Dan Liebke's Astonishing Tales

Starring Clark Kent (Tom Welling) as Superlad, Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum) as Sinead, Chloe Sullivan (Allison Mack) as TIAC, Jonathan Kent (John Schneider) as Bo, Martha Kent (Annette O’Toole) as Boring Old Ma, Lionel Luthor (John Glover) as Porthos, Kara Kent (Laura Vandervoort) as SBH and Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk) as herself. For more information on these people and more, consult the scorecard.

Hey, looks like we get a full episode of GA being a mopey dick. Ugh. Call me a squeamish male.

We open in a casino. Guess who is mopily gambling away millions of mopey dollars, while mopey music plays mopily in the background?

Exactly. Luckily, some random bit of crumpet dressed provocatively in red and sporting a tattoo of a dragon shows up to seduce him. GA mopily agrees. She offers him a pill.

“This isn’t an upper, is it?” says GA. “Because I’ll be damned if I’m going to start feeling anything other than clinically depressed.”

“No,” says The Lady In Red. “It’s just a Tic-Tac™. Your breath is awful.”

GA mopes about this, mopily swallows the pill and then collapses in a mopey fashion. He wakes up in a box. What kind of box you say? The kind of box with ‘Game On’ written on the inside. So, uh, Nintendo packaging?

Meanwhile, back at the farm, Lois has shown up with some DVDs to watch with Superlad. Also, she’s doing her laundry. Boy, remember in the early seasons when Smallville was a good two hour drive from Metropolis? I like to think that it still is and these characters have nothing better to do with their lives than drive back and forth to the Kent farm, spending hours in the car at a time.

Since Lois is doing her laundry, she obviously makes a quip about how viewers would love to see her shirtless, which shows the writers still have some idea of what makes this show tick. Despite GA’s interminable mope factory.

As Superlad fondles one of Lois’s bras, he superhears a woman screaming.

“We need some popcorn!” he suddenly declares.

“You’re not putting popcorn in my bra,” says Lois. “That’s just insulting.”

“Not for your bra,” says Superlad. “For the movie.”

“In that case, skip the butter.”

And while Lois tries to work out how to get the DVD into the Kents’ antiquated Betamax™ player, Superlad zips off. He does the Blur™ thing, defeating the thug instantly and without a fuss, before returning to watch the movie with Lois.

Meanwhile, GA’s still moping around in his box. He makes an impromptu flashlight out of a pair of cufflinks and a dry martini and finds a way out.

“That’s the last time I trust a woman with a dragon tattoo,” he declares to nobody. Such simplistic criminal profiling is, of course, typical of the fascistic Justice League of Amerika. Right, kids? Right on.

But wait. Somebody else seems to be also trapped in a box.

“Just make a flashlight out of cuff links and whatever your particular choice of alcoholic beverage might be,” he shouts helpfully.

But the person doesn’t listen. GA wanders mopily over and opens the box from the outside. Because, dammit, he’s still a hero. But it’s not a person trapped in a box. It’s just a recording of a person.

“So, that’s why they couldn’t get out,” thinks GA to himself, noting the recording’s lack of cuff links. Still, he takes the opportunity to swipe its vodka spritzer. He scarfs it down and starts yelling at the room. “Come out and face me like a man, Toy Man!” he says.

A voice responds. “Dude, I’m not Toy Man,” it says. “Do I sound like the equal-lamest supervillain in the entire Superman mythos?”

GA mopes. “This is stupid.” And he has a point. But ‘equal-lamest’? Who else? Terra-Man? The Prankster? He ponders mopily.

“Just say the safe word and the game ends,” says the voice.

“‘Handcuff arrow’! ‘Handcuff arrow’!” shouts GA.

“No, that was your safe word with Lois,” says the voice. “Try again.”

“I don’t have the energy for this,” says GA. “I have some more moping to do. Just tell me who you are.”

“I’ll give you a clue,” says the voice. “Who did you destroy?”

“Whoa, dude!” says GA. “You’re going to have to narrow that down a lot.”

“Oh, for fu–” says the voice, before catching itself. “Huck! Get him!”

A wild dog bursts through the window and chases GA into a car. Naturally, it’s one of those cars with doors that self-lock, trapping their passengers inside, and then get hit by a truck. A, uh, Prius? I dunno, I’m not good with car models.

