#Jalana Olsen

[panda-escapades]

Easter Eggs/references from Kiss Kiss Fall in Portal

I wanted one place where all of this was together so I'm putting it together. I was hooked when I saw that the episode title itself was a reference to Ouran Highschool Host Club. I primarily enjoy DC content through their animated works, please let me know if I'm missing something from the comics, live action, or something else.

First we get Superman from Earth-F aka Superman from the Fleischer Superman Theatrical Shorts(1941–1943) (Mxy calls it Earth 12, this seems to be a typo in the script as Earth 12 is the MAwS earth and mentions that earth just before in the list, or there are multiple Earth 12s.)

Then we get Superman from Earth 50 aka Superman from Super Friends (1973-1985)

Then we get Superman from Earth 508 aka Superman from Superman: The Animated Series (1996-2000)/ Justice League (2001-2004) / Justice League Unlimited (2004-2006)

Then the final Superman from this scene Superman from Weird Earth. I think this is first instance of this kind of variation with superman as doing a quick search links the DC character 'The Weird' But I also love when multiverse productions just do weird and silly versions of things (looking at you hot dog hands Everything Everywhere All at Once)

Our next batch of References is to and to the League of Lois Lanes, founded by Lois Prime, the first Lois to discover (and based on how she is talked about communicate and or travel to other universes). Our introduction to them has he League of Loises asking Lois lane and Jimmy Olsen of Earth 12 to come with them. While discussing the situation The League of Loises tell us that Earth 12 was a previously unknown universe to them (until Monsieur Mallah and the Brain opened it up last episode) and Mr. Mxyzptlk has used that opportunity to get MAwS Superman to help them. (We know that the League of Lois Lanes has lied to our MAwS Lois and Jimmy, and that Lois Prime didn't trust everyone. The very foundation of the organization could be fabricated to some degree as they all could be considered unreliable narrators but I can't see why they'd like about that big of world building so for now I'm taking that exposition as is). Lois Prime is also always refereed to in the past tense so we as the audience are supposed to assume she's dead.

For the Time Being I'm not going to discuss the League memebers as I am trying to just focus on the easter eggs (or so I told myself) But in the credits they are listed without an earth number and as Leader Lois; Grizzled Lois Lane; Robotic Lois; Lewis Lane; Jalana Olsen

Here are the images we get of Lois Prime. She appears to also be from the Fleischer Superman Theatrical Shorts(1941–1943) just with the art style blended a bit with MAwS.

The next batch of references are the ones from the museum, which is said to be on earth prime.

First we get some establishing shots with a Big Mace (Thanagarian Mace) aka Hawkgirl's next to a Mother Box. This version of the mother box is based on Jack Kirby & Mike Royer's design.

The Next Establishing shot we see a green lantern Power Battery, a T-Sphere, and a leather bound book with a that has a circle with a triangle in it. I'm just not sure what it is. The Book of Black does have a circle with a triangle on it, but it's black so I figure it's probably not that.

Then we have Mxy and Superman enter and Mxy drops the act and admits he just wants to steal and knocks off a golden helmet. The gold helmet that is Doctor Fate's Helmet. Then in the background we have some metal objects, a sword, and a blue cloak. The silver and gold metal objects could be shields, but there's just not enough details for me to sink my teeth into looking deeper. The sword is very generic, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was Excalibur as that shows up from time to time. Another Option could be the Vorpal Sword as its in the same display case with a blue cloak which could be Blue Boy's Witching Cloak. Though its also possible to be Raven's Cloak, or anyone who used a blue cloak.

Next are named objects by Mxy Cosmic Rod aka Stargirl's staff.

And the Flight Ring aka Legioneer flight ring. In the background we can also see Wonder Woman's gauntlets as well as her lasso of truth. The flight ring also blocks the view of a triangle on a staff as well as some metal tubes.

Then Mxy Passes by the Soultaker Sword (The Katana) before grabbing the tape recorder he came for and that's the last of any clear objects in the museum.

Then we get a cute bonding moment with Jimmy and Jalana where she shows off meeting Comet the Super-Horse.

While that happens Earth-12 MAwS Lois sneaks into the locked room to see files on other Loises. The first we see is Lois Lane from Earth-52 who's an award winning reporter.

Then we see Lois Lane from Earth-24. She's sporting a key to the city, but with her style of fashion is very kingdom hearts. They even have the detail of using one of Utada Hikari's hairstyles for her as has been done for Kairi.

Then we get the last computer file Lois Lane from Earth-1 who is "Ready to meet with Dad" I personally think this is another foreshadowing moment that in this iteration of the characters her dad is going to be "The General" that we saw back in episode 2.

Next bit we get is the meet up in Earth 14, which could have them landing in an uninhabited area, or it could be fully desolate. While everyone else is there Mxy steals the ship with Earth-12 MAwS Lois and go Headquarters. The entrance of Headquarters has holograms of several Loises.

The front most Lois lanes we get include Lois from Earth-F aka from the Fleischer Superman Theatrical Shorts(1941–1943) (just like the first other Superman we saw). And across from her we get the another Lois paired with one of the other Superman we saw. Lois Lane from Earth 508 from Superman: The Animated Series (1996-2000)/ Justice League (2001-2004) / Justice League Unlimited (2004-2006)

Next to Lois Lane from Earth 508 we see a Lois Lane as Superwoman.

Next to Lois Lane from Earth-F we see a woman with a Hijab and Labcoat. There are 3 more holograms on this side of the hall, but we don't get a close up and the other Loises.

We do get a few more details of the others as Mxy and Lois of MAwS walk through the hall. We see one black woman and an indigenous woman.

The Last bit of HQ potential Easter Eggs we get is this shot of Mxy opening storage for weapons. However, if they are references I think they're to things outside of DC. The biggest sword in there is Gut's sword from Beserk. I would love to hear from people if they recognize any of these objects. I'm going to make a second post focusing on just that shot here.

The the last ones we get are Lois reviewing the Superman File X

The first Superman we see doesn't have any kind of chest logo is Overman from Earth 17

The second Superman with white cape is Superman is a villainous Justice Lord called Lord Superman.

The Last Superman we see with the face scar doesn't seem to have any counter part so my money is he's a Superman from one of the League of Loises Earths.

I'm really enjoying My Adventures with Superman. The team seems to really get what a Superman story is supposed to be about and how there is supposed to be fun and love in it. I do wish we could have a longer season because the pace is just so fast and it would be nice to settle in. But that's a bigger issue with the industry right now with studios ordering seasons to be short mini series instead of the traditional 26, but that's a conversation for another post and not a reflection of the team making the show.

[azulso]

I need more of Lewis and Jalana

[thebatfamdeservesbetter]

Jimmy olsen not just being the best character in his universe but the best characters in the MULTIVERSE is so true of them

[livianstingypotato]

The other Loises are such a bitch.

Jalana, on the other hand, is a real one.🔥

[swan2swan]

trans folks

[beeclops]

[nofacednerd]

Jimmy Olsen + Jalana Olsen = The Olsen Twins ^w^

Infodumping about your shared special interest to an alternate universe version of yourself is peak sibling behavior

[nitewrighter]

Scoops! (Part 4)

What's this? It's Lois Lane with a steel chair!

Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3

Read it on AO3 here!

