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.

We open with Superlad and Lois all post-coital and wrapped in sheets where decency and/or censors require. They kiss and the sky turns red, for lo, this is just another one of Lois’s much-talked-about sex dreams with which she’s been inundating us all season. In reality, she’s not naked and making out with the Kryptonian lad, but instead just sitting at her desk, staring creepily at him, lost in her own erotic fantasies.

Superlad wants to talk to her about the fact they made out a couple of episodes ago.

“Talk about it?” says Lois. “Why would we talk about it?”

Superlad misses the emphasis on the word ‘talk’ and the subtle indication that perhaps Lois might prefer to ‘act’ upon it instead. She storms out, furious that she should lust after such a clueless doofus. She thumbs her copy of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus and tries to work out what to do next.

She’s interrupted in her thumbing by a delivery boy, who has delivered a giant box. Inside are a quartet of taped up, tied up undercover cops.

“Our sting went south,” says one of the cops.

“I’m sorry,” says Superlad. “We don’t speak police slang.”

Before they can get him to translate, however, there’s frenzied chatter outside. Somebody’s burnt an ‘S’ into the side of the building across the street. Superlad glares at it hatefully. “Time to call my trademark lawyer,” he declares to nobody in particular, before remembering he doesn’t have a trademark lawyer. So ‘phew!’ on the ‘nobody’ part of that declaration.

After the opening credits, a random editor comes in and demands a story from Lois about how incompetent the Blur™ (see that little ‘tm’ there? that’s a ‘trademark’, mister – so don’t you go burning ‘S’s all over Metropolis) is.

“The Assistant DA’s out for blood!” says the editor.

“Maybe this Vampire DA story is a better one for our newspaper then,” suggests Superlad, keen to avoid having the Blur™’s kickass rep sullied.

But nobody will listen.

“At least get the Blur™’s side of the story,” suggests Superlad.

“Both sides of the story?” says Lois. “How do you expect a modern newspaper to beat up a story if we get both sides? That’s just nutty.”

But despite her claims of Superlad’s nuttiness, it’s Lois who is off to see a shrink.

“Tell me about all your sex dreams,” says the shrink, in a feigned British accent. “Your vivid sex dreams.”

But, all of a sudden, Lois doesn’t want to talk about her erotic fantasies.

“Be a sport,” says Dr Plum.

“Couldn’t all this nudity and frenzied animal lust be a metaphor for something else?” says Lois.

“Unlikely,” says Dr Plum. “But there’s a slim chance that instead of signifying your all-pervading lust for Superlad, they instead signify, I dunno, an urge to uncover some kind of hidden secret.”

“Hmmmm…” says Lois. “This sounds crazy. But I sometimes feel the closer I get to Superlad, the more likely it is he’s going to disappear.”

“Yes, that is crazy,” says Dr Plum. “He doesn’t have the ability to teleport away to another place. I mean, please.”

“What about in the fortress fight at the end of Superman 2,” says Lois.

“Not canon,” says Dr Plum. And she’s sniffily stern on this point, before ruining it with an awkward segue. “But speaking of sucking face with co-workers and inexplicable memory loss that’s not strictly canon, what about the fact you can’t remember three weeks of your recent past?”

Lois won’t dignify that awkward segue with a retort. At least, not a dignified one. That’s true, by definition, don’tcha know? Instead she refuses to take a call from The Blur™.

“You’re still hot for The Blur™, aren’t you?” says Dr Plum.

“Oh yeah?” says Lois. “Well, if you’re so smart, why am I having sex dreams about Superlad? Hmmm??”

And Dr Plum smiles a sad little smile. She’s so cute, yet so stupid.

Back in TIAC’s little Room o’Nerdiness, Superlad’s grousing about the fact that Lois won’t answer the phone.

“What’s more important to her than taking a phone call from The Blur™?”

“If you freeze her out,” says TIAC. “She’ll give you the cold shoulder.”

“Is that supposed to be clever? Or a clue?” says Superlad. “Is Lois Mr Freeze?”

TIAC ignores him.

“Don’t you see,” says Superlad. “Lois is the only one who can clear The Blur™’s name!” Because, yeah. It’s not like Superlad knows any other reporters. Or works in an office full of them. Or, like, is one.

TIAC doesn’t bother pointing this out. “Well, if that’s true,” she says. “You’re in trouble. Because somebody’s totally co-opted your brand.”

“He’s got Remy Zero!?!” says Superlad, furious at this criminal’s audacity. “Somebody save me,” he mutters.

“Brrrr-rrrrand,” says TIAC. “With an ‘r’.”

“Ah.”

TIAC then brings up a whole heap of S-symbol’ed web sites, before revealing that The Blur™ is also on Facebook, Myspace and Twitter and is trying to help Superlad with their social website omnipresence.

