Over the following weeks, Superman found himself as busy as he'd ever been. As if trying to make up for all the disasters he'd missed over his years in self-imposed exile, the universe seemed to be throwing a greater-than-normal level of problems for a Superman to fix. But now, freed from the constraints of having a secret identity, Superman found it far easier to respond quickly to whatever issues might crop up.

On the first Tuesday since his reappearance, a freighter smashed into a hidden reef seven hundred miles off the coast of Baja California. Superman managed to get there about seven minutes after the event happened, and was able to keep the ship from sinking by bending as much of the hull back into place as possible before towing the ship into the nearest port by its anchor cable. The whole thing took several hours, mostly due to the amount of time needed to tow the ship into dock, but Superman was all too happy to do it.

On Thursday, a Boeing 767-300 lost both engines at 32,000 feet over eastern Siberia en route from Chicago to Hong Kong. Superman managed to get to the plane when it was at about 25,000 feet; he lifted the plane onto his back and flew it into Tokyo International for repairs.

Friday brought with it a runaway freight train in the Rockies, and it took most of Superman's strength to bring the train to a halt before it careened off a patch of rail that had been washed out during the spring thaw. It was the first time in fifty years that Clark had found himself actually…tired. It feels good to be tired again, he thought.

On Sunday, Superman helped protect the Indonesian coast from a particularly lethal typhoon that had already wiped out several ships out at sea. Stopping a typhoon was beyond even his abilities, but Superman was able to help out in other ways; breaking up tornadoes that formed in the storm, diverting flooding rivers away from populated areas, pulling people out of wind-ravaged buildings and getting them to safe ground. All in all, it was estimated that his actions saved between five and ten thousand lives.

Tuesday brought with it a challenge that Superman hadn't had experience with, though he'd figured it would have been inevitable. An Islamic radical group had been planning a series of suicide bombings in London, designed to demoralize the nation. Superman had just happened to be stopping by to get some lunch when he'd overheard the first man's heartbeat, running over 150 beats per minute as he'd walked down the street; a quick glance with X-ray vision had revealed the worst, and Superman had disarmed the man before he had a chance to self-detonate. The man had quickly confessed the planned locations and time of the bombings after Superman had hauled him atop the nearest clocktower and given him a taste of the view; Superman had then quickly brought the man to the nearest police, before moving off to intercept the other terrorists. None of them, ultimately, had enough warning to detonate before they found themselves unconscious.

Wednesday brought a sudden crisis on the International Space Station; a cabin module had sprung an unexpected leak, and was rapidly venting pressure to the vacuum outside. Superman was able to patch it up easily with a little heat vision. Life was getting back to the way it had always been, and that suited Clark very well indeed.

In Washington, D.C., however, things were in a much less pleasant state. The sudden reappearance of America's greatest hero had left just about every politician clamoring for an endorsement from the Man of Tomorrow. Polls had said that the American people supported Superman's return by an unprecedented margin – over nine to one were happy that he'd returned – which meant that just about every elected official on Capitol Hill was trying to get themselves associated with him.

The President, however, had another concern. The Man of Steel's reappearance was not entirely unexpected; the continued presence of superhumans on America's soil was something of which his national security advisor kept him very closely advised. They didn't actively tail Superman, of course; that was part of a deal going back over five decades, a deal long since relegated to the depths of time but not forgotten by those in power. After all, parts of that deal were still making themselves known to this day. But someone like Superman couldn't really exercise his powers without being detected on some level, not often – and not in the borders of the United States. NORAD had over a hundred recorded flight paths over the last twenty years of what could only be the Man of Steel. In addition, there were Richter Scale readings, satellite images which just happened to catch an "unexpected" human form…the world was too small a place for someone like Superman to truly hide.

But now, he was back, and that left the President with a problem that none of his predecessors had needed to actively confront:

How do you stop the most powerful man on Earth?

It was a problem that was even more apparent now than it was in the 1940s, thanks to Superman's increased public role. Now that he was spending more and more time in his costumed identity, he was becoming more active than he ever had been before – making the potential step to messiahdom that much closer, the President reasoned. His advisors agreed.

"Mister President, now that he's seemingly spending all his time as a superhero, he's that much more vulnerable to turning against us – deciding that the best way to keep us safe is to play Big Brother. How do we know if he won't turn against us, now that his link to the real world is gone?" the Secretary of Defense asked.

