The following contains spoilers for Flashpoint Beyond #3, on sale now from DC.

Readers know that baby Kal-El was sent to Earth in the Flashpoint timeline, as he was in most other realities. Flashpoint Beyond, though, now reveals why -- and the reason isn't as altruistic as in other timelines.

Flashpoint Beyond #3 -- by Geoff Johns, Jeremy Adams, Tim Sheridan, Xermánico and Rob Leigh -- reveals that Kal's Kryptonian parents sent their infant son to Earth before Krypton's self-destruction. While that part of Superman's origin is well known, Jor and Lara-El in the Flashpoint timeline aren't just trying to save the life of their son -- they're also tasking him with the mission of conquering Earth in advance of the rest of the Kryptonians' arrival.

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DC Reveals Why Flashpoint Superman Was Sent to Earth

At the end of issue #2, Superman – or Super-Man, as he's now called in this timeline – stops Batman from killing the perpetrators of a robbery, and then asks for his assistance. When Batman – Thomas Wayne in this reality – tells the Kryptonian he's not interested, Super-Man incapacitates him and takes him to Poison Ivy's Oasis, a haven conceived by Super-Man and built by Jason Woodrue -- this world's Swamp Thing.

Using the Kryptonian knowledge crystals found in his rocket ship, Super-Man generates a plant-based construct of Jor-El, who reveals the Kryptonians' intent to colonize Earth in the wake of Krypton's demise. Worse yet, their arrival is now a mere five days away. Johns and Eduardo Risso's Flashpoint Beyond #0 revealed there were already conspiracy theories afoot regarding a Kryptonian invasion, but Jor-El's message now confirms it.

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Batman again refuses to help Super-Man, citing a mission of his own. That mission, of course, is to essentially eliminate his own reality, thereby saving the life of his son Bruce -- as he thought he had already helped accomplish, as seen in 2011's Flashpoint by Johns and Andy Kubert.

In Flashpoint, it was Bruce who was killed in that fateful, life-changing robbery, rather than his parents Thomas and Martha Wayne. Flashpoint Beyond #0, though, shows Thomas waking up to find that reality is curiously again intact, for reasons still unknown, driving him to again look for allies and once more undo the only reality he's known.

In Flashpoint: Project Superman, a tie-in to the original series, baby Kal-El's ship landed in Metropolis rather than Smallville, and Kal was immediately seized by the U.S. military with the intent of creating a superpowered soldier. Kal-El spent his entire life as Project Superman's Subject Zero before being rescued by Batman, The Flash and Cyborg. Flash subsequently helped restore the timeline, eliminating the Flashpoint reality, until its unexplained reappearance in Flashpoint Beyond.

Flashpoint Beyond #3 is now on sale from DC.

Source: DC