The PARASITE!

It began with a grisly series of murders in the Metropolis subway system. The Special Crimes Unit was called in to investigate and found a number of corpses reduced to skeletons.

The perpetrator of this horrible crim was soon revealed to be a young man named Rudy Jones, who had been a janitor at S.T.A.R. labs before becoming the victim of a strange chemical exposure which granted him the bizarre ability to touch any living thing and drain its energy, augmenting his own. Thus was born the Parasite!

Superman fought the Parasite, and soon learned that he was not invulnerable to the villain's power-draining ability. But as long as he kept the Parasite at arm's length, he could triumph. Rudy Jones, after all, was not one of the world's greates thinkers. Superman was able to capture the Parasite and turned him over to STAR Labs for study.

When Superman went to STAR Labs seeking a way to drain the excess energy his body had been absorbing following his return from death, it was decided that the Parasite might be used to safely siphon that energy away. Of course, this was a huge mistake which led to the Parasite's absorbing tremendous amounts of energy (so much so that it mutated him horribly). With more difficulty than before, Superman eventually managed to track down and subdue the Parasite and return him to STAR Labs' custody.

While there, the Parasite came into contact with Doctor Torval Freeman. Parasite absorbed Freeman completely, adding the doctor's extreme intelligence to his own low-level thinking. The combination of Freeman's intelligence and Rudy Jones's rage proved extremely dangerous for the Man of Steel.

The Metropolis SCU contacted Professor Emil Hamilton and asked him to assist them in capturing the Parasite. With Lois Lane's cooperation, they lured the Parasite to an abandoned laboratory, and were able to capture him and return him to custody.

Parasite escaped, but his next encounter with Superman did not go as well as he might have hoped.

Superman had recently undergone his own transformation into an energy-based creature. Doctor Freeman naturally assumed that leeching power from this new Superman would make the Parasite vitually unstoppable; however Superman had already figured out that he could not only expend energy, he could draw it in himself as well. Superman used that ability to drain the Parasite of energy.

When Strange Visitor, a young woman with electrical powers very similar to the ones Superman had posessed, came to Metropolis, her excess energy threatened to destroy her and the city. Doctors at STAR Labs volunteered Rudy's abilities again. This time, however, they developed additional safeguards to ensure that the Parasite would not be able to hold on to the energy drawn from Strange Visitor. Unfortunately, either because of Strange Visitor's unique nature or Doctor Freeman's ingenuity, the safeguards failed. Once again, Parasite was in posession of tremendous levels of energy. Luckily, however, Strange Visitor reached the same conclusion Superman had, and managed to draw the energy out of Parasite, leaving him harmless.

One interesting side effect of Parasite's encounter with Strange Visitor was that afterwards, the Parasite found himself able to take more than energy from his victims. He could also now tap into their memories, their personalities, their very souls. He could even change his appearance to mimic the people he drained, right down to their cellular structure. Armed with this new ability, Rudy set out to conquer the Man of Steel once and for all.

He began by gathering as much information on Superman as he could. Since Superman seemed to have a close connection with the Daily Planet, it made sense to start there. The Parasite made contact with Lois Lane, hoping to gain some insight into Superman's character.

He got that and so much more.

On touching Lois, the Parasite realized that she knew everything about the Man of Steel because she was married to him! The beginnings of a devious plan formed in the Parasite's mind at this. He kidnapped Lois and secreted her in a cave outside of Metropolis, where he could reach her every so often to "recharge."

The Parasite spent the next few months impersonating Lois Lane. As "Lois" he acted cold and indifferent towards Clark, calling him to question his own behavior and attitudes. He also attacked Superman at the Daily Planet, enabling him to "steal" some of the Man of Steel's powers like heat vision and flight. He also paid a mysterious late-night visit to Lex Luthor, from whom he obtained sensitive information and bank account numbers.

Then, when the Man of Steel was at his lowest and most confused, the Parasite struck. Still in his disguise as Lois, Rudy started a fight with Superman. That was probably a mistake, as it helped Superman immediately realize that the person he'd thought was Lois, who was acting so strangely to him, was clearly not. Reinvigorated, Superman presented much more of a challenge for the Parasite than Rudy might have thought.

Nevertheless, the battle was tremendous, laying waste to several blocks of Metropolis. When it finally ended, the Parasite confessed what he had been doing. Superman tried to get the Parasite to tell him where Lois was being kept, but Rudy died of unknown causes before he could reveal where Lois was. Rudy's body was taken to S.T.A.R. Labs for study, but was shortly thereafter appropriated by LexCorp.