Adventure Comics Annual 2018

For nearly ten years, SUPERMAN has protected the world and universe from any threats that needed his attention, a beacon of hope for those in need. In his secret identity as CLARK KENT, he’s been a crusading journalist, telling the stories of the people who can’t tell their own, uncovering corruption and lies wherever he could.

In that time, he’s faced villains ranging from the KRYPTONITE MAN and METALLO, to DARKSEID and LEX LUTHOR, but there’s one challenge he may not be up to the task of facing… Clark’s been dating LOIS LANE for nearly a year now, and he still hasn’t revealed to her that he’s the Man of Tomorrow… but maybe… that’s about to change…

ADVENTURE COMICS ANNUAL 2018

Flying across the edge of the solar system on one breath, the oxygen tank attached to his side just in case, Superman soared in the void wordlessly. The baker’s dozen of Spatium Avem opened their gaping beaks, streaked with blues and blacks while their plumage was bleach white, and closed them again, squawking without a noise, flying on the solar winds that whipped through the space ways. The Man of Steel smiled at the sight. They were beautiful to observe, a stream of sun dust sprinkling from every flap of their immense wings as they travelled, and he counted himself lucky that he had the opportunities to witness such impossible sights.

He was here because S.T.A.R. Labs had noticed that the Spatium Avem-- nomadic space birds, basically-- were coming closer than expected to Earth orbit, and if they got caught up in the wrong gravitational pull they might hit Earth’s atmosphere, something that was deadly to their particular constitutions. Too much oxygen for their delicate physiologies. Superman was dispatched to redirect them, and he’d ushered them back to the solar windways that would take them back to their migratory paths.

Confident they could find their way back home now, he floated in the stillness, and watched them proceed ahead. Stars pin-pricked the blanket of the universe, and he watched, and he wondered… galaxies so vast and so beautiful, and did anyone know how lucky they were? To play a part in this grand cosmic plan… and to be so loved…

…How he wondered.


The front page of the Daily Planet showed the candid embrace of two heroes, caught in the moment where one had been returned to the land of the living by the one who’d sent him to the underworld. It signalled to the world that, yes, Batman and Wonder Woman were in a relationship, and it was the kind of news that couldn’t be avoided*.


Wherever you looked, newspapers and magazines had captured images from the live feed the world had been provided by the celestial powers involved in the event, and it was printed in their pages. A couple of blocks over, The Daily Tattler had released a special photo book comprised of numerous screen grabs of the couple, with observations and predictions made by the usual talking heads. Booster Gold gave an eye-roll inducing interview about how he was a ‘close personal friend’ to both heroes, and how they were ‘unbelievably happy right now’.

In the bullpen of the Daily Planet, Jimmy Olsen changed the channel, flicking from Channel 52 to GBS to CatCo, settling in under the television screen with his arms crossed at the familiar sight of one of the Daily Planet’s former employees. “Cat’s having a field day with this. Just what her network needed.”

Jimmy Olsen had been on the payroll at the Daily Planet since before he hit eighteen, and now he was in his mid-twenties he was somewhat regretting telling everyone when he was a kid that it was okay to call him ‘Jimmy’. But having tenure at the paper, and being able to capture some of the most dynamic images of our times on his camera, meant that not only was he an award-winning photojournalist, but he had a job for life at the place that had given a once in a lifetime shot all those years ago.

“Field day? Surely ya mean a field week. It’s all her talking heads have been yammering about since last Wednesday,” said Steve Lombard, passing a Phillips Head screwdriver from one hand to another nonchalantly.

Steve was in his mid to late forties, but his perfect mullet made him a man out of time. He’d had work done around the eyes too, but it was solid craftmanship, so you couldn’t really tell. He looked and dressed younger than he had any right to do, but all those vitamin supplements he chugged and the protein shakes he downed, combined with his life membership at the gym across the street from his apartment, meant he was the kind of guy who went to the beach and kicked sand in scrawny men’s faces.

“Who would have thought this would end up being news?” mused Lois Lane.

Her black heels were designer, but from a few seasons ago. Dressed to kill due to the interview she had landed later that evening, she currently had her feet on her desk and was perusing her notes for the night ahead. See, she was going to dinner with Metropolis’ second favourite son, Lex Luthor, and he’d insisted on taking her out on the town. She’d made her intentions clear-- not only was she in a relationship, but she also wasn’t remotely interested-- but Lex claimed it was for ‘old time’s sake’, and that meant she had an in.

In her early thirties but wishing she looked older so that she might be taken somewhat seriously; she had sleek black hair in curls, and she was dreading a forecast of rain. She’d been born with blue eyes, but through some genetic quirk they had changed to purple as she’d grown older, and she dressed with that in mind, a black dress that cut off above the knee and an indigo coat to keep her warm.

“Your moralistic standpoint doesn’t up our circulation, Lane. This kind of nonsense does,” replied Perry White, using a rolled-up copy of the day’s first edition to push her feet off her desk.

How long had he been lurking the halls of the Daily Planet? The current Editor-in-Chief had once been a freelance reporter hopping from the Chicago Tribune to the Gotham Gazette before settling in Metropolis with his wife, Alice. He’d been a star reporter for the Daily Planet early on, winning a string of Pulitzers with his exposes on the corruption rife in the city council and beyond.

An early run in with Lionel Luthor had led to the near closure of the Planet, but thanks to a Gotham-based investor who was willing to drum up the money for the paper to survive, it lived to fight another day-- but only if White agreed to become managing editor. He had to, for the good of the paper, and that elevation out of the trenches meant a resentment grew in White for the Luthor name, but he never unduly blemished their family name-- thankfully, through their own actions the Daily Planet had every reason to criticise the city’s favourite family…

He was a bulldog of a human being, broad shouldered but a stooped gait when he emerged from his office, the same one he’d had since he first made management all those years ago. He was known for chewing cigars but not lighting them, mainly due to the city code on fire safety, and the fact that his wife would kill him if he lit one up again. It was a mnemonic device, he claimed, but he never explained to anyone what it helped him remember. That one he’d take to the grave, if he wasn’t making the whole thing up…

Lois mouthed an apology as she tucked her legs under her desk, but there was a fire in her about this. “But this isn’t our business! This is two people who care for each other, and now they’re being dragged through the public eye because of, what?”

“Well, they’re already in the public eye, Lois,” mused Jimmy.

Lombard wretched. “They’re practically asking for it, doing that kinda thing in public.”

“You not into PDAs, Steve?” asked Lois, a smirk punctuating her violet lips. She wore ‘Bossanova Purple’, by Golden Rose, and if at all possible, it made her eyes appear more vivid than they had before.

“Ah, only the good kind, ya know, lesbians and the like,” he replied.

Perry almost bit through his cigar, but instead pointed an angry finger at his star sports reporter. “You’re a walking lawsuit magnet, Lombard. Get your write-up on the Corsairs / Wolverines to Troupe for final edits. We’ve got an evening edition to get live, and I’m not going to let it get held up because you’re channelling your frat boy years.”

“Ah, you got it, chief. Sorry,” said Steve, heading back towards his desk.

“Now, where the hell is Kent? He had a line on something going down at NASA, and left in a hurry,” said Perry.

Lois picked up her purse and smiled. “Oh, you know how he gets, always chasing a lead…”

Perry shook his head. “So, you haven’t got a clue?”

“Just because I’m dating the goof, doesn’t mean I’m privy to what’s going on in that dense head of his.”

Janice Denton, Features Editor, hurried over, holding a Kord-Tablet out for Perry to read something off. “Perry! We just got this in from Clark. NASA’s deep space telescope spotted some intergalactic fish and asked Superman to help them out. Interviews with the staff on hand, and a few words from the Man of Steel himself.”

“How many words has he sent through?” Perry asked, scrolling through the article he’d been passed.

“500, with an optional 200 if you wanted to get more comments from their staff,” noted Denton.

“Get Bill Stoker to cut 100 words from his piece on LexCorp’s new private security initiative, and then get me the full 700 ready for the early edition. Get the 500 live on the website. Jimmy, we need some imagery to go with this. Can you coordinate that with Janice?”

“You got it Chief,” said Olsen.

“Good work on getting this to me, Janice. When Clark gets in, tell him to come see me.”

“Will do, Perry,” said Denton, heading back toward her office.

