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.

Okay. This one almost slipped past me. But not quite. We kick off at Luthorcorp with Superlad admitting to GA that he’s lost Lois (who, as you no doubt don’t recall, collapsed in a gibbering heap at the end of last episode).

“How do you lose an unconscious woman?” asks GA.

“Dunno,” says Superlad, wiping hot dog mustard from his chin.

I’ll tell you who does know. Little Miss Luthor, that’s who. She’s strapped Lois up to some kind of mind-probe, where she sees that Lois is in the future. Or her mind is. Or some damn thing. The important thing is that Zod’s Kandorian soldiers are afoot and all powered up. This is despite the presence of a red sun, which, traditionally, saps the powers of your average Kryptonian/Kandorian. One of the soldiers zips over to Lois.

“You’re a filthy human,” he says.

“Dude, I’ll have a shower,” says Lois, because that nudity clause is in her contract for a reason, dammit! But instead of stripping down, she tries to run away. From a Kryptonian. Yeah. Good one, Lois. “The Blur™ will stop you!” she says, when the soldier inevitably zips in front of her again and blocks her path.

“Nuh-uh,” he says. “The Blur™’s dead.”

And we pan up to an ominously tattered cape with an S symbol on it.

“That could be anybody’s cape,” says Lois, clearly heavily in denial.

After the credits, Little Miss Luthor decides she wants her brainwaves sync’ed to Lois’s.

“If Zod is going to take over the world, Lois’s memories will show me how,” she ‘explains’ to her Head of Technology and Strapping Women To Mind Probes.

“Lois’s memories of the future?”

“Of course,” says Little Miss Luthor. For the arrow of time is nothing to her.

Back in the future, Lois wakes up in the Kent Barn, which now doubles as some kind of concentration camp for humans. A Kandorian soldier strangles and incinerates an Earthling for stealing a pair of those ghastly Crocs.

“But they’re so comfortable!” he screams, with his dying breath.

“Hey, who’s got some food?” says Lois, appetite, as always, whetted by the smell of burning human flesh.

“You got something to trade for it?” says the soldier.

“I do,” says Superlad. He hands over a worthless bauble of some kind. Or an immensely valuable one. I dunno. I can’t keep track of such things.

They hug and Superlad tells Lois that this is not a dream, but rather a dyslexic future.

“Dystopic?” says Lois.

“That’s the one,” says Superlad, snapping his fingers. “We were invaded by a Kryptonian army led by a villain named Major (snicker) Zod. I tried to fight them but I made some bad choices and a lot of people were liked…”

“‘Liked’?”

“Killed,” says Superlad, correcting himself. “A lot of people were killed. Dystopic future. Not dyslexic.”

“Tell me TIAC wasn’t one of them.”

“TIAC wasn’t one of them,” says Superlad.

“Phew!” says Lois.

“Actually, I have no idea,” says Superlad. “She might have been. I haven’t talked to her in months.”

The Kryptonian soldier from earlier shows up. “Yo, Snorkers,” he says. “Zod would like to see you.”

“Protect the Legion ring,” whispers Superlad, who amidst the otherwise confused dialogue has somehow gleaned that it is a key to Lois’s time travel antics. He then goes to punch the soldier and gets hurled through several crates full of Crocs. The Earthling prisoners all cheer!

Back in the present, Superlad is confronting TIAC.

“You’re hiding Lois!” he accuses.

“Um, nope,” says TIAC. “I may have been spying on you for several episodes, but somebody else has been playing hide and seek for a lot longer.”

“Good Ol’ Pete?”

“Little Miss Luthor.”

“Ah.” It’s all so obvious.

TIAC heads over and picks up the script. She explains that Little Miss Luthor is mixing and matching brain waves with Lois and decrees that Lois’s comatose reliving of her future past will cause post (or possibly pre)-traumatic stress disorder that will cause her heart to explode!

“That doesn’t make a lick of sense!” says Superlad.

“Perhaps,” says TIAC. “But it creates much-needed dramatic tension.”

Over in the future, a handcuffed Lois waits for Zod and eyes off a fruit bowl sitting fruitily atop a table.

“Try a banana,” says Zod, wandering into the room.

Lois ignores him. She’s in handcuffs. That’s kinky enough for this timeslot, surely. She grabs a date instead. Zod steals it and introduces himself.

“I’m General Zod,” he says.

“‘General’. Prrffft,” mutters Lois. Somebody’s rather full of himself all of a sudden.

Little Miss Luthor pops in. “Hey Lois,” she says, with a friendly wave.

Lois punches her in the chops. “Traitor!”

“I helped General Zod take over this planet to ensure its survival,” says Little Miss Luthor. “Also, he promised me Australia.”

