If you thought Superman was strong, think again! The Cosmic Armor Superman Thought Robot is powered by the very concept of heroism!
DC Comics' Superman is one of the most recognizable - and most overpowered - characters in the history of comic books. He's no longer just faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than a locomotive: the Man of Steel can bench press entire planets and survive exploding stars. With such an absurdly powerful hero, it can sometimes be difficult for writers to come up with new threats to effectively challenge the last son of Krypton. But as strong as our Superman is, there exists an even more overpowered version of the character, one who was so strong he only needed a single appearance to save the DC multiverse - and possibly all of fiction. This is Cosmic Armor Superman, the only superhero more powerful than the comic book he lives inside.
In 2008, writer Grant Morrison and artist J. G. Jones came together to create Final Crisis, a seven-issue crossover event that was meant to be the Crisis story to end all Crisis stories. Final Crisis is infamous for being dense and confusing to new readers, but part of the confusion stems from a two-issue tie-in called Superman Beyond 3D, which was also written by Morrison and explains the plot of Final Crisis better than the main issues. It's also here that Cosmic Armor Superman makes his first (and only) appearance, called upon to save reality from a monster who wants to (literally) suck the joy out of superhero comics.
Originally printed for use with 3D glasses, Superman Beyond 3D takes place in the interval between issue #3 of Final Crisis and Superman's reappearance in #6. Darkseid had already taken over the world in the main story, and Superman was taken to Comic Book Limbo, a space between realities where characters forgotten by the writers are indefinitely condemned. Here, Superman is told that the entity guiding him is one of the Monitors - cosmic beings who watch over the Multiverse - and that they have been gathering Supermen to save reality from one of their own.
The Monitors aren't just superpowered aliens - they are metaphors for the writers and editors who control the DC Multiverse. One of the Monitors, Dax Nova, had gone insane centuries ago and tried to destroy the essence of the Multiverse to become Mandrakk the Dark Monitor, a cosmic vampire who seeks to devour all of fiction. Mandrakk doesn't just want to destroy the universe - he is waging a war on the concept of storytelling itself. The Monitors want to recruit Superman because he is the perfect representation of the idea of heroism and therefore the only person who can fight Mandrakk. The Monitors help Superman fuse together with Ultraman, his evil counterpart who was also brought to Comic Book Limbo, and together they form the Cosmic Armor Superman Thought Robot, a being who is literally powered by the laws of narrative causality.
After a grueling battle - in which Cosmic Armor Superman reaches out to the reader through 3D, drawing on the laws of narrative - Superman is able to defeat Mandrakk by literally removing him from the comic book. The Cosmic Armor Thought Robot crumbles afterwards, since it is no longer needed, and Superman is given a way to save Lois Lane, who was injured in the main story. Superman Beyond 3D ends by showing the tombstone of the Cosmic Armor Superman, and written on it is the only fitting epithet for the embodiment of comic book heroism itself - "TO BE CONTINUED."
