I apologize right away because this is going to be short, Terry.
When I read your summary of The Masyonry of Life, I thought Clark came through as a touchy and selfish person who liked to nurse his own grievances. Here, there is nothing left of the spoilt child. Instead, you show us a thoughtful, responsible man who wants to hold himself to high moral standards, and who reflects on the choices he has made an regrets them. I particularly appreciated this:
The idea that he’d lost – or at least misplaced – his ethical touchstone, his acknowledgement of what was good and right and just in the world, still bothered him. He’d avoided thinking for too long how he’d abandoned his principles. It had taken another person to remind him of who he was and what he represented.
Clark is sorry about having failed to live up to his own principles. And he is sorry that he couldn't find his way back to those principles on his own. Also he is grateful that Lois has helped set him on the way back to the man he wants to be.
He thought back to those days, when he thought he’d hated Lois Lane with all the passion with which he’d previously loved her.
This is so interesting. Clark comes through as a very passionate man. Passionate in his love, but equally passionate in his rejection of the woman he once loved, but who had hurt him beyond endurance. During FOLCdom's very long and intense discussion about Sue's Faustian Bargain, Arawn said that Lois is an "all-or-nothing" kind of person. She either can't admit that she loves Clark at all, or else she loves him so intensely that she doesn't know how to exist without him. But here, Clark comes through as just that sort of intense, emotional individual. After Lois had hurt and insulted him too much, he rejected her with as much fervour as he had previously loved her.
Clark apparently wasn't able to switch from rejection of Lois to love for her in a matter of minutes, days, or even weeks:
They’d spent almost a year getting past that anger to the point where they could speak to each other in a civil manner.
But Clark finally realized that he hadn't been the only one being hurt:
It finally penetrated the dense gray matter in his brain that when he’d told her he didn’t really love her, she’d only hurt him to the degree that he’d already hurt her.
Interestingly, Lois comes through as an equally intense and passionate person as Clark. But while he was passionate in his rejection of her, her passion made her stay true to him:
He wouldn’t be here now, ready to surrender to justice and move on with his life, if Lois hadn’t given him the strength.
There was no way she’d be less than rock-solid with him.
She had breached the wall he’d set up to protect himself from the outside world and made him realize that she still loved him. She’d always loved him.
Well, this is so interesting! I still think Lois comes through as a - well, as a better, less self-pitying person than Clark, but I love Clark's introspection here. He knows what he has done, he wishes that it hadn't happened, and he is trying to make amends. What more can we ask from any person?
Also, because Clark is Superman, any mistakes of his may have truly huge consequences. If Lois were to slap, hit or kick Bill Church as hard as she could in a fit of fury, chances are that Bill Church would come out of that relatively unharmed. But when Superman loses his temper like that, he is like an unchained force of nature, absolutely deadly. Superman
must hold himself to higher moral standards than other people, and for the most part, he does precisely that. The way he puts his superpowers to good use in 9,999 cases out of 10,000 is totally admirable. But Superman is human, for all of his being Kryptonian, and once in a blue moon he can be pushed past his limits.
I find the moral dilemma you have set up here extremely fascinating and gripping.
The end of this chapter hit me in the solar plexus:
He frowned and opened his mouth, but Melanie’s desk phone buzzed and she snatched it up. “ADA Welch here. Yes, all three of them. What? Jack, you did what?” She paled and sat down in her chair. “Are you sure? Second degree? You’re kidding! Oh, no, I’m sorry, no! Are you sure? Yes, I’ll tell them.”
She put the phone down slowly and turned to the trio staring at her. “I – don’t quite know how to say this – but – but the Metropolis Police Department, acting under the direction of District Attorney John Reisman, has taken Superman into custody.”
This was, indeed, totally unexpected, at least to me. Or, let me put it differently - there had been few signs before that this might really happen. I got the impression that DA John Reisman might have an agenda of his own. Perhaps he might be trying to use his indictment of Superman as a stepping stone to a glorious political career? Perhaps he's dreaming of becoming New Troy's new senator, the man who took down Superman?
Not that it would be totally unfair if Superman had to face charges. Not that it would be totally unfair if he was forced to spend some time in prison. I don't want that to happen, don't get me wrong, but - well, should Superman be above the law?
Another part of him insisted that he had to pay for his crime. That part, the absolute justice part, also insisted that if he went to jail, it should be for the rest of his natural life, no matter how absurdly long that might be.
Clark himself can see that if he is sentenced to go to jail, maybe even for the rest of his life, this may be no less than he deserves.
On the other hand:
Yet another part of him was terrified of being confined in a cage without sunlight, without freedom, without the opportunity to fly anywhere he might wish to go, without the chance to help people in trouble, without the possible satisfaction of protecting the weak and preventing evil people from preying on the helpless.
If Superman is sentenced to jail and is forced to live his life without sunlight, then he will gradually start losing his superpowers. And what will the Earth do then, the next time there is a catastrophe? The astronomer in me refuses to discuss the possibility that there will be another Nightfall threatening the Earth, since that kind of event is so extremely rare. On the other hands, earthquakes happen regularly, and there are tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, tornadoes, floods, forest fires and all kinds of deadly and horrible crimes. Would it be right to sentence the victims to the next Katrina to death because Superman is locked up and powerless in jail?
This is an extremely interesting premise, Terry. Let me just say, before I finish, that I love your portrait of the new Catharine Grant-Mooney and Jimmy Olson (sorry, you are not going to make me call him Jim). I loved Superman's absurd Robin William-esque masquerade as Mrs Doubtfire, eh, K.C. Jerome. And I love your portrait of Lois, of course, but surely you knew I would?
Ann
