Clark.
.
.
Like I said, I known him since he was teenager in high school. Very quiet fella, but with a purpose about him. People have always said that Clark Kent was his disguise, but they're wrong… every single one o' them. Superman's the disguise. Clark Kent is the hero.
Never one to push himself forward, was Clark. He was polite, and kind, and just a good all round boy. His parents raised him right, they did. An' I suppose the world is lucky for that. Can you imagine what it woulda been like if Superman wasn't a decent person? There might not be no more world.
He was so proud on his first day o' work here. Came in with his backpack, and his red flannel shirt… smilin' like a boy who finally saw the path to bein' a man. Course I knew him by then, and he stopped to chat to me. He told me how Lois had badgered him into takin' the job, and how he was so lookin' forward to bein' on the frontlines. Doing some good in the world. Tellin' the truth.
Course I don't gotta recount everythin' you already know about what happened next. The Daily Planet's centre to what the call the Myth of Superman these days. But the truth is, what he was on that first day, he stayed for all his time here. Just a man doin' his job. Tellin' the truth. Tryin' to do some good in the world.
A hell of a reporter. Perry White told me so himself. Clark Kent had a way with words, and a desire to do his bit. I guess you could say I'm proud of him… if that ain't too presumptuous.
I was at their wedding too. Lois sat me right upfront, she did, and Clark mentioned me in his speech. Said he owed Mondays With Morrie for a chance to spend time away from work with Lois. How he loved the way we used to sit and just be friends together. How it was a haven for him. A time, and a place, where the world and it's problems – always his problems – could wait for a while.
Greatest compliment I ever got.
I was there for that. I was there the day he caught the globe when it fell off the roof. I was there the day Zod tore out the front of the building and Superman chucked him clear to Nebraska. I was there the day Doomsday fell… right in the street outside… and Superman fell with him.
I took Lois inside that day. I had to pry her hands off his bloody body and drag her – not an easy feat for a man approachin' 90 by that stage. I had a little office by then – where we spent our Mondays. I sat her down in a chair, but she didn't want none of it. She sat in my lap and hugged me and cried. I cried too. I cried so much.
It was in the months that after that I figured out 'the secret'. Superman died, and Clark Kent disappeared. So I started to think about things. There's not much else to do in the late hours with nothin' but monitors showin' empty hallways to stare at. I recalled how you never saw the two of them in the same place together. How it was always Lois who got the one-on-one interviews, even though they shared every other story.
So I asked her. And she told me. And I kept that secret until he revealed it himself in 2019. Those days… the days without Superman… were the hardest days I ever lived through. And I was in Operation Overlord. You know it by a different name, o' course, the Battle of Normandy. But that was a cake walk compared to a world without her Guardian. It felt… hopeless. Like the sun had gone out.
Thank the Lord it didn't last. He came back. He righted the wrongs. He put Lex, and Cyborg and Brainiac in their place and… the greatest gift of all… he made Lois smile again.
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