I'll weigh in with my two cents.
I believe that Clark should have told Lois at the end of Whine, Whine, Whine, or at the beginning of And The Answer Is. Barring that, he should have (and I believe *would have*) told her immediately following her response to his proposal, provided that she said yes. And if she hadn't figured it out before he could tell her, she may well have said yes.
Telling Lois in Season 1 would have been a disaster. Though I don't believe she would have run off to make it into a Pulitzer story, she *was* dating Lex Luthor. Now, I don't for a second believe that she ever would have spilled the beans to Lex, but we all know that he used subtle ways of spying on her. It would have been far too easy for him to figure out the secret in those early days.
That would have put both Lois *and* Clark in danger. Plus everyone else, like Jonathan and Martha. We know Lex makes threats against them after he comes into the know during the ARGH.
Telling Lois in TOGoM would have been cruel.
To fly to her apartment while she's grieving and go "Hey, guess what, Clark's not really dead because he's also me, Superman!" would have hurt her a lot. Because, like Clark says, to the world, Clark Kent was dead. It would have been unfair to drag Lois into a life of hiding away, and possibly making her fake her own death, in order to pursue a life together. And if she *wasn't* in a place where she would have run off to be with him, she would still forever carry the knowledge that he was alive but would still never be able to see him again in the capacity of her best friend.
Also, in that vein, Clark knew Lois was taking his death hard, but he didn't ever actually see the depth of her despair. He flew directly to Kansas after getting dumped from the car. And when he went back to Metropolis, he was staking out the movie theatre waiting to capture Dillinger. He didn't see Lois at all, in any way, shape or form, between the time he was shot until the time when Superman pulled her out of the cement, which was after he'd figured out a way to be "resurrected."
Now, at the end of WWW, he knows for certain that Lois has chosen him over Scardino. That would have been a perfect opportunity to clear the air with her. But I think he was still in shock. Lois had just declared to him that she'd given up on her "dating Superman" fantasy. And he fully expected, with everything that had gone on, that she'd chosen Scardino. So nothing could have surprised him more when she showed up at his door telling him that she chose him out of all "three" men.
I think he was too afraid to rock the boat at that point.
I love the fact that he was going to tell her before the proposal. That would have been the perfect time. But then, everything happened at once. Mazrik revealed that he knew. And Clark's parents were kidnapped. All of a sudden, Clark wanted to tell Lois but didn't have the time to do it.
Let's face it, Lois would have had 10,000 questions for him, even if she *wasn't* an award-winning investigative journalist. It would have, again, been cruel to go "Oh, by the way, Lois, I'm Superman. Oh no, I don't have time to answer your questions or to care for your turmoil of emotions right now. My parents might be killed." Or worse, "Okay, Lois. I'll freeze you. You might die though. And, oh yeah, before I do, guess what? I'm Clark!"
Where Clark possibly made his misstep was *after* all the Mazik stuff. He takes Lois for a walk and proposes, without her knowing the secret.
However, it is my belief that he was still recovering from almost losing her. He might not have intended to propose that early on. (I know my husband bought my ring in October and didn't propose until early December.) But almost losing Lois brought him into action. He also would have been painfully aware of the fact that revealing his secret would have had the potential to rip them apart. He could have lost Lois from it.
So, all in all, I think the reveal came when "nature" intended it to come.
*But*, I would not have complained if Lois had stayed in the know after Tempus made the reveal.
As for Lana, I don't buy into her being in on the secret at all. In fact, I see her (from the Alt World) as being too self obssessed to pay too much mind to Clark's weird quirks, other than to be annpoyed by them. And I really, *really* don't buy into the idea that Clark would have ever told her. I think "our" Clark was a lot stronger of a person than Alt Clark. He never would have buckled to any demands that Lana might have made to know what was going on with him.
It is also my belief that, on some level, Clark *wanted* Lois to know from a lot earlier on than he realized. I think he subconsciously planted hints around that he and Superman were one and the same, like a criminal who actually wants to be caught. How many times did he say something that had more than one meaning? How many times did Superman repeat something Clark said, or vice versa? He might not have been aware of it, but he was giving her the puzzle pieces almost from the time they met.
Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it, although it *is* fun to play around with the reveal (coming ealier or later than the series reveal) in fics!
