Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic FDK:Rebuilding Superman-Part 17

Hi,

Great part!


Love it!

WHAT??????? ARE YOU KIDDING ME????? Clark strongly implied - maybe even actually said - to her that they would be together if he was aquitted and now he changes his mind? Give me a post-Contact Clark any day over this. Talk about jerking a girl around.

(insert colorful cursing from the audience here)

YOU GO GIRL! (I know I am going overboard with the caps lock but damn I'm mad.) He completely deserved that. But I don't think she would really do it.

Good testimony. But I am so mad at Clark I can't see straight. I am just, just....

ARRGHH! Terry!

I don't think Clark really loves Lois. He is too cavalier with her feelings. There hasn't been much in this story to make me think that he considers her to be precious to him. But now that I think about it, Terry, you never told us this would end in HEA. Maybe this Clark will never be what Lois needs. Maybe this will be that "Lois moving on fic" that we are all talking about a few weeks ago. And that's ok with me, because at this point I wouldn't blame Lois for not wanting him even if he does come back.

This is beyond ridiculous and arrogant. Clark is deciding what is good for Lois without bothering to ask for her input. Personally, I wouldn't have anything to do with him, if I were Lois, even if he changed his mind later.

Clark has got a lot to learn, but the biggest is that he doesn't have the right to jerk people around be deciding unilaterally what is "good" for them.


Nan

Hmmmm, Terry. This reminds me of all my years of waiting for Superman to agree to marry Lois Lane. Lois herself had made it clear right from the time I started reading Superman comics in 1968 that she wanted to marry Superman. And in 1969, he told her that he was in love with her and wanted to marry her.

And since that day I waited. And waited. And waited. I waited for Superman to act on the love he professed to feel for Lois. She was always there for him, always waiting for him, always hoping he would come to her and reciprocate the love she felt for him. I watched him twist and slither like a snake to get away from the love he kept promising he would give her, but always shied away from, always found excuses for not following up on. I waited and waited until 1980 and the movie Superman II, where Superman made love to Lois and then robbed her of her memory of it, and finally he flew away from her with a glorious smile on his face. Now he didn't need her anymore. Now he had made love to her. Now he knew that, by and large, she wasn't worth it. Now he was rid of her forever.

Seeing "Superman II" convinced me of what I had been suspecting over the years, namely, that while Lois most certainly loved Superman, Superman didn't love her. He lied when he told her that he did. He lied even more when he said that they would be together because he would marry her. When I left the movie theater after having seen "Superman II", I left as a woman who had been forced to acknowledge the cruelty and selfishness of the man she had idolized for a decade. A man whose love for a woman she had admired was shown to have callously used that woman, then dumped her when she held no further interest to him.

It took me ten years and a new direction in the comics to make me come back to Superman. But I came back with a feeling of suspicion that had never been there before. I had seen this man lie to the woman who loved him about his love for her before. Would he lie to her again? Would he scorn her? Would he dump her? Would he move on? Would he happily watch her die so that he could cry some melancholy tears for her and move on to another love interest and feel extra noble?

Your story, Terry - your extremely interesting, well-written, thought-provoking (and to me, in some ways generally provocative) story brings back my anger at Superman. My frustrations at Superman. My helpless, angry sympathy with Lois, who was there for Superman, always supporting him - only to be dumped by him in the end.

I don't like your Superman, Terry. But I recognize him. He is in many ways in character to me. The things I learnt to despise about Superman are there in your Superman. Your Superman really is that iconic superhero that all the world knows of, and has known for almost seventy years. Your Superman, that iconic Superman, isn't all bad. Far from it. I don't have to repeat to you that I dislike his decision to kill Bill Church (and I do believe it was some sort of decision on his part). But in so many ways I have to admire Superman, your Superman. He has done so many good things for humanity. I don't want him to go to jail. I want him to be told that he must never act as a judge, jury and executioner again, and I would like the legal system to be allowed to, say, be officially given a piece of Kryptonite or something, which it could use to stop Superman in the future, should it become necessary. But I don't want him to be punished now.

But I also don't like this Superman. I don't hate him, but I don't like him. To me, what made me love Superman was always his soft side, which was always best expressed by his love for Lois. When his love for Lois isn't there, when I can see no sign of it, I don't believe that his soft side is there at all. I'm perfectly willing to believe that Superman is good at exerting self-control, so that he doesn't use his powers to hurt others because he has decided that he isn't going to. But the softness, his ability to identify with mere human beings, to feel their pain, to love them, to love just one woman and want to share his life with her - all of that is gone, and Superman has nothing left that makes him lovable. No he is merely like a benevolent Big Brother, exerting self-control because - well, because he has decided that he wants to. For now, at least.

