For My Culture

In the distant past, a dying alien race creates a number of containment devices in which to preserve their CULTURE. They send them into space with contact teams, intent on meeting other civilizations. When a small group of these aliens arrives on the planet Krypton, they are met by the militant Kem-L, who kills them and corrupts one of the devices. Its new mission is to preserve his ideal of Kryptonian CULTURE by eradicating all others — and thus the device becomes known as “The Eradicator.”

In its original form, The Eradicator resembles a stylized small rocket. Its top section is a prolate spheroid, which exudes a blue glow and is approximately three times the size of an egg. This is connected via four thin mounting brackets to a glossy orange tail fin section of equal length. The ten equally spaced fins each have the shape of a pointed quarter ellipse, with the tapered end extending slightly beyond the rear of the squat main cylindrical body tube.

On Krypton, The Eradicator does all that it could over the years to protect Kryptonians, EVEN FROM THEMSELVES.

When a group of Kryptonian explorers leave Krypton in search of a new planet to colonize, The Eradicator alters their birthing matrices and makes them fatally allergic to lead, thus creating Daxamites. To further ensure that nobody left Krypton, the Eradicator alters Kryptonians by encoding in them a genetic defect so that they will instantly perish if they leave their world.

One of the surviving aliens, known as the Cleric, takes the Eradicator and leaves Krypton with a group of followers. Unfortunately, they die soon thereafter, as the Kryptonian genetic link to their home planet precludes their survival off-world. The Cleric keeps the Eradicator for 200,000 years, until he encounters Superman on Warworld, while Superman was in self-imposed exile from Earth due to his guilt over executing three Kryptonians from a pocket universe.

With the device, the two exchange memories – which explains that Kal-El was able to leave Krypton thanks to genetic treatments his father had undergone to cure his DNA of the Eradicator’s defect – and the Cleric has a vision of Superman in combat with Mongul. The Cleric wishes to save Superman’s life, and the Eradicator transports Superman to the Cleric’s asteroid.

The Cleric notices that the device has changed to protect Krypton’s sole survivor, and he and Superman use it to heal their wounds, both physical and spiritual.

As they talk about their pasts, the Cleric assures Superman that his departure has only deprived his world of a great hero rather than sparing it from the threat he perceived he had become, confident that Kal-El would only have killed when he had no other choice to preserve justice. When the Cleric gives the Eradicator to Superman, he rapidly ages and dies as the link to the Eradicator extending his life is severed. Superman marks the Cleric’s grave with his symbol to reflect the impact the Cleric had on him.

Although Superman initially kept the Eradicator as a simple memento, it eventually attempted to activate and psychologically convert Superman into a ‘true’ Kryptonian, causing him to adopt Kryptonian clothes and a more ruthless attitude as it assembled the Fortress of Solitude in Antarctica. Superman was initially untroubled by this, even after Professor Hamilton tried to point out how he had nearly killed the alien gladiator Draaga when he could have just defeated him and ended the bout, but when the Eradicator attempted to kill Jonathan Kent, Superman fought off its influence and hurled the Eradicator into the sun.

The Eradicator’s controlling consciousness was able to use the energy of the sun to give itself a humanoid form, but Superman and Hamilton were able to drain its energy back into the Fortress.