On November 21, 1941, Superman (yes, the one from Krypton who is [superlative] than a [noun]) took down a mad scientist and his army of towering bank-robbing robots -- mechanical monsters, if you will. The evil genius was sent to prison, naturally, where he languished in obscurity until he was freed... by entering the public domain.

That's the background behind Brian Fies' Eisner Award-nominated webcomic, The Last Mechanical Monster, which serves as a Man-of-Steel-less sequel to a classic installment of Fleischer Studios' animated Superman cartoons.

In TLMM, Fies follows the now-named menace's release from prison into a small-town community that scarcely suits his (secretly) rekindled plans for world domination. He's a man out of time and out of his depth, but not out of madness... passion.

Fies originally published The Last Mechanical Monster on his blog in black and white, but has debuted a remastered, colored version of his celebrated story here GoComics.

Click through to start reading The Last Mechanical Monster today to see what happens when aging ambition is loosed on modern society.