In Terry Leatherwood's new fic, Rebuilding Superman, Superman is facing charges for having killed a man, arch-criminal Bill Church. Terry's story has already drawn at least some fire. Superman is known as the icon of truth and justice and a paragon of nobility who selflessly and tirelessly keeps helping others. In view of that, is it a good thing at all to write about Superman as a killer, or, as in Terry's new story, to write about Superman as a one-time killer who is now facing charges for what he has done?

Personally, I love Superman (or better yet, Clark) when he is a totally, perfectly good guy. I love stories celebrating that aspect of him. But during my 38 years as a Superman fan, I have come across Superman stories that have deeply troubled me. Stories where Superman has behaved in a way I have found unacceptable. But, shockingly, very often other "Super" fans seem to have reacted by glossing over what Superman has done. In the comics there have been many cases where Superman has come through as unnecessarily brutal, which has met with few protests.

The prime example of "happy acceptance" of Superman's behaviour, however, is how fans reacted to Superman's brainwashing of Lois in Superman II, where he robbed her of her memory of their lovemaking and of his double identity. Back in 1980 when that movie opened, I was totally devastated at what my hero had done. But I couldn't find a single review or article that really criticized him for it, as if no one but me found his behaviour unacceptable. As if - how do I put it? As if Superman had an almost holy, inviolable right to keep his secret identity safe and to - well, to keep Lois Lane ignorant of his true nature. As if this right entitled him to steal her knowledge of him and steal her memory of her lovemaking with him. But would such a thing have been acceptable if anyone other than Superman had done it? How many of us female FOLCs would be okay with the idea that a guy we made love to might wipe our mind afterwards, leaving us with no memory of what had happened (but leaving us with a possible pregnancy instead)? I feel confident that if it could ever be proved that an ordinary man had deliberately done such a thing to a woman - say, with the help of drugs or something - it would have been regarded as a criminal act, which would have rendered the man a prison sentence. But with Superman, almost every fan around seemed to happily accept it. Why is that?

Sometimes I get the impression that many people judge Superman (or Clark) by what they know of him already. They define Superman as the ultimate good guy, and therefore he can't have done anything really wrong.

Personally I love the idea of Superman as a perfectly good guy, don't get me wrong. But at the same time, I remember those stories where I did not approve of him and he did not come through as good to me. And it troubled me that so few people seemed to object to his bad behaviour - as if Superman should be judged by who he is, not by what he does.

I have no trouble whatsoever with stories where Superman is incredibly good and noble. In fact, I absolutely love those fics! On the other hand, stories where Superman behaves badly also resonate with me. They remind me of Superman II and of those comics I can remember where our favorite Kryptonian did act disagreeably. These dark and troublesome stories affected me sufficiently strongly that I would like to see a fic where Superman's bad behaviour is taken seriously, where it is not swept under the rug, and where Superman has to answer for his actions.

Regarding Terry's new fic, I think there are clearly mitigating circumstances when it comes to Superman's killing of Billy Church. For example, how many lives has Superman saved, and how many lives has he taken? How much good has he done, compared with how much evil he has done? Also, in view of the fact that Superman continaully keeps giving of himself without ever asking for any reward or thanks, isn't it understandable if a sense of horrible frustration can push him over the line just once? The law must consider those circumstances, and, moreover, the legal system should seriously ask itself whether it would be right to imprison Superman and potentially rob him of his superpowers so that the man who used to be the Earth's guardian will be unable to help at any future catastrophes.

For all of that, I do think that Superman did commit a crime - a serious crime, even - when he killed Billy Church, and I think he should be sentenced to some sort of punishment for it. At the same time, I hope that the public will not condemn him for it. I hope they will condemn his act of killing Billy Church, but I hope they will not condemn the man who committed this killing.

So, Terry, I'm very glad to see you post this story and discuss these questions. To me, reading a story like this one really feels like a sort of catharsis. I also see it as an acknowledgement that Superman should not be above the law, at least not to the extent that we don't even criticize him for killing people. (And Terry, I wouldn't mind a sequel to She's..., where Superman is charged with causing the death of Lois Lane by wilfully and deliberately subjecting her to mortal danger.)

Ann