So, next month, there will be a new Superman movie. The first trailer of which made me fear the worst with its GRIMDARK aura and Pa Kent seemingly suggesting his son should have let people die rather than show his powers, the second was better, putting more emphasis on hope, and also, it had Lois Lane, and the third has that advantage as well but still seems to go for a lot of Wagnerian pathos, not that surprising given we're talking about Zack Snyder as director and Christopher Nolan as producer. Which, um. Is not exactly how I like my Superman story told, with one particular exception.

Back in the 90s, when I first started to get into superheroes, Superman was the one who took a regular beating in discussions as the one who's boring, impossible to update because he's good and not ambiguous, only palpable in combination with someone who is ambiguous, like Batman, and what not. I can't say I had strong feelings on the subject - I had seen the first three Chistopher Reeve films in the 70s and 80s, but only once each, with no more emotional echo than mild interest. I had also read The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller (aka the first one to feature Miller's Superman-is-a-tool-for-the-establishment interpretation). However, then came the tv show Lois & Clark, and lo and behold, affection was ignited. Looking back, not least because of one significant change Lois & Clark made in comparison to the Richard Donner films and also what bits and pieces of comics I'd read. While keeping the 40s screwball comedy set up of Clark Kent competing against himself-as-Superman for Lois' affections, it jettisoned the idea of Lois disdaining Clark while adoring Superman in favour of a narrative where while Lois initial' reaction to Clark is irritation (and initial reaction to Superman is being wowed), the two become (bickering) best friends and partners (as journalists) independent from Lois' Superman crush (and flirtations with other guys). In fact, looking back, Lois & Clark is perhaps the most successfull tv story with a falling-in-love-with-your-best-friend arc, not least because it shows us the the two of them becoming friends first. Lois and Clark sitting on the floor of her apartment eating pizza and talking their ears off is one of the images from the show that sticks with me and sums up the type of relationship they have.

Now, if Dean Cain's character is firmly anchored on the "Clark Kent is real, Superman is the mask" side of the interpretation (and also very unangsty; he's got no issues with being adopted or being an alien, and while he is in love with Lois before she's in love with him, he's not pining or stalking), this is, in fact, not the only only Superman interpretation which really managed to impress me and capture my fannish affections. And the other one which did is exactly on the opposite end of the spectrum, it's extremely dark and yet utterly plausible at the same time. Though the name Superman is not used at all, because we're talking about JMS' short lived Supreme Powers series which used some half forgotten Marvel characters which were transparent takes on the Justice League and rebooted them. The Superman character in Supreme Powers, Mark Milton/Hyperion, is basically the best take I can imagine if you really want to go for hardcore angst and a dark interpretion of "what would really happen if a superpowered alien baby crashlanded on Earth. He's found by a kindly couple, alright. Who keep him for all of a few hours before the goverment - who of course have registered the vessel he came in - take him. And the "kindly couple" who actually raises him in a Norman Rockwell idyll are goverment agents supervised on tv all the time, with the idyll taking place in a confined environment. (The emotional horror there for all parties is considerable. Because raising a toddler who could pulverize you with a look - not because he means to, as an accident in the course of a childish tantrum - is deeply scary, and so you understand why the agents who are Mark's "parents" are too afraid of him to love him, and are faking it all the time, which in turn when makes for a horrible truth waiting to be realised as Mark grows up.) Mark absorbs all-American-values and the idea that it's his duty to save the world not because he grows up in Kansas but because he's brainwashed and deliberately indoctrinated on a daily basis. Not just so he'll end up as the perfect goverment weapon but because - and this is important, as it makes things not black and white but complicated - the idea of a child, and later an adult of nearly unlimited powers is frightening, and so the generals arguing for this program aren't evil supervillains (though you can call them cold-blooded bastards), they have a point.

In the course of the series, Mark finds out his entire life was made up of lies, tries to quit working for the goverment, with the result that due to a calculated smear campaign, he goes from being the beloved superhero Hyperion to an evil Alien in the public's eye, and finally gets a team of other meta humans sent after him, survives various assassination attempts and finally arrives at the conclusion that beneficent dictatorship (of himself) is the only way to go; in short, the generals have created exactly the nightmare they were afraid of (not for nothing does JMS use quotes from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as mottos for individual chapters). It's a pretty relentless tragedy, very compellingly written. (The Supreme Powers series then peters out in various spin-offs, but the first two trade volumes plus the Hyperion miniseries really are great storytelling.) It's also the ultimate in Superman-as-Alien-with-a-capital-A interpretation. (Also it probably says something about pop culture's response to the present that Superman for the longest time was the quintessential American dream - the stranger who arrives as a child and loves his country/planet of adoption wholehearteadly - and the closer we get to the present becomes the American nightmare - immigrant child ends up danger precisely because he was distrusted and contained from the start.) So yes - I'm able to go with that end of the spectrum, too.

