If you’ve hung around me or this blog long enough, you’d know I’ve been a Superman fan nearly my whole life. From George Reeves to Henry Cavill and Tom Welling to Brandon Routh, I’ve loved them all. It’s true that a few were great Supermen in bad movies or TV but I didn’t care then and I don’t care now. You have the stones to put on a cape and tights and take on the the persona, you have earned my respect and undying love forever.

After seeing “Superman Returns” back in 2006, I was disappointed to find out the franchise was in the toilet. It wasn’t flushed yet but it was mellow yellow. Out of frustration, I sat down and wrote myself my own sequel as to how I thought the next story would play out. Fortunately, I rarely delete anything on purpose and I saved that sequel to revisit at a later time. Only one other person I know personally actually read it and said they liked it, although I did share it on a web site called “The Planet” that no longer exists, as a nightly serial and I got some pretty awesome reviews there. It was great fun to interact with other Superman fans–hard core Superman fans too, and get their feedback as I wrote. Was this my best writing? Hell no but it was fun and it was a great exercise in writing for me at the time. I was going through one of the worse episodes in my life and I believe it helped me tremendously.

Without further rambling, I’m going to start posting the serial here on Monday nights. I’m late tonight which is a bad thing because I promised myself I would not stay up past midnight anymore…oops! Oh well, here is the prologue for my Superman returns sequel. I’ll be back on Monday nights for the rest of the summer with a chapter each week. 🙂

An Unfortunate Son

Prologue

“Why The World Needs Superman,” Lois said aloud as she tapped away at her newest Pulitzer Prize winner.

“I’m certain that many of you, if not all, will pick up the paper today and read this headline and double check the byline. Yes. I was wrong. So much was right with the world before he went away, searching for answers to questions that he would never find. We slept peacefully. We laughed louder and we had more time to feel good than to feel bad, to laugh than to weep, to love than to hate.

Then suddenly, he was gone.

We all spent hours looking to the sky, watching the news wires, looking for any miraculous event which could be remotely connected to his existence. There were none. No thwarted robbery attempts, no mysteriously extinguished fires, not even a cat saved from up a tree but nothing.

Perhaps it was the absence of knowing that he would always be there to save us that drove me to this idea that we could take care of ourselves perfectly, with no need for this savior in a red cape, this heavenly gift that left us as suddenly as he arrived. I needed to believe that the world would be a safe place, not only for myself , but also for my son.

When I first looked into his eyes I thought, what will happen to us without him? What will become of this world with no one to catch us when we fall or give us hope that the evils of the world will only knock on the door but never get in? But that wasn’t the only reason. None the less, I donned my armor and enlisted an army through my power as a journalist to join me.

Then I moved on.

Looking at my new born son, I felt an overwhelming inner strength from those little blue eyes that it wasn’t Superman’s job to save me anymore but my own. I had to protect my son and our happiness at all costs, against anything that may bring sadness or harm to my beautiful boy.

In that epiphany, I realized there were billions of us wondering, confused and shaken by his sudden departure from us. Had he died? Had he met some horrible fate that we would never know the answer to? Maybe it was the reality of what that truth could be that angered me. However, it was easier to be angry at him for running away from us than it was to mourn him. That would have been far too much to bear. The possibilities were endlessly frightening and there were absolutely no answers.

He was just gone. I was angry but the anger became the need to assure people that we didn’t really need him. I certainly managed to somehow convince the public of my confidence in their ability to be strong yet all the while the world was changing, growing as dark and frightening as before. We had our shields up but the evil still managed to get in.

Then as suddenly as he disappeared, he came back. He landed back into our world, our lives, our hearts and souls as if he had never left. I’ll be the first to admit that I was relieved that just as before, he was there to save me but there were so many questions that needed answering and having those answers now really doesn’t seem to matter anymore, at least to me.

Why does the world need Superman?

Not for all of the amazing and wonderful things he can do but for who he is, what he stands for and the kind of person that he makes us all want to be. Superman didn’t come to us to remind us of all of the things we aren’t but more to guide us to become the people that we should be.

Superman has rescued me more than once but above all, he’s saved me and given me something that I can never repay him for; faith.

Taking off that armor helps us all feel a lot lighter and as if we can fly too, if only in our hearts and minds.

Welcome home Superman. We’ve missed you.

Lois Lane

 

Updated to add…it was 1:30am when I posted this but that is no excuse for a typo. It’s all fixed now. Ugh.