“Jeez, that’s a scoop,” said Olsen, nudging Lois as he began to follow Janice.

Lois laughed and shook her head. “Isn’t it just. I’m headed off, Jim. You have a good night.”


“Thanks, folks!” said Clark, waving at the security guard that buzzed him out as he exited the NASA facility, having sat in their canteen to hammer out his word count, then stolen their wifi to get the story to his editor.

He calculated how long it would take him to get back to the Daily Planet building and added an additional twenty minutes to maintain a reputation, then after making sure he was free and clear, pulled open his shirt and went sub-sonic for a few seconds just under the local radar coverage, clearing him from NASA’s view.

Now was his time to do what good he could, wherever he could do it, during the supposed time in transit spent by Clark Kent.

Perry thought he hitchhiked, and it wasn’t that far off. Over the years, the expenses team had chased him for travel costs, and when you flew from one point to another, you regularly found there were no receipts to hand in. To take the pressure off, he’d started hitchhiking where he could, from one place to another, and started a semi-regular ‘Tales from America’s Highways’ feature with Janice, under a penname, that removed any suspicion as to why Clark Kent often refused plane tickets unless necessary.

Perry had referred to him as a less-lyrically minded Jack Kerouac, but hey, they couldn’t all be winners.

Onto more important things. Lois had her interview with Lex tonight. Ever since his return to the world’s good graces*, the reinstated CEO of LexCorp been keeping his head down, pushing a charitable agenda to try and ‘make up’ for the acts he’d committed under the ‘mental thrall’ of the ‘secret’ ‘society’ of ‘super-villains’.


It was all hooey, of course, and Superman had seen the truth: Lex had revealed his true nature, sided with a legion of super-villains in the face of the world’s heroes, and then after the bad guys were defeated he realised he’d shown his hand without anything to show with it*.


That’s what Superman knew to be the truth. How could Lex backtrack from that? With one of the most expensive PR machines in the known universe, that’s how. A daring escape from an enemy stronghold, rescuing a government operative they’d also kidnapped. How could you find fault in that?

‘Fake news’, they’d said. Superman had nearly sworn aloud. What a rarity.

The thing was, Lex passed every lie detector test and psychic screening. When Superman had listened in on the questions, he’d done everything he could think of analyse the answers given, but for all intents and purposes, Lex Luthor believed he had been kidnapped and brainwashed in a domestic terrorism attack that had destabilised one of the leading businesses in the United States. His heart rate hadn’t spiked. His physiology hadn’t quivered. Even the Martian Manhunter, back when he still had access to his abilities, hadn’t been able to find the seam of a lie being told in Luthor’s mind.

What is the reality of a situation when all evidence points in one direction, but the truth points in another? A question the Man of Tomorrow pondered, as he flew to his next destination.


“It’s not that I don’t appreciate you picking me up, Mercy… it’s just that I’d like to know where we’re going,” said Lois, sat in the back of the limousine that had picked her up outside the Daily Planet building.

“Mister Luthor wanted your destination to be a surprise, Ms Lane,” replied Mercy.

Who the heck was Mercy Graves? Many a journalist-- most of them employed by the tabloid rags in and about Metropolis-- had tried to find out. But before she’d come into the employee of Lex, she was a cipher. No one knew if ‘Mercy Graves’ was a pseudonym, or where that accent she had was from. But she was tall, strong, and kept Luthor safe through thick and thin. Some suspected she was an Amazon. You know, one of the ones from Themyscira. When Wonder Woman had the question posed to her, she gave a rare, ‘No comment.’

“Blackout windows don’t make my job easy, but from the direction we’ve travelled in since the Planet, and the sound of the tourists outside, we’re near Centennial Park. Probably near the statue.”

“Hmph. No fair if you cheat,” said Graves.

Lois reclined in the backseat of the limousine, and hooked her fingers behind her head. “It’s not cheating if you’re smart enough to know. I could be Batman, you know.”

“You really couldn’t.”

Lois leaned in, conspiratorially. “Was that a hint of jealousy I heard? Not happy your queen is tapping that?”

Graves smiled. “I don’t have a queen, Ms Lane. I’m an American citizen. We have a president running things, not a monarchy.”

“Hmm, my bad.”

“We won’t be long. Do you want some more champagne?”

Lois looked her empty flute and then shrugged. “Why not?”


The off-duty fireman chewed his steak (rare) and watched the replay of the Opal City Corsairs and Midway Wolverines. He mashed a handful of fries into his already full mouth and cursed when the Wolverines’ goalie over committed himself and twisted himself into a pretzel, allowing the Corsairs’ right wing to plunge the puck into the back of the net. He dropped his fork on his plate and threw his head into his hands.

“I didn’t know you cared so much.”

The fireman turned and grimaced. “Oh. Brother.”

Clark smiled. “Half-brother,” he corrected.

“It’s that kinda know-it-all attitude makes you hateable, you know that, shrimp?”

Jonathan Christopher Kent, one of Midway’s finest firemen, and the depowered Kryptonian half-brother of Kal-El-- by some sick joke known back home as Kru-- grimaced and turned his attention back to the game. He had a thick, black beard specked with grey, and his long hair was tucked behind his ears. He was larger than Clark, more filled out, with strands of hair sticking out from the low collar of his grey t-shirt. He could have been mistaken for a black bear that had wandered into town wearing a lumberjack’s clothes, in a different light.

For some reason, he liked to play the overbearing big brother type in public. He was older by a few years, and their familial relationship was long and convoluted, which made perfect sense considering the lives they had and did lead.

Once upon a time, Kru-El had been the black sheep of the El family, first son to Jor-El and a woman who Kal had never learned the true identity of. He’d fallen in with General Zod, become one of his Hounds, and due to the crimes they committed-- crimes that would lead to the destruction of Krypton itself-- they were banished to the Phantom Zone.

Four years back, the Phantom Zone had spat General Zod, Faora and Kru out*, and they went on a reign of terror, only to be stopped by the heroism of Superman, even though Lex Luthor took the credit when the smoke cleared…

Kru-El was abducted by the forces of Apokolips, his genetic structure shredded and reconstituted to create a force of destructive evil known as Doomsday*, capable of taking the fight to the Man of Steel like none before him!


After the events of the failed Apokolips invasion, the monstrous Doomsday, barely able to form words, was taken back to the dungeons of the dread world, but escaped back to Earth*, to wreak more havoc.


It had taken the combined might of Metropolis’ bravest heroes, both those wearing capes and those in the police force and more, to take down a newly intelligent Doomsday, and he’d been rendered a prisoner of Rip Hunter, banished into the multiverse to serve time for his crimes committed against humanity*.


But somehow, he’d returned, his genetic structure repaired*. He’d intended to gain his revenge on his half-brother, but they went through something neither of them truly understood, and now, here they were-- brothers with a distance between them, but also a begrudging respect, an understanding as they moved forward with their lives. He had been mad once. But upon his return he was better, lucid, no longer capable of the great bouts of rage that engulfed him since his time under Zod's thrall. Now he was just a man... and for him, that was enough.


Even when an ancient Kryptonian computer had revealed to Kal that Kru's mother was Zod's sister, Myla*, that truth wasn't enough to drag the former Hound of Zod back down into ruin. He was trying to prove that his nature was not one predicated on violence, and that he had a place in this world. His time working for the Midway Fire Department was part and parcel of that.


“This seat taken?” asked Clark, placing his folded jacket over the back of it.

“Ain’t a name on it, if that’s what you mean,” said Jon.

Clark sat down and leaned forward on the bar. “Who’s winning?”

“Corsairs. I hate them Opal City hipsters. All they care about is their craft beer and antiquing. Drink?”

“Are you buying?”

Jon shook his head but didn’t look at his brother. “Nah. You are.”

“Ha! Uh. Right. What do you want?”

“I’m on the Guinness,” he replied, tapping the rim of his empty, streaked pint glass.

Clark exhaled. “Ooph, that’s like a meal in itself. We best make it two, then.” He waved at the bartender, ordered two pints, and waited for them to arrive. “How’s life?”

Jon chuckled, and when the bartender eventually poured and topped off the stout, he accepted it with a nod. “Just doing my bit. Not all of us can swoop in and save the day while working the cape-look. Some of us have to lug our breathing equipment up twenty flights of stairs to do our thing. Anyway. What brings you to Midway?” he asked, sipping his drink. His moustache was very quickly blanched by the creamy top.

