Rachel, this story is brilliantly written through and through, and this chapter is certainly no exception. I, too, will be biting my nails until you post part 32 of this and let us see if Clark will indeed save Lois by flying her to safety.
However, I've got to admit that this part also got me thinking quite a lot about Superman in general and Clark Kent in particular. It got me thinking about the traditional, comic book and movie version of Clark Kent versus Dean Cain's portrait of LnC's Clark Kent.
And let's face it, Dean Cain's LnC Clark is a terrifically handsome and attractive guy. He's the one who makes Cat Grant ask, "Who's the new tight end?". He is the one who could have the beautiful DA, Mayson Drake, any time he'd want her, and he is the one who could so easily charm Toni Taylor into having an affair with him. Dean Cain's Clark Kent makes a good impression on other men, too. Perry very much respects him, and Bill Henderson holds him in high regard. Dean's Clark is popular among all his colleagues at the Daily Planet, whether they are male or female. Dean's Clark is, for the most part, self-assured, popular, funny and witty.
Your Clark Kent is very different. He is so much more like the traditional comic book and movie version of Clark Kent, who is nervous, scared and geeky. Few women would fall for that Clark.
The traditional Clark has been
deliberately geeky, as if he purposefully turned himself into a hapless clown as soon as he donned his Clark Kent glasses. This was glaringly obvious in the Christopher Reeve movies. The latest movie, Superman Returns, gave us a much more low-key Clark Kent, who seemed to be truly lost and uncertain of his role in the world.
The Clark in this story is quite a lot like Brandon Routh's Clark Kent. It can be no coincidence that one scene from your story was taken seemingly straight out of Superman Returns:
She shook her head at herself as she flagged down a taxi.
The first two ignored her, and Clark stepped forward. “Uh…here…let me.”
He moved forward to wave down a taxi, then slowed his steps as he gave a loud whistle. Lois jumped slightly—the whistle was surprisingly loud and piercing clear, startling some pigeons from the ledges of some windows overhead and making more than a few pedestrians turn and look at him, but a taxi pulled to a stop immediately.
Yes, there are definitely echoes of Superman Returns in your story, such as in the previous chapter, where Martha seemed to sense that Clark might leave her and the Earth to try to find the planet that he came from. But there is a huge difference between Superman Returns and your story. Superman Returns might have
tried to show us a Superman who had been to hell and back and who had been stripped down to the very core of his being, but your story
succeeds at showing us Superman, and Clark, that way.
Ah, but... now we come to the question of Lois and Clark, and to this Superman Returns kind of Clark Kent who wants Lois to love him for being Clark Kent, not for being Superman. As I said, the traditional Clark Kent was a geek that Superman seemed to play for his own amusement. The fact that Superman apparently expected Lois to
love this shallow and soulless clown was extremely cruel, and that is one of the most important reasons why I grew so angry at Superman during my many years as a "Lois and Superman" fan.
Your Clark Kent, however, is not a stupid act. Your Clark Kent is an almost broken man, a survivor of horrible torture, an alien who desperately wants to be a normal man, but who doesn't know how to be one. At least not most of the time. I totally disapproved of him when he put on those geeky glasses so that he would look sillier than usual in front of Lois, and so that Lois wouldn't see that he is Superman.
Your Clark is struggling. He is doing his best. His fear is so real and so powerful that you can almost taste it. He longs to be accepted as Clark Kent, plain old Clark Kent, because Clark Kent is the human aspect of this complicated man (or rather, Clark Kent is the aspect of him who
pretends to be the human).
I can see that Clark has reasons to lie to Lois. For all of that, I hate his lies to her.
He needed her, and her rejection had hurt him, even if she hadn’t been cold to all off him—just Clark Kent.
In some ways, that had hurt even more.
She had seen him, stripped of his glory, his strength. She had seen him ripped down to his core—in his most desperate, primal state.
Yet somehow she continued to favor the hero over the man. Why?
I think Lois has a good reason to prefer the hero over the man. The hero was true and honest in his suffering; he was brave and noble even when he was broken. The hero wasn't making himself a smaller, lesser man than he really is. Clark Kent, however, is doing just that. When he put on his geeky glasses so that Lois wouldn't see that he is Superman, he was diminishing himself. That's the old, old, infuriating Clark Kent syndrome: he is making himself a lesser man than he really is, and then he asks Lois to love him for that lesser version of himself.
Personally, I'm almost always going to say that Lois is right to reject a man who is lying to her about who he really is. And I always want to see Clark come clean with her.
So, Rachel, sorry about all these musings... but you get my point, I suppose. Please, please, please let Clark tell Lois that he is Superman! Like the others here, I fervently hope that Clark will actually
fly Lois to safety in the beginning of next chapter. And please, please, please don't let him pull some sort of stunt to confuse Lois about what was really happening!
Ann