----

The good thing about the shipping yard is that it was big enough for the four of them to slip past the perimeter of emergency responders by… okay, yes, basically breaking and entering into one of the storage buildings and cutting through to the street from a side exit from there. They were cutting through a long backstreet now, the goal being more about putting more distance between themselves and that column of smoke back in the shipping yard rather than heading anywhere in particular. Lois wondered how aware Lewis and Jalana were of how much of what they were doing was illegal. In retrospect, Lois realized she did a lot of trespassing when it came to getting her stories, so on the one hand it kind of made sense that an organization of alternate universe-Loises wouldn’t acknowledge ‘no trespassing’ signs on private property, let alone entire dimensions, On the other hand, she was starting to get as annoyed with herself as much as them. Her head was just a furious soup of questions and anger and worry at this point. She missed the way she felt balanced out with Clark. Sweet, dutiful, Clark, with his “Lois, that’s illegal,” and his ��Lois, I don’t think this is a good idea,” and of course, his, “Lois, where did you get that crowbar?” For all the UFO talk, she really could trust Jimmy to be a sensible person as well, but Clark was really the one who always made them feel like they were on the right track. They probably would have figured out whether to ditch Lewis and Jalana by now, if Clark were here. Well, okay they probably would have to have ditched Lewis and Jalana by now if Clark were here, but right now, Lewis and Jalana could be their only means of getting to Clark.

“So… have we decided yet?” Jimmy said very quietly to Lois as they briskly walked behind Lewis and Jalana.

“I’m still thinking,” said Lois. 

“If we’re going to leave, we don’t have a big window,” said Jimmy, “If that report brings in reinforcements…”

“What if we split up?” said Lois, “I’ll stick with the League and…” she trailed off. 

“I don’t like our odds split apart,” said Jimmy, pretty much saying what she was already thinking.

“But the odds would be better if either of us found Clark,” said Lois, still loathe to walk away from the only possible access to interdimensional technology they knew.

“Again, not a good chance of that from within a cell,” said Jimmy.

Lois’s lips thinned thoughtfully, “She said she’s ‘borrowing’ Clark, she said she meant our universe no harm, she used to be an interdimensional arms dealer, she was talking about ‘poison’ flowing into her universe…” Lois narrowed her eyes at Lewis and Jalana. “There’s more they’re not telling us.”

“They’ve already acknowledged there’s a lot they’re not telling us,” said Jimmy. His brow furrowed for a second. “Jalana said her universe was used as a dumping ground for dangerous stuff. Why would the League just… let that happen?”

“Because they’re jerks?”

“I mean, the universes are connected to a degree, aren’t they?” Jimmy was pressing his fingers to his forehead, “That’s why there’s multiples of us, multiples of certain events…” 

“And they said the Spider Lady could catalyze an event here that we aren’t ready for,” said Lois. “If she needs Clark—”

They were both cut off at the sound of Lewis’s gauntlet beeping again.

“Are you getting Scoops’s signal?!” said Jimmy, but neither Jalana or Lewis responded to him, both of them quietly bickering again.

“You have to answer it,” Jalana had lowered her voice. 

“You answer it!” Lewis said between gritted teeth, clearly distressed.

“Oh for—” Jalana hit a button and the gauntlet started projecting a hologram of the slightly more weathered but distinguished face of the Leader Lois.

“Olsen,” she said crisply, “Lane.”

“For the record, I told her that we shouldn’t get this universe’s Lane and Olsen involved,” Lewis started.

“As you stated multiple times in your report,” said the Leader Lois, more exhausted than agreeing, “But I’m to believe that the Spider Lady was indeed seen in this universe and you didn’t call for backup?”

“Our goal was to gather more evidence. We weren’t about to divert resources from a multiversal APB on the word of two suspected accomplices of Mxy,” said Lewis, “And then… before we knew it, there she was.”

“And now the Kryptonian who previously escaped us is helping her,” said the Leader Lois.

“He’s not helping her! He’s her prisoner!” Lois blurted out from behind them.

“Good to see you again, Lois,” said the Leader Lois drily.

“Likewise,” said Lois, with matched coldness.

“I appreciate your cooperation in leading my operatives to the Spider Lady,” said the Leader Lois, “But I won’t be requiring your input on the League’s actions from here.”

 “So what, do I not get any say in what happens to my universe until I get a Pulitzer?” said Lois.

“Lois,” Jimmy said in warning, and Lois caught herself, withdrawing slightly. Right, probably not best to antagonize.

“Leader Lois, this universe’s Jimmy and Lois have been cooperative,” said Jalana. 

“That’s an interesting word for it,” said Lewis.

“I think we’re at the point where League protocol is hindering us rather than helping us,” Jalana went on, “We’re operating too much on archival data from other universes to meet the needs of newer ones. We’re also letting assumptions from League Protocol distort our observation.”

“We’re new?” Jimmy said very quietly, before glancing at Lois, “How are we new?” 

Lois just shrugged.

“How do you mean, Olsen?” The Leader Lois tilted her head.

“Respectfully speaking, Leader Lois,” said Jalana, “During our postmortem evaluation of the Mxyzptlk Incident, I revisited our archives to better inform my updates to this Lois’s dossier. The Lois of this universe shares incredible overlaps with the qualities of Lois Prime.”

“I do what now?” said Lois.

“Of course she does,” said the Leader Lois, “We’re all literally the same person in different universes, and we assessed long ago that she doesn’t meet League standards.”

“No, she doesn’t, but there wasn’t a League when Lois Prime founded it. Lois Prime didn’t even come up with the League standards! This Lois is… unpolished, sure, but she displays levels of compassion and curiosity that we haven’t seen in years.” 

“You’re mistaking emotional compromise for compassion,” said the Leader Lois flatly

“Okay, maybe, but still!” said Jalana, “The League used to ask questions. We used to investigate! Now we expect everyone in our ranks to fall into line at all times, to follow orders without question, and we basically inflict our authority wherever we go in the multiverse regardless of the consent of the different universe’s governing bodies.”

“That last part—Th-that’s what I said earlier,” Lois said very quietly and blankly, before looking at Jimmy, “Jimmy, what’s happening?”

“Jalana’s saying nice things about you,” said Jimmy.  

“…huh,” said Lois. Compassion? Her brow crinkled at the word. How am I compassionate? she thought, I pretty much freaked out and shut down when I found out Clark was Superman. I got so caught up in my own drama that I didn’t even notice when Jimmy got kidnapped by a gorilla. I’ve been snapping at her and Lewis since we ran into them—okay I said sorry for that, but still… all I said to her was we both want to keep our universes safe. Is the bar that low? Lois’s face suddenly dropped with realization. That thing about orders… Oh my god. It’s a League of Me’s that have all turned into my dad.

Jimmy’s phone made a blipping sound and he instantly checked it. His eyes widened as he showed the screen to Lois. It was Scoops’s GPS feed, back online. Which meant Scoops was still in their universe, and hopefully, the Spider Lady and Clark, too. Lois’s eyes flicked back to Jalana, Lewis, and the Leader Lois arguing. If the Leader Lois clearly already had a strong idea of Clark’s place in all this, they didn’t have time to try and convince her otherwise. Lois glanced back down at Scoop’s GPS location on Jimmy’s phone. Parnassus Avenue? But that was where—

‘Parasite’ she mouthed to Jimmy.

Jimmy set his jaw and gave her a nod of understanding. ‘Let’s go?’ He mouthed.

Lois gave him a single, serious nod.

“Bravery for us didn’t always mean charging in somewhere with guns!” Jalana was still going on, “It used to mean the willingness to try and understand something when everyone else is making decisions based on fear!” 

“…something like a Clark?” the Leader Lois arched an eyebrow and Jalana caught herself.

