Man of Steel: The Official Movie Novelization

For the gang at Captain Blue Hen Comics in Newark, Delaware, my primary source for superhero adventure for the last twelve years. Up, up, and away!

MAN OF STEEL: The Official Movie Novelization

Print edition ISBN: 9781781165997

E-book edition ISBN: 9781781166000

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: June 2013

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 DC Comics.

MAN OF STEEL and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © DC Comics.

WB SHIELD: ™ & © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (s13)

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

About the Author

Acknowledgments

“P
ush, Lara!”

Jor-El crouched beside his wife, holding her hand. The medical suite in his ancestral Citadel now served as a delivery room, the first on Krypton in untold memory. Lara Lor-Van strained upon an antique birthing couch, laboring to deliver their child. Her long black hair was spread out across the cushion beneath her head. A crimson sheet was draped over her trembling form. Sweat bathed her pale skin. Despite the sophisticated medical technology filling the spacious chamber, much of which had been designed or customized by Jor-El himself, the scene could not have been more primal, more elemental...

He prayed they had not made a terrible mistake.

Worry showed upon his features. A short brown beard framed his face. The sinuous crest of the House of El was emblazoned on an everyday blue skinsuit which clung tightly to his fit, athletic frame. Alert brown eyes watched anxiously as his wife attempted to do something no Kryptonian woman had accomplished in ages. Computerized monitors pulsed and beeped in the background. A pair of household robots hovered in attendance.

“Sir!” Kelor addressed Jor-El. A feminine voice emanated from the levitating robot who had served the House of El for longer than he could remember. A threedimensional display screen occupied the center of its thorax, which resembled a floating steel teardrop roughly the size of an adult Kryptonian’s torso. Versatile steel tentacles extruded from the ’bot’s base. “The child’s vital signs are plummeting—”

“We don’t have a choice,” Jor-El said. For better or for worse, they were committed to this perilous course. “We have to keep going.” He squeezed his wife’s hand. “Lara, my love, please push.
Please.”

Pain and exhaustion contorted her exquisite face. She writhed atop the birthing couch. Tears leaked from her eyes.

“I
can’t!”

Jor-El could not let her falter, not when they were so close to achieving what they had hoped and planned for. Awed by her bravery, he sought to lend her whatever strength and encouragement he could.

“Push!”
he repeated.

For a moment, he feared that they had dared too much, that their reckless endeavor would end in tragedy. But then, just as he was on the verge of abandoning hope, Lara gritted her teeth, managed another heroic effort...

...And gave birth to a baby boy. A shock of black hair, as dark as his mother’s, crowned the infant’s tiny cranium.

Our son,
Jor-El thought.
Kal-El.

Kelor gently lifted the baby with her metallic tentacles, cradling it as securely as any flesh-and-blood midwife could have managed. Kelex, her male counterpart, hovered nearby. He resembled Kelor, but his contours were sharper and less rounded, as befitted his masculine programming.

Jor-El was deeply moved by the sight of the child, even more than he had anticipated, but relief and elation swiftly gave way to concern as he observed that Kal-El was silent and unresponsive. A sickening possibility filled him with dread.

What if the child was stillborn?

He held his breath, unable to inhale until his son did. Kal-El seemed so small and fragile. An endless moment elapsed, stretching out as interminably as a sentence to the Phantom Zone—until the baby finally breathed in and, for the first time in generations, the cries of a newborn infant echoed off the venerable walls of the House of El.

The bawling, lusty and full-bodied, escaped the Citadel to ring out over the vast estate below. Rondor beasts, grazing in fields of genetically-engineered grass, lifted their bovine heads in surprise. They gazed up at the huge domed structure, which was anchored to the peak of a looming basalt cliff. Tiny birds, nesting in the Rondors’ armored hide, took flight in alarm.

We did it,
Jor-El thought in triumph.
We truly did it.

He beamed at Lara, sharing with her a moment of undiluted joy

If only it could last...

* * *

“He’s beautiful,” Lara said. “He’s perfect.”

She reclined upon the couch, holding Kal-El in her arms. She gazed down at him warmly, smiling despite her exhaustion. Sitting beside her, Jor-El thought she had never looked so lovely, so radiant. He wished he could stay here, enjoying this tender scene, forever.

But forever was not to be.

“I knew he would be,” Jor-El said. He rose reluctantly to his feet. “I have to go.”

Her azure eyes implored him. “Please don’t.”

It tore his heart out to deny her. The last thing he wanted at this instant was to leave his family’s side for what was probably an exercise in futility, but a sense of duty compelled him. He owed it to Krypton—and his newborn son—to fight for the future. The sigil on his chest reminded him that hope was eternal.

“I have to give it one last try,” he said. “Make them listen—”

Lara refused to let go of his hand.

“What if they don’t?”

A determined look came over his face. He glanced over at the Citadel’s observatory, which was located on the other side of a wide curved archway. His preparations were almost complete. The vessel awaited only its precious cargo.

“Then I’ll do whatever I have to.”

* * *

The Council chamber sat atop a towering black pinnacle overlooking the capital city of Kandor. Most of the population had retreated underground, seeking the warmth and energy of the planet’s core instead of the ruddy light of Rao, their aging red sun, but ancient towers still jutted from the surface.

Curved walls, buttresses, and ramparts flowed organically into one another, shunning right angles and emulating the nature that the people of Krypton had conquered in ages past. The sprawling cityscape was like the spiny shell of some enormous living organism—one that had perhaps grown too old and calcified to survive. The immense red sun was beginning to set, slowly surrendering the dusky sky to Krypton’s four small moons, as Jor-El made his final plea to the Council of Five.