Reign of the Supermen #539: Super-Man of Earth-40

Source: JSA: The Liberty File #2 (2000) and JSA: The Unholy Three #1-2 (2003)
Type: Elseworld/Alternate Earth

With the blog's exploration of the Multiverse these past (and next!) few days, I really wanted to feature a Superman from an alternate Earth. Shame most of the good ones were taken. But this is the Super-Man of Earth-40, the "opposite" of Earth-20 soon to feature in the Multiversity series as villainous counterparts to "pulp" versions of DC's heroes. Its Superman is psychotic old Zod, sent to the Phantom Zone when he was a kid. That's what they do, even to juvies, when they unleash a plague on Krypton's biggest city.

Meanwhile, on Earth, to keep up with the Nazis, the U.S. has been experimenting with "Project Wormhole". You can guess what happens next. Zod pops through and is given to human parents to raise - the Kents - under the close supervision of the Pentagon. He grows up, gains powers and joins the government's covert ops squad as Super-Man. And he's a complete a-hole of course, one that only pretends to have compassion and a distaste for killer. And he's a smoker, because, well, why wouldn't you be if you had iron lungs? When he finds out his only weakness is the radiation that might be produced by a Russian bomb, he goes after it with everything he's got. It puts him in direct confrontation with the Justice Society and, well, he doesn't survive. Good thing Earth-40's Batman is as good as ours, and somehow gives himself kryptonite vision. As you do.

Super-Man's replacement in the JSA? How 'bout Mr. Terrific? That's the Bat's suggestion anyway. Care to disagree with him?