Original subtitles

Brac discovered he couldn't destroy me.

So he found another way. He cast me

through time to some of history's

darkest moments. Wars, famine, disease,

slavery. He believed that if I saw

enough, something inside me would

finally break, that I would stop

believing in humanity. But Brainiac was

wrong, because even in the cruellest

moments, I found people who chose to do

good, people who risked their lives for

strangers, simply because it was the

right thing to do. I crossed centuries

believing I was there to save them.

Only later did I understand the truth.

Brainiac sent me into the past so that

I would lose faith in humanity. But it

was there that I discovered why it is

still worth fighting for it. Because in

the end, it wasn't Superman who crossed

history to preserve humanity. It was

humanity that crossed history and

preserved Superman. Blessed are the

peacemakers. For they shall be called

the children of God. Perhaps history is

just that, a choice between what we can

do and what we must do. Welcome to

Between Eras. Das geht ab. Damn. can

you. And. I. remember the chains before

I remember anything else. Brac didn't

need common shackles. He used fiber

cables wrapped around my body with

surgical precision. Each one calculated

, each one exact. Kryptonite in the

chain. He knew where I was weak. He

always knew. The portal opened. It was

a sentence, not an exit. I saw space

tear from inside the ship and the

vacuum swallowed me whole. And then

nothing. When I returned to existence,

there was red earth beneath my face,

cotton all around, a sun I could barely

feel. My body wouldn't respond. The

kryptonite still burned inside with

that slow fire that doesn't kill, but

won't let you stand. I didn't know

which century I had fallen into. I was

found by men and women with bodies

marked by years of forced labor. They

looked at me, looked at the crater my

fall had opened in the earth, looked at

the suit none of them had ever seen.

They calculated the risk in silence and

even so they carried me, brought me

inside, laid me on the floor, brought

water, brought what they had, which was

almost nothing, and gave it without

hesitation. I. came from another planet

. I have faced forces that bend the

physics of the universe. But there was

something about that which I couldn't

process. The idea that one human being

would look at another human being and

not see themselves, that they would

look at the same hands, the same

tiredness, the same pain and decide on

a difference that justified all of that

. That was the thing that remained

unanswered within me that day, and

perhaps it remained forever. But there

was something else I also saw, and that

I understood perfectly. Within that

same space where everything had been

taken from them, something remained

that no one had managed to reach. A way

of caring for one another that needed

no explanation or reward. A dignity

that did not depend on recognition to

exist. They cared for me. A stranger

with no name, no known origin, with the

natural ease of someone fulfilling

something they always knew to be right.

That silenced me more than anything I

had ever faced. I fell asleep with the

sun still coming through the window. I

was awakened by the sound of lashes. It

is not a sound that can be mistaken for

another. It has a dry, cruel precision

that cuts through walls. It took me a

second to remember where I was. It took

another to understand what I was

hearing. The farmers were in the middle

of the cotton rows, around the crater

my fall had opened in the ground. They

were asking questions about what had

happened there, and when their silence

as an answer wasn't enough, they used

what they always used. I placed myself

between them and the violence, without

a word, without a threat, just presence

. Ah. The night was silent and full of

unspoken things. They returned my suit,

carefully folded, as if they knew—

without me having explained anything—

that it was part of who I was. The

portal began to form in the air, and I

looked at them, at that circle of

people on the dirt floor, and

understood what had happened that day.

I wasn't the one who brought hope there

. Hope was already there. It had

resisted for generations, passed in

silence from one to another, kept alive

within everything that tried to destroy

it. I didn't save anyone from that

place. I was just among them, on the

same side, on the same ground, without

being above anything. Perhaps what

remained was not an act of strength.

Perhaps what remained was the image of

equality. As simple as that, as rare as

that. I entered the portal without a

speech. I only took what they gave me

without knowing they were giving it.

