The WGBS Evening News with Cat Grant, October 23 1986:
"…Well, yesterday Metropolis was all set to cap off the celebrations for her two hundred and fiftieth anniversary. Special arrangements had been made to have the experimental space-plane Constitution land at Metropolis International. This reporter was there in person and has to tell you, Ron, it all happened so fast. A small civilian craft had slipped through restricted airspace and collided with the Constitution, and the experimental jet began to careen toward the crowd. It was then, Ron, that the strange visitor we've heard so much about in the last twenty-four hours appeared and saved both the shuttle and the crowd. WGBS was unable to ascertain his true identity, and still is. Whoever he is, we want to express our thanks for his selfless act, and we hope to see him again soon. Back to you, Ron."
Years ago.
He stared at the bank of computers, and the large screen display. An image of a gaping redhead facing the laboratory. Her hair pulled back in a smart knot and draping over thin shoulders. Not quite a shrinking violet. But quiet. Unassuming in that midwestern way. When you grow up in the cornfields and never aspire to anything more, it has a way, he imagined, of drawing you in. Closing you off.
He thought of Kent. What Luthor knew of Kent in those days was unimpressive. The country mouse, Kent was, in most public appearances, afraid of his shadow. And yet there was something odd about him. Something that nagged at him.
He was in the middle of the computer lab, dressed in an immaculate black three-piece, his eyes fixed on the screen. One on side his chief technician, another city mouse, this one named Amanda, almost as tall as Luthor himself, and self-possessed. She carried herself—
"We've been working on data collection for months, as you requested, Mister Luthor. For the longest time, I don't mind telling you, we had nothing."
"And yet?"
"And we finally found something. A whale among the fishes, as you're fond of saying."
The screen morphed from the static image of Lana to news footage. He knew it all too well.
The Constitution in flames.
Then a blur. A blue streak across the screens of every entertainment-loving American.
"She was there," Luthor said. His eyes narrowed. "When he saved the Constitution."
Amanda looked at him. "Yeah."
"Fascinating. A super groupie, do you think? A lover, a best friend? What's her name?"
"Jenner and Breen have her downstairs. Lana Lang, lives on State Route One-Nineteen, wherever the hell that is."
"Kansas Cow Country," Luthor said. And he was heading for the door.
He was silent in the elevator, watching the dial slide back down the crescent.
He closed his eyes and leaned against the gold plating, cool and calming on the back of his head.
He thinks of Lois.
In the current day he and Lois Lane were enemies. Rivals fighting by proxy for a vision of what Metropolis and the world could be.
In memory, however—
Lois sees it. She sees the beauty. She sees what he's trying to do and she sees the truth of him.
No one else does. No one else will.
He knows this. She knows this.
He's building the LexWing to make the Concorde a memory. To take people where they want to go. Ah but it sounds like a drug dealer Lex, you can't put that in the press releases. He kisses her forehead and says yes Lois of course. He revises it.
Reimagines himself like he always has. Luthor the Lindbergh. Luthor who came from nothing finally making something.
This aircraft will change everything he says. No longer will we be in thrall to airlines that have the world by the throat. Air transport becomes a public commodity beyond the wildest dreams of Hughes, or Lindbergh, or the Wrights. Luthor is so much more than they were. He is a genius and the start-up loans from Deutsche Bank and Boeing he uses to finance the LexWing's first year and charters from the Grummett-Kesel International Airport he pays back with double-interest, he's earned that much personally off the plane's operations. He takes out a single office on the top floor of the Daily Planet building and Lois is with him. These are halcyon days of peace. Days in which he is growing and Lois is growing alongside him. They are lovers, and friends, and equal parts and greater things beyond. They are challengers; he pushes her to write the first Pulitzer, a scathing review of Kord International's charitable contributions or lack thereof, and when she brings home the actual award he smiles and says do it again. She challenges him to move beyond the one-room office and so he does. He breaks ground on the LexTower in Nineteen Eighty-Five and calls it Year One.