“Just thought I’d pop in. Knew you hung here after your shifts finished. Thought I’d say ‘Hi’.”

“Emergency service discount. It’s appreciated.” He leaped out of his chair when the Corsairs scored another goal, and shouted obscenities at the television, only to wince as he stretched himself too far. Clark did a quick scan, and saw that his torso was bandaged, and that there were hairline fractures along his two bottom ribs. Jon caught his brother looking. “Hey, don’t scan me. Don’t wanna go sterile, do I.”

“You know that’s not how it works,” said Clark.

“Yeah, yeah. I may be on the dating scene but it’s not like I’m planning on procreating any time soon-- oh, your face then. You’re wearing your feelings like a god damn beacon. What’s going on?”

Clark had flinched. “Ah, well… I’ve just been thinking a lot. About Lois. You know.”

“That the broad with the purple eyes? She’s a looker. Didn’t she dump you*?”


“Well, it’s complicated, and stupid,” he admitted.

Jon chortled. “Sounds about right. What’s the problem, shrimp?”

“She dumped Superman, and then… we’ve been dating as Clark and Lois pretty much ever since. And I feel like… like I’m just lying to her. Every day. But I think it’s time I finally told her the truth. Do you follow?”

Jon stuck his fork into the last vestiges of his fries-- the menu had described them as frites, but he wasn’t going to hold that against the bar’s owner-- and swabbed up the remainder of the blue cheese sauce that had come with his steak. His mouth full, he shrugged and pointed his now empty fork at Clark.

“Well, yeah. Duh. Obviously, you’re lying to her. It’s kinda disgusting too, if you think about it. She dumped your sorry ass, then started dating you again without knowing it. It’s weird. And also complicated and stupid.”

“Ugh. I know. I’ve tangled myself up in this stupid web of lies by omission. Ma and Pa would be so disappointed in me…” he murmured.

Jon held his hand up toward the bartender, gestured for two more drinks, and shouted “Whiskey! Rocks!” He looked at Clark, then back to the bartender., conspiratorially, “Bottom shelf stuff! Sorry, shrimp. Don’t want you getting any ideas that I like you, so cheap stuff it is.” He winced again when he lowered his arm, and clamped a hand around his side. “Fuuuuuuu--#”

“Jon, what happened to you?”

“Had do a stupid thing to save some lives. Staircase collapsed under me. Broke a rib or two, which I’m sure you spotted, but I’m fine. Absolutely fine,” he said.

Clark pressed the point. “You sure?”

The bartender returned with their drinks, and Jon held his up in a toast. “To asking stupid questions, and living with stupid decisions. C’mon. Like I’m going to admit I messed up. Just… if you can fix this thing with Lois, then fix it. If anyone can untie this, heh, Gordian Knot of a romantic tangle, it’s going to be you, kiddo.”

His eyes wandered over Clark’s shoulder, and something twinkled in his eye, and he smiled in a way that his younger brother had never seen before. The younger El turned and a bright, grinning redhead was waving in their direction.

“Jonny, heya--!” She shouted, making a beeline toward the pair.

“Hey, Sasha. Uh, Clark, this is… well, this is Sasha. Sasha, this is my little brother. He dropped in to say hello, but he’s just leaving,” said Jon. Was he blushing? Was the blustering, bearded beast of a man actually flustered?

“Tsk. Dating for the best part of a year, and he’s still scared to introduce me to anyone important in his life. Clark, I’m Sasha Emmett. Jon talks about you all the time. He likes to play the stoic, but he’s a bit softy at heart.”

Clark took Sasha’s extended hand and shook it. Her palms were calloused around the pad below her fingers, the kind of hands that came with holding a weapon. At her hip, attached to her belt, was a Midway City Police Department detective badge. Jon was dating a police officer? Made sense, considering his own occupation in the MCFD.

“It’s a pleasure, Sasha. I hope he hasn’t over-hyped me.”

His face turning a deeper shade of red as they spoke, Jon was clearly getting more and more flustered by his girlfriend interacting with his brother. “Look, I hate to cut this love-in short, but you were just leaving, weren’t you, shrimp?”

“‘Shrimp’! Jeez, Jonny, aren’t you the cutest?” said Sasha, punctuating her point with an elbow to his ribs. There was a game physicality to their relationship, clearly, and Clark had to shut off the part of his brain that controlled his journalistic curiosity, and instead he flinched when the point of her arm connected with his side, where he’d spotted the damage earlier.

“Yiiiiaaaaaowwww no, no, I’m fine, I’m fine, walking it off, walking it off, jeez, jeez…” said Jon, hopping off his stool and walking the length of the bar as he clutched his bandaged side, vanishing from sight as he turned a corner.

Sasha was confused and concerned at the same time. “Jon, did you do something stupid at work again?”

Clark nodded, finishing his drink. “He really did. Look, Sasha, I have to fly, but it was lovely meeting you. When I’m next in town, I’ll try and convince Jon to let us all go out for dinner or something. You know what he’s like.”

“Yeah, that’d be-- Jon, could you stop making that face? Christ!-- ah, sorry, that’d be really nice, Clark. Maybe you could bring that Lois girl you’re dating? Jon says you’re perfect for each other.”

“Oh, he did, did he?” Clark said, almost laughing.

“Yeah, but he also said your problem with telling the truth is going to get you into trouble one day. Women know when you’re holding something back. And we can either wait and never find out, and at that point we’ll leave, or you can tell us, and then we can make our minds up about the whole affair, y’know? You Kent boys and your secrets… I’m surprised Jon hasn’t exploded from keeping his stuff tamped all the way down. I’m patient. And I know he’s not a serial killer.” She tapped her badge. “I got access to all kinds’a databases.”

“Alright, stop talking, both of you’s, I have to figure out how to restore my dashed reputation,” said Jon, stepping between the two of them. “I’ll, uh, catch you later.” He awkwardly hugged his brother, and Clark reciprocated, careful not to exert any more pressure on his damaged side. Quietly, in his ear, Jon said, “You got this. Just don’t beat around the bush.”

“And does she know--?” whispered Clark, back.

“I’m a hypocrite. Sue me,” he replied. The embrace ended abruptly, and Clark left a twenty dollar bill on the bar top, waving at the bartender as he exited.

He turned into a deserted alleyway, and then went on to his next stop, careful not to pop the buttons off his crisp white shirt as he opened it to reveal the symbol of the House of El…


“Lois, you look as delectable as ever!”

Stood at the top of the winding stairs that led to the world famous Piaceri Semplici restaurant, dressed in a suit that cost more than her apartment’s rent for the last two years, Lex Luthor beamed, arms open and wide, like he was the greatest, most beloved man in the world, to which, to be honest, he was not.

Three Michelin stars and a wine list that started off in the low hundred dollars for a bottle, a meal at Piaceri Semplici cost a month’s paycheque for the most lucrative of business-folk, but as Lois ascended toward her interview subject, she noted that the entire place, known for being at full capacity every night regardless of the price tags on the hors d'oeuvres, was empty apart from Lex.

“Slow day?” she asked, as Lex removed her coat. “I’m recording by the way,” she said, holding up a gift from the CEO of Wayne Enterprises, a high-end digital recorder with unlimited storage capacity. It backed up in real time to her computer at home, and to the Cloud storage she’d been given exclusive access to by the same CEO. God love Bruce Wayne, she thought. Perhaps he’d be willing to do an interview next week, as a sort of corporate rebuttal to the LexCorp one she was doing now?

Regardless, Lex didn’t blink at that. “Of course you are, and that’s absolutely fine, it’s why you’re here. And I booked the place out, my dear. I wanted some privacy.”

It wasn’t the kind of Luthor-gesture that surprised her, anymore. “Instead of trying to show off to someone who will never be impressed by you, you could have used that money to feed a small country.”

The pair were led to their table by the maître d', a svelte man who was all smiles and probably being paid handsomely for the privilege of serving Lex and his ‘date’.

Having taken his seat, Lex waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, I did that as well. Did no-one tell you about the Lillian Luthor Charitable Foundation?”

“Can’t say I read the press release,” she replied, taking the wine list when offered.