Back to the Kent farm and Lois and Superlad continue to bicker as they watch the movie. Lois is irritated because Superlad keeps getting up and down for snacks. Superlad’s irritated because Lois broke his Betamax™ jamming a DVD in there and is therefore now doing a one-woman performance of Jaws 3.

“It’s never going to work,” says Superlad. “Granted, you’re in 3-D. But how are you going to do the scene where Jaws attacks the water-skiers as they form a pyramid? You can’t form a pyramid by yourself!”

Lois cracks under this geometrical logic and admits the real reason she’s visiting. “It’s GA’s birthday today!” she says. “Every birthday he and I get wasted and shag like hamsters. Why hasn’t he called me this year, Superlad? Sure, I’m in love with the Blur™ now, but he’s just a voice on a phone. A woman has needs, y’know?”

“GA’s probably just with some other skank,” says Superlad, who hasn’t quite mastered this whole ‘cheering people up’ thing.

“Over my hot, dead body,” declares Lois. And they head off to find GA’s corpse.

But, wait, he’s not dead. He’s just in a pile of mud. Boy, he thinks, good thing that was just a Nerf truck.

He heads over to a phone booth and calls TIAC for help. “I’m sorry,” says the voice. “TIAC has the episode off.”

GA slams the phone into the wall, notices a red tattoo of a dragon on his wrist, uses it to criminally profile himself, then heads back to the casino to confront The Lady In Red.

“Don’t make a scene,” she says. “The people who set the game in motion are watching.”

“Why should I trust you?” says GA.

“Trust your instincts.”

“Right.” So GA starts to take his shirt off, but before he can get too far, random men burst in and start a fight. They get the snot beaten out of them and GA and The Lady In Red run off.

“Who is behind this game?” says GA.

“We don’t have time for this!”

“We’ll make time!”

The Lady In Red stops. “You can make time?” she says. “Are you the All-New Hourman?”

GA shakes his head. “No,” he says. Then stops and thinks. “But I do have a friend with a Legion flight ring…” He shakes his head again. No, there’s no time for that. Not when he has a big moping scene coming up.

And he begins to mope on and on and on about how he disappointed people. And let people down. And didn’t live up to what people expected from him. How he dashed their hopes. Shattered their impression of him. And so on and so forth.

The moping is happily interrupted by a bullet shattering the glass beside them. GA and The Lady In Red run off, GA moping furiously as he does so.

“I left them disenchanted with me,” he shouts, as bullets fly all around him.

Sensing this might never end, The Lady In Red veers straight into a bullet and dies. Alas, this option remains closed to all but the most gun-toting of viewers.

The police show up and taser him. “Take that, Mr Mope-tzlk!” says one, far too conversant with fifth-dimensional imps for my liking.

Meanwhile, Lois has burst into GA’s apartment.

“Pants down, GA,” she shouts. “I’m here now.”

Superlad follows her, hesitant, but curious. He finds on GA’s desk an invitation to The Moping Casino Where You Are Kidnapped And Emotionally Toyed With Via A Series Of Mind Games As Punishment For As Yet Unspecified Misdemeanours.

“This might be a clue,” says Superlad.

Lois ignores him and logs onto GA’s laptop where she finds the YouTube footage of last week’s episode where GA almost blew up.

“We should respect his privacy,” says Superlad.

“Dude, I’m a reporter,” says Lois. “What kind of media would we have if we respected celebrities’ privacy? People wouldn’t even know who the Kardashian sisters were!” Then she gets mad at Superlad for him not teliing her that GA didn’t blow up last episode. Or some damn thing. Who knows what she was going on about? Certainly not Superlad. “You lied to my face!” says Lois. “To my beautiful dimples! My dimples, Superlad. How dare you!”

And out she storms.

By now, GA has been handed over to a FBI agent.

“I’m Special Agent Bogus,” he says. He goes on to explain that GA’s been targeted because he’s a billionaire and these game-players want to steal his money. “You should check your bank accounts. That’s what even the most legitimate of FBI agents would recommend at this point.”

So GA does. “All my money’s here,” says GA.

“That’s excellent news,” says Special Agent Bogus. “I’ll just leave now to get some paperwork, while your bank accounts mysteriously drain and the room gets flooded with some kind of gas.”