“This maniac needs to be stopped,” declares Superlad. Nobody uses MySpace these days. What is this, 2004?

Across town, a combination of a cougar and a puddle of water defeat a pair of criminal gangsters.

And if that’s not a sign that the Wonder Twins are in town, I don’t know what is. They ‘S’ up the car and are about to scarper when they accidentally bring down a power line, electrocute the gangsters to death (ha ha ha! that’ll teach you to commit crime in the vicinity of inept superheroes) and black out the entire city.

Cut to the next morning and Lois is still ragging on The Blur™

“Boy,” she says. “He might have effortlessly murdered those two criminals, but he’s totally brought the city to a standstill, electricity-wise,” she says. “What a totally lame dick.”

Superlad doesn’t know which misconception to clear up first, so opts to instead stand around looking kinda baffled by everything that’s going on around him. Play to your strengths, Welling.

“Are you sure the Blur™ didn’t call you to give his side of the story?” says Superlad.

“He called,” says Lois. “I snubbed him.” She thumbs her copy of The Rules lovingly. “And since when did you become The Blur™’s biggest fan, anyway?”

“I’m not a fan,” he says. “I just think he’s misunderstood and enigmatic and sexy.” But Lois has wandered off. So instead Superlad finds Jayna’s phone.

Back at Wonder Twin HQ, Zan is starting to wonder whether or not they’re superhero material.

“Look at me,” he says. “I can turn into a bucket of water. What use is that, really?”

Jayna tries to cheer him up, but before she can concoct a plausible lie, Zan’s phone rings. It’s Superlad calling on Jayna’s phone. But because this is the ‘nobody picks up Superlad’s calls’ episode, he hangs up and the two of them go to activate their powers. Because, yes, turning into a puddle is exactly the best way for Zan to get out of this mess.

“Wonder Twin Powers… Activate!” they say. But as they go to touch hands, Superlad arrives, in full Blur™ regalia, and intercedes in their hand touch. They fall over unconscious and wake up in TIAC’s Room o’Nerd.

“It’s gotta be the Blur™” says Zan.

But, no, it’s TIAC who steps out of the shadows, failing to look or sound ominous or interesting. “You two better watch yourselves,” she says. “I’m, like, the Blur™’s sidekick. And that makes me awesome and superior to you, despite my lack of lame powers.”

The Wonder Twins yawn. “Well, we’re trying to fuel The Blur™’s legend too,” says Jayna.

“You’re destroying what he stands for,” says TIAC. She quotes from her Blur™ Handbook, Chapter Nine, Section 67.2 iii) “The Blur™ does not condone heroes hanging out in buckets, pails, vessels, jugs, vases, …”

The Wonder Twins sigh. If it’s in the Handbook…

Meanwhile, back at The Daily Planet, Superlad gives Lois a call as The Blur™ and tells her that it wasn’t him who was doing all those dumb superheroics. Nuh-uh. It was just a couple of inexperienced twins, one of whom has kickass animal-transforming powers and one who is kind of a walking kiddie-pool.

“People aren’t gonna buy that,” says Lois.

“You’re probably right,” says Superlad.

“So let’s instead squabble about how you haven’t called me in weeks,” says Lois. And off she goes on a lengthy, irritated rant peppered with Star Wars references and typical Lane foulmouthery.

“Dude, is it your time of the month or what?” mutters Superlad. But, uh oh, back at the NerdCave, Zan’s been goofing around with TIAC’s audio tech and has turned off Superlad’s voice distorter that hides both his identity and more cosmically insensitive comments when he’s talking to Lois as The Blur™. As a result, this comment comes through loud and clear in his normal voice.

“Superlad?” says Lois. But he’s already hung up.

So now Lois knows Superlad is The Blur™ but he doesn’t know she knows. Ergo, we must have comical screwball scenes at the Kent farm where Lois says things like ‘I hope you didn’t mind me disrespecting The Blur™ yesterday’ and ‘boy, if only I knew who the Blur™ was, I’d sure shag him silly’ and ‘hey, Superlad, you’re the Blur™, aren’t you?’

Superlad deflects all of this. His photo of Dead Bo Kent stares down from above the fireplace approvingly.

But back in Metropolis, the Assistant DA is challenging The Blur™ to come out of the shadows and work hand in hand with the Metropolis police force.

“Prrffrrt,” says Superlad. “I’m not going to hold a policeman’s hand.”

Lois has now headed back at the shrink’s office.

“I just found out the Superlad and The Blur™ are one and the same,” she says.

“One and the same,” says Dr Plum, curiously unaware of this particular turn of phrase. “Which one’s one? And which one’s the same?”

