Superman: The Interview
By Clayton Phillips
Lois Lane shut her eyes. She breathed in and out deeply and with great regularity, the way her father had taught her when teaching her to shoot. She counted back from 159, alternating between threes and sevens. It didn't work. Accepting that her attempts at calm were futile, Lois opened her eyes.
She was alone in Perry White's office, a monstrosity of mahogany, green shag-carpet, and the unmistakable, clinging scent of old cigar smoke. It was like Perry wanted his office to double as a lodge house from the 1930s. When her reporter's instincts confirmed her privacy, Lois quickly lifted her arm and sniffed. Then the other. Then she cupped her hand to her mouth, puffed, and sniffed. Quickly, she reached into her purse for spearmints but was interrupted by a faint knocking at the window. She turned, startled. Damn him for making her this nervous. She was better than this. She was-
"Miss Lane?" a voice began in a voice almost inaudible from behind the glass. Lois had never heard him so much as raise his voice. And then, almost bashfully, "Lois Lane?"
The most powerful man on the planet stood – hovered – before Lois Lane outside a window on the eighty-seventh floor of the Daily Planet building.
He looked different.
A crimson-fringed high-collar and chestplate, both rich navy, had replaced the light-blue T-shirt on which his emblem, a crimson "S" on gold, had once been inscribed. The "S" was still there, but the colors were, once again, richer. The sigil stood out as if hammered in by a smith rather than ironed on. His red cape still hung from his shoulders. It blew freely with the gusts and zephyrs which played outside the window.
The man did not. He was still as stone. Even his hair was untouched by the wind.
The most powerful man in the world, Superman, a being who could tear down this building - this city block - with a shrug of his shoulders, politely waited for Lois to undo the small clasp on the inside of Perry White's office window. She did.
And in a moment he had closed the distance between them in a blur.
He stood before her. Lois was shocked. Had they ever been so close before? Of course, but not face to face. Not still. He was so tall. Then Lois looked down and noticed that Superman was hovering about an inch above the shag. He was still tall, surely, but probably not that much taller than Kent.
"Hello," Lois began and cursed herself silently. What kind of beginning was that? Where was her pen? Behind her ear. Where was her notebook? In her purse. She knew this. Why was this so hard? She decided to try again and hope he hadn't noticed.
"Would you like a seat?" Lois began again.
"Of course," Superman smiled. Lois sat in one of Perry's thoroughly distasteful if exquisitely comfortable leather chairs. Superman glided over to face Lois, completely ignoring the twin recliner beside her.
"I feel like we should have done this sooner," he started and sat level with Lois. Not on a chair, but in the air as if reclining into a chair only visible to him. His cape draped down around his seated figure unmolested by invisible chairs. It ruined the illusion of unseen furniture and replaced it with something wholly more wonderful.
Lois tried not to let on that she had noticed.
"I felt so too," Lois began, her nervousness beginning to leave her. This was just an interview. She had interviewed the the most important men in the whole world; Presidents, Kings, the Dali Lama once even. This was nothing, she lied to herself. Lois paused, almost coolly, she was not going to let him see her sweat."In fact, I seem to remember throwing myself out of a window once to catch your attention some -"
"Thirty-eight weeks ago," Superman finished for her and smiled. That was something to see, Superman smiling. His hair was black. Not the dark brown that geneticists would tell you that humans, as a species, referred to as black when referring to hair. Real black. It made his cyan eyes stand out all the more.
"Ah," Lois had started cool but now couldn't keep the hint of bitterness out of her voice. Maybe it would hide the embarrassment. "You remember."
"I don't think I'll ever forget," Superman chuckled. It wasn't a condescending chuckle. It was the kind of chuckle one makes with an old friend he hasn't seen in a long time. It still set Lois off. He was going to laugh at her? Wearing that?
"Is that what this is?" Lois began and almost stood up. Somewhere in the back of her head, she realized she had started shouting. Damn. "Throwing a pity interview to the crazy woman who threw herself out of an office window because she was oh so bent on getting your story? Well if that's -"
Superman didn't get up, didn't get defensive, didn't fly away. He just let the chuckle die and replaced it with a look of overwhelming sympathy. It stopped Lois in her tracks.
