Another great installment!
As Clark descended into the atmosphere he was glad he’d thought to keep his trajectory well south of Russia and China until the last moments. Setting off World War Three wasn’t how he wanted to start all of this off.
Glad to see you took care of that. Nuclear holocaust could really ruin everyone's day.
I wonder how much conversation happened on the fabled "red phones" in Offscreenville. Wasn't it a staple of movies of the Cold War era that the President could pick up the "red phone" in the Oval Office and immediately be connected to the Russian Premier for a direct, one-on-one conversation? (Of course, back in those days, all the phones were black, so a red phone was really something.)
Presumably, when Clark lifted off, the USA made frantic phone calls (or whatever) to the other nuclear powers, saying, "Hey, we're really not launching!"
I wonder if they added, "It's not missiles, it's Superman!"
Nah. Probably not.
See? You're making me think backstory again! Shayne, you say one little thing and it immediately starts a whole line of other questions. In your lean prose, a few words of description or action are enough to create a myriad of questions.
Dr. Ledderman’s face was pale as evidence began to mount. Most of it was things Lois had heard before…DNA matches, retinal scans, hundreds of artifacts from the other world including one set of home movies showing the unfamiliar skyline of Gotham City found in the baggage compartment.
I'm so glad you're telling us what's in the presentation! And not just the stuff you mentioned before. The Gotham City home movies are a great touch. More realism. (Now you've got me wondering what the Gotham City skyline looks like...And are people still using film in Clark's world? Have they gone to videotape yet? If so, are the videotape protocols the same as in our world? Shayne, you've got me thinking again...)
On the big screen the picture was six feet high, repeated across five different monitors. For the first time Pilar began to hate the way her station played the same news over and over again.
You know, I thought that I wanted Pilar to eat crow, but now that it's really happening, it's not as satisfying as I thought it would be. I guess I just can't gloat properly. She made a mistake, that's all. How was she to know that Superman was real? And now he's on the news, and Pilar is toast.
Although Clark was bulletproof, he didn’t see how he’d be able to stop the soldiers from taking the goods as soon as he left. He’d seen that sort of bullying before, in his travels in Africa on his own world, and it wasn’t the sort of thing one man, no matter how powerful could stop.
Alas. All too true. And sad.
“I don’t know what the hell is happening.” The pilot’s voice was strained. “We’ve lost engines one and two and engines three and four are just completely gone. How the hell are we even staying up?”
The copilot’s voice was just as strained. “Controls aren’t responding.”
“Where did the city go? Traffic Control this is flight 1013. We’ve lost visual contact with…”
“There’s nothing down there.” The co-pilot’s voice was horrified. “It’s all gone.”
“We just got turned around,” the pilot snapped. “A whole city doesn’t just vanish.”
Can you imagine the tendril of fear that coiled in the pilots' guts at that time?
“I heard you folks could use some help,” the man said in heavily accented Burmese. “Where can I put this?”
Nando slowly looked down at his own shirt, with its familiar red and yellow logo, and then looked up at the chest of the flying man.
The man met his eyes and smiled and for the first time in days Nando felt a surge of excitement. For the first time he felt a surge of hope... In a world where Superman was real, anything was possible.
It's Superman! He's here! He's in our world! He's real! It's great, marvelous, wonderful, stupendous, amazing!
“So why the Superman outfit?” she asked, “If this isn’t some sort of publicity stunt.”
“People know what it means,” Clark said.
Yes! You've put your finger on it! The essence! So, since there is no Superman in Clark's world (yet), Clark will have to create what the costume means. The reputation, the expectations of what Superman means, what Superman does.
So, it's a weird tangle - Clark comes into our world, Lois puts him into the Suit, he becomes Superman. And everyone knows what Superman means and does -
in our world.
But when he goes back to his world, no one knows who Superman is, what he stands for, his ideals. Clark, as the newly made Superman, will have to create the reputation that seventy years of story-telling have formed here. He has to make his own legend.
Our world has the myth, the role. His world doesn't. He'll have to create it. But one thing about beginnings is the freedom from old traditions, the ability to lay a new course. Will Clark follow the path that's been laid out for him in our world? Will Clark, as the real Superman in his world, be different from the fictional Superman of our world?
I can't see him deviating in any significant way. No matter what world he's in, Clark will stand for helping, protecting, truth, and justice. Superman is transuniversal.
