Superman does not believe that Mister Oz is in fact his father from Krypton, Jor-El. He tries to have Kelex confirm Mister Oz's true identity, but it turns out Kelex listens instead to Mr. Oz over Superman. Kelex then asserts that Mister Oz is Jor-El. Jor-El then uses the Kryptonian crystals to show Superman flashbacks to the final days of Krypton. One particular scene includes Jor-El being dressed down by Lor-Van, the father of Superman's birth mother Lara Lor-Van, because Jor-El was working on "Project Stardrive" to save many Kryptonian. Lor-Van commanded Kelex to destroy all data about the project. Then a flashback shows Kal-El leaving Krypton as the planet dies, but Jor-El is "saved" by, as he calls it, "a being able to bend reality to his every whim."

Jor-El then describes being left on Earth, possibly in the Middle East or a part of Asia, where he is reluctantly cared for and nursed back to health by a poor family living under the thumb of Kassam, a local warlord. When Kassam's men take too much from Jor-El's sheltering family, he takes it upon himself to sneak into the warlord's base and steal food back for the family. However, one of the sons in the family rats out to the Kassam about Jor-El's existence, perhaps in hopes of preferential treatment. Instead, Kassam orders the young man to kill his own family, which he does with Kassam's help on the trigger of a automatic rifle. Jor-El, getting power from Earth's sun for the first time, dispatches Kassam's men and is about to also kill the young man when Jor-El is teleported away.

Imprisoned and forced to watch all the atrocities of men, Jor-El becomes dissolute with humankind. When ultimately released for his captor (with no word on how or why), Jor-El tells Superman that he must now let the humans succumb to their evils because it is now Jor-El's task to take Superman away from Earth.

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