"Is that what you think this is?" he asked, almost sadly. "Is that how you see me?"
"No one knows how to see you," it was a full-on accusation, but Lois Lane was getting madder and madder. Why was she doing that? "You bound and run and save people and stop people from hurting other people and then you're just … gone." She enunciated this by opening her fist to mime puff of smoke.
"I know," Superman replied solemnly. His smile was gone. "That's why I called you. That's what this is."
"But why me?" Lois wasn't going to back down on this. Even if it was wholly unrelated to anything a journalist worth her pen was supposed to care about.
Superman hesitated for a moment. But only a moment.
"Because you're the best reporter in the world," Superman said. "Who else would I ask?" He said it almost as one would explain to a child that water was wet. Like it was unquestionable, undeniable fact.
Lois was still. The whole room was still.
Then Lois laughed. Full belly laughs erupted from Lois as she leaned back into soft leather chair.
"I threw myself out of a window," Lois said, as the absurdity of it finally hit her.
"I remember," Superman laughed too, but not as loud. "I caught you. It was the bravest thing I had ever seen. Also the stupidest."
"It didn't even work," Lois stopped laughing, but she had also stopped being nervous.
"I'm sorry," Superman said, as if he truly was. "I was still figuring out who I was."
"No," Lois wiped the tears from her eyes with one hand and waved his apology away with the other. "It was just my stupid ego getting me into trouble. Again."
"I wouldn't be so hard on yourself," Superman was smiling again. That was good, she thought, Superman smiling. Lois decided she could get used to that. It made her feel safer than she could have ever imagined herself being in the presence of a demigod. Perhaps that was even the point.
"Oh no," Lois said, "I can't hide from my own reporter's insight. Not for long." She was being more open with this stranger than she was with herself. A tiny cynical part of Lois yelled at her to stop it.
Superman didn't respond. He just sat there in the air, as if inviting Lois to begin the real interview.
She obliged.
"That's new," Lois began once again, gesturing with her pen to Superman's outfit , studying it keenly once more. It wasn't fabric. It wasn't metal. It wasn't leather. It wasn't plastic. Lois wasn't sure if she liked it. Superman looked down at his new clothes as if he had forgotten he was wearing them.
"Ah," he said, and then, "Kryptonian ceremonial armor. I find it a bit garish, to be honest. But I'm trying it out. For now." Lois didn't say anything, giving Superman the opportunity to continue. He took it, absently studying his arm, deep blue armor ending in red.
"It's the last relic of Old-Krypton left in the universes." Superman said with a hint of sadness and paused before adding, "well, this and me."
"What's a Krypton?" Lois asked innocently, as if she hadn't broken several government clearance codes and committed light treason just the other month to find out the answer to that question. It had yielded depressingly little. Superman gave her a look that said he didn't believe her for a second but was prepared to play along for the sake of the readers.
"It's a planet," Superman answered, matter-of-factly. "Some eighty-thousand lightyears from this solar system. Was a planet. It's gone now." He said this last bit with a shrug that didn't match the distance in his voice. Lois didn't look up from her pad. She didn't want to see his face just then. Superman was sad. She hadn't been expecting that.
"And your 'ceremonial armor,'" Lois said the words with all the pretension that rightly should have existed in the phrase but which Superman had somehow been able to omit.
"It was supposed to go to the chosen avatar of Rao," Superman said as if those words didn't mean anything.
"And you were chosen," Lois said and then blinked. Why had she gotten dragged down this stuffy avenue of make-believe words when the real question was dangling right in from of her? What kind of reporter was she? He had said something. Superman had said...
"Well, like I said," Superman answered, not taking part in Lois' internal crisis, "it's just me now." Lois wasn't listening. She had missed something.
Then it hit her.
Lois stood up in her chair.
"You're an alien!" Lois pointed her finger accusingly, but her face was nothing but excitement.
"I am," Superman smiled wanly, looking up at her. She was taller than him when she was standing in her chair. He drifted slowly up to meet Lois' face, still sitting cross-legged, as if he didn't mind if Lois carried out the rest of the interview standing on Perry's chair.
"From another world," Lois said. It was phenomenal and, better, a Daily Planet Exclusive.
