This prompt was on r/WritingPrompts, and it seemed perfect for here:


Tweak as needed, of course.

I love it. What would "our" Clark think of Bud Collyer's? George Reeves'? Brandon Routh's? Christopher Reeve's? etc.

I imagine he'd have some stern words for Reeve's and Routh's versions, given the 'amnesia kiss' and the 'absentee father' bits

I can't see our Clark accepting either choice, even for an alternate self.

If you haven't read them, two excellent stories, Plane Storm and its sequel After the Storm in Dandello's Plane Series address this.

00h, I haven't read it! Thanks for the rec!

You definitely should read "Group Therapy" by Shayne Terry. This Story deals with exactly this idea and with the things Endelda mentioned.

You're not wrong, but L&C Clark has taken some very questionable actions himself. Killing his clone, even reluctantly, was in my personal opinion not adequately justified (Vatman). He also reported poorly in the past with horrible consequences (Never on Sunday) and purposefully made his past life self lose to evil, potentially harming his and his friends' past life selves (not to mention causing the cosmic scales of justice to start leaning towards evil - he might have corrected it in a later life, but who knows what kind of consequences that had in the meantime?) purely for the sake of him and Lois' relationship (Soul Mates).

I'm not trying to hate on L&C Clark, I try to mentally ignore these things and pretend they didn't happen, but I'm just making the point that probably every version of Superman has done something terrible because of bad writing. Doesn't mean I agree with Reeve's/Routh's Superman's actions by any means, but I still think it's a point that needs to be made.

Yes, of course every Superman/Clark makes mistakes, sometime becuse he is "human" too, sometimes because some idiots had written it that way.
The clone Thing is something I wondere about too. It seems so weird for Clark to just let him die and doing nothing against it, especially after he started so see him as a sort of brother.
The "NoS"-affair seems just terribly written and totally out-of-characer, though one could say that we're talking about a younger Clark here, who hasn't all of his future knowledge etc. but it still seems odd.
And soullmates... well, this is a chapter for itself and I'm still not sure what to think about this concept..
But no one said L&C Clark is perfect, too. I think every Clark has some Thing he could learn from other Versions of himself.

Y'all, as I view the Vatman episode, Clark didn't kill the clone - the clone was flawed and died a "natural" death. Clark may have hastened his end in the fight, but he didn't actually take his life. That's Luthor's responsibility.

What could Clark have done to save the clone? At that moment, he didn't know where the birthing facility was, nor did he have the knowledge to use the equipment or heal his clone. I don't think we can legitimately put that death on Clark's shoulders.

But I agree with Talia's point - every incarnation of big-media produced Superman has done something bad or wrong or downright stupid. Me, I often wonder about assertions that "Superman doesn't kill" when he was involved in Spencer Spencer's death, along with the surgeon and the nurse with him. And if you put the blame on Lois (she did, after all, wield the liquid nitrogen hose), we come to the question of whether or not Clark could love a woman who has killed people, even if it wasn't intentional.

And don't forget the woman who invented the "shrinking shampoo." She was doused with it and shrank into oblivion. Maybe someday she'll return, having been altered by long exposure to the quantum universe, and come after Lois with inventive vengeance.

Oh, stop it, muses!

Well said, Terry! That was my take on the episode also.

And yes, I also agree with Talia. Every incarnation of Superman has done something that appears out of character or stupid. But, if any of you have made split-second decisions in life or death situations, you know it is possible in hindsight to second-guess yourself or to make an error. After all it's only human to not be perfect. Perhaps some of those situations were attempts to humanize Superman, although we could argue whether or not they were the best way to do that.

In some of those scenarios, it was expedient for the writers to have the characters die so they didn't expose Clark's secret or deal with that within the time frame of the episode or movie.

The ultimate responsibility for actions of fictional characters lies not with the characters but with the writers, directors, producers, etc.