“Really?” says Lois. Oh, sure, Australia might have been worth something back in, say, 1980. But these days you’d be a fool to align yourself with Zod in exchange for such an overrated tourist destination.

The three of them then all discuss Superlad for a bit and whether or not he will eventually come to understand that Zod is saving the planet from destruction. Zod is of the opinion he will come to his senses. Lois is less convinced. “Superlad?” she says. “Understand?” She shakes her head. “I just don’t see it.”

Little Miss Luthor is forced to agree with Lois.

“I’m forced to agree with Lois,” she says.

“Fine,” says Zod. “Then I’ll publicly execute both Lois and Superlad.”

“Y’know,” says Lois. “Maybe he will come to understand your point of view. He’s not as dim as everybody makes out.”

But nobody’s buying that. Not after nine seasons. So after the ad break and some fancy kneelin’ work, Zod summons Lois and Superlad to Luthor Mansion for some executin’.

“Let her go!” says Superlad. “Just kill me!”

“See?” says Zod. “Dim as the day is long.” He turns to Superlad. “By defying me you have forced my hand.”

Superlad sighs. “Well, okay then,” he says. “Kill us both.”

“I will,” says Zod.

“But I’m not defying you any more!” says Superlad.

“I’m just doing what you asked me to do,” says Zod.

“Coises,” says Superlad, finally seeing the verbal trap Zod has sprung on him.

Zod pulls out a sword and goes to chop Superlad’s head off. But, naturally, before he can do it, a kryptonite arrow flies through the air, killing a random henchman. Superlad springs to his feet and drags Lois out of harm’s way. Other people burst through the skylight, firing more Kryptonite arrows that kill more henchmen.

“Uh, GA?” shouts Superlad. “Try shooting the Zod guy.”

But it’s too late. One of Zod’s supersoldiers whisks him away. GA pulls off his mask. “Oh, GA,” says Lois. “I’m so glad to see your face.”

“I know,” says GA. He is ridiculously handsome.

TIAC also pulls off her mask, for, inevitably, she’s there too. “I’m in charge of this group of rebels,” she says. She looks around. “No, seriously. I am.”

But nobody’s paying attention to her. “Hey, look!” says GA. “Little Miss Luthor is having a death scene.”

And she does, emoting magnificently and tearfully explaining how she only wanted to own a sovereign nation which is 90% desert and full of venomous snakes and Bindi Irwin. She croaks.

Back in the present, Little Miss Luthor awakes with a startled gasp and turns to her Head of Technology and Strapping Women To Mind Probes. “I’ve been to the future,” she declares. “A bizarre future where TIAC shoots me in the gut with a kryptonite arrow. But a future, nevertheless. Now make sure that you wipe Lois’s memories of that future. It’s far too dangerous for her to remember.”

“Remember the future?” he says, still struggling with it all.

“Yes.”

“But if I get it wrong she’ll end up catatonic.”

“Do you think viewers care about Lois’s mind?” says Little Miss Luthor. “Now get to work.”

He refuses and cops a bullet to the brain for his trouble. Superlad shows up and, while stumbling comically around in the Green K-filled room, manages somehow to also get mind-linked with Lois.

So, back to the future where Superlad explains to the others that Lois time-travelled to the future via the Legion ring.

“About that,” says Lois. And she explains that Zod snaffled it during their vaguely erotic handcuff-fruit scene.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” says Superlad. But he has a backup plan. “If we get the ring back,” he says, glaring at Lois. “Lois can return to the past and prevent Zod’s tower from being built in the first place.”

TIAC and GA explain to the viewers how the tower works. As if anybody cares. It turns the sun red, okay? That’s all we need to know.

“Why don’t you hack into it and destroy it with a computer virus, TIAC?” says Superlad.

“It’s not that simple,” says TIAC.

“Sure it is,” says Superlad. “You’re always hacking into things.” He turns to Lois and beams. “Hackers are magicians,” he explains. He then claps his hands together. “Once the sun’s yellow again, I’ll grab the Legion ring, Lois can go back to the past and voila! Bob’s our nephew.”

“Wait,” says Lois. “I understand the hacking part. That’s easy.”

“It’s actually close to impossible,” mutters TIAC. Lois ignores her.

“But how does turning the sun yellow make Superlad our number one weapon?” says Lois.

Superlad, GA and TIAC look back and forth at one another. She still doesn’t know?

“The sun and I have history,” says Superlad, finally. And leaves the room before Lois realises that doesn’t explain a single thing.

We then cut to a few hours later, with Superlad and Lois blathering on about how sad it is that Superlad and TIAC aren’t friends any more (some gibberish trust issues that I skipped because they were so dull) and about how it hurt when Lois disappeared and yak, yak, yak. The director, knowing how tedious a scene it is, orders the pair of them to do it shirtless. Alas, only Superlad complies. The pair of them then start shagging one another silly.