However, based on the trailers and, um, the repertoire of the people involved, in seems to me the latest film might want to have the angst without thinking through the whys, wherefores and logical consequences. Or rather: do that annoying thing Nolan's Batman movies did where they seem to question the superhero premise but do really just the opposite. I.e. the problem isn't that the citizens of Gotham idolize the late Harvey Dent, it's that they don't idolize Batman, and once they do, the idolizing is just fine. So if Man of Steel is about how everyone responds paranoid to the idea of a superpowered alien but then once he's proven he's really a good guy everything is fine, well, that strikes me as a somewhat hollow compromise between the two different extremes of how you can tell this story.

Also: I'm about the 4045664th person to observe on this, I know, but one reason why the Marvel movies so far by and large are more enjoyable than their DC counterparts to me is that for all that Marvel delivers the angst, too, their heroes get to enjoy their superpowers as well. Now Batman being Batman, it's understandable that we don't have Bruce Wayne geeking out about how nifty he's made the Batmobile. But if there is one DC superhero who is really ideal for showing someone enjoying the their powers in between world saving, it's Superman. (Unless, again, you go for the superpowered-kid-could-accidentally-kill-us emotional horror of the Mark Milton interpretation.) There is one scene in the trailer where Superman takes flight which makes me hope they'll do at least a bit of that. But the rest of it makes me fear angst will outweigh the enjoyment by far.

And there is no reporter partnership in the trailer at all, woe. The scene with Lois in it intrigues me, but she's talking to not-yet-christened-Superman here, not to Clark. And with all the rest of the trailer emphasisizing the danger/shock of discovering there is an alien among us, I doubt the film will go for the Clark Kent, Reporter at the Daily Planet part of the myth at all. Which in turn makes me realize that what I really want from a Superman movie, and am not likely to get, is a big screen version of the first two seasons of Lois & Clark, not a superhero movie at all but the tale of two bantering reporters, one of whom has superpowers, fighting crime together. And that's my problem.

Rejected out of hand are such death traps as Angel Investigations, Torchwood, or secret sections of the FBI or CIA, I'll have you know. Also, regretfully, Joe's bar from Highlander, because gratis concerts aside, I always was bad at maths and would make a lousy waitress. Also the Miami police, because clearly there are far too many serial killers in Miami. They could start a convention. On that note, here are five candidates with reasonable survival chances:


1.) The Library of Dreams. Sandman. Come on. Not only every book ever written, but every book any author has ever dreamt of writing but somehow didn't get around to. Clearly, Lucien has the best job ever. Granted, working for Dream has its downsides, as when he's kidnapped for 70 plus years or when the Furies are after him, but that happens rarely enough not to affect my wish for long term employment.

2.) The Daily Planet. (Lois & Clark incarnation of same.) A newspaper with an Elvis-loving chief editor and hot reporters is clearly the place to intern or get hired as columnist/foreign correspondant. Even if a supervillain occasionally tries to buy it.

3.) The Enterprise - D. (Star Trek: The Next Generation). Allows families and pets on board along with the space exploration, as opposed to the original Enterprise, which as I'm not sure I want to spend the rest of my life single sounds like an advantage, plus, really, whose voice would you want to hear on a daily basis announcing every day ship business, Kirk's or Picard's? Also, the holodeck. Barclay and I would probably swap therapy stories.

4.) The Bartlet White House. (The West Wing). No idea whether I could keep up with the speed of the conversations, or what exactly I would do there, but it would appeal to my inner idealist.

5.) The Herald. (State of Play, original tv version.) Another newspaper with a snarky chief editor and hot reporters. Being located in London, which means better theatre and bookstore options for me (sorry, Metropolis). I would so work there.

The reason why I haven't been doing the character meme making the rounds again on my flist recently is that most of the questions are either 'shipping-centric - "Which are your five favourite/least favourite 'ships" or go in the "which characters do you love/despite" region. And my problem is what with many of my fandoms, those questions don't apply. Take Firefly or Farscape or Blake's 7. I basically like all the characters, in varying degrees, admittedly, but I can't say I really hate a character or a relationship. (No, people we're supposed to boo-hiss like Niska or Simon and River's parents or Grayza don't count.) And if you asked me this about Babylon 5 or DS9, I could maybe come up with one relationship and one character I genuinely dislike (and wasn't meant to), but not more, and one loved relationship plus lots and lots of well-liked ones are equally unsuitable for this meme. I'd have to fib. It ties with me being a gen person at heart, I suppose; I'm not in a show/film/book for the romances or even the subtext, though of course individual relationships, platonic or otherwise, can become an important reason why I enjoy a show/film/book. The Londo/G'Kar relationship, for example, is of course a major reason why I fell in love with B5 back then and love it to this day. But it never was the only reason, and while after a decade of not finding any slash about those two I wrote some myself, I don't have to see their relationship as a romance in order to enjoy it; it's fascinating without (or with) a sexual aspect.