The certainty that hope is not born

from superpowers. It is born from a

hand extended in the dark, from silence

kept in the face of violence by choice,

not weakness, from water offered to a

stranger when there is almost nothing

left. I never knew all their names, but

I carry their weight and their

lightness with me. The darkness

returned. And with it, the uncertainty

of when, of where, of what time awaited

me on the other side. But I already

knew something Brainck hadn't

calculated when he sent me back in

history. Wherever he threw me, I would

find it, the same spark in different

people, in the same human being I never

stopped believing in. I always believed

, I always will believe. I did not

choose 1945. I was thrown here. I heard

the tank before I saw the family.

Schnell. I calculated I wouldn't make

it in time, but I went anyway. I

twisted the barrel with the strength I

had left. The scene was of

indescribable pain, but amidst the

suffering, I saw gratitude overflowing

in everyone's eyes. They were gone. I

forgot about the second tank. The

bullet hit me square on. The ground

came fast. I tried to stand up. My body

didn't respond. Before everything went

dark, just one thought: the family was

safe. It quickly became clear that I

wouldn't talk. The blows came, they

hurt. Without powers, each one landed

with real weight, but I realized, they

needed me to break much more than I

needed to defend myself. They threw me

into the dark. Without the sun, I am

nothing but a man. Every second in

there was a second less of everything I

am. I stayed quiet and waited. On the

third day, a brick in the wall moved

slowly. Carefully, as if someone knew I

was listening and wanted to prepare me.

A sliver of light came through. I

closed my eyes and let it land on my

face. There were eyes on the other side

. A child with the seriousness of one

who has already seen things they

shouldn't have seen. I nodded. He went

away. The brick went back. During the

day, scientists came and tried to

pierce my skin, the needles bent, they

measured my strength, the equipment

broke, they would never understand me.

The next day, along with the light, a

piece of bread. I held it with both

hands and kept staring at it. In the

darkness, hands that had nothing

offered half of their world to a

stranger. He didn't know who I was, he

just felt that I needed it. I, who have

been called a savior by presidents, had

never received anything like that. This

repeated for days and with every sliver

of sun that came in, I returned. Slowly

, but I returned. The bread was

generosity, the hand was trust. This

boy was giving trust to a shadow on the

other side of a stone wall, in the

middle of World War II. Without any

rational reason to do so, I reached out

my hand and held his. It was the

quietest moment I experienced in that

place, and the most important. I heard

fast footsteps. The small hand

disappeared. I looked through the crack

. A soldier was dragging the boy across

the courtyard. He pointed his weapon.

Something inside me burned. Not anger.

The absolute clarity of someone who

knows certain things simply cannot

happen. Not while I am still breathing.

I let out a pent-up scream and punched

the wall. The sun hit me fully for the

first time in days. I felt everything

come back at once. The soldier was

thrown far away, the others ran. The

boy was standing, he hadn't moved. When

the last soldier disappeared through

the gate, he walked toward me. Then he

said the name Sigel. That name sounded

like an echo of something that hadn't

begun yet, but was somehow already

written. The gates opened. They didn't

run. Running was for those who still

believed they deserved the other side.

When they saw me in the yard, they

stopped, they came to touch me one by

one, like someone needing to confirm

with their hands what their eyes still

couldn't believe. I held a child in the

middle of that yard and looked at those

faces, faces the world had given

numbers instead of names. They had been

treated as a problem to be solved, and

I understood the greatest crime of that

place. It wasn't the suffering; it was

trying to convince people that they

shouldn't exist. They didn't succeed.

What drove me wasn't strength, it was

purpose. From the flames, I pulled out

an officer who couldn't get out. Not

because he deserved it. Heroes are not

forged in easy days. They are born in

the resistance of the last step. I had

a promise to keep to myself. To go

until the end. He would lead me to the

bunker. I entered through the roof, I

advanced slowly. The monster I was

pursuing was isolated, sitting, alone.

He hadn't fled. Perhaps it was the only

form of control he still had left, to

choose his own end. Brainak didn't send

me to 1945 to destroy me, he sent me to

corrupt me. He wanted the most brutal

injustice in human history to turn my

justice into an execution. He wanted me

to kill this man. I watched and did not

move. The grenade came out of his

pocket slowly, he pulled the pin. The

explosion came in full. When the smoke

cleared, I was in the same place and he

was nowhere to be found. Evil, when it

doesn't find the monster it needs to

survive, turns on itself. I stood in

the silence of that bunker and felt

something I took time to identify.

