Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Lois & Clark Things I didn't get.

so here's my question: When Lois and Clark went back in time to save Clark as a baby, there was baby Clark and there was our Clark. When they went back to Smallville 1866, they were still Lois and Clark from the 1990s. So how come when they went back in time in "Soulmates" they were "The Fox" and "Loisette" etc?

Because that time they used the Soul-Tracker-Whatsit, instead of the Super-Duper-Time-Machine with Flux-Capacitor!

tee hee
Thanks rivka!

Ooh, here's a better one. The most blatant use of undetected Superpower by Clark Kent: in Contact when Lois walks into traffic and is about to get hit by truck, Clark literally blows her away. Are we to believe that the one hand capped around the side of his mouth was enough to keep everyone from noticing that a woman flew some 15 feet into the air and landed on the other side of the street?! Was the driver of the truck blind?! And why is it no one in that city seems to know how to use the brakes?

In a city where Superman patrols the skies, wouldn't everyone assume it was Superman at work? Just because they didn't see him didn't mean he wasn't there--performing a rescue at a nearby building, maybe, with his hands full and only able to turn his head and blow her out of the way. Why would anyone think it was Clark?

I guess that's possible, but I still don't think it's so ignorable. I mean, I could see someone seeing that and being shocked then looking around for Superman and I guess shrugging it off when they didn't actually see him all the while ignoring Clark, but no one even looked around, or came up to Lois to ask if she was alright (besides Clark, of course).

Or the scene where the brakes didn't work in the Prankster and Clark stuck out his foot with open door... and Lois asked him what he thinks he is doing. The cars behind them must have seen his foot or the people walking by.

Ah, but I have a Theory.

We know that figuring out that CK=S is a potentially fatal, and almost always harmful, conclusion to reach. (I can figure out some statistics if necessary, but even a casual review indicates that the majority of people who figure this out end up dead, maimed, or dogs.) The human subconscious is a marvellous thing, and protects us from all kinds of dangerous knowledge.

A person who is presented with evidence that could lead to the CK=S conclusion may well be protected by their subconscious (*much hand-waving, nothing to see here!*), and convince themselves (on an entirely unconscious level) that they didn't see what they thought they did.

LOL, rivka!

I think the problem is that the viewers know Clark is Superman, so all of this is seen as evidence of his super powers. But if you were on the street and saw a guy stick his foot out of the car, I guarantee your first thought wouldn't be that he was Superman slowing the car down. I know I'd be yelling, "You idiot! You wanna snap off your leg at the ankle?!" And when the car slowed down, I'd assume it was because the brakes worked, not because the guy slowed it with his foot.

I've been thinking on it and I'm not at all sure that anyone would really see much with the foot thing.

I mean there's a lot of other traffic around on the street, all fast moving. There are parked cars - no doubt lining both sides of the street.

And the biggest element of all, this is a huge city, bustling and busy. Move, move, move. I think it would suffer from the classic 'too busy to see anything' state of mind. Ask any New York cop how easy it is to get a witness to a crime. No one sees anything in a big city. They're too busy hustling on with their lives, wondering what to make for dinner that evening, if the fax machine will still be broken when they get back from lunch, ooops, they forgot the wife's birthday...and a host of other mundane things. They're enclosed in their own little self-bubble and everything else in the world passes them by.

So it doesn't strike me as especially odd that things like this would be missed.

LabRat

@sheilah wish to see Clarks face if you would say that thing to him. You made me really laugh out loud.


@Labrat I think you're right. Never seen it from this point of view.

Notice the wondrousness of the subconscious! Y'all are even disbelieving the Theory.

quick question: What do you guys think that switch for the Kryptonite cage does exactly? I mean, the cage falls over Clark, he practically laughs it off, then Lex pulls this giant lever and suddenly the cage glows green. I don't get that; I mean, it's not like Kryptonite is a light bulb you can turn on and off right?

1. Explanation 1: This is pretty dumb, but I figured the cage was painted with that handy-dandy, super-power-or-Kryptonite-blocking lead-based paint. But this was a special kind developed by LexLabs, and when an electrical current passed through it, it dissolved, revealing the kryptonite underneath.

2. Explanation 2: This isn't much better. The cage was painted with Kryptonite mixed with a lead-based paint, and application of an electrical current activated the Kryptonite so the lead-based part was no longer shielding it.

Weak and dumb, I know, but they didn't leave me a lot of wiggle room on that one.

Hmm. Thinking along those lines . . .