Lex grinned, devilishly. “That’s because there hasn’t been one yet. Or perhaps, ever. Maybe that’s your take away from this interview. The ball is in your court. You see, I don’t perform charitable acts for the sake of publicity, though that is de rigueur in our current, publicity-minded climate.”

“Then why not send an anonymous cheque to charities? Why name a foundation after your mother?”

“Accountability in all things. That’s my mantra moving forward. If I were to send a cheque for a million dollars to any one of the charity groups that are in existence at this moment in time, who’s to say those funds wouldn’t be ill-spent? With the foundation, I know where the money is going, how it’s going to be spent. It’s a good feeling to have, knowing you’re making a change in the world.”

“That’s a very interesting point of view, Lex. Are you intending for there to be more transparency in LexCorp’s operations moving forward?”

“Where possible, of course. We still fulfil a lot of government contracts, so that wouldn’t be possible in that arena, but elsewhere, yes. Now, it’s my turn.”

“Your turn?”

“Well, quid pro quo. You ask a question, I give an answer, I ask a question, you give me an answer. I think that’s fair, don’t you?” Still smiling, the maitre d’ took the wine list back from Lex, who then said, “Lois, I hope you don’t mind, but shall I order a bottle?”

“Feel free, it’s your time we’re on.”

“That wasn’t my question by the way,” Lex said, with a chuckle. Turning back to their server, he said, “could we please have a bottle of the Krug Clos d'Ambonnay?”

The maitre d’s eyes popped, and Lois glanced down at the menu. The blurb said something about there only being 250 cases of the Clos d'Ambonnay ever being released. And the price? Lois understood why their server’s eyes bugged out. If Lex was willing to pay that much for a single bottle of bubbly, how much was he going to tip the man?

After the maitre d’ excused himself to procure their drinks, Lois asked, “How long have we known each other, Lex?”

“An interesting angle to take this one-on-one,” he mused. “Ever since I moved to Metropolis, I suppose. Before we both ‘made it big’.”

“We had our own little adventures, didn’t we? You, trying to make a name for yourself, starting out in S.T.A.R. Labs in a junior position before your rather spectacular hostile takeover of LuthorCorp. Rebranding it to spite your father, of course. The youngest ever CEO and majority shareholder of a multi-billion-dollar business in recorded history. And me, barely a blogger, working my way up the ranks at the Daily Planet chasing stories and hustling however hard it took.”

“Look where we are now!” declared Lex, gesturing outwardly at the empty restaurant. He leaned forward, a conspiratorial smile between two old friends. “Sometimes I miss those days. When it was you and me, chasing whatever walking science disaster spilled out on the streets of Metropolis that week. But then, it all changed.”

“You went corporate. And crooked.”

“That’s slander. But, no-- ” He shook his head, and then, punctuating his point by moving his hands away from each other above his head, as if announcing a headline, “--Superman debuted!”

There it was-- just a glimpse-- a flash-- a minor tremor of the anger that Lex Luthor held onto, the resentment, the frustration. It showed on the surface with two words, even as he was trying to be playful, trying to be teasing.

Everything he did, everything he strived to do, he could never be as good as the Man of Steel, and that meant he went in the other direction. That’s what Lois believed. He couldn’t ever be as good as Superman, and that broke something inside his already fractured sense of self.

The Luthors were a name brand in American culture. Lionel Luthor was a business-giant, up there with Walt Disney, J.P. Morgan, John Pemberton. Alexander ‘Lex’ Luthor was modern day royalty, even though he was the black sheep of that hallowed family, sent to run the Smallville production plant and stay out of the way of Lionel’s dealings… and it was all down hill from there.

And the most horrible, terrifying thing was… you couldn’t prove it. Shit didn’t stick to the Teflon target that was on Luthor’s back. He was a global industrialist and then he was outed as a supervillain on the grandest stage-- he’d organised an international cadre of sociopaths and psychotics into what was called ‘the Society’, and they waged war on the Justice League and the reformed Justice Society of America. And then… and then… he vanished. A fugitive from justice. 

But years later, he’d been redeemed and rescued from the Society that had apparently held him captive. The new story spinning out into the world was that he’d been a thrall of the despotic psychic alien Despero, and even the Justice League’s premier telepath, the Martian Manhunter, couldn’t dispute it. Back on the street, all charges dropped, and his failing company restored to its former heady heights. Sat opposite Lois Lane, like not time had passed between their early days and now, that same smug smile on his face as ever. What she’d give to wipe it off his face…

She tapped her cutlery absent-mindedly. “I realise I said this was your time we’re on, but we’ve done this interview pretty much once a year since you purchased LuthorCorp. I don’t want to hear the same spiel about Superman, I don’t want to hear about how wonderful you are. You’re never going to let the façade drop for longer than a split second-- there you go, your eye’s twitching, you should get that tell looked at-- and I’m not here to be your cheerleader, so don’t even try and get me on-side with whatever narrative you want to weave this month. It. Will. Never. Work. Why don’t we cut the bull and get down to brass tacks, as my dad used to say. What the hell do you want, Lex?”

If he was taken aback by her outburst, which never came out as a shout, or as a product of anger, but simply as the way of the world, a statement of facts, he didn’t show it. He smiled, and the champagne arrived. He lifted his hand and revealed a small, purple velvet ring box. “Well, I was going to ask you to marry me.”


Soaring home the long way round-- criss-crossing the globe in almost a meditative trance-- the Man of Steel spotted a familiar face and descended, his feet lightly touching down in one of the further most fields, where his father’s windmill sat, turning clunk after clunk as the wind picked up.

Before his powers manifested, Clark and Jonathan Kent built this together. Knowing his father, even if his powers had been active at the time, he would have insisted they work on the project at his pace, considered and measured, ensuring that no aspect of the construction was rushed. The community had come together to put the final touches on the project, and now the odd monument to a life well lived stood amongst the vast golden fields of Smallville’s many farms.

“Are you all right up there?” Clark asked, spinning out of his costume and into his civilian clothes-- an outfit conveniently compacted into his yellow belt buckle-- his neck arched up toward the blonde teen sat on the ledge of the windmill. Barefooted and wearing a pair of dusty dungarees and a white t-shirt, she barely paid him any attention, other than a slight wave and a nod in his generation direction.

Since her arrival on Earth, Kara Zor-El had tried her best to acclimatise. She’d been the devoted daughter to one of Krypton’s greatest scientific minds, the compassionate and hopeful Zor-El, and to one of their culture’s greatest leaders, Argo City’s president-elect Alura.

When Zor’s brother Jor predicted the death of Krypton due to General Zod’s provocations, it was the former who confirmed the planet’s doom. The brothers didn’t have long to come up with a solution, but thanks to the schematics shared by his older sibling, Zor designed a similar survival rocket, but again, with only so much time left to them, it only had room for one…

Kara was to follow her baby cousin Kal to their chosen destination, the primitive-in-comparrison-to-Krypton, Earth. But while Jor-El’s rocket, launched from the capital city of Kryptonopolis, managed to get past the cataclysmic atmospheric storms as the final death knell of the world sounded, Zor-El’s, launched from Argo City, was hit by turbulence, and as the stasis systems engaged and Kara began to sleep, she was sent off in a direction away from her baby cousin-- until-- until--

Her rocket crashed on a jungle world, and the young woman was immediately accosted by all sorts of alien beasts and monsters as she tried to survive*. And survive she did, but that was at the cost of something you would never have thought about-- she became feral, and it took Kal-El rescuing her from the planet and bringing her to Earth for her to reclaim her sense of self.


It was an odd place to be positioned. To lose one’s home world was one thing, but to be old enough to remember that life-- something Clark never had to go through-- was traumatising. She’d lost one world, then the jungle planet was harvested by an alien race of marauders, and now she was on Earth, staying with Martha Kent on the farm in Smallville… and here she was now, sat looking up at the night sky, doing what Clark had done when he was a boy, when he had discovered his alien origins… wondering which one of those lights spotting the sky might have once been the star their home world had spun around…

Clark took a calculated leap and landed next to her softly. “What’re you doing?”

Kara didn’t look away from the stars. “Oh, you know. Thinking.”

“About?” He brushed his hand against one of the planks that bore a familiar carving; ‘CK 4 LL’. The follies of youth…

“Home,” she said, simply.

He took a seat next to her and held out a hand. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Do you ever wonder what our lives would have been like if Dru-Zod hadn’t detonated the Echobomb that caused Krypton’s destruction?”