“According to records, we didn’t used to destroy things based on what they could become,” said Jalana.

“…a mistake that several universes paid for with their very existence,” said the Leader Lois, “Olsen, I didn’t open this channel to debate the League’s methods and morality with you. I came to recall you to League headquarters and to bring that universe’s Lois and Jimmy back into custody for questioning. So if you’re quite done, we still have a multiversal criminal at large and—where did they go?” 

Lewis and Jalana looked over their shoulders to see Lois and Jimmy were gone. 

“Oh for—” the Leader Lois pinched the bridge of her nose, “Belay that. The Spider Lady takes priority. Report back to headquarters. We need to consolidate and review your intel.”

Lewis squinted at one of the bits of data on his gauntlet, “Leader Lois, I think they might be heading toward—”

 “You have your orders, Lane,” said the Leader Lois flatly.

Lewis blinked, then looked over at Jalana. “Y-yes, Ma’am,” said Lewis, glancing down.

Jalana noted the tight line of his mouth.

“I’m ending the transmission. I’ll see you back at headquarters,” said the Leader Lois, her hologram clicking off.

“It’s the drone, isn’t it? It’s here,” said Jalana.

Lewis said nothing, unable to meet her eyes.

 “Which means she’s here.” Jalana set her jaw. “But you have your orders, don’t you?”

“We need to go,” said Lewis, dialing in the coordinates for headquarters, not looking at her.

“Look, just because they have a strong attachment to their Clark, that doesn’t automatically make them opposed to the League—” Jalana started.

“Do you think they would run if they weren’t guilty?” said Lewis, opening the portal on his gauntlet. 

“I think they would run if they didn’t trust us to help their universe,” said Jalana, glaring at him. Her expression suddenly softened with realization. “Or there’s something else.”

There was a distant rumble, and then the sound of sirens. Both Lewis and Jalana turned around to see a strange glow emanating from where parasite husk previously was. Both flinched at the sound of a loud, distorted noise, like a roar.

Lewis took a tense breath and moved toward the portal.

“Lewis!” Jalana blurted out desperately.

“We couldn’t stop the Spider Lady on our own back in that shipping yard, we’re not going to stop her by running over there now,” said Lewis, “We go to the League. We tell them the threat is still in this universe. We get backup.”

Jalana stared over at the clouds of dust now rising up from between the buildings. She furrowed her brow and bit her lip. “…fine,” she said stiffly, following Lewis into the portal.

——

Superman may eventually become Metropolis’s favorite son, but the city’s true unsung hero was its robust public transportation system (aside from a runaway bus here and there). It was thankfully a shorter tram ride from the industrial district to New Troy than the ride from Clark and Jimmy’s apartment had been, but it was still agonizingly slow for Lois. She looked out the tram window to see several armored vans careening around a corner, several SCU guards already moving to make a perimeter around Parnassus Avenue. That was when the sound hit—that roar. The whole tram rocked, and a swell of worried voices overlapping each other filled the vehicle, as the light coming from Parnassus Avenue shifted.

“Is it the parasite?!”

“I knew we should have gotten rid of that thing!”

“We were trying to get rid of it, that’s probably how the dumbasses turned it back on.” 

“Oh god, I can’t do this again—”

“Superman beat It before, right?” 

“No one’s seen him all day!”

“That’s not true, he saved my cousin from getting hit by a taxi, earlier.”

“This is bigger than a taxi!”

Lois pulled the ‘Stop request’ chord running alongside the window. The tram didn’t even stop completely as the doors opened and she and Jimmy hopped off.

“It’s not safe out there!” A tram passenger shouted at them as she and Jimmy ran off. There was still just enough chaos, just enough confusion for them to slip through the still-forming perimeter relatively unnoticed. All of Parnassus Avenue was hazy with settling dust. 

 There were still uniformed and higher-ranking police officers scattered around, half of them trying to direct the fleeing hazmat suited scientists, others trying to get testimony on what they had seen in the tents. To their credit, Lois and Jimmy were pretty good at sneaking at this point, or just looking like the kind of people everyone expects to be grabbing someone else’s coffee—something between those two lines. Being interns was worth that much, at least. Lois was struck by how much light was hitting the street now, how wide the gap between the buildings overhead was now that the Parasite husk was gone.

“I don’t know if it exploded or imploded—” she overheard one of the hazmat-suited scientists, trying to explain to a detective, “I want to say imploded, because there wasn’t debris flying around and we didn’t get fried, but it’s not like I had time to look with that crazy woman shooting things!”

An SCU officer with her helmet off, sandy-colored hair too long to be a pixie and too short to be a bob, was yelling into her phone. “Goddammit, no, Commissioner, there’s no way I’m sending more men in there until we have a better grasp of what’s actually happening. We’re spread thin between here and that explosion at the shipping yard, I’ve got three officers unresponsive, and eyewitness accounts saying they think the Parasite caught on fire. And now, apparently, there’s an armed assailant carrying an unidentifiable firearm, and at least one hostage. We’re establishing a perimeter, then we’re bringing in a negotiator.”

“Yeah, there was a big guy, and a short lady—sexy outfit, too—no the lady had the sexy outfit,” another hazmat-suited scientist was talking to an SCU officer.

Lois became very aware that there was an armed woman with her face running around in this situation and quickly brought up the hood of her jacket. Even through the hood she heard the crackle of the police scanner.

“Be advised, break-in and assault reported at Siegel Street in Bakerline—”

“I’ve got a hit-and-run on North 22nd street in Queensland Park—” 

“Any units available, I know we’re spread thin right now, but I’ve got a call for a wellness check in Midvale, and the caller seemed extremely distressed—”

Lois’s lips thinned. She and Jimmy were always telling Clark there were emergency services, and there were. She knew he shouldn’t be running himself ragged for a city that had managed not to burn itself down before it had Superman (Untrue, she later learned, as Metropolis burned down once in 1857, and also had a chain of disastrous bathtub whisky fires one summer in 1926). But for all his alienness and the overwhelming spectacle of his abilities, he was still someone kind enough and conscientious enough that a lot of people trusted him more than cops, or he was someone who got there faster than an ambulance and you didn’t even have to worry about money, and now here was the chain reaction of the city suddenly experiencing his absence while being faced with something only he had managed to stop. If it was the Parasite.

Think, Lois, she’s you. And she said she wouldn’t hurt your universe. What would she want with the Parasite? What was it Lewis said about the same thing manifesting differently across universes? What we think is one thing in our universe could be…? Maybe it changes as it’s pulled over—no wait I was still me in whatever universe the League headquarters was in. Goddammit this is already enough of a headache just dealing with multiple me’s!

“Lois!” Jimmy pointed ahead—a part of the green tenting that had been surrounding the Parasite—where the Parasite had once been, was torn, flapping in the winter breeze. Jimmy gave a glance to his phone just to confirm that was where Scoops’s signal was coming from, and gave her a nod. Both she and Jimmy ran forward and slipped through the tear. The tear lead them into a clear-plastic lined area where apparently all the hazmat-suited technicians suited up, with a cluster of lockers and benches. 

“They had a pretty serious setup here, huh?” said Jimmy. He snapped a few pictures of the locker area for good measure. 

“Can’t stand to think what they’d want with that thing…” murmured Lois. What she would want with that thing… she thought, her stomach turning. 

Lois and Jimmy moved through another makeshift decontamination area, pushing through clear plastic sheets, then a dark green tent flap, just in time to see Clark struggling in the grip of a golden android.

