| Synopsis | - As Waverider watches, saddened by the loss of his family due to the defeat of Monarch creating a timeline in which they never will exist, Superman helps the Metal Men extract a quantum field generator from a pile of rubble, trying to be careful not to cause it to explode. Waverider notices that among the crowd watching the excavation of the generator was the younger version of himself, Matthew Ryder, and his parents. However, as Superman attempts to move it with Iron, Lead, and Platinum forming a protective bubble around it, the generator begins to rupture, and Iron and Platinum cannot hold on anymore. Superman tries to fly it safely away from Metropolis with Lead still holding half of the generator together when it explodes -- but as it explodes, Waverider notices that time stands still, and a woman with metal robotic prosthetics examines the generator and transports both it and Superman out of the present time.
Waverider follows the woman's trail to a place that she calls Vanishing Point, where Superman and the exploding generator are frozen. Waverider touches Superman and frees him, wondering where he is and if Waverider took him there. Superman tries to look down the seemingly endless corridor with his telescopic vision, only for him to look at himself and Waverider from behind. Soon they are joined by three individuals: the woman seen earlier, plus a man in a blue and purple robe, and an older man wearing a prosthetic arm and an eyepiece. They call themselves the Linear Men, and that their purpose for taking the quantum field generator out of the point in time where it exploded was so they could study it. However, once they have finished their study, the Linear Men will put it back to its original point in time so that history leading to "the end" will not be disrupted. This doesn't sit well with either Superman or Waverider, the latter of which will not suffer the loss of his parents as he had originally seen it unfold. The Linear Men try to make Superman see the reason in leaving certain historical events untouched, such as Adolf Hitler coming to power during World War II and meeting his own end. The woman, called Liri Lee, reveals to Superman that she was the one who enabled him and Lois Lane to have some private time together by causing time to stand still around them, considering it suitable payback for the amount of time Superman had lost during his uncontrollable time-traveling in the Time And Time Again storyline.
As the Linear Men transport the quantum field generator as well as Superman and Waverider back to the point in time from which they left, Waverider steals the woman's transporter device and uses it to transport the generator to a point in time where it will explode without harming anyone. At the present time, young Matthew Ryder only sees that Superman has flown the generator safely out of harm's way. At Vanishing Point, one of the Linear Men reveals himself to be that same Matthew Ryder, who was spared the tragedy that his other self had witnessed in the other timeline.
|