The harsh light of the Situation Room only served to emphasize the wrinkles that arose on the chief of staff's head in her confusion. "Hold on a second. What do you mean, 'now that his link to the real world is gone'? What changed?"

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs harrumphed. "His wife died, that's what changed. Didn't you read the report?"

"She never got the report." The President cut off his chief of staff before she could open her mouth. She glared at him – a gaze that she and she alone was allowed to give to the President.

"Jesus Christ, Chris," she said, addressing the President by his first name, "you knew who his wife was and you didn't tell me? I'm supposed to know these sorts of things, sir."

"I know, Pat, and I'm sorry. It's just that this is absolutely highest-level top secret information, and nobody wanted it getting out-"

"So you cut me out of the loop?"

The President sighed. "We didn't think it would ever come up. Until a week ago, there were only a dozen people in Washington who even knew the old guy was still alive. It's been that was since LBJ, and we wanted to keep it that way. This just happened to blow up in our faces, and we weren't ready for it. Nobody could have seen this coming."

"Well, maybe if we'd kept a tail on the guy we would have…" The SecDef mumbled, just loud enough to be heard.

"Oh, come on, Frank," the Joint Chiefs growled. "You know that would be damn near impossible. The guy can hear someone talking miles away, he can see through walls, he can move faster than the eye– how are you supposed to tail someone like that?"

"It was always out of the question – that was part of the deal he made with Truman. When he disappears, he's gone. No questions. It's the least the country owed him. For what he did, he deserved a goddamn ticker-tape parade from Bangor to Long Beach. But he just wanted to slip away." The President's voice had a note of compassion in it.

To his right, however, his chief of staff shook her head in confusion. "Everybody hold up a second. Someone needs to fill me in on what we're talking about, and I mean now."

The president sighed. "You're right, Pat. You're absolutely right."

"It all started back in 1918, on the night of August 18, when a rocketship landed in the field of two Kansas farmers: John and Martha Kent…"

Over twenty minutes, the story of Superman unfolded over the conference table. Between the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, they were able to fill in the whole story for the chief of staff. How the young child was adopted by the farm couple who found him, and given the name Clark Kent. How his parents died when he was sixteen, four months apart, and he wandered the world for years afterwards. How at age twenty he showed up for the first time in New York City, getting a job at the New York Daily News as a reporter. At the same time, he started running around in the red-and-blue bodysuit that made him instantly famous as the heroic Superman. How he fell in love with a fellow reporter named Lois Lane. How other incredibly powerful men and women began to appear, as if by magic, summoned by his appearance. The Bat-Man, his true identity unknown, more legend than man, of Chicago. The Flash, a college student named Jay Garrick, living out of Kansas City; he could run at seemingly impossible speeds. Wonder Woman, who went by the name Diana Prince, of San Francisco, seemingly appearing and disappearing into thin air to fight crime with strength that rivaled Superman's. And the Green Lantern, an engineer named Alan Scott, who guarded over Los Angeles with a glowing green ring of incredible power. These heroes and more appeared, and they began saving people. Sometimes, they would meet and work together; other times, they found they had more differences than similarities and went along their separate ways. But for the most part, they were content to remain who they were, and to save people.

Then came Pearl Harbor. With it, the government found itself pressed into action, a war suddenly on two fronts. FDR met with the heroes, pled with them personally to aid in the war effort – to help America win. According to the story, Roosevelt managed to get up out of his wheelchair long enough to fall to his knees to beg for the heroes' help. But they were of one mind, agreed on this: this was not their war to fight. Gods, they supposedly said, were not meant to fight the wars of men.

The government was, of course, outraged. But what could they do? They couldn't draft them, not like they could ordinary men. They would need an entire army just to try and bring one of the heroes down. That left propaganda. They tried to paint the heroes as Nazi infiltrators, designed to make Americans lazy and dependent, but it didn't stick. The people needed to believe in these heroes, needed the hope they brought in the desperate times. So, eventually, the government gave up – decided to rededicate themselves to fighting the war. And they managed to win it on their own, as everyone knew. With war's end came peace, it seemed, at least for a while. But it wasn't to last.

In late 1945, the U.S. discovered something massive coming at Earth from outer space. They asked Superman to go up and look at it, see what it was; it seemed too irregular to be an asteroid or comet. He did so, only to return with frightening news: it wasn't one object, it was an armada. Ten thousand alien warships, from the size of Volkswagens to the size of battleships, all headed for earth. Each one bearing a dark swastika on its side.