Ah, Terry. Your story reminds me of all the reasons why I left that movie theater in tears back in 1980. Why I stopped believing in many things that day. And why Superman made me cry.

Ann

I wish I had the time this needs because every part gives me something new to think about. I agree with Lisa that there's something fishy about the feelings Clark has for Lois, although I'm hesitant to think that he doesn't love her, I think what lies at the bottom is the question of degree. Also that as the jury gets closer to the final verdict the more Clark becomes consumed by his own demons over his own judgement of his actions. Can we read his wish to leave as more self-punishment? A move based on a paralyzing fear? An awareness that no matter what the verdict, it really means nothing to the issue of him being accountable?

To be honest, I don't dare more than venture these questions. To treat them fully, I would have to go back and read more carefully. This fic only gives us periodic glimpses of Clark's head. We don't get the pages and pages of introspection (which I think makes this compelling since we are then pushed to fill in the blanks).

But yes, I like Lois' idea of vengeance--or the eye for an eye. I think she's entitled and it would be an apocalyptic finish that would feel incredibly cathartic. Just thinking about it makes me smile because it's just so hardcore for any author to have Lois seriously go through with something like that. I'll put my two cents in the guess pile and say I don't think it'll EVER happen--mainly because the 'she's better than that' notion. It's fun to consider it though (and a big part of me wishes it would happen...).

Lastly I want to point to the fact that this fic is called "Rebuilding Superman" which okay, might mean nothing, but I am not fully convinced this isn't the proverbial "darkness before the dawn." So I'll wait a little longer and just see what other surprises you have in store for us.

Thanks Terry.

alcyone

#$%^%#$^#&%*%%&#%@#$

There's your colorful cursing.

As far as Clark's actions, I think he's too mixed-up emotionally over the trial, memories of Mayson coming back, and not being able to talk to Lois to be thinking straight, and this decision is similar to the Contact decision. How Terry will resolve this, I still don't know. He is still lunkheaded as always, but there's an excuse for that trait thrusting itself into the spotlight.

I've been thinking a bit more about this, and I can see that there is a huge difference between the smiling, sated Superman who left an amnesiac Lois behind in "Superman II" and the Superman who rejects Lois in this fic. George Reeve's Superman rejected Lois because he was so pleased with himself and felt that he was too good for Lois - bottom line, I think that was really what it was about. But Terry's Superman isn't like that. He isn't smug or self-satisfied. He isn't rejecting Lois because he thinks he is too good for her - he is rejecting her, I think, because he feels that he isn't good enough for her. Oh, there is more to it than that. I think Clark also feels that he can't live up to the idealized image that he believes that Lois has of him. And I think he gets angry at Lois for seeing him as the wonderful man and for making him feel that he has some sort of obligation to be so perfect, now that he has come to the conclusion that he is full of faults and flaws. I think he feels angry at himself, I think he feels guilty, I think he despises himself - and I think he blames Lois for many of these negative feelings he has about himself. It's her fault that he feels so bad, because she is the one who made him believe that he could - and should - be so wonderful. Bottom line: Clark doesn't love Lois, because is unable to love himself. And at least some parts of him blame Lois for his inability to love himself and feel good about himself.

Like Alcyone pointed out in the feedback thread for the previous chapter, Clark needs others to forgive him for killing Bill Church, because he can't forgive himself. Does that mean that he needs everyone else to tell him that he did the right thing when he killed Bill Church?

Personally, I very much hope that this isn't the case. I very much hope that Clark will be able to let go of the notion that Superman can never do the wrong thing. If he truly believes that, then he will either have to destroy Superman once and for all when he does something wrong, or else he will have to force everyone else to admit that whatever Superman does is the right thing.

Clark shouldn't see himself as apart from and superior to the rest of humanity. All the rest of us make mistakes. We do the wrong thing once in a while. Everybody does. If Clark wants to be a part of humanity, then he must accept that Superman does the wrong thing every once in a while, too. He must accept that and forgive himself for that. If he can't, he is bound to elevate himself to godhood and, sooner or later, become a most horrible tyrant. If Clark can't accept that Superman is capable of doing the wrong thing, if he can't find a way to let the superhero admit that and go on doing his best to help humanity anyway - well, if Clark can't accept that, then let's all break out the Kryptonite.

Ann

Wow, you can see how totally fascinated I am by this, Terry. This is my third post.

Over the years, I've been so frustrated I could cry for Lois's sake because of how badly she has been treated by Clark. That is why I can't stand stories where Lois is killed, dumped, left behind or made to suffer while Clark happily moves on or cries crocodile tears for her sake. I always feel that Clark owes Lois his love, because she has given so much more love to him than he has given to her. Now, I have felt, we can't ask more of her.

