Jackie, I still think you are saying that Lois and Clark stories are about Clark, and the reason it is interesting to kill Lois is just that she is the most important thing to him. The way I read you, you are not saying that Lois and Clark are equal partners, and that it would be equally interesting to kill Clark to see how Lois would react as it would be to kill Lois to explore Clark's grief.

Sara, I love your post. You pay such a wonderful tribute to Lois in it, and to the concept of Lois and Clark.

My objection is the following. There is an ongoing Superman mythology out there. Suppose that Lois as a character is really killed there, her death just possibly aided by the fact that even FoLCs seem to like to fantasize about her death.

Now, in the ongoing mythology out there, Superman will change when Lois is dead. There will be no room at all for the wonderful man who loves Lois. Don't tell me that from the moment Lois dies and onward, comics and movies will show us a heartbroken, lost Superman who keeps living in the past, obsessing about his lost love!

No, Superman will become everything I don't want him to be. Harder as a character. Far less interested in his Clark identity than in his Superman persona. All wrapped up in his macho crime fighter mood. And his attitude to women will be either that he will become celibate and uninterested, or else he will be moderately womanizing, or else that he will find a new love interest such as Lana. Maybe after a while Lana will be killed too, and yet another woman will be found for him. Wonder Woman? Lori Lemaris? A new character altogether? Perhaps even a slightly dangerous and evil woman who can lead him into temptation?

And after things have been going in that direction for a suitable number of years, people will say: Lois who? What do you mean, soulmates? How can you think that Superman will grieve much over a woman?

I think that we are helping to endanger the Clark we love by killing the Lois he loves. Kill her a sufficient number of times when many others out there would like to kill her anyway, and our wish to see her killed may come true. And then the Clark we love will have to go, too.

Ann