When the city police start firing on the vulnerable Superman, he assumes his Clark guise and meets up with Lois, who comments on how sick he looks. Upon returning to the newsroom, which is in chaos, Perry yells at Clark for coming to the office without a story on this crisis. Stripped of his powers and faced with imminent dismissal, Clark leaves a notice of resignation on his desk. When Lois catches him leaving, she calls him a "spineless worm", stating that they have an obligation to the public and she stood up for him. Clark leaves and Lois becomes furious. The "alien commander", a man dressed in armor, calls himself "Van-Gar" and declares war on Earth. Clark, his confidence restored by Lois' sermon, dons his costume and charges Van-Gar's troops before they can open fire on a crowd of innocents. When Superman labels him and his men "actors", Van-Gar beats downs the weakened hero and whispers to him they're "not in it for the money". They believe Luthor is right and that Superman will turn on those weaker than him. Meanwhile, Lois sneaks back into the LexCorp building, which Luthor ordered abandoned. She sees Luthor giving orders to his men over his tele-screen and grabs his priceless shard of the Kryptonite with the "S" engraving out of its energy core, disabling the entire machine. However, she fails to notice Luthor, who emerges from the shadows behind her. With the Kryptonite removed, most of the robots attacking Metropolis are revealed as holograms and vanish, along with the Kryptonite web over the city. Back at LexCorp, Luthor grabs the Kryptonite crystal from Lois' hands and demands she tell him how much she knows. When Lois tells him everyone will know about his hoax, Lex drags Lois to a wall, where he uses a remote control to open out to a balcony. He reveals that he placed a Kryptonite bomb inside the suit of every "Kryptonian" soldier and that they are primed to go off and take out Superman in the blast. However, his men don't know about the bombs, since Luthor "sort of left that part out of the hiring brief." He then shoves Lois off the skyscraper balcony. Superman is still down below and grappling with Van-Gar, whose armor suddenly starts glowing green. Superman soars up with Van-Gar in his grip, ripping the bomb off moments before it explodes. In the instant before Lois hits the ground, Superman rushes up and catches her just in time.