“Is this in the script?” says Lois.

“Ha ha ha!” says Superlad, taking his hand off her breast. “Straight into the blooper reel.”

Meanwhile, back in the present, look who is pointing a pen light into Superlad’s eyes. It’s our favourite TIAC one-upper Dr Spectacles. He’s found Superlad unconscious in Little Miss Luthor’s mind control lab and is trying to sort things out. TIAC wanders in.

“I’ve called an amberlance,” she says.

“Am-BU-lance,” corrects Dr Spectacles. “While you’ve been doing that, I’ve reverse-engineered this code and determined that Superlad is now locked into Lois’s memories. I’ve also devised a stratagem for unlocking them from this machine without doing irreversible damage to either of their brains.”

“Is that a priority?” says TIAC. “Look, you have to leave Superlad in there so he can get memories of the future so that he can stop it from ever taking place.”

Dr Spectacles frowns. “I think it’s time you and I discussed some basics of the space-time continuum,” he declares. He turns a blackboard over, pulls out some chalk and starts scrawling timelines. But instead we pan to Superlad…

And back in the future, GA, TIAC and Lois are about to hack in to Zod’s tower. GA inexplicably suits up and hands Lois a kryptonite dagger. “I’ve encased it in lead so that the enemy won’t know about it until it’s too late,” he says.

“That’s… sweet.”

TIAC presses a button and the virus is uploaded.

“Come on,” says GA. “The Kandorians will track us down and be here any minute.”

“I’ll just wait behind for a random minute,” says TIAC. “That way I can race out after you and be intercepted by that super-powered time-travelling assassin from the season opener and, since GA will not be there to save me for some reason, I’ll then be stabbed to death in front of Lois.”

“‘kay,” says GA. And he and Lois scarper.

Lois reacts to TIAC’s disembowelling with typical denial. “No!” she shouts. She rushes over to her. “You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be fine.”

GA comes around the corner, wiping hot dog mustard from his chin. “She’s not, y’know,” he says. “Now get going back to the past so you can prevent this future from happening. I’ll stay here and fight this approaching enormous army of super-powered aliens with but my bow and arrow.”

“kay,” says Lois. And she scarpers.

She runs over to find Zod dragging Superlad through the deserted streets, lecturing him on all manner of things from the importance of kneeling before one’s superiors to advanced kneeling techniques to places where one can procure high-quality knee padding. When Zod turns to find his Carmen Electra: Fit To Kneel exercise DVD Box Set, Lois tosses him that kryptonite dagger.

But Zod sees it and kicks Superlad away. He turns to throttle Lois, but his tower collapses in the background. The yellow sun returns. “Your reign of terror is over, Zod,” says Superlad, who has regained his powers and his footing. “I’m sending Lois back to the past where she can warn us all about the present, which she will perceive as the future because she’ll be living in the past, which to her will be the present.”

“What?” says Zod. Superlad steps forward to explain it, looking for a blackboard. But it’s a trick. Zod stabs him with the kryptonite dagger.

“Oh yeah,” says Superlad. “Forgot about that. Thanks a lot, GA.”

But with his dying breath, he’s snagged the Legion ring. He gives it to Lois who, as she zaps back to the past is intercepted by the assassin from the season opener and they both head back.

But we’ve seen all that. Yawn. Superlad wakes up before he has to sit through Brian Austin Green’s interminable breakdancing.

“How’s Lois?” she says.

“I think she’s fine,” says TIAC.

Dr Spectacles clarifies. “I was able to isolate the synapses in her cerebral cortex and transmogrify the neurons using a chemical inhibitor in such a way that she emerged totally unscathed from this event, but without her future memories. Also, I defragged that laptop’s hard drive.”

And that’s about all, really. Of course, TIAC’s being a total killjoy bitch, going on about how they’re all doomed to die grisly deaths in the future unless they somehow, like, change it.

“I plan to become best friends with Zod,” says Superlad.

“That’s a stupid idea,” says TIAC.

“Look,” says Superlad. “I tried to fight him in the future and it led to dyslexia. This time I’ll be nice to him.”

“He’ll get his tower up and his powers back,” says TIAC. “He’ll fly psychopathic circles around you.”

“Like Cornu spirals?” says GA. The others ignore him and his showpony geometrical book-learnin’.

“We’ve seen what happens when we treat Zod like the enemy,” says Superlad. “This time we’ll try a different plan.”

So, cut to Superlad (in his Blur™ guise) popping in to visit Zod and his soldiers.

Zod turns to him. “Kneel before Kal-el!” orders Zod. And the soldiers comply.

Well, all right, thinks Superlad.

Next Episode: The Superlad-Zod team!

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