Way back in January I did a post on Superboy-Prime. That was at the halfway point of Infinite Crisis. And I remember expressing some degree of sympathy for Superboy-Prime.
Not anymore.
That boy who seemed so lost -- who seemed to be a mere pawn in the scheme of a Luthor -- turned out to be something terrifying.
Something happened to unhinge Superboy-Prime. He went from being a troubled youth to a maniacal killer. We saw him casually snapping necks and tearing people in twain. He never blinked; he didn't care. He contemplated genocide on a universal scale. And he attempted it with glee -- and the power to back it up.
What happened to him? What made him that way? When the Flashes pulled him into the Speed Force he still seemed to maintain some degree of sanity. But the years he spent there seem to have warped him.
Did he become bitter as prisoners often do? Did he stew and plot vengeance against his jailors? Did solitude make him mad?
In the end, it doesn't really matter. By the time he returned any bit of humanity he'd had was gone. He'd become what the Anti-Monitor had been: a being a godlike power with no qualms and no morals. And no hold on reality.
To the very end he raved that he would be Superman -- even if it was in a universe where no one else existed. And even now -- stripped of his powers and freedom -- he says he'll get out.
And we know he will.