However... in this case, in this fic, yes, I do think we still have to ask more of Lois. Personally, I believe it is really Clark who has screwed up almost the whole time, and like Alcyone, I would find it so satisfying if Lois really did print Superman's secret identity. It would serve him right! The jerk!

But... no matter how satisfying such a vengeful revelation would be right when it happened, it wouldn't solve anything. For one thing, it would put so many people at risk. We are not just talking about Jonathan and Martha, but more or less everyone who has been connected with Clark Kent. Lois herself, of course. Not that she necessarily cares. But there is Lana, too, and so many other people in Smallville. Perry and Jimmy and so many people at the Daily Planet. Sam and Ellen, Lucy... would Lois really want to expose so many people to such terrible risks? I can't believe it.

Even if there was a way of protecting all these innocent people, punishing Clark by destroying the secret of his double identity wouldn't solve anything for him, and it wouldn't solve anything for Lois. So if Lois wants things to work out between her and Clark - I fully sympathize with those who think that Clark is such a jerk in this story that he isn't worth fighting for - but if Lois still wants him, what should she do?

Personally, I keep insisting that this story is about morality, even if the trial is not. But since Clark is beating himself up over the way he betrayed his own morality by killing Bill Church, being acquitted at the trial won't soothe his guilty conscience. He needs to deal with the morality of what he has done - and I believe he needs Lois's help to do it.

Lois always insisted he should turn himself over to the authorities after he killed Bill Church. But she always believed, too, that there would be no trial, or at least there would be no big deal. Lois seemed to believe that everyone would just accept the idea that what Superman had done was justifiable under the circumstances. She always seemed to believe that Clark could go right back and be Superman again as if nothing had happened.

I think Lois needs to take Clark's guilty conscience a lot more seriously than she has so far. I think she needs to acknowledge that Clark feels the absolute need not to kill, precisely because he can kill so easily. Consider. Everyone in the world knows that the United States has enough nuclear warheads to obliterate the world many times over - but everyone believes, too, that the U.S. won't use these terrible weapons. People feel complete and total trust in the United States that way. And I think that people felt a somewhat similar trust in Superman - he can kill and massacre the entire human race if he wants to - but everybody completely trusts him not to truly hurt anyone, and most certainly not to kill anyone.

To Clark, what has happened has shaken his image of himself. He needs help to deal with it. I will keep insisting that he did the wrong thing when he killed Bill Church, but that his act was nevertheless forgivable. I think the best thing for Clark would be if Lois, too, acknowledged that it was wrong of Clark to kill, and ideally, he shouldn't have done it. But, nevertheless, what he did was forgivable, and he needs to forgive himself. And she needs to help him to forgive himself.

Alcyone said that Clark needs other to forgive him. It could be that he needs Lois to forgive him more than he needs anything else. But if Lois is to be able to forgive him, she must first acknowledge that he did something wrong in the first place, when he killed Bill Church.

Ann

(Lisa whispers to Ann) I think you mean Christoper Reeve, not George. (Or did he leave her in that show in the 50s too? Never actually saw it.)

Thanks, Lisa! Of course I meant Christopher Reeve.

Ann

Wow.

I knew Clark's idiocy would not be received well, but I didn't anticipate that the feedback would be quite as intense as it has been.

Maria, Mrs. Mosley, and Nan all expressed quite justified shock and outrage. Nan even went so far as having Lois refuse to take him back. And that wouldn't be a wrong response. Most of you don't like what Clark is doing, and frankly I was a little surprised when I wrote it, too. It wasn't in my original outline.

Ann, in her own unique manner, has pinpointed something that even I missed: This isn't 'our' Clark. This guy is still suffering, still feeling self-inflicted guilt, and still very negative. If you recall "Masonry," he also has a very hard time letting go of insults, whether real or perceived. Remember that he suggested that Lois and Ron might be a good fit, which I put in to show his unwillingness to reason past his first impressions. This Clark needs Lois, not only because they love each other (really, deep down they do), but because he needs her help in altering his perspective. Remember when he saved the cruise liner? He didn't go to his parents to unwind and receive comfort, he went to Lois. She helped him see that even though not everything worked out perfectly, he still did a very good thing.

And I thought the amnesia kiss was a cheap movie trick to make Superman belong to the world instead of one person. Never liked it, never understood or agreed with the reasons behind it. This Clark won't do that, but he'll do the next worst thing. He'll walk out on the woman who loves him and focus only on his own feelings.

Next chapter coming up today. Almost there!