It is a cherished time. He is learning to take control. And she is at his side.
She does not know about his shift toward arms deal, toward flouting the laws of Man. She finds out only after the relationship ends in tears and screams. He does not tell her because he feels he doesn't have to. He owes her nothing. He owes the world nothing.
The world, instead, owes Lex Luthor its every breath. Every moment of life every Metropolitan lives because he invested in alternative fuels, better healthcare options, politicians he secretly bought—
And when he is quiet and Lois cannot see his soul, he thinks of his parents. He remembers the final night. As vividly as he remembers anything—he remembers everything. He swears and curses their names and says he never wants to see them again.
And he won't. They go out later that evening. Alexander you've upset your mother. Father always speaks like that when he wants to put Lex in his place.
I'm no child.
Yes you are. You're a jumped up little shit with too much anger.
You're wrong, Father.
Am I?
And then he takes his belt off and slaps it across Lex's face. Buckle first.
He only loses teeth the first time, a couple of incisors as luck has it. He learns to roll with it. Learns to twist his head at the last moment so the force of the thing rolls through him.
He always learns.
He learns to look the other way when Father does the belt trick to Mother. Learns to look the other way when Father bitches about their poverty, about their dear ancestor's wealth and how it's all gone. He learns anger instead. He learns it when Father storms out, and when the pressboard door snaps off its hinges. He learns to tune out the screams.
He learns to smile through it all. It carries him for the rest of his life, this illusion of self.
And when he finally has it with Father, both of them restraining themselves with niceties like Father and Alexander, he learns to sneak out of the apartment the hard way. The window in his bedroom opens out and up and he crawls out onto the fire walk. Barefoot, not a sound or they'd hear and then that would be that. He climbs down the gutter and jumps to the sidewalk and skitters around to the communal garage. Father's Dodge, dented and broken, if cars had life support it'd have it. He slides underneath.
Scrapper taught him. Look for the long twisting line.
What's the matter Alex can't find it you're such a shit everyone knows it you talk like you're big fucking—
There.
He wraps one skeletal hand around the brake line and pulled.
Brake fluid erupts in his face, on his chest. He spits and wipes his eyes and climbs back out. He's soaked in brake fluid, the stench of it burning his nostrils. He strips his shirt off and drops it in the carport.
Goes back upstairs.
Walks right in.
They're standing in the hall.
You snuck out.
Yes, Father.
One day someone's gonna teach your worthless ass some respect.
He slaps Lex again. Bare-handed. Funny, he thinks, no belt this time. You're learning too, Father.
He slaps Lex again and the force of it and Father's chapped hands burn across his cheek. He blurts out a single obscenity hrough tight lips, tight jaw, tight body. Every inch of him was alive.
We'll finish this when we get back.
They go. The door shuts quietly.
Luthor laughs.
He knows they never will.
He stepped out of the elevator. It all felt so mechanical.
First door on the right. Two sub-basements below the main lobby. A cold, bright, antiseptic room, it had been a sterile laboratory for radiation testing in another life, and would be again.
In the center, bound to chair by the ankles and wrists, her face bruised, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth—
"Lana," he said. "Lana Lang. I'm rather fond of the initials."
She said nothing.
He laid one hand on her knee.
"I only have a few questions, after which you're free to return to your blessed obscurity. If you're honest with me I'll never trouble you again."
Nothing.
"Tell me why you were at the launching of the Constitution, Miss Lang."
Nothing.
"Tell me about Clark Kent."
Nothing.
"This will stay between us. I am sorry for the way my men treated you but it was necessary to get your attention. You see...I know who he is. I have a good idea who you are in relation to him. So I want you to understand this, and I want you to take it to your grave. Because if I find out you've told him any of this, Miss Lang, I'll personally draw and quarter you in the middle of Fifth Avenue and this city will still sing my praises. Superman and all his friends? They must be fought. And defeated. And when they are, you and every last chimpanzee in the jungle will fall on your knees for Lex Luthor."
She began weeping. He scowled and breathed.
