I’d have Steel and Eradicator become a positive mirror of Lex and Brainiac, with the Kryptonian matrix in his head, I’d have John start acting like Bradley Cooper in “Limitless” the whole “I was blind but now I see” as with Steelworks at the helm, Metropolis becomes the city of tomorrow, raygun gothic with groundbreaking technology commonplace. The comic would be buddycop action with utopian ideals and waking the dangerous path of using Kryptonian science to uplift humanity.
The drawback would be the bond, he’d call Clark “Kal-El” one too many times and would dream of a red star, a doomed planet and the voices of a dead race would be growing ever louder. It’s not intentional on Eradicator’s part but their bond saved John and now it’s adding him to the matrix, like a Crysis nanosuit.
They’d have adventures and the run would end with John snapping out of it, choosing to sever the bond, even though it will cause him to eventually just….. die, once the energies run out.
John chooses to die a man and imparts some wisdom on E, tells him to look out for what they’ve built and to be there for Lana and Natasha.
The last the reader sees of John is him and Lana setting sail, to spend his last days happy, with the woman he loves.
The reader doesn’t need to see that morning where John didn’t wake up, what they do need to see is Eradicator honoring it’s word, watching over Clark and John’s families long after both men are gone and becoming the “spirit” of Metropolis.
Boom, Superfamily is pruned a little more and Steel gets some respect and his own version of All-star, where you work with the cards you’re dealt.
