Arrrgh. I hate seeing Lois like this. But, I know, I know, it's canon.
I still have to wonder how it would be possible to brainwash Lois like that. I just think that successful brainwashing would take longer, and also that it would affect other parts of your personality as well. For example, I doubt that Lois could be so strong and determined if she had been so badly brainwashed. After all, Deter has made her give up some of her most deep-seated convictions in order to utterly bow to his will. I think Lois should be a mentally broken and "gutted" woman, unable to access her feisty "Lois personality" to put up such a spirited fight against her old friends in defense of the man who has broken her.
But, well, this is a Superman universe, and maybe the rules and physics of brainwashing are not the same in our own world as they are in a universe where a man can fly!
And maybe Lois's defense of Deter is not so out of character for her after all? Her behaviour when Lex managed to dupe her was not all that dissimilar from what we are seeing here. Could it be that Lois is so desperate to be loved by a man that she is willing to utterly change her outlook on life and her preferences for his sake? Or maybe she is looking for a man who is strong and forceful, so that she can bow to his will? And that would be why she liked men like Superman, Lex Luthor and Maxwell Deter? Ugh. Personally I don't want to think of Lois like that.
But I, too, love seeing this determined version of Clark.
I hope, too, that Henderson and also the medical world of psychiatrists will insist that Deter's treatment of Lois is improper and has not been meant to cure her, but to make her a pawn of his will.
Ann