"Yes," Superman said. He looked like he was beginning to enjoy this. Maybe not as much as Lois, but still.
"Is that why you can -" Lois began, not knowing what exactly to call it. She made an expansive gesture with both of her arms.
"Fly?" Superman tried.
"Fly and hit things and lift heavy stuff and bullets bounce off you and what do you call it when things begin to melt around you?" Lois said in one breath.
"Heat-Vision," Superman answered. He didn't smile. And suddenly, Lois stopped smiling too.
"Vision? You can burn anything you look at?" Lois sat back down. Superman glided back down to meet her.
"I can," Superman answered. "Since I was young."
"You can control it, though?" Lois asked nervously. Quickly, she glanced over to see if Perry had a fire extinguisher in his office. He didn't.
"I learned to," Superman said and his face almost didn't look pained.
"I'm sorry," Lois said and thought about touching his face but didn't. Because of the heat-vision.
"Because I have amazing powers?" Superman said with a hint of bitterness almost hidden in a laugh. It was just a hint, but from Superman it was a staggering inflection.
"Because it must have been hard," Lois said. And her eyes met his and he nodded and understood. But they didn't talk about it further.
"Did you grow up here?" Lois asked after a long silence. How much more time did she have before Perry got back from lunch and found out she had locked his office from the inside. He wouldn't like that, but it wasn't Lois' fault that this happened to be the most extensively sound-proofed room in the Daily Planet building. Hopefully the world's first interview with Superman would be enough to quell Perry's legendary temper.
Maybe a little.
"Metropolis?" Superman said as if snapped back into the moment.
"Earth," Lois replied. Trying to force the keen reporter's intellect back into her eyes. It came, but not easily.
"Ah, Earth," Superman almost laughed, "Yes, of course."
"Where?" Lois asked, eagerly.
"America," Superman replied and stopped and folded his arms.
"Will we be getting anything more specific than that?" Lois smiled, knowing the answer. Superman's smirk confirmed it. "I didn't think so"
"Who raised you?" Lois tried again.
"People," Superman said. She hated him.
"Really?" Lois could have laughed. Superman – The Superman – looked sheepish.
"Good people," he amended as if he had solved everything.
"Well that's nice," Lois said, half-sarcastically, and looked at Superman challengingly. He sighed and relented.
"Exceedingly good people. They raised me and loved me and taught me the value of strength and the value of helping people who don't have it," Superman said. Deliberately. As if each of those words held incredible importance. Weight of the moment aside, Lois found it endearing.
"And are they proud?" Lois asked, as if Superman was a little boy who wanted to be an astronaut. The answer had been so perfect, she hadn't been able to help herself.
"They were. They're gone now too," Superman said this with a staggering hollowness that had been more subtle when he had mentioned his home planet was no more. It was a creeping sadness that overwhelmed her defenses and Lois was floored by the guilt of her previous levity.
"I'm sorry," Lois backtracked, defenseless in the face of this brooding god. Where had this come from? "I didn't mean..." Her foot was in her mouth. And then, a cold, creeping suspicion came over her, one that tied a knot in the knot already made of her stomach.
"It wasn't," she began slowly and wearily, "the heat-vision?"
Superman blinked.
"Oh my no," he said, shocked and shaken out of his demeanor. "Natural causes. Years ago."
"Oh so that's not why -" Lois started.
"I do what I do?" Superman finished the question for her, though he seemed to find the words ridiculous as they came out of his mouth.
"Well," Lois began for him and realized this was the question she would have asked immediately had she not been so off guard.
"It is and isn't", Superman began and Lois didn't even have to raise her eyebrow at him to get him to go on. She still did.
"I'm not some dark avenger, driven by tragedy, stalking the night, standing out in the rain and the like," Superman said as if it needed saying, as if anyone who had spent two minutes in his presence would actually think it. How did this man see himself, Lois wondered.
"Oh," Lois cut in, trying to interrupt Superman's obvious internal thoughts, "so you've heard those rumors about Gotham too." It worked. Superman laughed.
"The Batman," he said, his eyes brightening once more with the absurdity of the jest. Not a figure of speech, Lois remarked to herself. His eyes actually became slightly luminescent when was happy. That was something to jot down for the article. She did. "Yes, I heard about him. Wild stuff. Utter nonsense. Probably."