She said the General’s name like a curse. The lives of the Els had been intertwined with the Zods for generations, and at one point in their youths, Jor and Dru had been close friends. Obviously, that hadn’t lasted. Like Kal, she’d lost her whole family, her entire world, due to Zod’s actions. The difference was, she remembered all their faces, their voices, and her heart was heavier for it.

“I don’t, really… Smallville… the Kents… Earth… it’s all I’ve ever known. If Krypton had never died, I don’t think I’d be the same man I am today. I’m the sum of my parts, you know?”

Kara finally took his hand. “Don’t undersell yourself, cousin. I knew your father. You’re very much alike. He was brave in the face of adversity. Honourable to a fault. Other than my father, the best man I ever knew. Before you, of course.”

“That’s kind of you to say.”

“But I miss everything about it. The smell of the air. The way the light of Rao hit the Scarlet Jungle and made it glow. Oh, the Jewel Mountains, the Gold Volcano, the Fire Falls… I remember mother and father flying me to Atomic City, one long summer, and we visited all the planetary landmarks in a matter of days… Lake Trom… Meteor Valley… and now all of it’s cosmic dust, and in my head. And that’s just so… so… Kal, you’re so lucky.”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t remember, but I do. You have your father’s memory crystals in the Fortress, you have his records, and the history of Krypton, but for you it’s like… like… I struggle to find the words in English… it’s like you’re an archaeologist, maybe? A historian? You are apart from it. But for me… I feel… I shouldn’t be here. I miss everything, because for me, it was like I last saw my parents a couple of years ago, looking up at me in the rocket. You’ve only seen your birth-parents in holo-recordings. I’m sorry. I’m rambling.”

“No, no, it’s fine, you talk. I’ll listen. Kara-- all I want for you is to be happy. To have an opportunity at a life. And I’ll do anything in my power to provide that for you. This is your home, as much as you want it to be. You’re my family. My blood. I’d do anything for you, and so if you want to talk, like I said, I’m here. I’ll listen.”

“I think… if Krypton had lived, I might have joined the Science Guild, like my parents. Mother was a member, before her election to the presidency of Argo. She talked about all the options I had, all the opportunities… I think I might have wanted to join the Artists Guild, though. We visited the Cal-La Opera House in Kandor, before Brainiac stole it from us. That was… beautiful.”

“Ma showed me the sculptures you made last time I visited; she was singing your praises.”

“She did? That was nice of her. With all these powers,” she said, holding her hand up, moving it palm up to palm down while considering the solar crackle that Kryptonians experienced under their skin while under a yellow sun, “with all these powers, the manipulation of matter is child’s play.”

“You think a child could have done what you did with the powers at your disposal? Don’t sell yourself short.”

“Funny,” she replied, punching him in the shoulder.

“She wasn’t wrong, though. Your mom, I mean. You can do whatever you want. You can live whatever life you want here. Scientist. Artist. Student. Heck, you could do anything and everything you want.”

“I have two lives on Earth. The one I spend here, on the farm, in solitude… with Ma, I mean. And the other, in costume, helping those I can with what gifts I have. They’re good lives. But I think… maybe I want more.”

“Well, what do you want?”

“I think… I want to go to college,” Kara said. “I don’t want to waste this second chance at life. I can’t hide myself away from the world in Smallville. What’s the point of saving it if I can’t explore it?” She turned to him, and he was beaming, barely able to contain his excitement. “You’re not surprised?”

“Kara, you’re absolutely brilliant. From the first moment we met, I knew you were brilliant. And I’m not just saying that because you’re my cousin. You’re smart and curious and intuitive and I’ve been waiting for this moment since you arrived.”

She threw her arms around him and hugged him like there would be no tomorrow. “Where do I start?” she asked.

“We need to build an identity for you. Something that’s yours. And then we create a life for you to live however you want.”

“Can we start tomorrow?”

“Of course!” he replied.

“Good. Because I meant to ask… are you happy?”

“Me? I’m… well, yes, I am. I have so much. I have my health… my family…”

Kara shook her head. “I can hear your heartbeat, Kal.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not exactly lying, but you’re not telling the truth. I can tell when you’re not happy. I know you’re not here because you spotted me sat on a windmill. I’m always sat here.”

“Nothing gets past you, Kara. I’m… I’m at a bit of a crossroads, and I wanted to speak to Ma.”

“It must be big, then,” she replied.

“Yeah… I think I need to tell Lois the truth. It’s been too long. It’s… oh, man. I think I’ve messed up massively by not being up font with her before now. It’s been a year since she broke up with Superman and then asked me out. Clark Kent. And I should have… ugh. It’s messy.”

“Of course it’s messy, it’s love.”

“Ha, if only it was that easy… but it’s already… it’s bad. I remember, after Kon came into our lives… Lois was there through it all, and at the end of it, she said she wouldn’t publish the story*. And I felt… terrible. She’s a journalist, through and through. She once said that if you cut her, she’d bleed newspaper ink. And she said she’d spike a story, like it was nothing. She said she was ‘Superman’s Girlfriend’, like that was… a reason. But it’s… it hung over me for so long.”


“Why?” Asked Kara.

“What do you mean, ‘why’? That’s what I’m saying!” exclaimed Clark.

“You didn’t ask her, Kal. You didn’t demand she do it. She decided that the story didn’t have a worth to the public. She decided based on that, not on your relationship. Look, I know I’m not… I’m not human. You’re more human than most I meet on this world. But I was born and raised on Krypton. My rocket was launched when I was a teenager, not a baby. And even then, I didn’t land on Earth. I landed on that jungle planet… and I had… I had to survive. This is… I always struggle to find the right words… I’m a product of three worlds now, I guess? This language… it’s always so… there are so many levels to it, I always struggle to verbalise how I feel. How I think.”

“You’re doing great, Kara--” reassured Clark.

“--No, I’m not, because I’m not making the point I want to make. You are not… you’re not Superman. You’re not Clark Kent. You’re not even Kal-El. Not really. You’re a mix of all three. You’re a product of three worlds as well. Superman is the hero who can do anything. Clark is the… clumsy journalist who always get to the bottom of a story, raised right by Jonathan and Martha Kent. And Kal is the son of Jor and Lara, my uncle and aunt, who didn’t get a chance to know them. But who are you when you’re not in the cape, or fumbling with the glasses, or staring up at the monument in your Fortress of Solitude? That’s the real Clark Kent. Without… pretence, I think. Clark Kent in extremis. When no one is looking.”

Clark understood what his cousin was saying. She leaned into him, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, as they stared out at the moon and stars. He sometimes wondered what his life would be like without Superman, like Kara wondered what life would have been like if Krypton lived. Would he still strive to do the things he does daily? What if he never left Krypton, like she said? What if he was never found by the Kents? What kind of man was he meant to be? Elseworlds, of course. Journeys to be had in the multiverse…

“You need to tell her the truth. But I think she’ll understand. If she loves you, for you, she’ll understand. Okay, let me try this,” said Kara, looking down at her hands as she tried to construct the right sentence in her head before it left her lips, “She saw you as Superman. As Kal. And right now, she sees you as Clark… but has she ever seen the real Clark? And what will it take for her to see that part of you? There’s always going to be this piece missing, and you have to give it to her, and for that you have to be real.”

He looked at the glasses he held. His father’s, passed down to him when he was a young man. They disguised the near luminescence of his blue eyes, but also made them larger, distorted what was known as the windows to the soul. He had created a character when he left Smallville to journey to Metropolis. The young man that Chloe, Lana and Pete knew, back in the day, when there was no tights and no flights, that was another version of the man who eventually became Superman.

But the Clark Kent of Metropolis, who tripped over his own feet, who didn’t know if he was coming or going… he’d tried to dial back with Lois, but it was still an obfuscation. Still a lie. And he had kept it from her for so long, maybe she’d hate him. But she was Clark’s girlfriend now, not Superman’s, but the two men… the two acts… they were performed by the same man, and that meant…

“…I have to tell her,” he finally said, adamantly.

“Yes. You really do,” agreed Kara. “So, what are you waiting for? Up, up and away, cousin. And tomorrow… I take my first steps into my new life.”

“I’ll be there,” he said, leaping up into the sky-- and out of sight-- and straight to Metropolis--!