——

Clark remembered the sensation of the Parasite leeching into him. Ivo had an odd penchant for grabbing him by the face, but the real pain was in the sapping. It was an icy, prickling, nauseating ache, where there was an immediate pain seeping down from that point of contact, down his neck, which sent shockwaves through his whole body. Clark knew he could hold his breath for a lot longer than any human, but every time it happened, he was overcome with a strong feeling that, aside from the prickling, poisonous, invasive nature of the pain, that this was probably also what drowning felt like, but without the water. Whatever oxygen there was in his body wasn’t doing what it was supposed to be doing, the cellular reactions shutting down as energy was sapped from them and screaming out in desperation. 

Amazo didn’t feel like that. 

There was still that bone-chilling invasiveness of the pain, the acute sensation that there was something in his body that should not be there, but that drowning sensation wasn’t there. Instead, images were flooding through Clark’s head: The first time he flew, whipping through a cloud and coming out soaking wet and cold and laughing. That time in fifth grade when Whitney Fordman punched him in the face during PE and ended up breaking half the bones in his hand, his parents talking very quietly and urgently with the school’s principal, Whitney’s hiss of ‘Freak’ under his breath, his voice warped by stuffed-down sobs. Lying on the roof of the Kent Farm barn, fingers interlaced behind his head, listening to the song of crickets and realizing he could see the astronaut footprints on the moon. Pa Kent’s laughs turning to stunned silence when they were tossing hay bales and Clark sent one sailing out over the cornfields and Jonathan had to tell Clark no, he couldn’t do the hay bale tossing contest at the county fair—that year or ever. Jimmy in college glancing at his schedule and shaking his head with a lopsided smile, ‘There’s no way anyone’s getting across campus that fast, Clark, you’ll miss half the lecture,’ then raising his eyebrows to see Clark sitting right next to him, right on time.Lois walking in front of him at the Planet, talking about something, while his own head was swimming as he was struggling to get his x-ray vision under control—Bra (pink), then skin (mole on her lower back), then muscle (knot in her neck), then ribcage, and lungs, and fast-thumping heart before he tore his eyes away and stumbled away stammering about a migraine. That one morning he was homesick and unconsciously focused his super-hearing just to hear Ma humming and cooking breakfast. That first hit of Red Omega energy—he hated how familiar that powerlessness was, now. Watching that alternate universe version of himself obliterate buildings with heat vision. The agony of Kryptonite crystals tearing through his body—That memory was enough to prompt the question ‘Is this dying? Am I dying right now? Is this my life flashing before my eyes?’ In his head. But no, it wasn’t that. Throughout the rush of imagery, Clark became acutely aware that he was not the only one seeing this. And it wasn’t his life, he realized, it was his powers. 

Clark’s eyes snapped open and he grasped at his neck, his own fingers feebly clawing at Amazo’s grip. No, you don’t get to see this. No, this isn’t yours.

Amazo just stared at him steadily with red-orange eyes, the android’s expression empty. Suddenly there was movement behind Amazo, Clark’s eyes widened to see Lois and Jimmy running up from a corridor—

And then all at once, Amazo dropped him. The moment Amazo’s cold metal fingers no longer had contact on Clark’s neck, that rush of images, of unbidden memories ceased. Clark felt like a laptop that was unplugged mid-software update, and had the mental image of a gnarled root being torn up from the ground at Kent Farm, dirt scattering up in the sunlight. He blacked out, not even feeling the impact of the ground as he hit it, and not even sure if he imagined Lois’s cry of his name. Lois moved to rush to Clark on reflex, but stumbled to a stop as the Spider Lady pointed her toastmaster at her and Jimmy.

“That’s close enough,” said the Spider Lady, stepping in front of Clark, “We’re all so close to getting what we want now, and I would hate for you two to mess it up by being morons.”

Jimmy gave a glance to his phone, the GPS feed on Scoops’s app indicating that Scoops was indeed, right in front of him, and he stared up at the Android. The android stared down at the prone figure of Clark Kent on the ground, before looking at its own hands, as if confused.

“Scoops…” Jimmy started and the Android looked over at him, tilting its head. 

“Don’t confuse him. He’s not your silly little drone any more,” said the Spider Lady, shifting the aim of the toastmaster over to Jimmy, “And he has a mission.”

On the ground, Clark’s consciousness managed to begin poking through his pain and exhaustion again. He heard the Spider Lady’s voice first.

“Amazo,” said the Spider Lady, “As your primary user, I order you to destroy the League of Lois Lanes.”  

There was that fizzing sound again, and Clark opened his eyes and, very carefully tilted his head to see another interdimensional burn hole opening, Lois and Jimmy were frozen in place. Lois’s eyes flicked to him.

Poker face, Lois, please. Poker face. For once in your life, don’t react— Clark thought desperately, and maybe she read his expression because almost on cue, Lois set her jaw and shifted her gaze back to the Android, watching as Amazo lumbered through the burn hole and it closed behind him, before turning her attention to the Spider Lady.

“You said you wouldn’t hurt Clark,” she said, keeping her gaze steady.

“So long as you stayed out of my way. He’s actually fine. Amazo doesn’t siphon power, he duplicates. The process is just a bit of a shock, that’s all.”

“And your plan this whole time was destroying the League?” said Jimmy.

“My plan this whole time was saving my universe. The League is just one of the obstacles in the way of that.”

“So you’re using Clark’s powers to turn Scoops into a weapon,” said Jimmy, a quiet horror in his voice.

“And all of those Loises—all of those us’s are going to die,” Lois’s hand clutched into a fist at her side.

“So?” said the Spider Lady, “They deserve it. They used my world as a petri dish, and they used your Clark for target practice.”

Clark’s eyes fixed on the Spider Lady’s bracelet. Non-lethal setting… he thought, his entire body was already tensing with with trepidation at the very idea of what he had to do.

“There’s Olsens there, too!” said Jimmy.

This actually managed to make something ripple across the Spider Lady’s face. “Not the one that matters to me,” she said stiffly, before straightening herself up. “I’m a woman of my word,” she said, lowering the toastmaster, “I’ll be leaving your universe alone, now. You can have your Clark back. But no sudden moves. And the inhibitor collar stays on.”

Clark, with as much care, silence, and subtlety as he could manage, pushed himself up to a kneeling position. I just need a few more seconds.

“I take it you’re leaving this universe with the remote,” said Jimmy, “How are we supposed to get the collar off?”

“You’re a Jimmy,” the Spider Lady scoffed breezily, “I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”

Clark’s eyes flicked across Jimmy and Lois’s faces. Don’t hate me for this, he thought.

The Spider Lady glanced down at him. “What are you—ow-!”

Clark suddenly seized the Spider Lady’s bracelet-bearing wrist, pressed down on the red gem, and yanked her arm downward, jamming the bracelet against his collar. The sparks were flying as he squeezed his eyes shut. It was stupid. He knew it was stupid as he was doing it.

It hurt.

A lot.

Just stay conscious. Just stay conscious. Just need to stay conscious until—

Suddenly, the electricity hurt less. 

It’s back.

Blue light was blazing at the periphery of his vision as his alien clothes, his Superman clothes, phased back into existence. Adrenaline, or whatever the hell was the Kryptonian equivalent, flooded through his body, nerves previously panicked by repeated bouts of agony seemed to settle into a warm calm that almost felt like sunlight, along with a sharp awareness that the world was suddenly made of cardboard again. Careful. His thumb crushed the red gem of the Spider Lady’s bracelet like it was a piece of candy, and the electricity ceased.  The world returned as a roar in his ears as his brain scrambled with the return of super-hearing. Clark shoved the Spider Lady’s wrist away, breathing raggedly and shaking.

