In an undetermined future, the giant city of Metropolis is starkly divided between upper classes who live in luxury and the lower classes who toil under harsh conditions to maintain their wealth. Clarc Kent-son, son of Jon Kent, the Great Architect and apparent Master of Metropolis, becomes aware of Metropolis' social inequality after meeting Lois Lane, a teacher from the undercity. He joins the workers to experience their daily lives, then begs his father to improve their lot only to find that the Great Architect is unwilling to listen. In reality, the city is in thrall to the evil scientist Lutor, an old colleague of Jon Kent from the "time of smoke and soot" that came before the founding of Metropolis. Both Jon and Lutor fell in love with the same woman, Marta. When she chose Jon over Lutor, the scientist killed her, then used advanced hypnosis to turn Jon into a puppet who would allow Lutor to rule Metropolis from the shadows. Concerned about a potential revolution, Lutor identifies Lois Lane as a leader who prophesies the coming of a who will unify Metropolis. Lutor captures Lois and creates a robotic duplicate named Futura that will lead the workers to their doom. Meanwhile, Clarc discovers that he was a foundling adopted by Jon and Marta after he was found in a capsule that fell from the sky, and that Lutor erased his memories and made him believe he was human, turning him into a social drone like all the other wealthy inhabitants of the city. As Futura, disguised as Lois, leads the workers to their deaths at the hands of Lutor's soldiers, Clarc, the "Super-Man", the prophesied savior of Metropolis, intervenes. He fights Futura and destroys her by throwing her into a tank of molten metal. Lutor then reveals his half human/half mechanical body, which is powered by a mysterious green stone in the place where his heart would be. He kills Jon Kent who manages to snap out of his trance long enough to sacrifice his life for Clarc. Lutor is then killed by Clarc after a fierce battle. Clarc and Lois become the new, enlightened rulers of a reunited Metropolis.
Publication
Superman's Metropolis
Trilogy
This is the first part of a trilogy:
Superman's Metropolis
'
'
Writer Jean-Marc Lofficier had a fourth and final book planned, entitled The Green Light, which would have introduced counterparts of Green Lantern, the Flash and the Martian Manhunter ) and a female version of Aquaman (based on Georg Wilhelm Pabst'sDie Herrin von Atlantis. The book would have dealt with the rediscovery of Earth, but it was never published and remains so to this day.
Trivia
The city that Superman protects was actually named after the 1927 silent filmMetropolis.
In the original script for Metropolis, the name of the robot was Futura. The fact that the robot in the story is named Futura is an in-joke referring to the film.
