Quetzatlan
Quetzatlan
An ancient Central American civilization of the tenth century A.D. whose members—including the power-hungry Emperor Quexo; his lovely cousin, Empress Nara; and the benevolent wise man Haxtl—retired to the interior of an ancient pyramid in the Central American jungles ten centuries ago and used their "magic sun globe" to place themselves in a somnial trance so that they could literally sleep through the future that Haxtl warned them would be characterized by "flood, earthquake, famine and wars" and the decline of the Quetzatlan civilization.
Awakened from their thousand-year-long sleep in December 1946, when their pyramid is found and opened by an expedition of American archaeologists, Quexo and his followers set in motion their plan to subject all of modern civilization to the dominion of Quetzatlan by using the awesome power of their sun globe to "turn back time 1,000 years—and obliterate all that has been since," thereby undoing the very existence of the modern world and replacing it with the magically recreated pyramids and great stone structures of ancient Quetzatlan. Indeed, as Superman gazes out over the Central American landscape surrounding the just-opened pyramid, he sees before him not the overgrown jungle tangle of only moments before, but rather "ancient Quetzatlan, as it was before a thousand years of earthquakes and jungle growth buried it!" Already, "everything has changed within a circle a mile across—and the circle is spreading," so that unless the miraculous reemergence of Quetzatlan is somehow checked, everything that mankind has produced in the last millennium will vanish, replaced for all time by the reawakened civilization of Quetzatlan.
"Believe me," says Haxtl, when Superman objects to this scheme to obliterate man's achievements of the last thousand years, "it is best that your civilization perish! What has it brought forth by wars, intolerance, crime, hatred?"
"I'll admit there's a dark side to our world," confesses Superman, "—but there's another side, too! And it's the hope of billions, instead of just a few...!"
Indeed, it is to press home this view—and thereby hopefully persuade the ancient survivors of Quetzatlan and restore the world of the twentieth century—that Superman takes Quexo, Nara, and Haxtl on a whirlwind tour of the modern world, showing them modern hospitals and schools and describing in glowing terms the virtues of democracy and the prosperity of America's workers in a last-ditch attempt to persuade the Quetzatlan survivors that a thousand years of civilization have greatly benefited the life of man.
Only Quexo, unwilling to abandon his lust for imperial power, remains unmoved by Superman's plea. Enraged at Nara and Haxtl for having been won over by Superman's arguments, he attempts to hurl them into the generators of an electrical power plant, only to topple over backwards onto some high-voltage power lines, which electrocute him instantly with their thousands of volts of surging electricity. Nara and Haxtl, for their part, agree to the immediate destruction of the magic sun globe and resolve to become contributing members of modern civilization. "Our only dream," says Nara, "is that people shall live together wisely and peacefully!" (Act No. 103: "The Road to Happiness!"). (TGSB)