“Why the hell would you do—!?” The Spider Lady was looking at the crushed gem on her bracelet.

Clark jammed his fingers between the collar and his neck and wrenched with a furious grunt. The collar shattered off of him like it was made of cheap plastic, the steel cables of his handcuffs snapping in the process as well.

“…that…” the Spider Lady’s face went blank, calculating.

“Needed to… short the collar,” the words came out of him breathlessly.

He was still shaking and panting as his arms dropped to his sides and his fingers loosened, letting bits of broken collar clatter to the ground. He noticed a shift in the Spider Lady’s eyes and her fingers tightening on the strap of the toastmaster. 

Clark knew he was fast, the truth was, he didn’t like thinking of how fast. When he moved fast, it tended to be pure instinct, with a vague concept of Zeno’s paradox at the back of his head. Have to be fast enough to move halfway there and halfway there and halfway there and halfway there, ad infinitum. He didn’t like thinking of how, turning on Lois’s shower earlier that day, damned slow the falling water droplets seemed in that moment when he was in a hurry. Fast was for catching someone who was falling, fast was for getting someone out of the way of a moving car, fast was for helping Ma in the kitchen whisking egg whites, fast was for (okay this one was a little selfish) getting to work on time. Fast wasn’t for fighting because he did not feel human when he perceived a fight in terms of ‘fast.’ Fast could hurt someone, like, really hurt someone. The world was already cardboard with super-strength, and fast turned it to tissue paper.

“Superman—!” Lois, his Lois’s voice was half-drowned out, drawn out, and pitched down amidst that roar of the world. The Spider Lady was shifting the gun back to her side. Did she always move so slow?

Stop the fight before it becomes a fight.

The heat vision blazed from his eyes and hit the strap of the toastmaster, the Spider Lady flinched away from the red beams as the massive gun clattered to the ground next to her. 

Don’t think about the way the fear is bubbling up on her face in slow-motion. That’s not your Lois. Stop the fight before it becomes a fight.

He was a blur of red and blue when he rushed past her, seizing the gun and coming to a halt in front of her. He didn’t break eye-contact with her as he smashed the gun over his leg like snapping kindling.

Her mouth was hanging open furiously. 

“Fine, Boy Scout! It doesn’t matter anymore!” She whipped out her burn hole interdimensional projector, “I already got what I needed from you, and now, you can’t stop Amazo from—”

Lois suddenly rammed into the Spider Lady from the side, her legs clamping on the Spider Lady’s neck and shoulders as she swung her own weight around and used it to slam the Spider Lady to the ground.

“Scissor leg takedown,” Jimmy’s voice was hushed in awe.

“It is a good move,” Clark said blankly before wincing as Lois rammed her elbow down on the Spider Lady’s back to drive her harder into the concrete. Clark honestly wasn’t a fan of the idea of Lois getting beat up in any context, but also he decided he had received too many electroshocks that day to really properly assess his current feelings on seeing Lois beat the hell out of an evil version of herself who was wearing a low-cut dress. Still, one thing was clear: While the Spider Lady had spent years building up a criminal empire of inter-dimensional technology, unlike his Lois, she wasn’t going to a kickboxing gym twice a week. She did meet Lois with an equally terrifying rage, though. There were grunts, and audible blows of fists landing, and Lois snarling, “Don’t! You! Ever touch him again!” This was sometimes punctuated from a wincing “ooh—” from Jimmy as another blow landed. The projector clattered away from the Spider Lady, and Jimmy very quietly, very quickly, stooped and picked it up. Right when Clark was thinking, ‘Should I pull her off?’ Lois seemed to have to catch her breath, straddling the borderline-unconscious Spider Lady and gripping her by her jacket, panting with bruised and split knuckles. This seemed like a decent opportunity to fire off a very cool one-liner, but instead, Lois perked up at the sound of police chatter just beyond the tent, and the two SCU officers on the ground groaning back to consciousness, and said, “Clark, we can’t stay here.”

“R-right,” said Clark.

—-

Flight was a relief, and surprisingly, so was super-strength. Jimmy was on Clark’s back, securing himself with arms snugly (but not chokingly) around Clark’s neck and shoulders, and Clark was still trying to figure out how he felt about having a Lois in each arm. Weird. It felt weird. Kind of interesting in concept though? But mostly weird. Maybe the idea would be more titillating if one of the Loises wasn’t probably concussed right now and also hadn’t spent all day electrocuting him. His universe’s Lois was tucked comfortably against him, mostly supported by the crook of his arm, while the Spider Lady hung by the waist, face down, limbs more or less dangling, under the grip of his other arm. Initially Clark had to move fast enough so that he wouldn’t even register visually for the SCU officers in the area, but thankfully he slowed down once he was a few blocks away from Parnassus. Lois and Jimmy were both squinting in the wind, Clark was moving fast enough to make all of them a little lightheaded, like on a roller coaster. Finally, he landed on a roof that was far enough from the parasite site and the shipping yard to not worry too much about police finding them, but not so far he didn’t need to focus his super-hearing too much to decipher what was going on. He almost felt a little sad as Jimmy and Lois lightly slipped off of him, Lois dusting her jacket off and Jimmy taking out the Spider Lady’s burn hole projector from his pocket and looking it over. Clark wanted to hug them both, so badly, he wanted to try and take a minute to get some kind of mental footing on everything that had happened. But they didn’t have time.

“You’re… too late…” the Spider Lady grunted between split lips as Clark carefully set her down on the roof, “You… can’t stop Amaz—Ow!”

Lois was now pinning the Spider Lady’s arms behind her back. 

“I don’t think we can risk bringing her to the League headquarters,” said Lois, “She could give that android new orders, or get her hands on new weapons, or just escape to a whole new dimension in the confusion.”

“So…what, do we tie her up or lock her in a closet or something?” said Jimmy, hating that suggestion pretty much as soon as he said it.

“Are you kidding me?” the Spider Lady said flatly.

“…I don’t trust me enough to leave me alone, especially not here,” said Lois. She huffed out a short breath as the Spider Lady weakly struggled under her grip. “You two need to go to Headquarters. I’ll keep an eye on her, here.” 

A short, forced laugh fell out of the Spider Lady. “Good luck getting to Headquarters! I’ll never tell you how to use that—”

Jimmy pressed a button on the projector and opened up a burn hole.

“…you had ‘League Headquarters’ still dialed in as a pre-set destination,” said Jimmy.

“Goddammit, Jimmy,” the Spider Lady said through gritted teeth.

“I don’t know about this…” Clark was unconsciously feeling at the red welts around his neck from the collar.

“I don’t like it either, but are either of you two willing to beat up Lois Lane if she tries to make a run for it?” Lois asked, perfectly seriously.

Both Clark and Jimmy exchanged uncomfortable glances.

“That’s what I thought,” said Lois.

Clark sighed. “ Okay, fine. Jimmy, give me the projector.” “No,” said Jimmy, “I’m coming with you.”

“It’s too dangerous,” Clark and the Spider Lady said at the same time. Clark looked over at the Spider Lady and she just set her jaw and glanced away angrily.

“Look, I made Scoops, and you’re my best friend. Plus, knowing you, you’ll probably accidentally break this while fighting that thing, and I don’t trust the League to let you back, even if you save them. One of us has to make sure we can come back.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” said Lois.

