Amph Waiting For Superman: Gunnverse DCU/Elseworlds (New Trailer!)

Not liking it is perfectly fine. Nothing wrong with not liking it. I don't like the two most recent Thors. But...

Now you're just being insulting. Unnecessary. Keep it friendly, or I'll sick the eagles on you.

 

Yep. And that's why I was able to enjoy it, despite disagreeing with some of it's takes.

 

(Insert Captain America saying “I get that reference.”)

For the movies, she was the closest; Erica Durrance’s version of the character for the TV show Smallville was closer still, and honestly better for it. She was also ultimately a bigger reason to watch he show than anything else by the end - the show was best when either Rosenbaum’s Lex or Durrance’s Lois was Welling’s most imprint at screen partner.

I also sometimes feel like after MoS, Adams’s Lois lost much of her “bite” because Snyder wasn’t Goyer, since Goyer wrote her in a bit more of an active role and as a deuteragonist for MOS, while Snyder seemed to make her a more conventional take on the pop culture idea of Lois.

Okay, hear me out on how I’d do Lois for a new movie:

- She’s the eldest daughter of a single father military intelligence officer who is, at most, ambivalent about Superman ; no “General Thunderbolt Ross - I mean, Lane” situation here, because frankly that’s lazy, and a MI dude reflecting a more professional wariness of superheroes is more interesting.

- She was a military brat growing up, and still has the attitude of it, and even for a while attended National Intelligence University because she has her old man’s instincts… but left/was discharged after she got nosy about a scandal on campus and inconveniently exposed some students/faculty for misbehavior.

- This gives her a chip on her shoulder, a complex relationship to her dad, and a more complementary skill set to Clark as journalists - he’s a skilled writer and former blogger now writing a column for the online Daily Planet but not an experienced investigator, and she’s a hard-bitten and relentless investigator and meticulous note keeper but with a rough, dry writing style and yes, numerous spelling errors (played less for humor and maybe as an actual sign of dyslexia she powers through.)

- She’s also maybe a bit too aggressive at times, and feels like she belongs in (the TV version of) NCIS rather than at a newspaper - she always carries a knife, no matter how much she gets searched, has a small but prolific list of enemies, and has on more than one occasion been reprimanded by Perry White for “becoming part of the story” instead of just covering it.

- She *does* have an mild open crush/mild admitted lust for Superman, but controls it in a very professional way, and has no interest in interviewing him when she can interrogate him about why he’s not taking care of some serious issue she and her “team” have been covering, while she and Clark have a much more genuine and front-and-center friendship/rivalry/partnership/gradually-increasing-sexual-tension. Jimmy Olsen is their best friend, and an amateur photographer, but also “man on the street” who hears about the crazy crap in Metropolis before they do.

- I’d have the Clark/Superman personas be a little more convincing visually and different enough around Lois that it makes sense she doesn’t think Superman has a secret identity and doesn’t suspect Clark… u until there’s some kind of proof that Superman has a secret ID, right at an awkward time where she and Clark are about to get serious, and ironically right when he's about to tell her his secret, and doubly ironically right when she’s got a reason to realize what is going on and feel insulted about being deceived, adding a new level of belligerence and cat and mouse for a while before they eventually have it out and make up.

 

For me, the core of the Lois/Superman relationship has always been that she cares about the truth, and is used to being disappointed by those she investigates. And with Superman, she isn't. His genuine goodness is exotic to her, and finally something that she finds inspiring, instead of dirty.

And he is attracted to her BECAUSE she cares so much about the truth, and how fearless she is in pursuit of it. I think she inspires him.

 

My mild counter is that she also needs to be “actually” attracted to Clark because she knows him, and thus his goodness is no longer exotic and externally inspiring, but something precious and “real” in comparison… and it *is,* even if Clark’s usage of a secret identity might obfuscate that point.

That’s my one major issue with the “triangle for two” idea - I despise the idea of Clark being a total charlatan identity and Lois being shallowly attracted to the “cape.”

Make it a nuanced thing where, yeah, Lois is falling for the same guy in two personas, but it’s a deeper connection that she’s falling for with the more relaxed, modest persona she knows more intimately.

 

Right, I wasn't meaning to differentiate between Clark/Superman. I agree that she should fall in love with Clark as Clark, and that Clark should be an equal. The Post-Crisis character evolution should not be rolled back for any character.

 

"Look...The city is flying, okay? The city is flying, we're fighting an army of robots, and I have a bow and arrow. None of this makes any sense!"

 

I like the idea of him being a geek - swinging between exuberant confidence in areas he feels confident or just too enthusiastic to be cowed in, and then self-aware and consternated awkwardness when he’s out of his element, with in-between areas of interested and learning or bored and polite.

One of the things that I did love about MOS, but wasn’t a plot-point or even a key thing about Clark’s characterization (sadly ) was that their Clark watched KU football and wore a Royals shirt.

I’d go further and use it to illustrate his geekiness: he’d be a huge fan of KU basketball, and even remained such when getting a journalism degree at the rival University of Missouri (…like an actual Jayhawk fan my brother knew when he was getting his journalism degree), increasing his confidence in that enough that when asked on Steve Lombard’s sports podcast, he goes from awkwardly trying not to embarrass himself in the football section to acting as a Jayhawk hype man when it enters the basketball section.

Or alternatively, Lois drags him to a fine dining situation, where she knows how to blend in, and he’s treated as her adorkable farmboy hunk arm-candy clearly out of his element, until they confront the target of Lois’s investigation, at which point he becomes the good cop to her bad cop in a very practiced manner.

 

I liked the idea that it's more about his earnest idealism, and being from a small town, that initially gives him the "boy scout" label. It's why Lois calls him "Smallville". It's a mocking nickname that becomes affectionate as she gets to know and respect him.

Less "awkward nerd" and more "sincere boy scout" surrounded by big city cynics.

Yeah, a great performance from Reeve. His Clark was excellent at the time, but agree it shouldn't be the definitive take. The Post-Crisis take is just better.

 

That’s part of the reason I’d like to see them maybe try making him more of a column writer or editor-at-large type of journalist who has to learn some of the ropes of investigative journalism from Lois.

Mark Waid’s underrated JLA run (because he was following Morrison’s) had this fun little detail where Plastic Man genuinely geeks out at finding out that Clark Kent is Superman, even calling him “C.K.!” And proudly stating he reads his column. Editorials and opinion pieces feel like the kind of thing that could more easily show Clark’s idealism, and maybe even compliment his work as Superman.

There’s always that “Superman can’t solve all the world’s problems” thing that could also be reinforced here; he knows he can’t physically manhandle poverty and wealth inequality, so instead he tries to galvanize people to do so through his writing.

 

Exactly. All of this. (And I love Mark Waid's run)