SUPERMAN #166 FATHERS Written by Jeph Loeb; art by Ed McGuinness and Cam Smith; edited by Eddie Berganza; cover by Ed McGuinness

There are certain noises that when you hear them, you never forget 'em.

It's like they take you back to that place and time, just for a second.

The rooster crowing at 5:00 AM
The foal dropping from her mare.
The husk coming off the spring corn.

When my son would cry inside his crib.

One noise, not like any other, haunts me to this day.

I never thought I'd hear it again... until tonight.

One night, years ago, a sound so loud it hurt your ears came screaming across the sky and something crashed down in the north field.

It was some kind of rocket and inside... I still get a little choked up about it... inside the rocket...

Inside, there was a baby without a single scratch on him.

My life and Martha's were changed that night forever.  And it all began with that sound...

There were, of course, questions about the baby.  Something like that doesn't just fall out of the sky -- particularly in Smallville, Kansas.

Martha and I thought it might've been the Russians messing around with their space program.

But... what we learned was far more... amazing.

My son came from a doomed planet called "KRYPTON" -- in some faraway spot in the universe.

As near as we could piece together, this... Krypton... wasn't the homiest of places.

"Different," as some folks would say.

But, as we adopted Clark, in turn, he adopted not just us... but the whole planet Earth.

With all our dents, and scratches, and imperfections, I don't think I'm bragging when I say he became the most human of us all.