#lork

One thing I must thank the Gunn Superman for is it opened my eyes to a sad reality we, comic readers, were living in for decades:

Superman must have Lois Lane seal of quality. He's no good at all until she says so.

Only after she sits with him on a one on one interview and emmits her veredict, he's not trustworthy at all. Even after saving countless lives. After solving local or intergalactic conflicts, only she can say "okay, Boy, you're good. keep going".

We saw it even in Man of Steel, where the military men granted the exclusive to her to judge the alien. Not that they don't have interrogation experts of their own or the government doesn't have advanced techniques to find out the truth. Nah. Only Lois' expertise is the decisive test.

It's her superpower: unquestionable morals and spotless work ethics.

Too bad nobody likes her and she can piss off Gandhi and Mother Theresa. But people is too quick to judge. Not her. Her judgement is flawless, the final line every metahuman must pass. Her approval seal.

But she never hesitates in making deals with the devil if she needs some doors open or the task proves a little too big for her. It's a dirty job, but it must be done. But if somebody else gets dirty hands or crosses boundaries in the line of duty, she'll be the first in pointing it out and condemn it in the front page, of course.

We've saw the scene in Clark's childhood bedroom, when she gazes at his mementos of youth when her heart opens to the realization of the humanity of her supposed boyfriend. HER BOYFRIEND, who she should know better than anyone and trust unconditionally. But there's always conditions to get her approval. Yeah, you can be the most powerful man on Earth, but to get this piece of ass...it will cost you, Bro.

That's why her fans say she challenges him! He's always under scrutiny. There's always another test to pass.

Tough love? Perhaps.

If he gives her exclusives, it's okay: she earned them. But if he publishes them under his alter ego's name, also a journalist, there'll be hell to pay: faulty ethics, Clark. Only one person can have access to Superman, and it isn't Superman, silly boy. Nah-ah. Convenient.

The problem is we've been raised on these false notions we can't see the crude reality behind them.

Intentionally or not (probably not) Gunn opened my eyes to the behind the scenes of Lork relationship. And it isn't pretty.

No self respecting person would submitt voluntarily to the constant scrutiny of such partner.

All the fuzz about the returning to “tradition”, after the merciless killing of New 52′s Superman and N52 itself, bringing back Lork, now with a son, making Superman a lame family man, seriously limiting the range of adventures for him to live. 

All the trouble in getting the couple back to Metropolis and the Daily Planet. 

All the ridiculous explanations in making N52 just a trick of Mister Mxyzptlk, or Dr. Manhattan or whatever. 

All the pimping of Lois Lane as the center of Superman’s life, the reason of his existence, and her apparent  immortality in AC #1000.

All the lousy attempts of parenting, or something like it (clearly neither of both, not Lois, nor Clark, are parent material as they are written).

All for nothing.

Writers sent the boy away, first with his gramps, Jor-El, and now, returning miraculously as almost a young adult, a thousand years in the future with the Legion of Superheroes. So that’s parenting for them: the kid is in the middle, let’s get rid of the kid.

The couple is still married, sort of, but the inseparable Lork, without which the universe will colapse, live separated lives: Lois doing the only thing she is useful at, being a journalist, living in hotel rooms and ingesting large amounts of booze (because that’s what journalists do in 194...in 2019) and Clark doing what he does best: serving as back-up for Batso. Of course, they get together for the occasional booty call, but they can’t do what they do living under the same roof (I had the wrong idea that’s what married couples do).

At the beginning of the rebirth crap, they all were a family, now, less than three years down the road, they are anything but. This shows how lost are the creative responsible team for Superman & Co. 

New 52 waited 5 years to be rebooted. Rebirth is screaming to rebooted right now, in spite of big names like Bendis and others, whose contribution was more confusion than anything else. The actual situation of the Superman comics is a total mess.

It’s being said there was a legal battle for the rights to use the Lois Lane character, which DC won over the Siegel and Shuster estates, therefore they brought Lork back. Guys: did you went through all that trouble only to do this crap with them? All the money, time and effort invested in lawyers should be of better use if it was put in a decent creative team.

I was re-watching Ricky Gervais’ special “Humanity” on Netflix (I highly recommend you watch it) and when it came to the part of some tweets back and forth with an intolerant religious person, I had a revelation: Ricky was describing literally, almost word by word, all my experiences with Lork fans, or Clois fans, if you will. How things escalate  from a joke like this:

To a tirade of offended people unnecessarily offending others, playing the card of sexism and misogyny, and constantly changing the subject, like:

“You said this is insane: what do you have against insane people? And it’s called mental illness, not insanity!!! Mentally ill people have rights too! You are against basic human rights!!! You are a fascistic monster!!! You are a monster full of hatred against all that’s pure and noble in this World!!”

