Yeah, you're right - he was depowered when Byrnes arrived.
But how?
DC Characters can remember (some can) a battle called the Crisis. But for the most part (apart from Spectre, PS etc) they do not remember it's significance and they don't remember their 'alternate' (ie 'original') histories.
Hence, Superman doesn't remember being able to leap from galaxy to galaxy and snuff out stars with one gust of super-breath.
BUT - it was not mentioned that the characters were totally remade during the crisis. As some original characters survived it (Superboy, Superman-2) but retreated out of the universe with Alex Luthor.
Thus, it's feasible that Superman today is the same Superman as pre-crisis - even if he can't remember it and has a different history.
So - I put forward the idea that Superman still retains his old powers - but has - or has been made to (by Spectre?) - forgotten them.
Thus, leaving DC free to restore them at some point....
Do people see what I'm getting at lol?
Would it not be so cool, if Supes slowly starts to get his powers back to his old degree....? Bit by bit, over the new crisis...?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The villains' doomsday missile launches from it's platform... rocketing into space from the planet Apokylips... carrying it's deadly payload of antimatter with unerring precision towards it's target.... Kal-El's adopted homeworld of Earth! When the missile explodes... it's lethal cargo would rend apart the very fabric of the universe... instantly vapourising the Earth and all it's inhabitants....
Superman picks himself up, bloodied and battered by his fight with the evil Darkseid... and looks up towards the fleeing projectile. His eyes widen as the horror of what's about to unfold sinks in... his mouth gapes as if to scream, but words escape him... only a trickle of scarlet blood issuing from twixt his lips...
The cruel master of Apokylips stands behind him... eyes glowing menacingly. 'You see clearly now, kryptonian? Even as I speak, the missile enters hyperspace on it's way to Earth.... Nothing can catch it now... The ones you love... you wife... your friends... your justice league... will all soon be but a memory...'
The Last Son stands in terrified transfixation... rooted to the spot, byt a sense of helplessness he has never felt before.... He was defeated. By time and distance. By the laws of physics that rule this universe.
Darkseid was right... In hyperspace, the missile defied time and space and travelled at many times the speed of light... nothing in the universe could spare the Earth it's destruction now.... Destruction that would occur one minute from now, as the missile ended it's ten thousand light year journey....
To reach the Earth in time at this point would mean travelling at millions of times the speed of light... a feat of speed that would humble the Flash... let alone this defeated... grief stricken Man of Tomorrow.
Superman dropped to his knees. Broken. A man of steel, caught between blades of titanium.
Darkseid, Lord of chaos and instrumentor of his downfall laughed. And laughed.
Laughed as he had done so many times in the past.
30 Seconds.
'What a broken man you are Kal-El... What a fall from such a glorious past...'
Yes. The past. A past that seemed so full of defeat and despair now... images of Doomsday... of Lex Luthor... of so much evil and wrath... all directed at himself, Superman...
They all came to his mind and served as salt to his wounds...
20 Seconds.
Had it always been this way..? Had Clark's life always been plagued by despair and doubt? He didn't know. He couldn't think clearly through the pain and the dread of what was to come in...
15 Seconds.
There must have been a time when he was free from doubt... free from despair of not knowing what to do... free from being powerless to fight against situations like this...
And then there was a flash.
Not from an antimatter bomb annihilating a planet.
But a flash inside a Kryptonian mind. A flash of revelation.
A flash of realities that no longer existed. Of history rewritten.
A glimpse into a past that might have been and a future that may still be.
How did this fleeting glance into the unknowable happen upon Superman's mind...? Where did it come from...?
He didn't know....
Ten seconds.
But whatever he had seen. Whatever explosion has occured in his soul...
It was evident in his face, as he rose to his feet. He stood tall. Taller than before. His cuts and bruises, now diminished. His eys... different... deeper....
Darkseid caught these eyes and his own widened.
With confusion. Nay, bewilderment. And with a recognition of a past he never thought he'd see again...
'It's you... But... how?'
Five seconds.
Superman shot him a glance.
And a wry grin.
Then vanished....
------------------------
Four seconds later, a doomsday missile, loaded with an antimatter warhead of indescribable destructive power blinked into existence one hundred thousand miles above the Earth.
Nothing no stood between the Earth and it's complete obliteration. Between the human race and their ultimate extinction.
Save one person.
At the exact halfway point between the weapon and it's target... there floated a solitary figure...
It wasn't there an instant ago. It had blinked into existence a split second before the missile did.
Sunlight bathed this figure. Shining upon the brilliant hues of red, blue and yellow that adorned it.
A cape splayed out motionless against the cosmos, bearing a shield known the universe over as a symbol for hope.
Fists clenched. Might hands that had ripped planets asunder with ease.
A mouth was set in grim determination. Lips smiled a slight smile of confidence. Lips that when parted could extinguish the brightest star.
Eyes set dead ahead on the threat to be defeated. Eyes that held the power to reignite a dying sun. Eyes that could see across the cosmos and into other dimension. Eyes that could stare into the heart of the universe and not be blinded.
Not even by the almighty flash that now seemed to rend asunder all of creation...
There is no sound in space. But the people of Earth didn't need their ears to know that they had been saved from ultimate destruction.
The flash faded as quickly as it appeared. And NASA radar swept through the space around earth once again, checking for any remaining signs of the missile and it's dread payload.
Gone.
Though the scan did reveal one suprise.
Exactly 50,000 miles away from the earth, there was solitary blip on the radar screens.
At exact point zero of the explosion that had just occured.
The NASA orbital telescope swung round as commanded, to provide a digital visual display of the exact area in space.
Filtering out the excess light, the screens at NASA came alive with colour, screens that were directly hooked up to the whole Earth's news broadcast networks.
The picture the showed was of reality ripped apart. Torn in half by the power of antimatter. Colours never seen before made some people turn away from the screens.
But those who watched saw the most amazing sight.
The great gash... the wound inflicted upon the fabric of spacetime itself, was being pulled together again... by a blur of red and blue that interwove itself between the severed halves like a needle through a piece of garment.... An impossible feat, for any man...
But if you had eyes that could see faster than the speed of light...
If you too could defy time and space... you could see that this blur of movement bears an insignia... a shield...
And this shield depicts who this person is that defies an antimatter weapon... this person who can pull dimensions together with his bare hands...
And if you recognise this symbol, like anyone would... you'd know that though this person was more human at heart than anyone else, he was without doubt more than just a man...
He is a Superman.