“Rightey-o.” And he resumes the moping pose. But then his bank accounts are drained and the room starts to be filled with some kind of gas.

Superlad bursts in and saves him.

Off to visit TIAC, who doesn’t have the episode off after all. Those lying scoundrels!

“We need you to tell us what’s going on,” says Superlad. “We’re both very good-looking–”

“Very,” says GA.

“But not too smart,” continues Superlad. “Whereas you’re very smart but… y’know…”

“I’ll get right to work,” declares TIAC. Within seconds, she’s tracked down The Lady In Red and GA’s superhero costume and sent him off to sort that mess out.

“And no moping!!” she orders. GA starts to mope about not being able to mope. “And no meta-moping, either,” orders TIAC, who has become rather a bossy-boots.

She then tells Superlad that she found video footage of the Kryptonian assassin who tried to kill Lois in the season opener. “She was at last week’s party where GA didn’t explode,” says TIAC. “Y’know, the one I wasn’t invited to?”

“TIAC,” says Superlad. “There are a lot of parties we don’t invite you to. Don’t take it personally.” But he focuses on the footage. “Wait a second, didn’t that assassin die? How can she be around now?”

“If you’re asking me how a time-traveller can appear in a time period after they died, then I don’t know,” says TIAC. And off-screen, Dr Spectacles has his hand raised high in the air, ooh-ooh-oohing with the answer.

Meanwhile, Lois has tracked down the GA-mobile. She caresses it.

“Hey,” says The Lady In Red, appearing from an alley, inexplicably not bullet-riddled. “That’s my car.”

“Nuh-uh,” says Lois.

And they start to fight. They engage in some sexy fisticuffs until The Lady In Red remembers she has a gun, which she pulls on Lois. She takes her back to the casino and ties her up. GA shows up and is about to rescue her when The Lady In Red pulls a gun on him too.

Predictably enough, then, there’s gunplay. And then a fire. And then The Lady In Red is pinned beneath a fallen, uh, something. “Help me,” she screams. “Please help me.”

“Oh, for the love of…” mutters GA. But he goes off to rescue her. But, wait. It’s not a real fire. Or real fallen something. It’s yet another goddamn mind game.

“You asked me who was responsible for this?” says The Lady In Red. “My answer remains the same. Who did you try to destroy?”

“Me,” says GA. “I tried to destroy me.” And he starts to mope again.

“No!” says The Lady In Red. “Enough moping. You’ve proven you’re a hero again. And heroes don’t mope.”

“What about the Martian Mopehunter?”

“You made that up.”

And that’s essentially that. GA ‘deduces’ TIAC was behind the entire episode’s nonsense. Which is probably not true, but TIAC takes the credit anyway, because she’s just that needy. She explains how everything was perfectly safe and that no animals were harmed during the episode.

“Did Superlad know about any of this?” says GA.

“No,” says TIAC. “He would never approve of these kinds of outlandish mind games.” Where ‘approve of’ is used as slang for ‘understand the myriad details of’.

“Well, he’s lived a very different life to you and me,” says GA.

“Um…” says TIAC. “Superlad and I grew up together. Went to the same schools. In the same town. Shared many of the same experiences.”

But GA’s not listening. He looks up to the sky, rubbing his chin. “Yes, a very different life.”

He then heads back to the office, where Lois confronts him. He apologises. She tells him he’d better apologise. He apologises again.

“Now,” she says. “Time for our annual birthday tradition.” And she cracks open a sixpack and starts taking her clothes off.

GA finally abandons the moping. Everything’s coming up Green Arrow again!

After that and a quick shower, he costumes up and meets up with Superlad on a random skyscraper roof.

“You’ve done a fine job guarding Metropolis on your own,” he says. “But I’m back to help you now.”

“Oh,” says Superlad. “Uh, great.” He wipes his brow. “Phew!” He decides to change the subject. “Hey,” he says. “Did you ever find out who was responsible for all the bizarre mind games that served as subpar filler for this episode?”

“Well,” says GA. “It seems that, in a very real sense, the person responsible for putting me through those mind games was, well, me.” And he stares profoundly across the city.

“Dude,” says Superlad. “That’s fucked up.”

Next Week: I sure hope there’s no more moping.

---

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