Superman: American Alien #5

[history79]

Comments

[captainbellman]

I'm honestly not seeing what Landis brings to the table here. Apart from the fratboy prank, there's very little to distinguish this from your average Superman Origin Story comic.

[oddpuppets]

Do most Superman origin stories have Luther clearly outclassing Superman during their first super-to-mad-genius meeting?

I liked this scene. It pays homage to one of my favorite scenes in Tom De Haven's "It's Superman!" novel, which also happens to be my favorite Superman origin story. It establishes how much more Clark has to grow, and why Luthor is his greatest foe.

[locuatico]

I think the idea is to establish how powerful Luthor is in his own right and how untouchable he is to Superman.

[silverhammerman]

I like seeing the businessman version of Lex Luthor somewhat in control of his first face off with Superman, but he's too dominant and in control here. Yeah Superman shouldn't be able to touch him, but Luthor should be at least be anticipating trouble, otherwise it's too much of a win for Luthor.

[locuatico]

true. like him exhaling a breath of relief upon the realization that, indeed, the superpowered, god-like alien HAD a moral code after all.

[tugrul]

It's different enough to be fun. Notice that he stole Batman's cape and is using it for his first costume? Ha ha!

[glprime]

Apart from everything else, Clark's little slip up, "what's my- I mean, what's his end game?" has to be something Lois would pick up on. It's always been head canon for me that within days to weeks of Kent and Superman appearing, Lois was putting 2 and 2 together (barring any "he constantly vibrates to blur his features" handwaves). But it not only confused her at first, it genuinely irritated her to have this guy competing with her to report on himself, have to conversations with her in a given day (pretending he was a different person each time). I can get why a friendship with either, let alone romantic relationship, would be hard to build at first. But Lois HAD to see it from early on. She just played Kent's game for whatever reason. (also 'cuz if some demi-god wants to pretend to be normal, you gonna call him out on it?)

Also how I bet Jim Gordon knew for a long time who Batman was, but it's that open secret: if I admit I know, I'll have to arrest you. (If Lois says who Superman is, or who she thinks he is, she'd have to write a story on it.)

[locuatico]

On the later..... not really. Lois wouldn't HAVE to write about who Superman is. Journalists are not under pressure to reveal their sources or someone's identity. SPECIALLY if they believe it would hurt innocent people

[chrisdv]

Someone should've told that to New 52 Lois.

[locuatico]

I still cannot believe Perry White tought that piece of sensasionalist journalism was worth printing.

[laughing_tree]

But she would have an obligation, perhaps not legal but maybe moral, to put a stop to a co-worker covering up a conflict of interest, which is what Clark reporting on Superman unarguably is, no?

[locuatico]

Here is the funny thing about journalism: being Unbiased? conflict of interests? that's a myth people use to mean "point of view i do not agree with". what matters is your reputation as a journalist, you can have as many conflict of interest as you want and be as biased as you want, as long as you have sources that confirm what you are saying, assuming said sources aren't lying or were coerced, it doesn't matter, your reputaiton will be fine.
when people say a journalist should be "objective" it doesn't mean "unbiased", it means... he/she has to be able to point to people that can prove he/she is not lying. Really, when one talks about being "objective" it's more accurate to say "objective AND Biased".

But even then, considering we are talking about someone she KNOWS is not commiting a crime (and yes, i know vigilantes are technically doing so, but you get my point) she could 1) confront clark about it 2) report him to Perry or 3) use Clark's "From a certain point of view" argument of "well, Kal-El is ALSO his name so he is not technically lying".

on top of that, the "moral obligation" goes both ways, you can argue she has the "moral obligation" of protecting someone who has been targeted by people before and who reporting them would lead to further attacks on said person.

[wizardru]

Oh, I took that inset to mean that she IMMEDIATELY assembled the pieces and realized "I better put this to rights Tout-de-Fucking-Suite before we lose the best thing to happen to his city in just about forever and also my exclusive, besides." My reading is that Lois immediately connects the dots and realizes Clark is arguing that maybe this whole Superman thing was a stupid, naive idea and a waste of time...letting Luthor dicate the end result. ...and she's not going to let that happen. BECAUSE LOISE LANE IS A BOSS AND THIS IS NOT HAPPENING ON HER WATCH.