“You… want to marry me?” Lois stuttered, completely taken aback by Lex’s offer.

“I know, a surprise, and having heard your tirade against me, I’ll take that as a no,” said Lex.

In one sweeping movement, he slipped the ring box into his inside pocket then accepted the flute of champagne offered to him by a visibly uncomfortable maitre d’.

Unable to control herself, Lois laughed in the billionaire’s face. The kind of laugh that could be described as raucous, the type that starts in your stomach and works its way through the echo chamber of your ribs and out your open mouth. She was red in the face, nearly in tears, and had to pat the table repeatedly with her hands to try and get back on an even keel, shaking the cutlery and nearly knocking her glass of exorbitantly expensive champagne to the floor.

“Well, I didn’t think it was that amusing,” he said.

“I-- I despise you, Lex. You’re human excrement-- and you thought you would propose and get an answer you liked? I have made it one of my life’s aims to prove to the world you are what I know you are, and you thought I would tie the knot with you?”

“Maybe it’s time to re-evaluate your life goals, Lois.” Lex said, simply.

“Yeah? How so?” Lois dabbed her eyes with a napkin to make sure her tears didn’t streak her make-up. Marry Lex Luthor? What else kind of response was he expecting?

He took a sip from his glass and then considered the taste of the champagne, before answering slowly, each word carefully chosen for the task at hand. “I’m own one of the largest global business superpowers in all of history, LexCorp is on track to report record-breaking profits and our charity foundation will outdo any and all and you… have never managed to knock me off my so-called pedestal. If that’s one of your aims in life, you mustn’t be trying very hard.”

“Or you’re better at covering your tracks than you have any right to be.”

“Or I’m not what you say I am. The Justice League’s psychic cleared me. I’ve passed every test and answered every question posed to me. The FBI interrogated me. Heck, even Checkmate sent one of their mind readers to have a look in here,” he said, tapping his temple, “but I am innocent. I am clean. And nothing you do or say can ever change that.”

“It’s not about what I do, or I say, it’s about you, Lex. You tripped up once. You put on your stupid suit of green and purple armour and went to war with the Justice League, and somehow you wrangled your way out of trouble. I don’t know how, but I will find out. Or, you’ll trip up again. Your hatred of Superman will lead you to do something stupid, or your ego will write a cheque your public persona can't cash.”

“If you say so. I happen to disagree. All I want is what’s best for Metropolis, and the world. That’s what it’s always been about. The strength of the human condition. Proving that we can conquer anything-- disease, famine, death-- all with a little brainpower and a can-do attitude. But when you have he likes of Superman, or the Justice League, or even going back to the second world war, with the Justice Society… when you have ‘superpowers’ in play, they alter the course of the world. Where would we be now, if there were no supers? No Superman? No Green Lanterns? No Bat-vigilantes operating out of Gotham?”

“Earth would be a scorched ruin. Every alien invasion the Justice League stopped would come about un-challenged.”

“Or, we’d have developed our own means to stop them. Because we would have had to. Without the crutch-- the safety net-- of Superman, we would have reached new heights. All these natural disasters he averts… he solves them with a click of his fingers or a blink of his eye. And we accept it. We never have to deal with disaster or hardship, and it makes us weak, and atrophied. I truly don’t understand why so few in the world see it like that.”

“Super-humanity isn’t some freak occurrence, Lex. It’s the culmination of countless external elements. Science and magic and pixie dust. It’s evolution. The world changes, and we have to change with it. You’re viewing it through such a cynical and pessimistic lens. I’ve never understood that about you… I’ve never understood your utter disdain for Superman.”

“Really? I always thought it was quite simple: He’s holding us back. You can boil it down to ‘I’m jealous’ if you want to be reductive, but he’s what people aspire to be now, something the masses can never achieve. He’s an alien sun god, made strong by solar radiation, and the rest of us are meat and liquid and an electrical charge animating the bits that move. What does he have that makes him better than the rest of us? A completely different physiology. People should strive to better themselves thanks to role models that can actually be our peers if we work hard enough, not some far off scion of some long-dead race… though with that pair of super-powered youths wearing his crest flying around, maybe he wasn’t as honest about all that as the world thinks he was.”

“Lex, c’mon. You have a daughter that you’ve managed to keep out the public eye since her birth. No one even knows who her mother is. If a tabloid managed to get a photo of her and slapped it on their front pages, I’d bet that the majority of the population would think you’d been keeping her a secret. Superboy and Supergirl were a blessing-- a miracle for someone who thought he’d be the last of his kind.”

Luthor grimaced, a pained expression crossing his face for the first time in the conversation, even with the fact she’d turned down his proposal minutes before. “Lois… please don’t bring Lena into this.”

She waved her hands through the air. “No. Of course. I respect your right to privacy on that one. Keeping her out of this life is the best thing you’ve ever done.”

“…Anyway. I think we’re being held back. I don’t dispute the hard work they do, but there’s a greater sociological impact on the existence of so-called superheroes. They wield so much power and are only accountable to each other. Superman could disintegrate me with a hard stare. He’s a walking solar reactor. And we just let him fly around, flapping his pretty red cape around. Would we leave a nuclear bomb unattended in the middle of downtown Metropolis, trusting that it won’t be stolen, or isn’t counting down to explode--?”

“Why did you really ask me to marry you, Lex?”

“--You challenge me, Lois. Challenge me like no others. Everyone else, they’re all so pedestrian. But you… you’re wasted on the likes of Clark Kent. You’re a jewel, and he’s mud. Farmboy-made-good? He’s a two-faced, sanctimonious coward. He turned on me like so many others… do you know I once thought of him as a friend? When I was running that damn plant for my father in Smallville, the Kents showed me kindness, but when they saw they couldn’t get a penny out of me, their friendship ran cold.”

“‘Two-faced’?” repeated Lois.

“Why waste your time on a simpering fool like him? He ruined and wasted every good thing in his life, and now he’s dragging you down with him. You’re capable of so much more, and you--”

“End of interview,” Lois said, standing abruptly and gathering her things.

Her hand reached out across the table toward the recorder sitting between the diners, and Lex’s hand wrapped around her wrist before she could pull it away. “Excuse me?”

“I humoured you because I thought it would be worthwhile. Debated you because I thought it would be interesting. But I make the decisions in my life, and I stand by them. I won’t have my life choices disparaged by someone who doesn’t have the courtesy to respect my personal and professional boundaries. A marriage proposal, Lex? Do you have any idea how insulting that is? Clark Kent is twice the man-- ten times the man-- you will ever be. Here’s something you would never know-- a proper relationship enhances both parties. One doesn’t diminish the other. Do you wonder why things never work out for you? Why there have been so many Mrs Lex Luthors? Because you’re a blackhole, Lex. You suck in all the light around you until there’s nothing left. I’m glad you sent Lena away. The further away from you, the less chance she has of ending up like you.”

She pulled her hand away and gestured at the maitre d’, who disappeared then reappeared with her coat.

“Lois--” started Lex, his voice rising a crack over calm.

She cut him off. “I think the Daily Planet will pass on an exclusive interview with Metropolis’ second-favourite son. There are plenty of media outlets who’d love to hear all about how nice a guy you are, whipping up a story about how your expensive tastes are ‘fun’ and ‘eccentric’. They won’t peel back the layers and expose the monster you really are. And I promise you, if it’s the last thing I do-- I will show the world the truth. So, smarten up, Lex. Because one slip up?” She clicked her fingers. “And you’re mine.”

She headed toward the door, and the maitre d’ slipped her coat onto her waiting shoulders, then she was gone, leaving Lex Luthor at their dinner table. He looked at the bottle of Krug Clos d'Ambonnay, then picked it up and hurtled it at a nearby wall, where the glass shattered on impact and the contents dribbled into a puddle.


Clark headed to his desk to check a few things, and noticed Steve Lombard standing in the same spot he always stood in when he’d done something in the name of a ‘solid prank’. The kind of jock mentality that went into these kinds of acts never made sense to Kent, but it helped the illusion of ‘bumbling Clark Kent’ to let them play out, as it kept the impression up that there was something nebbish about him, something that made him out to be a punching bag.

What was the situation now? He scanned his desk. Nothing that shouldn’t be there. But what was that in Lombard’s hand, behind his back? A screwdriver? Why would-- oh, well, of course. Clark X-Rayed his chair and saw that Lombard had removed all the screws that held the seat itself to the centre strut. Right then.

