Marvel: A Lazy-Ass Superman

Chapter 366: Chapter 366 — Possible Landmines Hidden in the Universe

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Another piece of evidence supporting Henry’s line of thinking came, of course, from the movie The Flash.

No matter how many times Barry rewound time in the Flashpoint timeline—where his parents were both alive—he was never able to save Supergirl, Kara Zor-El, from being killed by General Zod.

Zod also retrieved the Genesis Codex from Supergirl’s body. He even mentioned that he had already detected Kal-El’s escape pod somewhere in the universe. After killing the infant, he confirmed that the Codex was not inside Kal-El, which was why he continued his pursuit all the way to Earth.

Some people believed that Supergirl lost to Zod in the Flashpoint world simply because she had been imprisoned by the Russians for too long, without enough exposure to sunlight to properly power up.

But General Zod himself was also a Kryptonian. Following the plot of Man of Steel, he didn’t start receiving yellow-sun empowerment the moment he broadcast his message searching for Kryptonians on Earth.

He only began to absorb yellow-sun radiation after reaching the planet’s surface and engaging in battle—specifically after Superman shattered his helmet and exposed him directly to the sun, at which point he adapted rapidly.

In other words, the length of time Zod was empowered by the yellow sun wasn’t significantly longer than Supergirl’s. If the Codex inside Kara Zor-El were truly that miraculous, why hadn’t it enabled her to defeat Zod?

A rarely discussed background detail was that Kara Zor-El herself had been born under the control of the Codex. She belonged to the engineer template, just like her parents and lineage.

Krypton’s Codex-based reproduction system, beyond ensuring genetic superiority, obviously wouldn’t allow a military family to produce a musician, or a ruling family to produce a scientist.

There had to be continuity in familial traits—otherwise postnatal education and training would be meaningless.

Compared to a top-tier soldier template like General Zod, it was only natural that Supergirl, an engineer, would fall short in raw combat ability.

That wasn’t even counting the fact that Zod had clawed his way up through countless large and small battles to earn the rank of general, while Kara Zor-El in The Flash had been captured by the Russians around her teenage years and locked away in a sunless laboratory for experimentation.

The disparity in postnatal training and lived experience between the two was simply enormous.

Given both innate and acquired differences, if an engineer were somehow able to reverse-kill a general, it would be nothing short of a mockery of Krypton’s long-maintained Codex reproduction system.

So Supergirl’s defeat was inevitable—no matter how many times the Flash rewound time, that outcome couldn’t be changed.

As for the naturally born Kal-El, he had been captured and crushed by General Zod while still in space, without ever having the chance to demonstrate his potential.

Henry couldn’t help but connect all this to what General Talos had said—about him being a defective, a Kryptonian outcast.

Even though he couldn’t be sure whether his origins truly matched what the Skrull general had described, nor whether Kryptonian traits worked exactly as Henry theorized, he never believed he could grow to rival Superman himself.

But if Kryptonian tradition truly involved exiling naturally born ”defectives” into space—and if most of those infants were captured by the Phantom Zone encircling Krypton—

Then, based on DC’s official settings regarding the Phantom Zone, the least controversial aspect was that time did not exist there. It lay outside normal space-time continuity, a trans-dimensional realm.

Those imprisoned within did not die. In some versions, consciousness stagnated; in others, awareness remained active, and prisoners could even move about—enduring endless, meaningless passage.

If Henry’s speculation was correct, this meant that Krypton had effectively dumped all potential ”Superman seeds” into a storage space even better than cryogenic vaults.

Over thousands of years, just how many naturally born Kryptonian infants had been trapped there?

Even Darkseid would probably rather face an army of Doomsdays than an army of Supermen.

Of course, it was also possible that in this universe the Phantom Zone worked differently—entering it meant instant death, end of story.

As for whether the difference between Codex-born and naturally born Kryptonians truly worked as Henry imagined, he couldn’t be one hundred percent certain.

He could only guess that he hadn’t been born according to any fixed occupational template. But that kind of birth didn’t mean he would inevitably grow into another Superman. It was also possible that he carried some genetic defect.

After all, Krypton’s Genesis Codex was essentially an extension of eugenics. Any genetic flaws, or defects arising during embryonic development, would be filtered out by that reproductive system.

Natural birth bypassed that entire elimination process.

But whether or not he was naturally born only affected his future potential. What truly mattered for survival was that his identity as a Kryptonian—and Kryptonian weaknesses—had been exposed in front of Nick Fury.

Fortunately, because so much time had passed, the Skrulls only remembered Kryptonians as mad, unstable beings influenced by different stellar lights. They no longer remembered the specifics of Kryptonian power changes.

Which meant that most of Henry’s abilities were still secrets to Fury—aside from his already exposed invulnerable body.

If the Skrulls had still remembered how Kryptonians behaved under a yellow sun, they would have used manipulation and sowed discord just the same, dragging him into conflict with official organizations—but they likely wouldn’t have confronted him head-on.

Yet judging from their earlier behavior, these aliens from a higher civilization were still just as arrogant as ever. They had actually dared to stand unarmed in front of a Kryptonian!

Henry genuinely wanted to let his fists loose and smash a few skulls.

Taking several deep breaths, he forced himself to calm down.

After all, they had provided a great deal of information about Krypton—knowledge he could never have obtained on Earth.

For that benefit alone, he decided to forgive their rudeness. He’d already endured far worse from Earthlings; surely he could tolerate a bit of alien arrogance too.

As Henry continued walking down the road, he was suddenly stopped by a vehicle that cut in front of him.

One man, one woman, and one tiger came to a halt.

Two men in black suits stepped out of the car and asked, ”Are you Agent Barbara Morse?”

”Yes, sir. I’m Barbara Morse, S.H.I.E.L.D. trainee agent,” Barbara answered.

The two men presented their credentials, bearing the S.H.I.E.L.D. eagle emblem.

”Hello, Agent Morse. We’re agents from the New Orleans S.H.I.E.L.D. branch. We’re here under orders to escort you to an Air Force base.”

One of them glanced at Kitty and added, ”Since one of the passengers is an adult tiger, we can’t arrange civilian air travel. If we’re sending you back to Los Angeles, it’ll have to be via military transport aircraft. I trust you understand.”

”That’s fine,” Barbara replied immediately, nodding as she handed over her ID for verification.

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