Relief, not for what happened to him,

but for what didn't happen to me. The

field in front of me was open. The

first real horizon I had seen since I

arrived in that time. Former prisoners

walking slowly through the grass. Some

just standing there looking at the sky,

as if relearning what it is to not have

a concrete roof above their heads.

Allied soldiers among them, not as

guards, but as people. I looked at all

of that for a moment and then I saw you

in the middle of it all, waving as if

you knew, since the first brick was

moved in the wall, that this moment

would always come. The portal opened in

the sky like a scar of light. I was

here and the world will never know, but

I know. I know this void between times.

Without the sun, the body weakens

immediately. But this time, as the

darkness closed in, I thought of the

boy and then it hit me. Jerry Siegel, a

young Jewish man who in 1933, while

hatred took shape in Europe, created a

symbol of hope for the world. He

created Superman. I don't know if it

was him, I don't know if it was his

blood or just the universe being cruel

and generous at the same time. He

didn't know who I was and yet he gave

me light. He created Superman before

knowing that Superman existed, because

he already believed that something like

that should exist. Hope, saving hope. A

I arrived in this era as I arrive in

all of them, empty. Days lying under a

weak winter sun, listening to the bells

toll for the dead, unable to get up to

help. Death passed by my feet, small,

covered in fur, and I could do nothing

but wait. The metal of that blade was

cold, but that man's pulse trembled

with a desperate heat. By the wooden

mask and the glass eyes fallen in the

mud, I knew exactly which period of

human history I had landed in. An age

of shadows, where men of science wore

dead bird faces to try to cheat their

own mortality. My father once told me

that Earth was a fragile world,

inhabited by people stumbling in the

dark. But seeing the collapse up close,

smelling the ashes, makes me question

the weight of my own power. I can move

planets from their orbits, but I cannot

punch an invisible force that

devastates millions of lives. Hatred

needs light to sustain itself. I didn't

bring the darkness. I just erased their

excuse. Isolating the body was the only

science they had against the invisible.

But someone should have gone back to

see who behind those boards was still

breathing. The purest water of this era

was always down there waiting. With my

eyes, I pierce the rock after deep

aquifers, where the plague could not

touch. I cross borders in seconds to

fetch bread from distant mills, paying

with gold forgotten in the oceans. I

welcome those who departed with the

dignity the plague stole from them,

sealing the earth to protect those who

stayed. I could have written the whole

answer on that wall, but humanity never

needed ready-made answers. It needed

time to find its own. The rest it would

have to draw alone, as it always has in

every era, long before me. The weight

of tomorrow is built upon the ashes of

today. They will mourn their dead. They

will carry the scars of this era for

centuries, but they will not break.

They carve a mark. They do not know

where I came from, but they know what

it means. It means that even in the

deepest hell, humanity chooses to look

up. This era of ashes will pass and

from these same minds will come rebirth

. I had already seen everything a

battlefield can show. Heroes who turned

into cowards, cowards who turned into

heroes. Men who wept for the enemies

they killed. Gods who abandoned those

they loved, men who abandoned their

gods, but I had never seen anyone like

him. He was not Greek, nor was he

Trojan. Of all those there, he seemed

not to seek the glory of war. He placed

himself where no man would seek to be,

between armies, in a bloody battle,

without choosing any side. He carried

the wounded away from the battle, ours

and the Trojans ', day after day. On

the fifth day, I watched from afar. He

moved between the battles, pulling the

wounded and moving the cruel men aside,

like someone pulling children from a

cliff. I threw my spear, I saw it stop

against a single finger. Before my own

men, the strongest of the Greeks did

not know what to do. I sent two men to

intercept him. They returned without

having gotten close. Not because he had

attacked them, but because he simply

kept carrying the wounded as if the

soldiers armed before him did not exist

. I, the greatest warrior of all, had

never felt this way in all these years.