“I don’t know,” says Lois, flustered and dimply. “Still, they’re both eerily similar. Heroic. Not too bright. With only the most fundamental grasp on the basics of acting.” She prattles to herself for a bit about how she wants to help, but doesn’t know how and doesn’t know whether she should tell him or just pretend she doesn’t know or what. Then she comes to a decision and storms out of the session. “Thanks, Doc,” she says.

“Hmmm?” says Dr Plum, engrossed in The Oxford Dictionary of Idioms and Phrases.

TIAC meets up with Superlad. “Hey, you’re not going to come out to the Assistant DA, are you?” she says.

“What?” says Superlad. He knew all this talk of holding hands would give people the wrong impression.

“Coming out as The Blur™,” clarifies TIAC.

“I might have to,” says Superlad. “Or else the Assistant DA will bring shame down upon my father’s ‘S’ symbol.”

“He’s going to call you a coward and a vigilante,” says TIAC. “But you’re going to have to let him do it. He’ll try and turn the people against you. But you’re going to have to let him do that too. Because you’re the hero Metropolis deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So they’ll hunt you because you can take it. Because you’re not our hero. You’re a silent guardian, a watchful protector. A–”

Superlad interrupts her. “I want that Dark Knight DVD back, by the way,” he says, as a curiously Jayna-esque ladybug flies away.

Over to the Assistant DA, urging Superlad to come forth.

“A true hero would not hide. He’d come forth and show himself and apologise for the mistakes he’s made,” he says. “Maybe he’d also tap-dance a little or sing or pose in swimwear,” he goes on to say, presumably mistaking superheroes for Miss America contestants.

Lois interrupts him and gives an impassioned speech about how hot The Blur™ is and how she knows him intimately and how he has to remain hidden to be an effective symbol for hope and a shining beacon for the people of Metropolis. Or some damn thing. I lost interest when I realised Lois wasn’t going to don a bikini for this speech.

Afterwards, she’s confronted by the Assistant DA on top of the Daily Planet roof.

“Tell me who the Blur™ is,” he says. “Or I’ll throw you off the roof.”

“Touche!” says Lois, because she read it somewhere.

So some hoodlums emerge and hurl her to her death. Cunningly, they’ve painted an ‘S’ on the roof to incriminate the Blur™ in this murder. Less cunningly, they don’t take the five seconds to confirm her death, so she grabs a flagpole and dangles precariously.

Onlookers below take photos of Lois as she dangles. Oh, you upskirting deviants! Get a life.

Superlad reaches down to save her, because d’oh! Still can’t fly. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Luckily, the Wonder Twins are on hand to save the day. They ‘Wonder Twin Powers Activate’. Jayna turns into a pit bull and tears the Assistant DA to pieces (ha ha ha!), while Zan, uh, turns to steam and lowers a plummeting Lois safely to the ground. And that, dear readers, is why if you jump off a building on a foggy day, you will not die. Go ahead, try it!*

Superlad meets up with Lois at street level. Despite Lois’s last words before plummeting being that she knew he was the Blur™, and that she didn’t want him to save her and reveal his identity, because he was too important to the world to do that, Superlad’s still sticking to his guns about not being The Blur™.

“Who the heck put crazy-glue on my biceps?” he says. “I bet it was the Blur™, who I’m totally not.”

“You’re such a liar,” she says. “I guess you’re just not that into me.” And she thumbs that book too. So many self-help books, so little real advice.

The phone in the phone booth rings. Lois answers it. It’s the Blur™, telling her to not stupidly fall off any more buildings. Lois does a hilarious double take between the phone and Superlad. “That was the Blur™,” says Lois. “So you can’t be him.”

Unless, y’know, it’s a tape recording or TIAC using the same voice-disguiser. But, hey, I’m sure we’ve already talked about how Lois’s cuteness compensates for the fact she’s as dumb as a wrench. So we’ll let it go.

And that’s about that. Superlad tells The Wonder Twins to ‘respect the shield’ and ‘be less inclined to hang around in buckets’. Lois tells her shrink that she doesn’t know who she loves any more, Superlad or The Blur™. Or… maybe that delivery boy from the pre-credits sequence – huh, never noticed him before. And TIAC calls The Wonder Twins the ‘fog and dog duo’. Because that’s just how TIAC rolls, idiotic speech-wise.

And we end it with Superlad revealing his true secret to Lois. Where, by ‘true secret’ we mean ‘a fresh new lie’. He claims to be short-sighted and hence dons a pair of specs.

Boo-yah! About time, four-eyes!

Lois celebrates his new-found geek look by sucking his face and having yet another sex dream, but this time one that morphs into red skies and dead bodies. So she falls unconscious.

Next Week: Wendy and Marvin!

* Do not try this

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