There are fandoms I could do the meme for, but the relationships/characters in the "despise" category would probably be mostly fanfic creations. Heroes comes to mind. Hiro/Charlie aside, I don't think any of the on screen romances were particularly well done - as opposed to the family relationships, friendships and marriages - , but I don't hate or despise them. I don't have any strong feelings about them one way or the other. On the other hand, the fact that season 2 made me suddenly care for and be interested in Mohinder also resulted in me realizing that I've stopped finding Sylar/Anyone relationships funny and have moved to being genuinenly creeped out by and loathing the very existence of Sylar pairings. (Well, except Sylar/Mary Sue. That is STILL funny.) It's not that I can't see where the Mylar comes from - they do have chemistry, and Sylar is undoubtedly obsessed - but Mohinder, Parasite aside, is rather healthily unobsessed with Sylar. He's not interested in killing the guy himself (which leads to such things as phonecalls to the police (The Hard Part) or luring Sylar in front of security cameras (Powerless) if he is forced to deal with him), he's not thinking about him when he's not around, and he doesn't show anything but negative reactions when Sylar is. Which means I really can't see passionate enemy sex any time soon, and don't even get me started on scenarios in which Mohinder makes Molly, whose parents were killed by Sylar, live anywhere near him. As for Sylar/Claire or Sylar/Peter... I'll see your "ew" and raise you a "yuck". So my "five pairings you despise" list for Heroes would probably sound like this: Sylar/ *insert list of other Heroes characters* But, and this brings me back to the start of this paragraph, all these pairings aren't actually creations of the show. They're fanfic creations. And I'm absolutely aware that some fanfic pairings I enjoy would be considered disturbing, creepy or rantworthy by someone else. So, glass house, stones, etc.

To go back to on screen romances: the very few that have made me feel something like genuine dislike verging on hate, or on the other hand really passionate love (as opposed to indifference on the one hand and various degrees of mild fondness but not love on the other) are probably saying something about what works and doesn't work for me in terms of a show, too. Oddly enough, the Jossverse, which arguably gave a lot of screentime to its various romances, doesn't come to mind, and I love BTVS and AtS and am very fond of Firefly. But all the romantic relationships there qualify only for the "varying degrees of fondness" definition - the relationships I loved were non-romantic, with the exception of Angel/Darla, which, err, wasn't exactly a romance, either.

However, I do love the Lois/Clark - or if you look at the way it was written for the first two seasons, Lois/Clark/Superman - relationship in Lois & Clark, and to this day this remains for me my favourite incarnation of those characters and their romance. Looking back on the show, I can't figure out why this worked for me whereas Ned/Chuck in Pushing Daisies never gets out of the mild indifference zone, because both relationships are written as romantic comedies and definite pairings, i.e. while the leads might however temporarily consider other candidates in their minds, the narrative leaves no doubt they're meant for each other and will end up with each other. Perhaps the difference to me is that I do adore these particular incarnations of Lois Lane and Clark Kent as individuals, too, and Ned and Chuck never get more than benign indifference from me, either (as opposed to Olive, Emerson et al).

On the "canon romance invoking passionate dislike/hate" side of things, well. Three examples come to mind, and in all three cases, they're limited to a specific time period, and don't apply to the entire duration of the show. And again, I'm not counting something like Dexter/Lila, which was written to evoke hostility; I'm talking about on screen romances that were meant to evoke emotional support for the lovers. So, my three hated canon romances:

1) Kara/Lee (BSG). I'm currently rewatching season 3, and I really have to press the button as soon as their scenes come up (pre-Maelstrom, that is - I do like their scenes there), otherwise I get into hate and ranting mood again. I'm all for interestingly messed up relationships, but that one was dreary, it brought out the worst in each character - Lee came across like a self-absorbed, self-pitying twit, and Kara as a selfish and abusive child - and it didn't contribute anything to the overall narrative. Say what you want about Baltar and Six, but their affair actually had a function in the overall plot from the start and continued to have it all the way through - whereas you could cut out every single Kara/Lee scene from mid-season 2 onwards and not a single plot point would be rendered incomprehensible. Lastly, the writing for each character got ever so much better as soon as they finally broke it off that the show should be forbidden from ever letting them go near romance territory again.

2) Sydney/Vaughn in season 3 of Alias. Not before, not after, but in season 3, their scenes together are of the same dreary, insufferable quality as the pair mentioned above. Vaughn worked quite well as Sydney's emotional support in s1 and 2, and s4 acknowledged they had issues, let them overcome them and most importantly showed why they were actually good for each other as a couple. But s3 - it wasn't Vaughn's marriage that was the problem, it was that he behaved like a selfish twit and Sydney like a mooning teenager (complete with use of the word "soulmate") which made the pairing so obnoxious to me, during that period. Thank JJ for Sydney's scenes with people not Vaughn (i.e. Will, Weiss, Jack and Sloane!) which allowed me to retain my affection for her, and of course for all the Jack and Arvin scenes in that season anyway.