“Are you sure you shouldn’t stay with Lois and make sure—?” Clark was floundering.

“Clark—I’ve got this—I’ve got her. Go save the League,” Lois said breathlessly.

“Are you sure?!” Clark asked, his eyes flicking down to the Spider Lady, and for a second Lois saw the fear in his eyes—the only fear you could get when you knew just how much damage someone was capable of.

 God, is he going to be scared of me after this? Lois thought. But she just gave a determined huff of breath to steel herself, readjusting her grip on the Spider Lady’s arm lock, “I’ll be fine, just—make sure you come back to me, okay?” She looked at Jimmy. “Both of you.”

Clark was just barely hovering off the ground at this point, but he cupped one hand to the side of Lois’s face and softly kissed her temple.

“Oh come on,” the Spider Lady grumbled.

 Lois wished she could clasp a hand to Clark’s wrist at his touch, even if only briefly, but she didn’t trust her alternate universe self for a second. “Just come back,” she said again.

“Right,” said Clark. 

“Don’t worry,” said Jimmy, putting one foot in the burn hole, “If anyone can stop that Scoops-Amazo-Android-Parasite thing, it’s Superman and Jimmy Olsen!” 

“You’ve got this!” said Lois, trying to match his energy as Jimmy stepped through.

“You be careful, too?” said Clark, “Please?”

“Always,” said Lois.

She was never careful, and they both knew that, but all the same, he trusted her.

“We’ll be back soon,” said Clark, flying through the burn hole as well.

“I know,” said Lois, not knowing if Clark could hear her as the burn hole closed behind him.

Both she and the Spider Lady were left alone on the roof. A cold breeze blew through.

“They’re both going to die, you know,” said the Spider Lady, before going, “Ow-OWW-ow!” as Lois shoved her forearm up in the arm lock.

 “Don’t push me,” said Lois, flatly.

[melonypanda]

My Adventures with Superman 1x6 Kiss Kiss Fall in Portal

(Ok first off the name akdjfjgjgj it’s an Ouran ref I love it)

The CW has now picked it up oh no I hope they don’t ruin it

Clark didn’t change his answers from the first interview he’s still figuring things out I love

The fact that Clark is literally Superman and he still had eyebags

Clark being a lil gremlin over the perfect date lmao I love it

The transition from Clark’s insanity board to Lois’s lmaoo

The reference to the multiverse

[Was I a crab?]

Clark is traumatized from being a crab lmao

“But if you’re sure you’re not Superman…” [woooshh]

Mr Mxyzptlk is such a gremlin I love him

[Lois Lane, I’m Lois Lane, that’s Lois Lane, and that’s Louis Lane. We are the league of Lois Lanes]

JALANA OLSEN IM LOSING IT AT JIMMY JUST SURPRISED PIKACHU-ing

This is gonna be my favorite ep I love the multiverse

I’m also gay for all the many Lois’s

Clark is such a himbo I love him

Krypton reveal audjdjjfjgjf

2 flamebirds geeking out iconic

The loises are hiding something hmmm I don’t trust them tbh

…did all of the Loises kill their Clark’s? I don’t trust them

Not Participation Trophy Lois

Ok Myx at full power is fucking terrifying

The fact that Jimmy putting a weakened chaos demon in a headlock is strong enough to defeat him lmaoooo

Once again this is so owl house coded to me like Lois with the orb is giving me Luz with the diary mouse

Holy heck that ending man this is why this show makes me watch it again and again

[anissapierce]

Objectively funny tht ppl are ten toes to the ground saying tht lewis lane is intentionally trans ....no thoughts jalana Olsen though. Like also the assumption tht lewis was gay w his clark ... Ok so we gonna discuss jalana though

[historyhermann]

My Adventures With Superman Season One Spoiler-Filled Review [Part 2]

Continued from part 1

The voice cast is talented. Jack Quaid lent his voice to Peter Parker / Lizard in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and more prominently as Ensign Bradward "Brad" Boimler in Star Trek: Lower Decks. This series marks one of Alice Lee's first voice roles, apart from voicing a character in Mickey Mouse Funhouse. She has played characters in TV series since 2009. Ishmel Sahid has been working on similar series since around the same time. In an exclusive interview with Lee and Sahid, both said they were excited to see fanart, but also said it was challenging to maintain the high energy of Lois and Jimmy. Both noted the writers and producers helped them. They described how they had to adjust their speaking voices to the characters and explained the flair they gave each character through the voices.

One member of the voice cast, Kari Wahlgren, is well-known. She voiced Martha Kent, and young Clark Kent, in this series. She has done dubbing of anime characters since 2002, and has voiced iconic characters in Western animation. This includes Electronique in Kim Possible,  Suzy Johnson in Phineas and Ferb, Tigress/Sheena in Carmen Sandiego, Callie in the somewhat underrated Cleopatra in Space, and Zatanna in DC Super Hero Girls. She also lent her voice to characters in Sym-Bionic Titan, Young Justice, Infinity Train, Dota: Dragon's Blood, The Ghost and Molly McGee, The Owl House, Velma, and OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes.

Wahlgren is voice actor powerhouse in her own right. There are few voice actors, in the cast, who have voiced as many characters as Wahlgren. One exception is Zehra Fazal. She is recognized for voicing Nadia Rizavi in Voltron: Legendary Defender and Halo/Violet in Young Justice. She also voiced Faraday and Shannon in Craig of the Creek, Mara in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Zahra and Sabrina in Glitch Techs, General Yunan in Amphibia, and Tassia in Dragon Age: Absolution.

Reprinted from Pop Culture Maniacs and Wayback Machine. This was the forty-ninth article I wrote for Pop Culture Maniacs. This post was originally published on September 21, 2023.

Others have voiced just as many characters. Chris Parnell voiced characters in Gravity Falls, BoJack Horseman, Elena of Avalor (Migs), Samurai Jack, and Dogs in Space (Ed). Debra Wilson previously voiced characters in Cannon Busters (Lady Day), Final Space (Quinn's mother), The Casagrandes, The Owl House, Star Trek: Prodigy, Black Dynamite, and The Proud Family. Catherine Taber voiced her share of animated characters including Padmé Amidala in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Lori Loud in The Loud House. Lucas Grabeel voiced characters such as Jiku in Elena of Avalor and the haughty scammer Julian in Spirit Riding Free.

The voice cast includes other prominent voice actors. Vincent Tong voiced characters in 16 Hudson, Ninjago, LoliRock (Mephisto), My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Polly Pocket, and The Dragon Prince (Prince Kasef). André Sogliuzzo voiced King Bumi in Avatar: The Last Airbender and King Verago in Elena of Avalor. He also voiced characters in Samurai Jack, Star Wars Rebels, and The Owl House. Darrell Brown previously lent his voice to characters in Gabby's Dollhouse and Madagascar: A Little Wild. Azuri Hardy-Jones voiced Jade in Deer Squad. Kenna Ramsey voiced various characters in video games.

Apt viewers may recognize Jake Green, Laila Berzins, Jesse Inocalla, David Errigo Jr., Max Mittleman, and Andromeda Dunker. Errigo Jr. is known for voicing Ferb in the 2020 film, Candace Against the Universe. The film is the most recent iteration of the Phineas and Ferb franchise. Inocalla voiced Soren in The Dragon Prince. Berzins voiced characters in indie animations such as Satina, Wild Card: Shuffled, and Monkey Wrench.

