#Clark being so deadset on not trusting Lex's attempts to go good

[distort-opia]

In other news I re-read Superman: Birthright and I am now the living equivalent of the MAN HOLD ON. HOLD ON A SECOND meme :) There's... a specific aspect to their dynamic in this comic that makes me want to just. Gnaw off my own arm.

Lex and Clark had been friends during highschool, after Lex moved to Smallville, and it was because of Clark. Clark saw this person who was so frighteningly intelligent and "other" compared to his peers, incapable of hiding all the ways in which he was different. He saw Lex being so impulsive, prone to mood swings and lacking the emotional intelligence (at that point) needed to know when to intervene and when to retreat, visibly set him apart. Meanwhile, Clark had managed to assimilate, to make himself unnoticed, but on the inside he felt like he was apart-- so when Lex rolls into town, it's almost heartbreaking how fast he becomes fascinated and attached.

And yet there's this inevitable barrier. Lex talks about feeling like he doesn't belong on this Earth, about searching for alien life among the stars; essentially, looking for a place to belong. And Clark painfully relates to that, except he can't say it, he can't divulge the secret of who he really is, because of his promise to his father. He keeps seeking Lex out and trying to help him as much as he can, but he can only do it from the position of an outsider in Lex's eyes. But then Lex holes himself up in a lab for weeks, with Clark obsessively checking in on him and attempting to talk to him... leading to The Incident. Aka, the device Lex had been building was powered by a Kryptonite shard that had led Lex to Smallville, in his quest for alien life. So for the first time ever, Clark feels weakness and pain so intense he can barely speak, as a result of his exposure to it; and Lex, in his erratic state, mistakes it for fear. He throws Clark out.

And what's driving me bonkers about this is that Clark had decided to go there to tell Lex about his powers, about him not being of this Earth. Going against his Pa's wishes, because he couldn't bear the thought of Lex fully unraveling. He never gets the chance to, because Lex is blinded by his experiences and sees the worst in Clark's expression. In Lex's mind, he'd just showed Clark something so important to him, and Clark had balked just like everyone else.

And again. Kryptonite. Clark's a kid. He's feeling the worst thing he's ever felt, in the presence of that rock. But he still pounds onto the door, tears streaming down his face, for Lex to let him back in-- where the freaking meteorite is!

[gestures speechlessly for a second] I mean. I don't know about you but that makes me want to eat drywall. Clark doesn't care about the kryptonite, doesn't ask himself why he's feeling like this or doesn't even think about getting away, he's just desperately trying to fix it. To make sure Lex doesn't believe Clark hates him, asking for forgiveness, when it isn't even his fault. But of course, the power grid explodes, and Clark is too weakened to do anything about the ensuing fire. Lex is greatly injured in it, and his father dies. It's the last time Clark sees him, before they meet as adults.

The horribly tragic irony of Lex having come to Smallville to find proof of alien life, and then that very proof finding him, but Lex never knowing... it's just so compelling. While Clark didn't manage to tell Lex the truth, Lex also never suspected it, not even when a machine he'd built for detection purposes pointed at Clark. He immediately assumed it was broken and threw a fit about it. Lex wasn't able to look past Clark's "disguise" back then because he was so caught up in being angry at the world, and he never managed to see Clark enough to not assume the very worst of him at that critical moment. He never managed to trust Clark enough, and assumed the worst possible scenario when all Clark had been feeling was pain.

AND THEN. They meet as adults. And oh my god, it just must've hurt, the way Lex didn't recognize Clark at all. It doesn't even really matter if Lex actually did remember Clark Kent, but he just pretended he didn't to keep in line with erasing all of the evidence of him ever being in Smallville, because it's still a rejection of who Clark is. It declares him as insignificant. And then Lex meets Superman, and poses the exact same question: do I know you? Not even now does he manage to see Clark; not even when he's a super-powered, othered being, in his "alien" form. He doesn't make any connection between kid Clark Kent's reaction to the meteorite and the way Superman reacts to the kryptonite.

He never really realizes that he's hurt and alienated and let down the person he's been looking for all along, and that is the reason for the look of disgust and disappointment Superman levies at him, and which Lex resents to the point of orchestrating Superman's downfall. Once again, it's a look from Clark that sends everything crashing down, that Lex interprets his own way without hesitation.

AND YET! Mark Waid just keeps fucking going! And yet, despite Lex trying to destroy Superman, he's the one to actually tell Clark who he is. It's because of Lex's invention that Clark finds out what his planet was named, who his parents were, what his family was like-- it's Lex who inadvertently gives Clark something he'd been looking for all his life. Both Lex and Clark had been looking for the place they belonged, and then Lex ends up delivering that to Clark while trying to kill him.

"You weren't always, Lex." But Lex doesn't know what he's talking about! He doesn't know what he's ruined, and it's so sad, both for him and for Clark-- who all along, had just wanted to share who he truly was with Lex and to help him, but Lex... never sees it.