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There were times after he'd returned to Earth following his presumed demise where he wondered how his life would've gone differently if, as a babe, his ship had landed somewhere else.
More often than not, he wondered what it would've been like if he'd landed in America.
Would he have landed in a big city, such as Metropolis? Would he have been taken in by the government and raised in relative isolation, without any concept of humanity or love? Would he have been vivisected and studied?
The possibility, however disturbing, remained likely. For all that the people of the Soviet Union had endured under his predecessor, for all the mistakes he himself had made, the United States Government hadn't been as noble as they'd made themselves out to be in their own propaganda; either—he knew that for a fact.
Or perhaps he would've landed in the farming heartland, the midwest—Kansas, maybe, or perhaps Nebraska.
Would he have been found and raised by a childless couple who'd longed for a child of their own?
Maybe he would've been found by a passing motorist and turned over to an orphanage, where he'd have grown to adulthood without knowing anything about who he was, where he came from, or why he had the powers and abilities he had.
Not that he knew any of those things as it stood.
Whoever had sent him to Earth from whatever far-flung celestial body he'd come from hadn't sent any sort of accompanying message with him in his space ship.
What would his life had been as an American, he would wonder.
Would he have been raised to hold to his values and convictions by people whom he cared about and who cared about him?
Would he still fight for Truth?
Justice?
The American Way?
He would mentally scoff at the idea of that last one.
There was only one thing he would ever fight for, and that was the wellbeing of the people.
There were times, such as when he lay in bed in a low-rent apartment in one of the less nice neighborhoods of Metropolis as the sunlight crept in through the window on the morning of the first day of his new job, as he pressed his shirts and tied his tie, that he wondered how his interpersonal relationships would've turned out in such scenarios. Perhaps, in another life, things would've been different. Maybe he would've been the one to marry Lois and not Lex Luthor. Would he and Luthor still have been antagonistic towards each other? What about now-President James Olsen?
Perhaps he wouldn't have made an enemy out of the Batman, wouldn't have alienated Diana of Themyscira. Perhaps both would've been allies.
Perhaps Sveltana would've lived.
It was at times like these, as he boarded the nearest bus that would take him to his destination, that he would recall the old proverb:
"Proshloye — eto mayak, a ne port". The past was meant to guide, and not be the be-all-end all; it was pointless to dwell on might-have-beens or try to get back to the past.
The future lay before him, and with it, several terrifying questions that had been raised in light of his survival of Brainiac's black hole detonation.
Questions such as, who knows how long he had to live?
Who could say if he would ever die?
He didn't know the answer.
The one thing he knew for certain, however, as he stood in front of the Daily Planet building—as he stood wearing a trenchcoat, a hat, and round glasses a few years out of date and clutching a briefcase containing forged documents bearing the name "Clark Kent",as he gathered courage to begin his first day as a reporter—was that he'd continue to help people as long as he breathed; that being here, at the building where former First Lady Lois Lane had worked years before, where his life had forever been altered by the discovery of his own government's atrocities?
Working here felt right in some cosmically inexplicable way.
He walked through the revolving doors and into his new life.