Other well-known individuals voice bit characters in the seventh episode: Kimberly Brooks as Jalana Olsen, Osric Chau as Lewis Lane, and Lauren Tom as Leader Lois. Brooks is best-known as Princess Allura in Voltron: Legendary Defender and the rough-and-tough Jasper in Steven Universe. Some may remember Chau as the one who voiced the villainous computer hacker known as The Troll in Carmen Sandiego. Tom voiced Mop Girl in recently ended a mature animation, Disenchantment, and Amy Wong in currently airing Futurama, another mature animation. This differs with actors such as Reid Scott, Joel De La Fuente, Melanie Minichino, and Michael Emerson (as Brainac). All four do wonderful voice work on this show, but have almost exclusively, or exclusively, previously done live-action TV series.

Warner Bros. Animation is a subsidiary of the Warner Bros. Discovery conglomerate. This subsidiary produced Velma, Harley Quinn, DC Super Hero Girls, Young Justice, Justice League Unlimited, Teen Titans, Justice League, Static Shock, Superman: The Animated Series, and Batman: The Animated Series. Rooster Teeth, another subsidiary, is recognized for RWBY, its flagship series. The CRWBY is doing all they can to ensure RWBY gets a tenth season. The RWBY superhero crossover film (part 2) is coming out this fall. It may include a version of Superman, like part one.

A largely-circulated spreadsheet in which people anonymously described their conditions in animation studios mentions Warner Bros. Animation. In one entry, Warner Bros. Animation is said to have too much work and treat workers badly. However, it acknowledges that each production is different. People on Glassdoor praised Studio Mir for high-quality projects and talented colleagues. Others were more critical.

Whatever the second season of My Adventures with Superman brings, the number of fans will continue to grow (including the  10,000+ fans across two subreddits), regardless of the corporate decision to air it on Adult Swim rather than Cartoon Network, possibly because of "dark moments" in the series. Hopefully the next season goes above and beyond what the first season delivered. Even so, I can't rate this series high enough, as it is just as strong as Harley Quinn and superior in many ways to the sometimes-convoluted Young Justice and mediocre Velma.

My Adventures with Superman can be streamed on Max or Spectrum. It can also be purchased on Prime Video, either as an entire season or individual episodes, iTunes, Vudu, Google Play, or Microsoft Store.

© 2023 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

[animatedminds]

Catching up on "My Adventures With Superman"

I've been watching this one but doing it in the stints thing where I take a break for a couple weeks and then binge a few episodes at once. Just did one of those to catch up to the present and thought I'd share my reactions to the latest episode... seeing as it features my favorite of all of Superman's villains: the illustrious Mr. Mxyzptlk.

I know I'm Super late on this (ha), given that this is six episodes in, but I think I'll just give my thoughts on the two-parters coming up as they come/conclude and then my final thoughts on the show as a whole when its over. You can already get a bit of that towards the end of this, though. Episode 6: "Kiss, Kiss, Fall in Portal." So, this one reminded me of Spider-Verse. Not the movie. The original comic. And not in a good way. It has that same "we'll introduce the multiverse to give every bit of continuity ever made an established place so that we can homage everything... but actually devalue everything by forcing it to fit into a very rigid and contrived paradigm" feel.

For a while I've been starting to think the people who make this show don't actually see Superman's world and characters as especially interesting, which is why they've mostly been turning them into imitations of other things. The Legion of Lois'es, especially, really brought that feeling out: so the ultimate evolution of every prominent Lois Lane in every previous Superman property we've ever seen is... to cease to be Lois Lane and become Flash Gordon instead? It's such a jarring contrast for the primary Lois in this series to be someone whose main motivation is to become a reporter and help people by getting answers, only for the show to say "once you become the best you can be you won't even need to be a reporter anymore - then you'll be a cool sci-fi hero and do cool sci-fi hero stuff!" - and it then feels like Lois feeling insecure falls flat because none of these characters even do the things she or any other Lois we've ever seen cares about. I think it mostly hit me this way because this doesn't really get a resolution. The characters give the Multiverse Police the slip (which I do love, see below), but there isn't really a "I'm going to be the best I am because that's who I am, not what you think I'm worth" moment from Lois. She (and thus, the show) just kind of internalizes it.

I might be being harsh on it, I think. But it's comes off an idea that was intended as a homage on paper but ceased to work as one in execution - and instead maybe felt a bit like the opposite. On top of that "we love these characters and put them on a pedestal through nostalgia, so what if characters in-universe actually had the same reactions to those same characters and treated them the same way" is pretty much an idea I've never seen work out - it always just ends up turning characters into reflections of fan reactions, instead of allowing them to be... well... characters.

I'm explicitly not getting into the Clark implications, firstly because everyone overreacts the hell out any time an evil Clark or Clark-like character shows up in anything these days, second because the issues with the concept are evident even before Clark comes into it, and third because - due to the first - I think people are focusing too much on Clark specifically and not enough on how the concept as a whole wasn't great to characters involved (except Jimmy / Jalana because this show's versions of any Olsen continue to be a treasure).

And fourth because the "the characters discover some versions of their friend went bad" does actually line perfectly well up with the season's overall plot about Lois' dad being a paranoid nutter, but the Kryptonians maybe being evil and Clark being an unclear cog in the gears of this strange mystery. It's a plot decision I really liked in this show: I'm suspecting we might end up with something Iron Giant-esque, where all evidence points to the hero being a monster, but the hero refuses to fall into expectation as their friends refuse to fall victim to the fearmongering.

But... overall, all that is why I really liked how the main characters' ultimate response to the judgmental multiversal police squad was a "screw you guys, we're going home" without even a goodbye. Screw that noise. Presumably the Lois'es from other continuities who pointedly aren't among the Lois'es actually in the judgmental multiverse police squad did something similar. Live your life as yourself. Good message, though I think show could've been more overt about delivering it.

On the flipside, Mxy was fun. He was a tread to Lois & Clark's "more malevolent Mxy who wants to be a god" idea, which is... hate to repeat myself... fun. But being fun it what's most important where Mxy is concerned. It's a little less interesting to have a Mxy who needs power because he wants to be a god vs a Mxy who already has power and finds concepts like godhood boring, but I don't think traditional Mxy is in line with how this show envisions threats, and regardless he was delightfully tricky and - let's face it - is one of the two big things absolutely carrying the episode (the other being Clark and Lois' relationship, as usual).

All in all, the show continues to hit me two ways at once: I really love the way it's interpreting the characters and their relationships - again, Jimmy is fantastic and Lois and Clark's relationship is nuanced, adorable and continually keeps me invested - but the plot decisions that surround those great characterizations keep missing, often feeling like they're wasting good concepts.

I hope I'm wrong about the feeling I'm getting that the writers maybe have some overall apathy for Superman's world and characters, but bit by bit the show keeps making me wonder - I just wish the show would start feeling excited to reinterpret these characters rather than flippant.

Either way, though, fun episode. More Mxy is always a treasure.

[nitewrighter]

Scoops! (Part 5)

With this chapter, the fic's now over 30k words! Exciting stuff!!

God sends his toughest battles (doing research to find out all the ways Lois Lane has been killed off in the comics and other media for literally one sentence in a fic) to his strongest soldiers (Me).

Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4

Read it on AO3 here!