"So," he said and moved his hand up. "I'm going to administer sodium pentothal, Miss Lang, and you will tell me every detail of Clark Kent's life. And because I'm such a sporting guy, you'll even tell me about the train station."
Luthor.
And Albert.
And George.
He felt like he was standing still. Gore was on one side of him, Bush on another, a roundel of an auditorium, so-called undecided voters sitting there judging them all like pieces of cattle.
He held back a sneer. Undecided. The concept offended him on the most basic of levels. These were people who couldn't be bothered to make a decision on anything or deviate from their vaunted principles. Such principles, drawn from the cheapest halls of self-help, surely spelled their doom. Kept them cozened in a corner of the world they daren't escape. If they had any real principles they'd understand the value of making a choice—or not, for the act of not choosing is a choice in itself. And then living with it.
What gives measure to a man's choices, after all, is what he has to give up to make them.
They fear what they don't understand.
He could be their hero. Their savior.
Their new lord and master.
He slid one hand into his pocket and thumbed a chrome flashdrive. And the sneer dropped.
When they won't make a choice, he told the alien once, I make it for them.
A god must be severe.
Lehrer started it off, smug and comfortable in his chair:
"Tonight, from Washington University in Saint Louis and the Commission on Presidential Debates, comes the third Presidential debate. The candidates have met twice before already to discuss ideas and policies, and to present their individual cases for leadership to the American People. I'm Jim Lehrer, your moderator for the evening. Tonight follows a town-hall format: of the over three hundred questions the audience around me has submitted on these note cards, I'll be asking a few and the candidates will respond. We'll then move to follow ups, only, I should note, for clarifications, and then to the next question. And now the candidates.
"The Vice President of the United States, Mister Albert Gore of Tennessee.
"His Republican opponent, the Governor of Texas, George Walker Bush.
"And the independent candidate from Delaware, Mister Alexander Luthor. Gentlemen, welcome."
A golf clap went around the room and they got into it.
He stood between Bush and Gore with the littlest of smirks on his face. Through banalities of healthcare—when it was his turn he cited his company's advances in medical technology, which allowed better living and more robust health at the dawn of the twenty-first century. He talked about how partisanship destroys innovation, the behind the scenes chatter that limits intelligent discourse—that earned a glare from Albert—and hampers us. It was a deviation, a ramble of an answer, but the crowd broke its funereal silence and clapped. Quiet but enthusiastic, and Luthor smiled.
He turned back for his chair and shared a look with Bush. Bush knew it bounced off his own line—get something positive done on behalf of the people.
Gore began loitering. He manufactured a smile, and Lehrer glanced at him.
Next question. A small woman asking about revamping Medicare and lowering prescription drug costs.
Bush dithered.
Gore sat there and listened, and then started campaigning out of his ass.
Lehrer said, "Mister Luthor?"
Luthor looked at him, and then at Bush and said, "sure, reform Medicare." The room chuckled. Luthor looked around. "No, I mean every word. Reform it. Reform it all, and I invite the Vice President to have the same view. The system has issues, sit down and rewrite the damn thing, are we concerned about expanding the bureaucracy? Hands up if you are. We'll find a solution for that too. Jim, I've said this for months. You have one way with the Governor, one way for the Vice President—there's value in a third way. You can legislate and legislate all you want, but bill after bill muddies the waters and makes regulations not to mention all our lives much more difficult. Not to mention ridiculous. So yes, I agree with the governor that the best way to 'fix,' if that's the word, is to reform it."
Bush piped up. "Sounds like Mister Luthor wants to burn it all down."
Luthor looked back at him and cracked a smile. "Not necessarily. But change is risky, Governor. Always is."
Moments passed. Luthor spaced out, and thought of Lois.
Bush went into a tangent about tax breaks, and one-percent returns. He was passionate, seemingly about a top-down tax. Gore chimed in and said Reagan would be proud. It was about as venomous as he could get.
Lehrer asked about income levels, and Luthor promptly said, "Raise the minimum wage."