And I did not know what to believe. In

a God among us. At the end of the day,

more wounded always arrived, forgotten

men. No matter which side they fought

for, he was tireless. Hector waited for

me, where every man waits for what he

cannot avoid. Standing before the gates

, without an army, without a spare

shield. Only him and the distance

between us. He fought like a man

defending a city. I fought like a man

who had nothing left to lose. The

warrior just watched. He seemed

restless, but he did nothing. Not even

when Hector's sword nearly pierced my

throat, nor when I finally found the

gap in his armor. I understood there

are things that no God, not even one

who seemed more than a god, would dare

change. I tied his feet to my chariot.

Not for honor, but for fury. And that

was when he appeared before me as if he

had always been there. My own horses

heard him before I did. I could have

drawn my sword, but my body remembered

before my rage could. I had already

seen what those hands could do with

metal and wood. He cut the rope without

me seeing the blade. He lifted the body

of the man I had just killed as if he

were a king. I asked his name.

>> Kal-El.

>> Kal-El. A name that belonged to no

language I had ever heard, older than

Troy, newer than tomorrow itself. They

say the old king fell to his knees

before recognizing Hector’s own name

on his lips. I learned later what

happened on the walls when his son's

body returned. He prayed to Zeus, he

prayed to Apollo. None of them

descended, but something came down

after all was lost, not to win. Perhaps

there are griefs the gods dare not

interrupt and griefs only a stranger

has the courage to honor. I went to

meet him one last time, not as a king,

but as a man with one final question.

If you do not fight for glory, nor for

a kingdom, nor for a God, what is left

to fight for? He looked at the sea,

removed his helm and said, "My fight is

only for those who need hope. I go for

the greatest conquest a man could

desire." Troy will fall, but I never

witnessed a being who seemed to come

from the sky, not to conquer, but to

bow before the suffering of others.

Perhaps glory was never about lasting.

Perhaps it was always about this. To

whom do you bow when no one is asking?

Poets will sing my name for a thousand

years, but it will be the gods who

remember his. Many years have passed

since the fall of Troy. My journey in

this era has gained another chapter. I

met a man named Odysseus. A king, a

cyclops, son of Poseidon, Polyphemus,

blinded by the cunning of a man. I knew

this story. I never expected to live it

. This time, cunning would not be

enough. The cave was already full of

fists. I need to buy time. It is all I

can offer them now. Strength is not a

decision; it is what remains when the

decision has already been made by

something else. 11 ships entered that

strait. The Laestrygonians waited on

the rocks and in a few moments, none

remained. I did not arrive in time, and

even if I had, I do not know if it

would have been enough. I looked at

Odysseus and understood that nothing

could be done. You arrived. That is

already more than many would have done.

The rest was the decision of men, not

the gods, nor yours. Circe had warned

Odysseus about the song. Wax in the

men's ears would suffice, but he wanted

to hear it anyway. He asked to be tied

to the mast, knowing he would beg to be

released. I did not understand that

choice. It is not strength that resists

a song, it is will. And his seemed to

want to be tested. Do not interfere.

The creature known as Scylla waited in

that strait and there was no choice

that would free them completely. Even

so, they rowed. Odysseus already knew.

He said the time would come and that he

would have to walk that destiny alone.

Now

>> I saved no one from their destiny. I

only gave them more time to believe

that destiny could wait. This portal

did not follow the pattern. In other

eras, it always showed me the time to

go. This one, this one seemed to call

me before the temple. Oh. You cannot

see. I woke up in a small room. Tatami

on the floor, paper on the walls,

legendary-looking samurai armor, and

the smell of something cooking on the

other side of the wall. The samurai's

name was Shone Gagesuke. I thanked him

for the gesture.

>> The village was small. Shone and his

family, his mother, a younger sister.

Two children of a brother who had died

in battle before I arrived. They looked

at me with curiosity. I returned the

gaze with tenderness. In the morning,

Shone appeared with two wooden swords,

placed one on the floor in front of me,

and waited. It was too light for my

hands. Shone expected something

completely different from strength. He

corrected my posture, moved my feet,

adjusted my shoulders, repositioned my

wrist, and when he was satisfied, he

stepped back and struck. Days passed.

