What the World Needs

I'm Lois Lane. Ace reporter, mom-in-training…a training which I strongly suspect is going to be kicked up a notch, and before I'm ready for it. I have a keen nose for news and an eye for a good angle. I also have a Pulitzer on my desk for an opinion piece that no longer reflects anyone's opinion.

"Why the World Doesn't Need Superman." Keen nose for news and an eye for a good angle. Ha. Five years the guy is gone and I get around to writing this editorial the year before he comes back.

I'm a journalist. An investigative reporter, at that. I interview people, find out their life's ambitions, deepest secrets, fondest dreams. There's only one person who's off-limits where the grilling is concerned. That would be me. So you can try to work out the answer to why it took me so long by yourself. What's important is that I did write it. Eventually. Okay, sure, as it turned out, my timing was bad. Big deal. I'm not the first reporter to come out with a poorly timed story. It wasn't like this was on the "Dewey Beats Truman" level, the guy was actually gone. For real. For years. With no warning.

My main points in the editorial, which is still in the Daily Planet archives for anybody who wants to read it now, were that the world doesn't need a savior, and that saviors just keep us from working everything out on our own. Superman is strong, but so are we. Just in a different way. We are strong of heart, and of mind, and we don't need anybody to swoop in and solve our problems for us. Superman was a crutch, and we don't need to lean on anyone, especially not someone who would swoop out again just as quickly and leave us with not one word, leave us with nothing, nothing but our own questions.

I'm sure you're appreciating my objective stance.

Except it turned out that he didn't exactly leave us with nothing. Somehow, some way I still don't understand, he left us his son. He left me my son.

Now he's back, and here we are, we of the world, that is, wondering how long he'll be around. Wondering if we were wrong about him.

This time I'm getting the editorial in while the subject is still news. Or I'm trying. What I'm actually doing is staring at the screen, which holds nothing but the title: "Why the World Needs Superman." Catchy.

Just below the title, the cursor blinks constantly back at me, over and over, one single line, like one single letter, like one single truth. A truth so big it keeps the words from coming.