The room stirred. Some claps and yelps of approval from the cheap seats, and Luthor smiled. He slid so easily into populism, liker he was reaching into their souls., grabbing their hearts and pulling them close.
Bush and Gore started sniping about Medicare and partisanship.
The questions turned toward the Middle East.
Norwood asked what would make them the best president to deal with the crisis.
Lehrer: "Gentlemen, encapsulate it."
Bush said, "I've been a leader. I've been patient." He was kind and compassionate. Cashing in on a steady hand, and playing the other on a grudge against a despot.
Gore waxed and waned on a liberal power fantasy, democracy and human rights.
Luthor said, "I've saved this world. And with no small amount of pride, I've done it from the private sector. We all remember the Final Night where I and my company poured our fullest resources into that conflict. The situation demanded a leader. I stood up. It was an honor to serve alongside those men and women, to fight one of our own gone mad. I stood alongside them as they died in battle. So to answer your question, Mister Norwood, I would be the best because I've saved the world. I'm the only one that can. The only one that has."
The room was silent.
Lehrer moved on.
Luthor went into autopilot. Smile, deflect, push it on Bush, push it on Gore.
Questions about foreign policy for Bush.
Tax credits for Gore.
A question from the back: "How can the Vice President claim a record of success, building on President Clinton's record, when both of them bowed to Congressional pressure and abandoned Gotham City?"
The room stopped.
Luthor turned and looked at Gore.
Gore.
Lost it.
"Well," he said. And stopped. "I think what you find as we looked at the situation from the White House—look, what happened was a tragedy, terrible losses. We tried to save that city, and I talked with the President about realistic options. And some pretty fantastic ones. But none of it worked. To my eternal shame."
Lehrer looked at Bush: "Governor?"
"What we saw in Gotham City, and up and down the coast that day, was a humanitarian crisis. I'm grateful to our first responders, the National Guard, and the Gotham Police Department for what they did to maintain order in and outside the city, and for Mister Luthor's corporate efforts to bring that city back."
Luthor nodded. Then he looked at Lehrer.
"Saving Gotham was not about me. It wasn't about Lex Luthor, or the Batman or any of Gotham City's attendant problems—which I would like to point out are systemic issues that I hope any administration would examine closely. We just wanted to save some lives."
Lehrer said, "We move next to a question from Roy Harper, Roy where are you?"
His back to the cameras, Luthor's eyes lit up.
Roy Harper.
He knew him.
He knew all of them.
All these years. All the intelligence he spent time and money on. To learn about them and, one day, far from that first meeting with an alien aboard the Sea Queen, to use that intelligence to destroy them.
So Roy Harper.
The Green Arrow's mailed fist.
He turned and locked onto him.
Roy Harper was the Red Arrow.
Or was it Speedy.
Or was it Arsenal.
Luthor couldn't remember. All these people and their costumes.
The world knew Oliver Queen was the Green Arrow; he couldn't very well show up to ask Candidate Luthor a loaded question, the subtext of which only Roy and Luthor would know, and keep close in their hearts.
Roy Harper was a nobody.
Roy stood there in Buddy Hollys and a grey hoodie, he stood there in his poor disguise shuffling from foot to foot, trying to look like some hipster. He manufactured nervousness and held the mike loose in one hand. The glasses slid down his face as he said, "We hear a lot about special interest groups, and candidates forming policy for specific demographics—seniors, the middle class, Baby Boomers—can you as a candidate promise to be a President for all people?"
Gore said Yes. Luthor didn't pay attention to the rest of his flat answer.
Bush said Yes and trailed off about prosperity. He brought it back with a, "so, yeah."
Lehrer said, "We come to Mister Luthor."
Luthor looked up at Harper. "Yes, I would be a President for all people." With that slight smile he said, "If I'm fortunate enough to become your President."
"For all people," Harper said and inflected it more. All people, you bald bastard.
Lehrer shot around in his chair.
Luthor put a hand out and kept his eyes on Harper. "No, it's alright, Jim, I want to hear every viewpoint."