Shone was a good man. He fought because

there were people who needed him to

know how to fight, to protect those who

need to be protected. That day, nature

decided to remind me that there are

greater and more impetuous battles than

those I had faced until now. As in

other eras, I will do everything to

save people. I found Shone in the

middle of the rubble. He was looking

for his brother's children. Saving

those who fell would not be enough. The

true shockwave, the secondary and most

devastating one, was still rising from

the depths. If I used brute force

against the tectonic plates, the

pressure would shatter the Earth's

crust into pieces. I calculated the

exact frequency of the destruction. I

generated a counter-wave, the same

force, the same amplitude, but in

inverse phase. Pure destructive

interference. The roar extinguished as

if someone had cut the world's sound,

but the silence also took its toll.

transforming my own body into a conduit

for the planet's energy. It consumed

the last reserves of my cells. For the

first time in a long time, I didn't see

what happened next. The end of one

disaster is often an invitation to

another. Clark, I couldn't get to you,

but I brought you to me. The portals

are impossible to track. How? Bren here

knows I'm here. This makeshift device

will take us back. We need you, Clark.

What is the current time? And Lois? Not

good, my friend. pass. down. The

bullets came first. I stopped them

before they hit those people. Then came

the pain, the kryptonite burning inside

me. But when that woman touched my face

, I recognized something I already knew

very well. Even surrounded by cruelty,

human kindness always finds a way to

survive. In 1967, Biafra's declaration

of independence started a war and a

devastating blockade. In São Tomé,

Father Tony Burn helped organize an

airlift, gathering volunteers to take

food and medicine on dangerous night

flights.

>> Your name?

>> Clark. Of course it's hot.

>> Are you the co-pilot?

>> I am.

>> Have you ever flown a Constellation?

I've been in worse planes. Turn 15

degrees to the left. Now trust me. Hang

in there, John. Engine three

compromised.

>> I don't believe it.

>> I'm going to check the fuselage. Be

quick. Engine three responding. Are you

okay? I will be. I thought that engine

had turned to ash. What did you do back

there?

>> Nothing, I just trusted the pilot. You

need to sign now. I'm not doing that.

This document hands the cargo over to

the military.

>> Without authorization from Lagos, no

supplies cross the blockade.

>> With it, they might never reach them.

>> Clark, I managed to track you by the

hook fragment that stayed stuck in your

leg when we met. The capsule contains a

respirator adapted to your physiology.

It will filter the kryptonite particles

from your bloodstream and accelerate

your recovery. Put on the mask. You

will need your strength.

>> This cargo belongs to the hospitals.

Please, stop. It now belongs to the

army. There are people dying without

this. He said you would come

>> this way, quickly. Come with me, you

bastard. Don't worry, you can trust

your pilot.

>> For weeks, I heard conversations that

were meant to remain secret.

>> I couldn't sign those reports, but

Federic could publish them. When the

documents reached the papers, the world

started looking at Bafra. Protests grew

and silence became harder to maintain.

After almost three years of war, the

surrender was signed

>> without winners or losers. So this is

where you disappear for now. At 1:23

that morning, the greatest nuclear

catastrophe in history would happen.

Xenon has poisoned the core. Power is

dropping too fast. Pull the manual rods

.

>> Strange. There are six rods left in the

core. The manual requires at least 15.

Z5 now. Come on, move. That was just

the first domino. The entire plant

functions as a single organism of

concrete and steel. If the main artery

bleeds, the other three hearts collapse

. Without water, the remaining blocks

reach melting temperature in minutes.

There is no time for evacuation orders.

If the generators stop, emergency

cooling ceases.

>> What happened?

>> The plant exploded. Let's go. Hello,

there’s an explosion. Fall back,

radiation is everywhere. Come on. You

are the true heroes. We have work to do

. Stay calm, I'll get you out of here.

When you realized the rods weren't

responding, who was still in control of

the room? I've already said what I know

.

>> I want them to burn. I want them to

feel the heat tearing through my flesh.

stop They fly once, one chance, one

life for many. Each pilot accepted his

fate. I lost control. I lost control. I

need to act fast. There were people

dying. Each of its rays disperses the

residual radiation from the plant. The

air consumes my strength faster than I

can breathe. The world remains

difficult. But today it became a little

better because of you. Two two