The year was 1989. The place was Smallville. The situation was tragic. Everywhere you looked, it seemed, rocks were falling from the sky. It was like Judgement Day or Armageddon--whatever you wanted to call it. The point was that life, at least life as the folks of Smallville knew it, seemed to be over.

This was the day that would change that town forever. Meteors crashed down and destroyed buildings, street signs, even the "Welcome to Smallville" sign that once stood to greet the friendly town's visitors.

But the destruction barely scratched the surface of the change that befell Smallville after that day. Buildings can be rebuilt, restored, but the loss of lives cannot be changed...and neither can the arrival of new ones.

Lionel Luthor had just arrived in Smallville that fateful day to finalize a business acquisition that he had made there. He was there alone, besides the pilot that flew his helicopter.

As soon as the copter had landed, Lionel looked up and watched three streaks shoot across the sky. Two of them looked almost green, but the other was silvery, as if it were made of some kind of metal. Lionel watched as a huge explosion of dust flew from behind his new fertilizer plant, where the three objects had impacted.

Lionel got out of the helicopter and started toward that spot, when his pilot opened his door and began screaming at him. "Mr. Luthor! I advise you to stay here- you don't know if it's safe! You-"

But Lionel wouldn't listen to him. He was well away from the copter when the pilot began to step out, and as he did so, another green streak flew toward the plant, only this one seamed to be flying a lot lower. Lionel heard the meteor and started at a sprint away from the rock as it collided with the copter's propellers. The entire contraption went up in flames, the pilot along with it.

Lionel shielded his face with his jacket. Hesitating for only a moment, he returned on his initial course, towards the meteors that had fallen behind the building.

As he carefully strides around the edge of the building, he saw two large craters that encompassed the space where the parking lot had been only moments before. Behind that crater was a third one, much smaller, and steam was flooding upward and out of it.

Lionel moved closer to it and as it became clearer, he realized that what had made this hole was not a meteor at all. It was some kind of metallic devise. He hesitantly bent over it, and his eyes widened as he realized what it undoubtedly had to be:

A ship. From another world.

He suddenly spun around as he heard the laughter of a small child. It was coming from inside of one of the craters. As he watched the one on the left, a large object began to rise up out of it. It was the rock that had made the hole in the first place. It seemed to hover in midair for a few seconds as the child's laughter grew, and almost as quickly as it had fallen, it shot upwards, back into the sky. Lionel stared upward in complete amazement- the meteor had left his view totally, and it didn't look like it was ever coming back.

A nude, seemingly-human boy of no more than three years crawled out of the meteor, giggling as if he had just spent the day at Chuckie Cheese's. He ran up to Lionel and hugged his legs.

Lionel realized three things at that moment. One: An alien child from another world had crash-landed on Earth. Two: He possessed an incredible superhuman strength. And three: He, Lionel Luthor, had found him.

And in the Luthor world, finders-keepers. Lionel smiled.

He took off his jacket and wrapped the boy up in it. He cradled him in his arms as he crouched down to inspect this incredible space ship he had discovered. It was small and metallic, with one small wing on its right side. On its left was a giant, gaping hole. He looked into it and saw that an unbroken wall sat between the part of the ship that was still intact and this rip in the ship's hull. It was as if Lionel had only found half of the ship--it was round, but only one half of a sphere was here.

Lionel wondered if there was another part to this ship, then where was it? And what was inside of it?

He walked into the building and called for another helicopter. The pilot inside would take him back to Metropolis, and would be sworn to secrecy about this discovery.

Lionel's life, as well as everyone else who had witnessed this tragedy, was about to change. A whole hell of a lot.