And saying if you go against Lois Lane, you are against the entirety of women, and the human species as a whole... and so on and so forth.

No, no and no. Calm down!

Mr. Gervais said it better than I ever would, because he’s a genius, concluding his speech with an accurate “It’s mental!”

It is. 

He also said, repeatedly, he should’ve let things there, and his mistake was not doing it. That was my mistake too: not stopping the snow ball before is grows huge.

Needless to say Ricky wasn’t talking about Lork/Clois fans, but his message also applies to my sad experiences with them. 

On a panel of one of the latest “rebirth” adventures, called “Viral”, Superman senses the World is in peril, “screaming”, he said, and the first thing he does is run to save Lois and his son, screw the "screaming World" on fire. 

That’s not Superman. At least, not the Supes I want to read about. Writers and editors purposely ignore what Superman stands for in favor of his pairing with Lane. 

Is that what they gave Superman a family for? To limit him even more? His family turns out to be a liability, a dampener for adventure.

And it shows us Superman as a selfish asshole.

Imagine the same situation with Diana as partner and mother of his children: Supes hears something's not right, but Wondy perceives it too. Besides having superpowered kids, they'd have them and Krypto very well trained for situations like this. I mean, not to go and intervene directly, because the children are probably not of age for that still, but to go to a secure location previously established where Krypto can take care of them, while Mom and Dad can go solve the situation together.

Superman is an action/adventure character, nobody wants to read about his family life unless it is related to that. But not always rescuing them: we'd had enough of that with Lane over eight decades and, quite frankly, it gets kind of old. Besides, a superhero 'playing house' and having "quality time" with his kid is as interesting as seeing him pretending to be a journalist alongside his wife. But it seems that's what DC and...some fans want? Having Superman as a "yes, Darling" husband? Jeez!

And that is the reason why Superman stopped being worth reading.

Who gives a damn seeing him and Lane going on double dates with Bruce and Selina if something interesting and dangerous doesn't happen? Who cares about Selina and Lois getting wasted on booze and playing besties?

Marvel understood having Spidy perpetually chained to MJ was boring and counterproductive, that's why Felicia Hardy came into play. Even really superpowered married couples as the Richards (F4) went off the rails every now and then.

"But Superman and Lois are a power couple! He goes out to save the World and she...writes stuff..." Fascinating. And it's not like in "Murder, she wrote"...well, yes: it's exactly like that, only she has Superman on speed dial whenever she is in danger, so he has to drop everything and come rescue her. Some power couple...No offense meant to writers. In fact, if we had more of the best of you, we could have better written characters.

Like every couple in the World, Clark and Diana had moments of intimacy, in which they showed their affection in a physical manner. Perfectly normal, huh?

Artists like Tony S. Daniel...

...and Yannick Paquette...

...were more than happy to display those intimacy situations in a tasteful and beautiful manner, giving us a glimpse of the many...

Wait...what???

“Too racy”? What do you mean “too racy”? Both of them are a no-go?

But...but...there isn’t any butt, or anything else showing! They are quite discrete!

Forget it. Just forget it, okay? This is DC regime trying to be holier than thou. This images never left the drawing board as nothing else than rejected sketches.

DC must protect their innocent and immature readers.

Meanwhile, in Gotham city

Back in Metropolis...

Every image of Bruce/Selina and Clark/Lois were published. Somehow, they passed the “thorough scrutiny” of DC regime’s censorship.

Bias and double standards? You bet.

For the short period Diana and Clark were together, there were very few intimacy moments allowed between them. 

And those happened when DC regime already had decided to pull the plug on the couple, as consolation prize to fans. TBH, the image above doesn’t seem too romantic: Clark looks really pissed and not precisely “in the mood for love”.

I know what you’re thinking: “You are obsessed with sexual moment between them, you pervert”. Maybe.

I am a well known pervert.

I think physicality is another way in which a couple can express their love for each other. A sweet and beautiful way. I protest when some pairings are allowed to show it and others don’t.

But I can concoct my own racy images, I don’t need DC to provide them for me:

Lois Lane Crime Scene | Robot Chicken | Adult Swim