3) John/Aeryn in season 4 of Farscape. Same thing, again, repeat. Not before, not after. It's also the difference between well plotted angst with emotional pay off and gratitious angst with cheap resolution, when you compare it with season 3, where the two Johns arc provided a good reason for the John/Aeryn divide in the last third, and came across as heartbreaking, yet inevitable. But in s4, the difficulties used to separate Farcape's main couple were introduced and then never resolved - Aeryn bringing Scorpius on board, John taking the Laka - with the end of "Mental as Anything" as the cheapest resolution without any pay off ever; Aeryn who in previous seasons had had her own relationships and her own agenda now was All About John, but it was hard to see how their relationship was good for them. It only seemed to make them both miserable, and not in interesting ways. Again, this isn't true for previous seasons, and it's definitely not true for The Peacekeeper Wars which makes John and Aeryn into a functional couple again, but in season 4, I hit the fast forward button every time when they're alone together.

Preliminary conclusion from all of this: I think that the three disliked pairings have in common, and what separates them from a loved pairing like Lois and Clark, is this: during the time period I hate the pairings, their participants were presented as having no other agenda but each other, not caring about anything else but each other, and also being generally useless. Whereas the Lois/Clark romance might have been the central narrative of Lois & Clark, but Lois being a reporter was central to her being, and she never forgot that, Clark/Superman was more laid back but as invested in being a reporter, and they were about the scoop, finding out the truth and sure, fighting evil as much as about each other. As soon as BSG gave Kara and Lee quests of their own again, as soon as Farscape made John and Aeryn into "Butch and Sundance" again, a fighting team that did care what was going on in the Unchartered Territories, my feelings of violent hostility ceased. In short, all you need is not love. Love is important, but if that's all, you annoy me, character. Whether in canon or in fanfic.

In between fun Multiverse readings - and an observation here, one really notices both Battlestar Galactica and Dr. Who have "arrived" at American shores by the increased input in those fandoms - I watched more first season Lois & Clark, and I can't help myself, I had to aquire an icon. To demonstrate just why they're adorable and why the dialogue of this show is such fun, here are some of my favourite quotes, re-heard again on this rewatching (now I must admit I only watched the pilot and some s1 plus two s2 episodes of Smallville, but I must say, the scriptwriters on the older show were better at banter):


Lois: And let's get something straight, I did not work my buns off to become an investigative reporter for the Daily Planet just to baby-sit some hack from Nowheresville! And another thing, you are not working with me, you are working for me. I call the shots, I ask the questions. You are low man - I am top banana and that's the way I like it, comprende?
Clark: You like to be on top. Got it.


Lois: Partners?
Perry: You and Kent. The experience of the battle-scarred veteran paired with the hunger of the exciting, fresh talent.
Lois: I am not that scarred, and he is not that exciting.
Perry: Your tenacity. His tact. Believe me, Lois, the two of you, there's chemistry there. It's gonna make for great stories.
Lois: But, Perry, partnership, it's like marriage.
Perry: That's right. You've got to work at it.
Lois: It takes patience and understanding, a willingness to be supportive.
Perry: I know, honey. Fake it.


Lois: Poor woman.
Clark: Who?
Lois: Your wife. She's married to Mr. Right. Mr. Always Right.


Lois: Found? You mean stole, don't you?
Clark: Well, I . . .
Lois: You took advantage of a privileged interview situation to grab
potentially incriminating evidence from an unsuspecting subject. Oh, I love that.


Lois: Superman is in the shower? Did you see him? I mean, does the outfit come off?
Clark: I didn't look.
Lois: Of course not. No, I wouldn't either. Mmm, mmm.


Lois: I only know how to make four things, and this is the only one without chocolate.


Lois: I win, you lose, we're both happy.


Clark: We flip for the bed.
Lois: How about I get the bed, I lend you a pillow?
Clark: How about we alternate nights?
Lois: How about we don't.
Clark: Well, it's a big bed, how about we share?
Lois: How about we alternate nights?
Clark: Deal.


Lois: Kill or be killed.
Clark: Lois you're talking about war... this is journalism.
Lois: See, your problem is you think there's a difference.

Clark: You are really high maintenance, you know that?
Lois: But I'm worth it.


Lois: Tell me the biggest secret you have.
Clark: What?
Lois: Tell me the biggest secret you have. Something you'd never reveal to anyone.
Clark: Why?
Lois: Because I'm about to tell you mine and I need blackmail material.