Wow, amazing!
I have to comment right away on something Alcyone said:
The alter ego seems a lot milder than Clark. That surprised me in a good way.
Exactly! The man in a cape seemed a lot milder than Clark. And maybe, maybe he
is milder?
One thing that makes Superman/Clark Kent so fascinating to me is that the person who goes by two names (really
three names, Clark Kent, Superman and Kal-El) has to struggle with the question of who and what he really is. In canon LnC, Clark is the real person and Superman is the disguise. Clark is the person that the man from Krypton and Smallville is comfortable about being. Clark is the person that his beloved adoptive parents taught him to be, and it's the person he has been since he was old enough to be amenable to any sort of upbringing. Clark is the one he will be when he lets down his guard.
But this version of Clark has more negative than positive memories of being Clark. We were told one little snippet here which I found quite heartbreaking:
Reaching behind her, she pulled a large basket of candy away from its place on the countertop. There was a huge scorch mark with a distinctive pattern radiating out from the center.
It was a pattern he'd seen before. When he'd first been learning to control his heat vision, there had been more fires than he'd wanted to think about.
He'd been thrown out of more than one foster home with a reputation for pyromania because of it, and he could remember with excruciating detail just how terrifying it had been.
Reread the last paragraph from that quote, and just try to imagine how horrible it must have been for an eleven-year-old old boy to suddenly start setting fires to things without having a clue about what was happening to him. Imagine, too, that he was living in a foster home at the time, with people who didn't know him well and didn't necessarily like him all that much. Imagine his foster parents freaking out and accusing the boy of trying to burn down his new home and kill the people who took care of him. And imagine what
he must have felt when he realized that he was the worst sort of freak and that everybody hated him and wanted to get rid of him already, and that everybody would hate him even
more if they learnt the truth about him.
It boggles the mind to think about it.
The way I remember the story (sorry for not going back and rereading it, Shayne), Clark seemed to be a rather good boy at the time when he met Lois and had sex with her. Terry might not think he seemed like a relatively good boy at that time, but I did. Regardless of what happened between Clark and Lois at that time, Clark seemed to be a boy of good intentions back then. I remember he was living with the Irigs. Perhaps the Irigs were much nicer to him than most of his other foster parents had been? Perhaps he could relax around the Irigs and allow his natural good wishes, that had been encouraged and nurtured by the Kents before they died, to shine through for a while?
It could be that what happened between him and Lois made him doubt his ability to be a good person again. (Let's not forget that the Red K had been thrown into the mix, and that it had unpredictable effects on Clark.)
How long did Clark stay with the Irigs? Did you tell us, Shayne? Well, later on he met Lana, and I remember well that you told us that she had been the only woman apart from Lois who had been important to Clark. But they had not been able to conceive, and Clark had dared to have himself tested to see if they were indeed compatible. Who put him up to laying himself bare like that?
And then Lana disappeared out of his life. What happened? Did she just get tired of him? Did she leave him because she wanted children? Or was her fate more sinister? I've been getting the feeling that she's dead. Is it possible that Clark caused her death somehow?
After Lana disappeared out of his life, there was little hope or goodness left in Clark. Did he become a ruthless businessman and a swindler only after he had lost Lana?
But when the Superman experiment was proposed to him, and when he accepted it, he was forced to become a person
who only did good things. At least when he was being Superman. Is it possible that he is channeling most of his own goodness into his Superman persona, whereas Clark Kent is the one who has become hardened into a smooth and ruthless businessman?
Absolutely fascinating! And of course, when it comes to this part, I loved the revelation. I particularly loved that Clark - Superman - accepted that Lisa was his child when he understood that she was setting things on fire just like he himself had done at that age. But Clark panicked and fled the scene when he understood that he had fathered a child.
Now what will happen? Clark can't have failed to notice how poor Lois was, compared to his own life of opulence. Yet Lois was the one who had taken care of Lisa, while Clark had done nothing for his daughter. What is Clark going to do about that?
And what will happen when Clark - Superman - and Lisa meet for the first time, when Lisa is awake and knows what is happening?
Please come back soon with more, Shayne!
Ann
I can't wait to see how he'll interact with Lisa.
It's almost the weekend and I won't have time to check for updates again until Monday!!! 
Your stories always have a darker, edgier feel to them, Shayne. It's what makes them so intriguing. 
.. still loving it 