In 1938, the US sent a prayer into space, and 11 seconds later, it was answered. Now, Superman slumps, weakened by a blast from General Sam Lane's advanced weaponry, and a fight with a super-human being whom Lane has been keeping secret in a facility hidden deep below the Utah Salt Flats. Though Superman had only intended to talk to Lane, the General's tack is much more aggressive. Superman reluctantly meets the challenge, until the other super-human stands in his way. Superman ignores his warnings to stand down, and ends up getting kicked across the state.

Lois Lane, meanwhile, is attempting with some difficulty to perform an emergency landing from airspace over Nova Scotia. A terrorist organization called Ascension has sabotaged the plane with an EMP device, and all of their controls are fried. She hopes desperately that by crashing the plane through an array of power-lines and into the ocean, they will attract attention and help by knocking out the power on the grid. The shock sets the cockpit on fire, but it doesn't matter, because soon, they are crashing hard into the icy Atlantic waters.

The "prayer" that was sent up in 1938 was actually a mathematical equation in which the final sum added up to more than the sum of its parts.

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