He took a seat, and Lombard could barely contain himself. When he didn’t fall over, it surprised the sports journalist, so much so he shouted, “Hey!”

Clark glanced over to him, but before he could say anything, Janice Denton approached his desk. “Did you see my post-it?”

He held up the yellow note and nodded. “Yup, I’m headed to Perry’s office now.”

“Brilliant. Good work on that NASA story. Thanks for sending it my way. You made it back to the city with no problems?”

“None at all, and thanks.” He stood back up and headed to the Editor-in-Chief’s office, leaving Steve confused as to why his latest prank hadn’t worked.

The sports journalist shimmied over to Clark’s cubicle and sat down aggressively on the chair, only for it to collapse under him. “Sonofa-- how’d ya do that, Kent?” he barked, looking up from where he’d fallen into a pile.

Clark shrugged as he walked half-backwards. “Don’t know what you mean, Steve. Are you okay?”

“Ahh, whatever, whatever,” said Steve, as Jimmy helped him up from the floor. “What’re you laughing about, kid?”

“Close the door, Kent,” said Perry, as Clark crossed the threshold into the Editor-In-Chief’s office. He kept the space relatively clear, and he subscribed to a very clear-work-balance thanks to the mediating influence of his wife, Alice.

When he was a younger man, the couch in the corner-- sat between two filing cabinets full of old notes-- would be where he ended up if he had to pull an all-nighter, but now it’s where he motioned for Clark to sit, and he himself had not sat there since his wife made him promise to always come home to her at night.

“Everything all right, Perry?” Smallville’s own asked, taking a seat.

Perry leaned back in the ergonomic chair Alice had insisted he introduce to his workspace and drummed his fingers against the surface of his desk.

“I’ll try not to beat around the bush: I’ve always had the utmost respect for you. You’re the canniest journalist I’ve ever known, and I’ve known some barnstormers. You may act like you’re the clumsiest sonofagun Kansas ever saw, but I think we both know you’re playing games. I won’t pry. I won’t question it. I think it’s damned smart. Keeps folks guessing, lulls them into a false sense of security. It’s sharp, and I like it. But the thing is… you’re damned unreliable.”

He exhaled and fiddled with the cigar box on the edge of his desk. Clark sat there and listened intently. Perry wasn’t wrong. Where was this going?

“…For every page-turning expose you deliver, I have to hand off your other assignments to other folks in the pen. It’s good for them, don’t get me wrong-- I wouldn’t have anyone on my staff if I didn’t think they had chops-- but I have you on staff for a reason, too. You’re here to do the work, and if you can’t do the work, then I think we have to reconsider your position here.”

“…Are you firing me, Perry?” Clark asked.

White looked flabbergasted. “Firing you? Great Caesar's Ghost! No! I want to bring you onto the editorial team. I think you’ve got one of the best eyes and ears in the business, and I think it’d be beneficial if you shared that know-how with the up-and-comers. I have to be honest with you, Clark… I’m not going to live forever. And the Daily Planet has to have a future, for Metropolis’ sake. We’re one of the few unbiased papers left standing after the Luthors doubled down on their monopoly back in the day. That’s what I’m building here: a future. Our investor in Gotham thinks the world of you, and I think that one day, if we can get a handle on your less than stellar attendance record, you could run things better than I ever did.”

It took a lot to surprise the Man of Tomorrow, and this was up there like a jack-in-a-box he didn’t know he was cranking. At a loss for words, his mouth opened and closed again and again, no sound emerging from between his lips. Perry stood up and relocated to a place on the coach next to Clark.

“Listen to me: You’re one of the best. But you could be better.”

“T-there… there must be more qualified people than me,” spluttered Clark.

“Yeah, of course, but you think I could get Lois to sit behind a desk for longer than it takes to call one of her sources and start chasing down a story?”

Clark smiled. “I mean, sure, I guess…”

“Don’t make a decision now. You do good work. You can do better work. Get back to me next week.” He patted him on the shoulder. “And try and something about your abysmal attendance, all right? And keep this between you and me, we don’t want everyone thinking I’m keeling over tomorrow or something.”

“You got it, chief,” said Clark.

“Don’t… ah, jeez, just go, will you,” Perry said, waving him out of the room.

In a daze, Clark did as he was told and headed back to his desk to find Lois sitting there. His dismantled chair had been wheeled away to presumably be repaired, and in its place, Lois sat on Steve’s Lombard’s chair, obviously his due to the large Metropolis Meteors sticker attached to the back. She’d stolen his chair. Of course she had.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Clark said.

Smiling, Lois looked over her shoulder at him. “You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had.”

“Lex fired on all cylinders?”

Clark scooted onto his desk, and Lois rested her feet on his lap. She kicked off her heels, and he began to massage her tired feet. The bullpen was quiet at this time of the evening, and the partitions keeping everyone’s workspace separate was enough privacy for it not to be the grossest act to perform in public.

“Most of it unusable. I thought I might be able to get something new and interesting out of him, but he’s as nebulous, as ever. I told Janice it’s not worth wasting the column space.”

“You feel all right about it?”

“I hate him. You won’t believe what he asked me. How about you? I scanned your NASA piece. So optimistic.” Her brow furrowed. “But you look… has something happened?”

Pulled out of his thoughts, Clark snapped his attention back onto her. “Me? No. Yes. Kind of? I need to tell you something.”

“Perry finally made his offer?” she said.

“You knew?”

“He asked me first, Smallville, but I can keep a secret.”

He smiled. “Guess I’m everybody’s second choice…”

“Not to me,” Lois replied, standing up and kissing her boyfriend on the cheek.

Laughing, he shook his head. “But no, something else. Can I walk you home?”

Her phone buzzed, and she saw on her KordCar app that her taxi had pulled up outside. “Oops. I’ve got a lift waiting for me downstairs. Tell you what, come over in a couple of hours. Bring ice cream. I need to wash the Luthor stink off me, so a long, hot shower is on the cards.”

“You won’t be asleep?” he said.

She poked him on the nose as she gathered her things. “I won’t be asleep.”

“It’s a date.”

“No, it’s ice cream or bust,” Lois replied, already making a beeline to the door.

“…Guess it’s time,” said Clark, tapping his foot impatiently. If he stayed in place for much longer he was liable to tap all the way to the sub-basement, so he headed for the roof, and up, up--


Soaring over Metropolis at night, quiet skies and quieter streets.

A country-wide poll rated Metropolis one of the safest cities in the United States on the day-to-day, but when things got loud, they got cacophonous. Alien invasions, dimensional breaches, parallel universes laying siege… some said Superman drew the threats here, but others-- and the majority-- thanked their lucky stars he was there.

If Superman found out he was the reason behind any kind of trouble, you’d see neither hide nor hair of him. If he was a magnet for trouble, he’d lock himself in the Fortress of Solitude and blast it into a cosmic sinkhole.

At least, that’s what they used to say in the early days of the Justice League, when the seven of them would hit a small bar somewhere no one could possibly recognise them, Hal Jordan nudging Barry Allen in the ribs over a round of beers and a bad joke, Clark rolling his eyes at the pair while Diana and J’onn danced, Bruce lurking on the fringes of the group while Arthur punched the jukebox to attention.

All Clark wanted, and he hoped people knew it, was for people to live. He wanted people to live their best possible lives, unhindered or encumbered by trouble. And if that meant punching out a four-hundred-foot-tall monster from the anti-matter universe, or getting a cat out of a tree, then if it was within his immense power, he’d do it.

But instead, he arced to his right, moving faster than any eye or camera might catch, and slipped into an alley near Lois’ apartment. He’d calculated the position perfectly, so that he could land without being noticed, and spin out of his costume and into his civilian clothing without anyone catching him in his underwear.

He popped into a nearby bodega and picked up everything he knew Lois wanted, and then headed through her building’s lobby and into the elevator, nodding at the doorman as he went. He whistled nervously as the floors ticked away, shifting his weight from foot to foot as he did.

“You’re being ridiculous,” he told himself.

Didn’t stop him though. One of the most powerful beings on Earth, and he was anxious. But it had been a year. A year of dating, of all the things that came with that overtime, and he’d kept his biggest secret from her all this time. Hell, maybe she’d leave him. Maybe it would change everything, and not for the better.

