry White with J.Jonah Jameson. Clark also met Ben Reilly, the clone of Spider-Man. At least in this battle, Superman unequivocably won against the Hulk. The brothers were supposed to have eradicated the losers and their immediate friends and family (hyperbolized into "their world" by the writers) but instead the brothers reached an...understanding.

In Feb. 1996, Luthor marries the Countessa, an old "friend". Superman, meanwhile, suffers an "identity crisis" when he switches bodies with a brain-injured boy, thanks to Brainiac.

In March, Lois leaves for a time. Clark becomes managing editor while Perry undergoes chemotherapy for cancer. Also in March, the Justice League reforms---although this is more a "second generation" Justice League, with Superman, J'Onn, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman returning, and the new Green Lantern, Kyle Radner, and the new Flash, Wally West, taking Hal Jordan's and Barry Allen's place....in an involved shared dream started by Dr. Destiny and the being known as Know Man. Superman emerged as the leader, with Batman as an advisor.

In May 1996, the (non-fictional) parts of Final Night happened. Obviously, the Sun-Eater never swallowed our sun. It came close, though, and would have succeeded except for the sacrifice of Hal Jordan, once Green Lantern, now Parallax. Much of the stories that ran through DC Comics that time showed what would have happened if the Sun-Eater had succeeded. Superman has a close encounter with the Sun-Eater, who drains much of his power, leaving him powerless.

In June, a powerless Superman marries Lois Lane--finally. They honeymoon in Hawaii.

In September, Metron of New Genesis restores Superman's powers. Superman and the newly-reformed League fight the Hyperclan.

In October, Superman's powers morph into energy-powers. He has to adopt a new blue suit to contain his energy form.

In early November 1996, the android known as Tomorrow Woman joins the Justice League, briefly.

In December 1996, the League encounters Zauriel, who claims to be an angel.

In 1997 Superman meets Sovereign Seven. The League inducts Oliver Queen II's son, Connor Hawke, into the JLA.

March: Superman fights the Superman Revenge Squad, a new one. Jimmy Olsen almost reveals the truth of Superman's real existence on national TV.

Also, Superman and the League fight Luthor's gathered "Injustice League" and contend with the "Rock of Ages". At the end of the adventure, there is a three month gap before they meet again, while the League is reorganized.

In April, Superman and other heroes contend with the Genesis Wave.

In July, Contessa gives birth to a child, Lena Luthor, named for Luthor's aunt, Lena Thorul. The League introduces a new line-up (including Steel) to interested government officials from around the world--- not the press....and fight Prometheus.

In August, he splits into two energy-beings, Superman-Red and Superman-Blue.

In late October, they fight the Millinium Giants (or the non-fictional parts of that highly exagerrated event.)

In November his old powers and costume return. He however is split into four timestreams by Dominus, before he recombines.

In January 1998, Lex tries to buy the Planet and shut it down. In the same month, the Justice League is transported to Rann.

In February, the League meets the far-future Justice League A, and learns of Superman's many descendents...and according to Kyle Radner, the final fate of Superman. Whether it's the future or just a possible one, no one knows.

In June, the League meets the government sponsored Ultra-Marines. In October, Superman seems to go meglamoniacally insane, creating robots that can function in this more-polluted world, making noises like he wanted to be "King of the World". The League fights him. Finally it is revealed to all be a plot by Dominus.

In 1999, a woman in blue appears, dressed in Superman's "electric" costume, called "Strange Visitor".

In May, the Spectre becomes...Hal Jordan, in the "Day of Judgement" storyline.

In June, Wonder Woman and he fight an Olympian evil, and Lois reveals she's still a little jealous of Wonder Woman. Also in June, a massive evil from the New Gods' precessors, Mageddon, almost causes "World War III"...although the whole storyline is extremely exagerrated, with much fiction added to the fact, especially towards the end.

Towards the end of the decade, Superman recreated his Fortress as a tessaract like structure that has extensions in other dimensions, with some help from Steel.

Since then? I'm not sure of the truth of the adventures from 2000 on. Obviously Lex Luthor did not win the presidency---his most fanatic supporters wouldn't call Bush the sort of incredibly brillant person Luthor is. (One looks at Cheney, though, and---nyaaaah.) However, he did contribute highly to the winning president's campaign, and Luthor has a close relationship with both the President and the Vice-President, with him fooling them ---just as he fooled Metropolis/NYC for years. he certainly has had more than his share of White House dinners and visits to Bush's ranch.

Other than that, the truth has yet to be determined---and the never-ending battle goes on.

PARTIAL LIST OF SOURCES:

Of course, TARZAN ALIVE and DOC SAVAGE: HIS APOCALYPTIC LIFE by Philip Jose Farmer.

Those interested with comments, suggestions, things I have forgotten, things I messed up, contact me at...
E-Mail:al.schroeder@nashville.com

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Speculations Copyright © Al Schroeder. Superman is owned by DC Comics, Warner Communications, and the Siegels. All other characters copyrighted by their respective owners.