"Oh?" Lois was having fun, "and I suppose you're the only one who gets to do what you do?"
"He's welcome to help out," Superman rolled his eyes, "if he's real. He and I and that water man they're talking about up in Cape Cod and Bigfoot and the alligators in the sewers. We'll all make a little club of absurdities and go bowling on Friday nights."
"There's evidence," Lois got defensive suddenly.
"Then why haven't you gone there and investigated?" Superman asked.
"Why haven't you?" Lois countered.
"Well," Superman responded, "maybe we should go together. Sort out this Batman business. See for ourselves." He said it like a joke, but then shrugged and held out his hand.
"What now?" Lois started.
"Or whenever you like," Superman was having fun with this. But it didn't feel like mocking.
"Are you asking me on a date?" Lois said with a play-shocked affectation. She couldn't keep it up for more than a second.
"I believe I just asked you to fight crime with me," Superman said, eyes bright.
"And we come back to it," Lois said, triumphantly, pointing her pen right at the man floating next to her.
"Come to what?"
"What exactly is it you do?"
"I'm not sure I understand the question," Superman said, slowly.
"I mean, these words 'what I do' and 'fight crime,'" Lois began and tried to accentuate the strangeness of it all, "what do they mean?"
"I help people," Superman shrugged, and then, "from things they can't save themselves from."
"Crime," Lois suggested.
"Well, not just crime," Superman began to talk slower as if trying out each word in his head before he said it aloud, "I mean, if I happen to be around when a crime is happening, I'll stop it, sure. But I don't go out and look for crime."
"You save people," Lois tried.
"Usually. I try to. I can't save everyone. Falling or fires or if they're trapped under something heavy or if something heavy is falling out of the sky towards them. Or if there's a tornado or an earthquake or a tidal wave or a volcano or a radioactive gorilla – that's happened more than once – or a hurricane -" Superman went on like he was counting off fingers in his head.
"But not from themselves," Lois said, somewhat more accusingly than she had meant.
"Pardon?" Superman said as if he hadn't been listening. There must have been a whole lot of disaster scenarios in that man's head.
"If someone was jumping off a building intentionally, to kill themselves, you wouldn't save them," Lois articulated.
"Well, I wouldn't know. I suppose if I knew, I couldn't. But I can't say for sure. It hasn't happened yet," Superman looked deflated.
"What about from poverty? Corruption? Benefits allocation? Crooked business practices?" Lois wasn't going to back down here. Superman was silent for about ten seconds. It seemed longer.
"I put Lex Luthor in jail," Superman said at last, somewhat defensively.
"For a day," Lois counted shortly. Dismissively.
"I know," Superman's defensiveness was gone. He looked tired. "I tried."
"It was stupid," Lois felt a rant coming and she wasn't about to snuff it out. "You only had one shot to take him down that way. He's Lex-goddamn-Luthor. He has nine-billion lawyers. More lawyers than there are people on this planet. I had been building the story for a whole year and you just showed up out of the blue, broke into his labs, fought some – whatever it was – monster-robot, and took him to jail." Lois looked to see if Superman was going to say something. He didn't at first.
"He was experimenting on children," Superman splayed his hands out. "I took him away."
"And then he got out. First on bail and then because his case was thrown out. Inadmissible evidence. And suddenly all that work I did went down the drain because we can't take him down like that again and now he's out there. Doing something. Being horrible if we're lucky and plotting something absolutely heinous if we're not." Lois felt the anger give way to a creeping dread. She looked up from her notepad. Superman was smiling. Why was he smiling?
"What?" Lois asked, her annoyance up front.
"You said 'we,'" Superman said and grinned wider. "You want to fight crime with me."
"Of course I do," Lois said, shortly. "But we're going to be smarter about it."
"Why?" Superman asked.
"Really?" Lois' annoyance was back in a moment.
"I mean why do you want to help me?" Superman clarified. Lois didn't have an answer at first. Or rather, she had too many answers.
"My sister was at Prosperity Wharf," Lois settled for at last. Superman stopped and looked closely at Lois, puzzled. Then his face lit up.