"For all people," Harper said. "Gay. Straight. Black. White. Even Superman."
Luthor put on a smile that could pass for a disgusting leer and stared into Roy's eyes.
"Roy," he said and began pacing. "Thank you, that's a great question. And you're right, we do hear a lot about personal differences, identity politics, the ways in which we as a people are divided. Lived experiences dictate who we are, and I'm here to tell you, and everyone watching, don't let them take that from you. Don't let the world dictate who you are—you know best, and I'm speaking both generally and, if I may, directly, Roy. Our experiences shape us, as mine have and I'm sure yours have. All of us have rich full histories. My own is one of poverty, and rising above it. Yours, Roy, is different. The Governor's is different, the Vice President's is different. Even Jim's is different. That's right, isn't it, Jim? Mm. What's important is that we recognize the differences among us, and celebrate those. They're not lodestars for division or, to borrow a line from the Governor, partisan bickering. Our differences make us better. Stronger. As your President I'd do everything in my power to celebrate our differences and make the twenty-first century an inclusive place. After all, if we can welcome aliens to our little blue planet, then we can do anything. We have to."
Luthor stayed on him and in that moment Roy's face shifted an infinitesimal centimeter. Luthor caught it and had to stop his lip curling on national television.
The meaningless detritus of their world fell apart and Roy found himself swallowing the lump at the back of his throat but keeping a straight face. A straight face against the storm. Against the world's greatest supervillain.
Luthor smiled and bowed politely and thanked Roy.
Roy nodded.
Lehrer started wrapping up.
And Luthor already devised a way to make Oliver Queen and his little addict of a sidekick pay for this cheap stunt.
Lois.
She went to see Perry on Halloween. One week left. One week between her and the rest of the universe. And she was thinking of her father, arms over his chest, the wrinkles of his face turned down, and one of his usual pronouncements. Lois come on now it's not as bad as that.
Well.
"I can't, Perry."
He looked at her. "Can't. Or won't."
"Both," she said. "Either. I don't have any objectivity left when it comes to Luthor."
He laid his cigar in the ashtray. "Yes you do."
She let out a little scoff, somewhere between surprised and pissed off. But she stuck to her guns. "No," she said. "I don't."
"'The high road is great but sometimes you gotta get in the shit.' Who was it that told me that?"'
"Chief."
"I feel like I know her."
"Perry come on."
"No," he said and pointed at her. "Why not put your foot down a year ago when he announced?"
"I refused to report on him, Perry!"
"Everybody refused," Perry said. "I'm convinced Clark said yes because he thought it would be gentlemanly."
"He's not taking a bullet for me on this if that's what you're saying Perry."
"I'm not," Perry said. "But his reporting bleeds into your life, Lois."
"Thanks for the concern, Chief."
"You haven't been yourself lately. Have you?"
"No," she said.
"Lois. Stop treating your friends like your enemies. Told Clark that a long time ago and I'm telling you now. It's getting to you."
"I feel responsible," she said. "For him."
"No."
"What?"
"You heard me. You may have dated him in the old days but that was then and this is now."
"People don't change, Perry."
"Sure we do," he said. "But mostly it's a matter of just getting older, kid. I'd bet real money that even Lex is looking in the rearview mirror now. He's aware of how much, or little, time he has left and he's doing something about it. Makes him dangerous. And makes our job critical."
"So what am I supposed to do?"
"if you really don't want to interview him, I'll take you off. If you want leave of absence until the new year I'll give you that too. But if this is just you feeling bad I think we both know that's a load of shit. You're Lois Lane. Never back down."
"Perry."
"Because you're good. And because I can see it eating you up, Lois. Now go get a coffee and get some sleep. And send me Jimmy if you would. He's got a new Day in the Life to run. Oh, and one more thing. Where is that husband of yours? I left him a message but I haven't heard back."
"He said he was flying home for the weekend, going to see his parents."
Perry made a face.
Lois said, "That's what I thought too."
Continued...