Man of Steel: The Official Movie Novelization

by Greg Cox

  M A N OF S T E E L™

  T H E O F F I C I A L M O V I E N O V E L I Z A T I O N

  A NOVEL BY GREG COX

  BASED ON THE SCREENPLAY BY DAVID S. GOYER

  STORY BY DAVID S. GOYER & CHRISTOPHER NOLAN

  BASED UPON SUPERMAN CHARACTERS CREATED BY

  JERRY SIEGEL AND JOE SHUSTER

  AND PUBLISHED BY DC ENTERTAINMENT

  BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT WITH THE JERRY SIEGEL FAMILY

  TITAN BOOKS

  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.

  Contents

  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

  M A N OF S T E E L™

  C H A P T E R O N E

  “Push, 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.

  “You don’t understand!” he protested.

  He stood upon the polished circular floor of the vast chamber, facing the Council members who peered down at him from their elevated thrones. Jor-El had donned his most formal attire for this audience, and was wearing a layered blue robe over his skinsuit. His family crest was embossed upon a gleaming gold breastplate. A golden belt girded his waist. A long red cape hung from his broad shoulders.

  “Krypton’s core is collapsing,” he said again. We may only have a few weeks left!”

  Eminence Ro-Zar, the leader of the Council, appeared unimpressed. Like his fellow solons, he wore an elaborate robe of muted purple and gold over his skinsuit. An ornate crown towered above his furrowed brow. Honor guards, armed with lances of burnished steel and bone, stood at attention around the perimeter of the chamber. Ribs of bioengineered carbon-silica supported the high vaulted ceiling.

  Ro-Zar scowled at Jor-El from his lofty perch.

  “The Council has already submitted your findings for peer review—” he began.

  “There isn’t time for review,” Jor-El said. “Harvesting the core was suicide!”

  Council Member Lor-Em, seated to the right of Ro-Zar, waved away Jor-El’s impassioned declarations.

  “Our energy reserves were exhausted,” he replied. “What would you have us do?”

  “Reach out to the stars... like our ancestors did.” Jor-El tried to get through to the Council members, all of whom had inherited their positions by virtue of genetic heritage. Like too many Kryptonians, they seemed more concerned with preserving the status quo—and their comfortable lifestyles—than worrying about the future. “There are other habitable worlds within reach. We can use the old outposts—”

  “Are you seriously suggesting we evacuate the entire planet?” Ro-Zar scoffed at the notion.

  “No,” Jor-El conceded sadly. The best they could hope for, he knew, was a plan that would save a sustainable fraction of Krypton’s endangered population. “It’s too late for that. But with your help I could—”

  Before he could continue, noises from outside the chamber interrupted the debate. Frantic shouts, screams, and the sizzling report of plasma weapons heralded the sudden arrival of a band of armed intruders who burst through the doors into the chamber. Jor-El spun around, staring in shock at the newcomers, whom he knew only too well.

  Zod and his dissidents, he thought. The so-called “Sword of Rao.”

  The intruders were led by a stern-faced soldier whose rigid expression and bearing betrayed his military roots and training as surely as his severe black uniform and cape. His dark brown hair was cropped short, as befitting a soldier. Roughly the same age as Jor-El, General Zod carried a handcrafted plasma carbine that had been passed down through the warrior caste for generations. A fusion of steel and petrified bone, the weapon was still capable of dealing death and destruction despite its age. Glyphs carved into the carbine’s bony stock told its bloody history, to which Zod was clearly ready to add.

  The terrorist leader, whom he had once considered a friend, was accompanied by his top lieutenants. Jor-El knew them, as well—if only by reputation.

  Lithe and pitiless, Faora-Ul was known and feared throughout Krypton as the “Tigress of Zod.” She stalked beside her general, wearing a predatory smile on her face. Cropped black hair matched her dark uniform and cape. Although attractive in her own fierce way, she struck Jor-El as being as vicious and violent as Lara was warm and gentle. She was in her element here, waging war and spilling blood.

  Flanking them was Tor-An, a muscular, dark-haired insurgent who was known to be a cold-blooded killer without a drop of mercy or compassion in his veins. He was Zod’s favorite hatchet man, quick to get his hands dirty when the cause required it. His eyes were as cold and hard as polished obsidian. A sadistic smirk lifted the corner of his lips.

