The impenetrable shell materializes, severing Zor-El's right hand as it reaches out towards his daughter. The corpse watches as his appendage free falls back towards New Krypton while he pounds angrily at the barrier. But no matter how hard he tries, he'll never be able to break in. And unfortunately neither will anyone else - including Commander Kal-El. In exchange for their safety, New Krypton is now just as cut off from the rest of the universe as the universe is from it. For better or for worse.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Martha Kent is learning the unfortunate lesson that fire won't stop the Black Lantern that stalks her from the corn field. So instead she sics Krypto on her attacker and orders the pup to snatch the black ring from around her finger! Krypto dives and snags Lois's forearm in his maw before taking off towards the moon. The rest of the Black Lantern husk collapses inside the corn field fire while her body attempts to re-materialize with the her arm inside Krypto's mouth. The monster is just about fully formed when a blast of the dog's red hot energy rays sends her body flying down one of the moon's many canyons.

At that same moment, Superman isn't fairing all that well as he contends with both Black Lantern Kal-L and the mind controlled Superboy. He's nearly blacked out when Conner finally snaps out of Psycho Pirate's mind control. For the first time, Conner decides to embrace the differences between himself and Superman, not hide them from and so he unleashes a wave of Tactile Telekinesis that incapacitates the Black Superman. Seeing the chaos below, Clark decides that it's time to end this and sends Conner back down to Smallville to deal with the mind-manipulating baddie.

Flying through the streets, Conner swipes the Medusa Mask right out of Pirate's hands and uses it to restore order to those below. Now instead of fighting one another, the entire city collectively looks up to the sky in awe as their protectors battle for their safety. Reaching a safe altitude, Conner decides to give the Mask a test drive, shifting it into high gear and causing it to radiate the full spectrum of emotions turned up to eleven. The mask's intense glow attracts the Black rings around Psycho Pirate's and Kal-L's fingers. Detaching themselves from the corpses like rats from a sinking ship, the rings fly towards the Mask with such velocity that their impact destroys it. The connection severed, Kal-L's corpse flies back down to Earth where it will crash land somewhere nearby Psycho Pirate's de-powered shell as well no doubt.

As dawn breaks over Smallville's blackest night, Superman prepares for the long and arduous task of once again re-building the small burg. He blames himself for attracting such trouble to Smallville. And that's a burden Superman does not take lightly. Once the town is safely re-constructed, Clark plans on finding the others and tracking down as many answers to this crisis as possible.