Let us suppose for a moment that the cage is made of an alloy -- small amounts of kryptonite blended with lead (and perhaps some magnetic metal -- lead isn't particularly). If an electric current were run through it, which would magnetize it . . .

*ponders* Well. It's been far too long since I read up on electricity and magnetism for me to make really good predictions. But if the kryptonite were bonded somehow to the magnetic metal. And the electric/magnetic field pushed those bits to the surface.

*sigh* Well. I think this goes back to the fact that the science on L&C was pretty awful.

I'll buy any and all of those explanations, actually. Thanks guys!

Here's another mystery you can probably solve for me: When Lois has to disarm the bomb (I think in "Ordinary People"?) because Clark can't move, how come Perry's shove sends him forward? I know, Perry might hurt his hand if he shoved Clark hard enough, but Clark wasn't really looking at him, so would he have known to lower his whatever-it-is enough to allow Perry to shove him in the first place? And if he did, wouldn't Perry spraining his wrist be preferable to blowing everyone up?

Well considering Clarks superenhanced senses the possibility that he could be suprised is rather small. (In fact those episodes where he is it's really corny. All his friends throws a suprise birthday party in his house, yet he fails to notice them, for someone who can hear voices on the other end of town this is rather funny.) He could probably identify Perry by smell or the sounds of his steps.
Some fics has the notion that Clark can "soften" his body whatever that means. My take is that he rolls with the impact of a force, like a boxer. He has conditioned his body to respond to things like a human reflexivly. When Lois slaps him in the Tempus Fugit she doesn't break her hand either, despite that it should have been a complete surprise to Clark.

Another thing I always thought was rather funny is in DLW when Clark tries to listen and explains to Lois that he can't hear anything when she is babbeling in his ear and that it feels like a knife in his head. Hmm... he can swallow bombs with a smile but the missus voice brings real pain.

About that slapping-Clark-without-getting-hurt -thing, I've always thought that it depends on *how* you hit. I mean, you can easily slap/hit with your palm at something made of steel (let's say a car, just for the sake of it) without getting hurt. I've done it a couple of times with all my might, when something has annoyed me. And sure, it stings *a lot*, but I don't get hurt. In the other hand, if I'd tried to punch the living daylights out of the car, then I'd probably broken my hand.

So, my bet is that it probably depends on how you hit your mark. But, Lois' hand really should have ached quite a lot after that slap...but in the other hand, she's mad and probably running on adrenaline. Both quite good at hiding pain.

I think perhaps he was surprised by the surprise party because at that moment he and Lois were, uh, otherwise *occupied*. Clark's superpowers don't seem to normally function when he is concentrating on Lois. He becomes totally absorbed by her. Same thing with 'Sex, Lies, & Videotape', why didn't he sense that photographer trying to get a picture of Superman with Lois? Maybe because he was too preoccupied. Just my take on that.

Just because Clark is immensely strong doesn't mean that he is rooted to the ground like a tree or weighs as much as a boulder and therefore can't be shoved. In fact, the only time someone should be unable to move him is when he has set himself to resist. Then, he's using his enormous strength and is truly immovable. Otherwise, he should be as easy to move as anyone else.

In this particular case, Perry could easily push Clark forward because he was already mentally leaning that way, his entire attention directed toward Lois under the table.

As far as the issue of people not being able to sneak up on Clark because of his incredible senses, I don't see why that would be any more true for him than anyone else. For example, when my children were small, I could hear them at the other end of the house (several rooms away) and immediately tell if they were doing something that would get them in trouble--just by the sound. And yet ... when I was staring at my typewriter (yes, pre-PC days), they could stand next to me and ask me a question and I wouldn't hear them at all. Did I suddenly go deaf? Not physically. But I simply stopped listening. No one was getting into trouble, so my auto-hearing didn't kick in, and I was too totally focused on my writing to notice what was going on around me.

Clark may be an alien, but in every way that counts, he is as human as the rest of us. When he is focused on Lois, he simply isn't listening for anything except her, so he doesn't hear it. His senses have to work that way or he would be driven insane by the constant cacophony of all the voices, traffic, equipment, etc. within miles around him. Other than that subconcious "listening for people in trouble" or "listening for someone approaching" when he and Lois are engaged in B&E, he pretty much hears what he listens to ... just like the rest of us.

Well that would make more sense if it was consistent. When Mayson dies he does seem to be able do scan the area an kiss Lois at the same time. I think there are other examples too.

And really, thirty people are in the same room as him. I would think even Lois should have noticed.