  Nam-Ek, taking up the rear, was more than nine feet tall. The hulking brute was believed to be mute. His origins were unknown, but Jor-El had heard rumors of illegal transgenic experiments, possibly involving Rondor DNA. It was hard to believe that such a behemoth could be the result of random mutation, especially since births on Krypton were so strictly regulated. In any event, the giant stomped after Zod, watching his back.

  More rebels poured in after him.

  Caught by surprise, the Council’s guards were no match for Zod and his forces, and their ceremonial lances were little defense against the rebels’ firearms. Bursts of white-hot plasma sprayed from the carbines, incinerating the protectors and reducing their weapons to slag. The “Sword of Rao” cut them down within moments, before turning their attention to the Council members, seated upon their thrones.

  Taken aback by the assault, Jor-El could hardly blame the overwhelmed guards for failing to mount an effective defense. Who could have imagined that even Zod would be so bold as to attempt to overthrow the government of Krypton? His issues with the Council were well known— but to attempt a coup?

  I should have seen this coming, Jor-El thought. I knew him better than most. He backed away warily

  If Zod even noticed his presence, he chose to ignore it for the moment. As his troops secured the chamber, their general marched toward the Council of Five and leveled his rifle at Ro-Zar.

  “This Council has been disbanded,” he announced.

  The High Eminence reacted with indignation. “On whose authority?”

  “Mine,” came the answer.

  His rifle fired and fiery plasma splashed against Ro-Zar, killing him instantly. His charred body tumbled from the throne, while the other Council members looked on, terror etched into their features.

  Zod swept his icy gaze over them.

  “The rest of you will be tried and punished accordingly,” he declared.

  Shaken by the High Eminence’s abrupt execution, the remaining Council members put up little resistance as Zod’s troops dragged them down from their thrones. Trembling in fear, they cowered together as they were rounded up and placed under Faora’s supervision. Satisfied that the Council was under control, Zod turned at last toward Jor-El.

  He seemed pleased.

  Jor-El stepped forward to challenge his one-time ally. “What are you doing, Zod?” he demanded. “This is madness.”

  “What I should have done years ago.” Zod sneered at the dethroned Council members. “These lawmakers, with their endless debates, have led Krypton to ruin.”

  Silently Jor-El sympathized with Zod’s attitude. In truth, the Council’s intractable conservatism had often frustrated him as well, but he could not condone Zod’s brutal actions—or his short-sighted strategy. Time was running out for all of t
hem, and this misguided insurrection wasn’t going to save anyone.

  “Zod, think!” he said. “Even if your forces win, you’ll be the ruler of nothing!”

  “Then join me.” Zod lowered his weapon and held out his hand. “Unlike the Council of Fools, I believe in your science. Help me save our race.” His voice rang with the fervor of a true patriot—or perhaps a fanatic. “We can start anew. We can sever the degenerative bloodlines that led us to this state.”

  There it is, Jor-El thought. The line of division that ultimately drove us apart. In their youth, they had shared a common goal of revitalizing Krypton, of turning their complacent, aging society from its self-destructive path, and igniting a new era of innovation and exploration. But in time, they had arrived at radically different visions of the future. Jor-El put his faith in science and reason, while Zod had embraced force—as well as dubious theories of eugenics.

  “And who gets to choose which bloodlines survive?” Jor-El asked. “You?” He scowled pointedly at the other rebels, who were still roughing up the terrified Council members. The insurgents laughed cruelly as they stripped the prisoners of their formal vestments, leaving them standing only in their skinsuits, and knocked their elaborate headdresses from their skulls. Politics aside, the rebels clearly took perverse pleasure in terrorizing their former rulers, even as the scorched bodies of the guards still smoldered throughout the chamber.

  Jor-El made no effort to conceal his distaste for the ugly scene.

  “I’m not sure that’s a future worth saving,” he said.

  Zod’s face flushed with emotion. He took his friend’s scorn personally.

  “Don’t do this, El,” he said. “The last thing I want is for us to be enemies.”

  Jor-El left Zod’s outstretched hand hanging. His voice held more sorrow than anger.

  “If you really believed that, you wouldn’t have abandoned the principles that bound us together in the first place, and taken up the sword against your own people.” He looked Zod squarely in the eye, remembering the youthful idealism that had once burned brightly there. “I honor the man you used to be, Zod. Not the monster you’ve become.”