"Blond woman," Superman said, "started with an 'L.'"
"Lucy," Lois said, and smiled, bewildered, "you remember her?"
"I remember everyone," Superman smiled like her was oh so clever. "However, I remember your sister especially. When I was carrying her away from the wave, she pulled out a handgun and shot me in the face." Superman said it so nonchalantly that Lois had to laugh.
"Oh God. That's Lucy," Lois said between fits of giggles, "she left that part out of her story."
"Hell of a way to find out my eyes are as bulletproof as the rest of me," Superman laughed too.
"She has a license for that thing," Lois mentioned.
"I know," Superman replied, "she mentioned it about three times while I was putting her down."
"Do you know how many people you saved that day?" Lois asked.
"Of course," Superman said.
"How many?" Lois asked.
"You don't know?" Superman raised an eyebrow.
"Of course I know," Lois retorted, "I just want to see if you do."
"Three-thousand-forty-eight," Superman said as if he didn't even have to think about it.
"Exactly," Lois said. "It took me two days to get that figure. We didn't even end up printing it. The owners didn't want us so strongly supporting a known vigilante and enemy of the state," Lois said the last bit of that with dripping derision.
"Is that why you jumped out the window?" Superman asked, as if it finally made sense.
"It may have had something to do with that," Lois said. "The media shapes how they're going to see you. The costume, well, it'll take some getting used to, but it's a step in the right direction. You need to slow down and talk to people." Superman looked at Lois like he was actually eager to hear her suggestions. Like there wasn't anywhere in the world he would rather be. Lois flushed. He was so... transparent. How had this man seemed mysterious before? She went on.
"Ten thousand years of human history and there has never ever been anything remotely comparable to you or what you do. You need to give them a way to -"
"There's an earthquake in Korea," Superman said and suddenly he wasn't sitting in the air next to her but standing, actually standing on the ground, next to the window, his back to Lois, looking out over Metropolis' skyline.
"Ah," Lois said, "that's important."
"Yes," Superman said, distantly, and then, "The worst thing about Earthquakes is that there's so little you can do. They only last twenty seconds. A minute at most. There. It's over. Now is the moment when people, even the ones who are hurt, are too shocked to scream. Ah, but there they go. All of them." He paused, "I have to go. There will be fires and people I can help. More that I can't." Lois was glad she couldn't see his face just then.
"I'm sorry," Lois said. Why had she been going off about PR? It was so frivolous.
"I am too," Superman replied, turning. "We didn't get much of an interview."
"Oh," Lois said, and waved it away, "I got enough to work with. Last of an alien race. Raised on earth by 'exceedingly good people'. Ceremonial armor. Blue eyes, about six-foot-five, cyan eyes, never lies -"
"I didn't say that," Superman cut in.
"You didn't have to. I know what it looks like when people lie. You didn't lie to me once. First time ever in an interview," She smiled and looked down at her pad.
"Here to save the world all by himself. Incredibly strong, invulnerable to bullets, flies, 'heat-vision' – any other powers the readers should know about?" Lois broke in a question, forgetting for a moment that time was probably of the essence.
"X-Ray vision," Superman added.
"What?" Lois balked, "you're joking. You can see me naked?" Superman looked embarrassed and amused.
"I don't," Superman said, "I would never."
"But if you wanted to," Lois pressed, smiling now.
"Lois," Superman said, as if trying to make her understand something hugely important, "I can see your heart beat." Those words hung in the air for what seemed like forever but were more likely twelve, speechless seconds.
"I have to go," Superman said at last. "Just fill in the blanks. Make me sound smart. I trust you."
"I was probably going to do that anyway," Lois said, "you're bad at interviews."
"I tried to warn you," Superman said as he unfastened the lock on Perry White's window. He opened it and stopped.
"Wait," Lois said, not knowing why.
Superman did.
"What's your name?"
"It's Superman, Lois," he said and turned around. Lois didn't know what to call that expression on his face. Warmth. "You should know. You gave it to me." he paused one last time, obviously reluctant to leave the office. "I never thanked you for that."
"You're welcome," Lois said and put her pen behind her ear. "Now off with you. Save the world. And don't think you're getting off the hook about Gotha-"
And then she was alone.