It was an apparently ordinary day in the newsroom of the Daily Planet. Lois and Clark were at their desks working on stories about the upcoming election.
Clark jerked up his head and looked quickly around the room. "What is it?" Lois asked.
"I don't know. I thought I heard..." Clark trailed off as an odd sound reverberated through the room and a large blue box appeared in the space between some desks. Clark jumped to his feet and hurried over to it. Lois did likewise. Just as they reached the box, the door in one side opened and two people stepped out. One was a man wearing a tweed jacket and bow tie, and the other was a twenty-something red-headed woman in a leather jacket and short skirt.
"Who are you, and how did you get here?" Clark demanded.
"Oh, hello," the man said in an English accent. "I'm the Doctor."
Clark just stared at him a moment, waiting for the man to finish identifying himself. When it became obvious that he was not going to continue, Clark said, "Doctor..."
"Just the Doctor." He clapped his hands, rubbed them together, looked around, and said, "So, where are we?"
The woman chimed in, sounding particularly Scottish, "Yeah, where are we?" She turned to the Doctor. "This was supposed to be a beach in Maui. This certainly doesn't look like Maui. Are we even on the right planet this time?"
"This is the Daily Planet in Metropolis," Clark replied, thoroughly baffled.
"Never heard of it," the Doctor said.
"You've never heard of Metropolis?" Lois asked incredulously.
"Of course I've heard of Metropolis. I've never heard of the Daily Planet," the Doctor said condescendingly. He turned to the red-headed woman beside him and said, "I've been to New Metropolis, of course, but never Metropolis itself." Turning back to Lois and Clark, he asked, "So, what does one do at a 'Daily Planet'?"
Lois said, "It's a newspaper. We're reporters." She looked like she was going to say more, but Clark cut her off.
"Just how did you get in here, anyway?" he asked.
The Doctor pulled out a small cylinder about eight inches long with a green light on one end and began waving it around. "It's not important," he said. "What's important is that we are several thousand miles off-course." He turned to his companion and said, "But at least we seem to be in the right time frame. Come along, Pond." He gestured for her to follow him as he wandered around the room, still waving the device.
Lois and Clark looked at each other, and both shrugged. Clark walked to the door of the blue box and tried the handle. It didn't budge. He pushed harder. Nothing happened. He took a step back, pulled his glasses down a fraction, and stared at the box.
Lois asked, "What do you make of it?" as she ran her hand down the side.
"I don't know, but I don't like it," Clark replied, frowning.
"That woman mentioned being on the wrong planet. Do you think they're aliens?" Lois asked. "Maybe they're Kryptonian, like Superman?"
"I thought Superman was the last of his kind," Clark said thoughtfully.
"Yeah, well he doesn't tell us everything. Maybe there are others, and he just never mentioned them?" Lois mused.
Clark thought a minute, staring at the box, puzzled that he couldn't see through it, before he turned to look at the Doctor and his companion across the room. With his glasses still pulled down a bit, he stared at the woman for a moment, frowned, then stared at the man. His eyes widened, and he started to cough. He pushed his glasses back up and hurried across the room to the visitors.
"Clark? What is it?" Lois shouted as she followed after him.
When he reached the visitors, Clark demanded, "Just where do you come from, and why are you here?"
"I'm here because the Doctor can't fly the TARDIS worth beans. I was intending to be on a beach by now," the woman replied testily.
"Now Amy," said the Doctor, "you don't have to get so snippy. This is just a slight detour."
"Yeah, right. That's what you said last time," Amy complained under her breath.
The Doctor turned to Clark and waved his device at him. "Oh, Amelia here is from England, and I'm from here and there. Mostly a traveler these days." He pressed a button on the device, and the top of it opened. He held it sideways, looked at it for a moment, and then stared at Clark. He repeated the motion with the device with a puzzled look on his face. "Where am I from, you ask? Where are you from is the more interesting question, I'd say."
Suspicious, Clark asked, "Just what do you mean by that?"
"That's easy," Lois interjected, "Clark's from Kansas. Everyone knows that."
The Doctor studied Lois for a moment, waved the device at her, gave her a dismissive look, and returned his scrutiny to Clark.
"Kansas, you say? I'd say you're from a bit farther away than that."
Clark began to panic, but he tried to hide it. "Just what do you mean by that?" he asked.
The Doctor proceeded to look Clark up and down as he circled him and said, "In my experience, Kryptonians were extremely xenophobic. I didn't know they even had a space program, let alone had managed inter-stellar travel."
"Krypton?" Amy asked. "Isn't that that planet with the red sun where everyone wore their family crests on their chest?"
"Quite so," said the Doctor.
"Wait!" said Lois. "You've been to Krypton?"
"Oh, yes, quite recently, in fact," said the Doctor. Clark's eyes widened in shock. "Though I suppose it would have been about thirty years ago by your reckoning." He stopped directly in front of Clark, looked him in the eye, and said sympathetically, "The planet exploded not long after our visit. You must have been just a baby when you left. Do you remember Krypton at all?"
"What--? I--" Clark sputtered.
Lois looked from Clark to the Doctor and back. "You really think Clark is from Krypton?" she laughed. "Superman's the only one from Krypton here."
Amy suddenly jumped with excitement. "Superman, yeh? That's right, he lives in Metropolis. Hey, Doctor, do you think we'll get to see him in action? I've always wanted to meet a superhero."
The Doctor gave her an offended look. "I lay the universe at your feet, and all that excites you is a day at the beach and a chance to meet a superhero?" He turned to Lois and said, "I don't know about Superman, but your friend here is definitely Kryptonian."
Clark opened his mouth to speak, closed it, cleared his throat, and said, "I'm not Kryptonian." Then he asked, pointing to the device in the Doctor's hand, "Just what is that thing, anyway?"
"Oh, this? This is my screwdriver."
"Screwdriver. Right," Clark said. He cleared his throat again. "Just what were you doing with it?"
"Scanning," said the Doctor. "I'm trying to figure out where we went wrong with the landing, and I figured it would be prudent to see what the local life-forms were like."
By this point, the mirth had fled from Lois's face, and a crowd of their colleagues had gathered around them.
Clark stammered, "D-don't be ridiculous. Your screwdriver, or whatever it is, is defective. I'm not Superman. I'm from Kansas."
"Methinks he doth protest too much," Amy piped up.
"My screwdriver is not defective!" the Doctor said vehemently. "It may go on the fritz now and then, but it never lies. I can't understand why you're denying this at all unless ... you ... were ... trying to keep it a secret," he finished meekly. He tipped his head back, threw his hand over his eyes, and said, "I'm so sorry. You were trying to keep it a secret, weren't you? I suppose you are that Superman bloke, huh?"
During this entire exchange, everyone in the newsroom was gawking at Clark. Clark was visibly furious, so much so that his irises were tinged red.
When the Doctor looked at him again, he swallowed noisily and said, "Come along, Amy. I think we've overstayed our welcome." He and Amy ran across the room into the TARDIS and slammed the door. Clark made to go after them, but as the TARDIS disappeared he was stopped by Lois.
"Clark Superman Kent!" she yelled. "You've got some explaining to do!"
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Superman was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.
Superman and related story elements are © DC Comics.
Dr. Who and related story elements are © BBC