No. No. He made this decision, and his friends and family had given him the affirmation he shouldn’t have sought. This was the right idea. It was the right time. Could he have done it sooner? Perhaps. But this was his moment, and he wouldn’t miss it.

He thumbed his key to Lois’ apartment out of his pocket and let himself in, shouting, “Hope you’re decent!” upon entry.

“I know you can’t see me right now, but I want you to know I’m rolling my eyes!” Lois shouted back from her bedroom. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Sounds good,” Clark replied, as he started putting the bits and pieces he’d purchased away. He left the ice cream on the counter to soften and found two spoons in a drawer. The wine uncorked with ease, and he poured two glasses. It almost seemed like a waste. He’d only ever got drunk one time before, and… well, that was a story for another time.

Lois and Clark found a balance of domesticity in their time together, both with their own spaces, but with room in both their worlds for each other. Would this throw their relationship out of sync with itself? Would the scales swing wildly out of their perfect position?

“Stop it. Stop super-over-thinking things,” he mumbled to himself.

“You know they say talking to yourself is the first sign of madness,” said Lois, walking up behind him and getting on her tip toes to kiss him on the cheek. “Good day?”

“Productive, yeah. And long. Yours sounded like one but not the other,” he replied.

“I could write a book on how problematic I find Lex Luthor. Maybe I should. I wonder if Perry would give me the time off…” She took a sip from the wine, as she let the thought ruminate out in the open.

“Like you could focus on one thing at a time. You work in column inches, not page counts.”

She laughed. “That is true. Something to do when I retire. I just… ugh. That man. How can he get away with everything?”

Clark sighed. “I hate how he has real estate in our heads.”

“Maybe that’s his superpower.”

“Could you even imagine?”

“Unfortunately, I can…” mused Lois.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t put it past him… but… okay, look.” He put his glass down and took a few steps away from her and the kitchen counter. His heart beat hard in his chest, which made him wonder if she could hear it from where she was stood. “Okay.”

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“I will be. I am. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Lois…”

He had his back to her and slumped with a sigh. It was now or never. He straightened up. Not just so his shoulders were up, but his head too, his chin out, so he regained the inch or two he lost when he plodded around in his day-to-day, un-caped life.

If you looked at Clark when he was fumbling around the Daily Planet, you’d note his crooked posture, like he was perpetually leaning just a little bit too forward, but when he was relaxed, when he was himself-- truly himself-- he was taller than most. From an early age, Jonathan Kent had taught him how to hide himself in plain sight, better for both the masks he wore out in public.

He cleared his throat, and said, in his naturally deep tone, “Lois. There’s something I have to tell you.”

It wasn’t the voice where he spoke an octave or so higher, a degree or two softer, but his true register, the one he used when he helped rescue cats from where they’d become stuck in trees or asked an alien despot nicely to leave this world alone.

And then he unbuttoned his shirt, turned to face her, and, revealing his costume beneath, simply said, “I’m Superman.”

“…I know,” she replied, matter-of-factly.

Clark was taken aback. “You… you know?”

“Yes.” She crossed the distance between them and took his hands into hers. “I’ve known for a while, Clark. And I knew that you had your reasons for keeping it from me. You’re Superman, for crying out loud. And I could see… right, okay, so we’d be up late watching some crappy movie, and you’d relax, and I’d see you. The real you. I’d see you for a split second before you realised, and then you put your face on again. But I’ve seen the real you. Not Superman. Not the Clark Kent that bumbles around the Planet. But the you that’s you in private. All the best of both those… those disguises. I’ve seen it.”

“How did you… how did you find out?” he asked.

She smiled. “Uh, Pulitzer winning journalist, Clark. C’mon. But… for years I didn’t. I don’t think I wanted to. Even though the evidence was right there in front of me. And all it took was… what? A change in posture? Your voice? The fact you always let Lombard prank you like it was high school again? And you know what? It’s ridiculous, but the fact that you let him for months, that you let him pull all those stupid little jock pranks on you… it was amazing.”

“Well, he wasn’t hurting anybody…”

“No, but… okay, I’m struggling to find the words, which is weird for me because all I do is find words, but with all your power, and you just rolled with it, because it didn’t matter. You can fly across the universe, you can move planets, you can do all of this, and in your free time, you, what? You seek justice. You uncover corruption and criminality in the day-to-day world. I think that’s the most amazing thing.”

“I’m just… well…”

Lois stroked his cheek. “I know what you’re doing. You’re doing what you believe in. 100% of the time. Doesn’t matter if you wear the cape or the glasses, you’re doing your best every which way.”

“Lois… I’m sorry I kept my secret from you… I just…”

“You’re scared that if people found out there was a connection between us, they’d exploit it. I get it. But the thing is, I can keep a secret too. And a secret shared… that’s a worry… halved? Is that a saying? I feel like that should be a saying.”

Clark almost laughed. “I didn’t think… I didn’t think it would go like this.”

Lois shook her head. “Clark. Last year, for the first time, I saw the size and scale of your world. When you fought Darkseid, one-on-one*. The stakes, I mean. You were fighting for the future. And you didn’t back off, or retreat, or… hell, you kept fighting, and you won.”


She continued. “But… to be honest with you, I saw how big your world was and I was absolutely terrified. Before that, your life still seemed big, but it was… I don’t know, at a distance, I guess? Viewed through a camera lens or a headline. But wow, I was really thrown for a loop with that one. That’s why I, uh, I broke up with you. Him. Superman. And I wanted to feel safe again, and I realised… that’s you. Also you. But you. Clark. Clark Kent you.”

“You felt safe with me?”

“Yeah. You’re… you’re strong and reliable and thoughtful and you don’t fly away at a moment’s notice. Except you do. But not in a bad way. Superman was this larger than life character, and God, when he first arrived on the scene, I was all goo-goo-eyed and I’m a little bit embarrassed about the whole thing, but I’m not… I’m not with you because of him, I’m with you because of you.”

“I think I understand…”

“Good, because I’m explaining it terribly and I feel like we’re going to have this conversation quite a few times moving forward. But… when I come home from a hard day’s work, you’re here. For me. With me. When I go to bed, you’re there beside me. Superman can’t do that. He has to fly around and be this virtuous symbol for the entire world, nay! The universe! But Clark Kent can be there for me. Clark can support me. Clark’s… you… you’ve always been there for me. And yes, we’ve had our weird moments. I know you’ve tried so hard to keep this secret from me, and maybe for my own good, or maybe because you’re scared-- and I’m sure you’ve used your robots and your green best friend who can change shape to keep up the illusion… but Clark, you have to realise… you and Superman kiss the exact same way. And for a doughy farm boy, you’re ripped to shreds.”

“Lois…”

“I’m just saying, I’ve seen you naked, you’re like Chris Hemsworth or The Rock, it’s amazing. And I’ve never seen you go to the gym or anything, so there had to be something going on there, you know?”

“Lois…”

“I know, I know, I’m rambling, but--”

“Lois!”

“Okay, okay! What?”

Clark took a deep breath, searching for what he wanted to say, searching for the thing that had struck him like a lightning bolt during their conversation.

Finally, he said it, fearful of the consequences… “Lois, did you just say nay?”

“Ugh, Smallville!” Lois replied, punching him in the arm. “Clark. I love you. This past year, it’s been you and me and I’ve loved every minute of it, and I love you. So, there’s that.”

Wordlessly, Clark pulled her in and kissed her, his arms wrapped around her torso so that they lifted off the floor of her dining room. “I love you too,” he said, quietly. “More than anything.”

“Good. Else I’ve just embarrassed myself,” she replied.

They floated back to the floor, and Clark ran a hand through his hair, thoughts racing. “You see right through me. I was terrified you’d… I don’t know… reject me. And I was… I was ready for that. I thought… I’d lied to you. Or withheld the truth. Or something. I’ve been flying around the world talking the ears off my friends and family about you, and they were telling me I was stupid for not… okay, now I’m rambling.”

“You are. It’s cute.”

“You’re cute. But-- oh, could you pass me that--?” He gestured behind her, and she turned.

Next to her half-empty wine glass was a small, crimson box. Her eyes opened wide.

“Lois.”

She turned back to him, and Clark Kent was on one knee, holding the box in his hands, opening it to reveal…

“…Will you marry me?”