Well in defense of the story a bit. The majority of the drama in this story was a single woman in her 20's getting pregnant by a stranger, carrying the baby, raising the child alone for 5 years never know whether the child would ever even meet his father with the tremendous support of Ellen Lane
. Now SQD did not go into a great deal of gory detail on that aspect and treated it as the back story for this tale but I doubt it was much of a picnic. Ellen and Sam's lack of emotional support for Lois during this time was alluded to early but not directly addressed as the author focused on the genesis of the story.
The genesis of the tale as told was about the finding of the long lost father, the reconciliation of the child and his father and of the mother and the father (Lois and Clark). While the story did not have the overt drama of Tank's competing tale (what IS it about Tank, Lois and firing squads anyway?). The child nearly dying saving another child was a rather dramatic twist. The story did wrap things up neatly and rather quickly and it did not make a lot of angst about the father/mother (Lois and Clark) reconciliation which could have been messy and much more stress for the child. I guess if you wanted more of that type of angst and stress for the child then SQD's Chip Off The Old Clark might work better although it progressed pretty evenly and neatly also.
Since Clark did not come to the Planet, meet Lois, create Superman, woo Lois, etc in this story it was not really clear how long Superman was around before this tale began. Lois was painted as a responsible parent in this tale who did not go breaking into buildings/offices of the bad guys so would hardly ever find herself in need of rescue by Superman so her exposure to him could have been very slight but that was not totally clear. Luthor was a minor/side character in this tale.
I liked the story BECAUSE of the fact that it did not have much down to it. I really don't go searching for downer types of story much any more as I really have to be in a good mood to even finish them these days...
Mike