The Bat-Man quickly went to Europe, taking with him the Flash and a few OSS men to help him gather information to explain this seemingly impossible turn of events. He discovered files, locked away in a safe in Berlin, detailing a plan so spectacular it seemed out of science fiction. Hitler had, since he came to power, been attempting to contact extraterrestrial life for some unknown scheme locked away only in his mad mind. In 1941, he had succeeded. He communicated with the aliens for several years, through the war, establishing a dialogue. Two weeks before his death, when he knew he was finished, he sent out one final message, asking his new allies to finish what he started. Apparently, they decided he was right.

The government had no idea what to do. If they told everyone, there would be global panic; people remembered Orson Welles' War Of The Worlds radio drama quite well, and knew that the last thing they needed was the entire planet going crazy. But they had no way of fighting the ships on their own, not until they reached Earth – and odds were good, they wouldn't be able to do much good against them anyway. So did the last thing they could think of:

They asked the superheroes for help.

The heroes were only too happy to oblige, and their task was quickly outlined for them. Since only Superman and Green Lantern could operate in the vacuum of space for long, they were to be sent in as a first strike option – devastate as many of the alien ships as possible while they were still away from Earth. Once on the planet, the other heroes could engage the menace. Hopefully, combined with conventional forces, it would be enough. It was a long shot – but it was the only shot.

Or so it seemed, until a mere twelve hours before the operation was scheduled to commence. It was then that word of another secret weapon finally reached the higher ups, one which might have a chance of leveling the playing field. A weapon that was entirely experimental, but might be able to level the playing field:

A hydrogen bomb.

It had never been tested, but the scientists at Los Alamos had managed to put together not one, but two prototype H-bombs. The plan was quickly revised: Superman and Green Lantern would take the two improvised weapons with them, place them in the center of the armada, then detonate them to winnow down the numbers. It gave them a fighting chance, which was all they could hope for.

Once out there, though, things went very bad, very quickly. Superman and Green Lantern found themselves under heavy fire well before they expected anything. Green Lantern's ring wasn't up to the challenge of protecting him as well as he'd thought it would, not against the concentrated blasts of the alien fleet – and he died, shot to pieces despite Superman's best efforts to save him. The Man of Steel was enraged; he dove into the center of the fleet, a H-bomb in each hand, dropping them in the center of the fleet as best before tearing his way out through as many ships as possible.

When the bombs went off, however, they were far more powerful than the scientists had expected. The combined blast reached well past six megatons, literally vaporizing most of the fleet. The battered remnants turned around and retreated as soon as they were able. Superman, battered and bruised, returned to Earth with Green Lantern's body. It was then that he forged his pact with Truman himself: no more deals, no more government operations. And when he wanted to dissapear, he'd be able to, as well as all the heroes – they would be able to just slip away.

Six months later, Superman killed his arch-nemesis, Lex Luthor. He took his escape clause, and went back to being who he'd been before he ever put on his blue-and-red: Clark Kent. He went on to marry his girlfriend, and they lived together in anonymous peace.

With Superman gone, the other heroes began to fade away, as well. Maybe they didn't want to go on without their "leader;" maybe they'd just gotten sick of the life. Things hadn't been the same ever since Green Lantern died among them, and it wasn't much of a surprise when they started going back to where they'd come from. It was then that the government seized upon what some saw as the ultimate revenge. They decided that, if the heroes wanted anonymity, they'd be only too happy to help. So they began to erase any proof that the heroes ever existed. In the days before computers, it wasn't too hard; the right words here and there, the right people paid, the right files and papers destroyed. Within ten years, it was as if the heroes had never existed. They became just what such people had always been: legends.

"But now, they're back." The chief of staff broke the long silence at the end of the tale.

The Secretary of Defense nodded. "If history repeats itself, as it tends to, then whoever out there has these sorts of powers will probably leap on Superman's example and go public now. They'll look up to him. Admire him. Idolize him, even."
The Joint Chiefs finished the thought: "Enough to go to anybody's head."

The President glanced around the table. "You think we need some way of grounding him. Keeping him tied to humanity."

"It's the best way of making sure he doesn't go against us," the SecDef agreed.

The chief of staff smiled. "I know just what to do."