----

The Leader Lois was tired. She could not remember a time when she hadn't been tired. She had seen herself die in countless ways, in hundreds of times, across thousands of universes in the League Archives. Lois Lane had been beaten, suffocated, blown up, crushed under rubble, poisoned, drowned in a nuclear-bomb-triggered boiling tsunami, vaporized, petrified into an ashen husk from the inside out, and probably a whole host of other nasty endings the Leader Lois didn’t have the energy to remember at this moment. And every time, Leader Lois had seen the gap she left behind. She had seen whole universes fold into that gap more times than she could count on two hands. She knew Lois Prime had seen the same thing, and that was one of the reasons she founded the League. The Leader Lois remembered the early days of her own recruitment into the League, how special it felt to be a linchpin of reality, not realizing back then how heavy a burden it was and would continue to be. 

So what, do I not get any say in what happens to my universe until I get a Pulitzer?!

The Leader Lois wasn't sure if she envied or pitied the Lois of Earth 12-M—all that fire and passion, so typical of a Lois, but so much of it tied up in devotion to an alien being whose very existence had spelled doom for so many worlds, that had spelled her doom just as often. The Leader Lois couldn't let her mind linger too long on her, not with the Spider Lady still loose. 

Leader Lois stood in the League command hub, hands clasped behind her back. League headquarters was running with only a skeleton crew with so many agents dispatched to different universes to search for the Spider Lady, and other agents dispatched as backup to more unstable universes to maintain security during the search. Fewer members meant reduced headquarter functionality—so it was colder, and the air was just thin enough to give your head a slight buzz. There were three other Loises in the command hub with her.

“False alarm on the report from Earth Eight,” said Luiza Lanovna.

“Sweep completed, no sign of the Spider Lady in Earth 51,” said Eloise Laine.

“Earth 13 team is requesting backup,” said the shapeshifting cybercellular protoplasm currently identifying as Lois Lane.

“Redirect the Earth 51 team to Earth 13,” said the Leader Lois, “Can I get a systems check?”

“Atmospheric buoys are performing optimally. Cell block, armory, and archives are secure,” said Luiza. Something blipped on another holographic screen, “Agents Olsen and Lane are returning from Earth 12-M.”

“As expected,” said Leader Lois, “See that they’re directed to central intelligence—”

“There’s been a manual override in the gauntlet hub,” said the Protoplasm Lois, “They’re—uh oh—”

The Leader Lois’s brow furrowed as a pale blue portal opened up behind her and Lewis and Jalana hurriedly stumbled out.

"Olsen," she said calmly, "Lane. Protocol states that you were both supposed to report to central intelligence for debriefi--"

"We don't have time!" said Jalana.

"There's been an incident in Earth 12-M. We have reason to believe the Spider Lady is still there," said Lewis.

"We need to dispatch several containment teams to 12-M," said Jalana, "Before--"

"Leader Lois, one of the atmospheric buoys just picked up a disturbance!" said the Protoplasm Lois.

“What?” said the Leader Lois.

“Proximity sensors indicate a high-velocity approach to headquarters,” said Eloise, opening up another holographic screen.

“Hail it,” said the Leader Lois, “Tell it to slow its approach and identify itself or else it will be fired on.”

“It’s not responding to any of our hails, ma’am!” said Luiza.

“Get me a feed!” The Leader Lois ordered, and a large hologram screen was projected so that it was visible to the whole command hub.There was an oily, charred-looking portal, and a figure flying away from it. Gold, with an utterly implacable emptiness to its orange eyes. The Leader Lois paled. “Android!” she barked, both her hands balling in fists at her sides, “I need a recall to headquarters on all available teams! All hands on deck, start manning defensive systems!” Her head swung around to Lewis and Jalana. “What exactly happened in Earth 12-M?”

—-

Clark thought entering the interdimensional burn hole would be less disorienting this time, seeing as he hadn’t fallen into it after a blow to the head, but, no, it was just as disorienting to be back in that dark, afterimages-on-your-eyelids space.

“Woooah…” Jimmy looked around the darkness, “This isn’t like the League’s portals.”

“The Spider Lady said you called it—well, her Jimmy called it ‘Backstage,’” said Clark, trying not to pay too much attention to the shifting, dark, blurred images bleeding around them, “She said the League just punches holes between universes, but this is more of a… path between.”

“How long do we keep walking?” said Jimmy, looking around, turning the flash on his camera and pointing it into the darkness, pressing the button and lighting up… nothing.

“I don’t know,” said Clark.

“Why is it wet?” said Jimmy, lifting one of his sneakers out of the shining, sloshing liquid, “Or… not wet?”

“I don’t know,” Clark said again, making the decision to just float himself above the liquid, “Want me to carry you?”

“Nah, like, flying is one thing, but if it’s just floating I kind of feel like a purse—Wait, did you say ‘her Jimmy?’” Jimmy glanced back up at Clark as they kept moving forward.

“Well, y’know, as shorthand for ‘Her universe’s Jimmy—’” Clark started.

“I know that, but she told you about the Jimmy from her universe?”

“Um… yeah,” said Clark, “I got the whole… evil backstory flashback monologue thing.”

“Ooh, am I evil, too?” Jimmy’s eyes were wide and he had the beginnings of that ‘This is so going on Flamebird’ mad little smile.

“Yeah, kinda,” Clark was wondering if he could steer this conversation in a different direction, or if he should just rip off the bandaid and tell Jimmy. But instead he just kind of quietly trailed on, “You had a mad scientist thing going. And a mustache.”

“I had a mustache? I can barely get peach fuzz in this universe,” said Jimmy, feeling his upper lip before he caught himself, “Waaaait you’re using past-tense. Is Evil-Me dead?”

“Eh—” Clark flinched a little and folded his arms, slouching a bit as he kept floating forward. “Yeah. You figured that out pretty fast, huh?”

“Well, I figure there had to be some intense stuff to make the Spider Lady like that,” Jimmy was pacing ahead of him, he tended to walk faster when he was figuring something out, “Lois is a hothead, sure, but she got into journalism because she cares about people, and she hates bullies. It would take a lot to make her go all… shock-collar giant-gun femme fatale. Is her Clark dead, too? Or is he also evil? Or wait, if nothing was stopping all the evil stuff from pouring into her universe, and she had to use you, as in a Clark from another universe, to give Amazo powers—Her universe doesn’t have a Superman?”

Gosh, Jimmy really could put this stuff together fast. Or maybe it just all came together faster after actually seeing Amazo.

“Not really. Apparently my rocket ship didn’t make it. Or… well… it came to earth, but I didn’t make it,” said Clark, “So I’m um… a baby skeleton, in that universe.”

“Wow, that’s morbid,” said Jimmy. He paused again, “So it was just… Evil-me and the Spider Lady in that universe, huh?”

“She said her Jimmy was her best friend,” Clark’s voice got a bit distant, “Oh, also I think Evil-Jimmy was hooking up with that universe’s Siobhan McDougal.” Clark squinted a little.

“I was what—AUGH!” Jimmy suddenly plummeted out of existence, his scream cutting short.

“Jimmy!” Clark called out in alarm, rushing forward, only to be caught off-guard himself by the abrupt end of ‘backstage’ again. He was surrounded by the bright and swirling colors that indicated the nebula-like center of the multiverse where the League of Lois Lanes’ headquarters was situated. Just ahead, he could see the massive white structure, already smoking with several turrets firing off, and being met with blasts of red by a golden figure semi-obscured by smoke. He could hear Jimmy screaming below and dove down, seeing Jimmy flailing as he dropped through the multicolored nothingness. Clark dove past Jimmy and swept under him. The tricky part with catching anyone falling was making sure that they weren’t hurt by the sudden cessation of momentum, so a lot of the time Clark had to think of his own flight as something like a bungee chord, once again moving with the fall, but slowing it. The result was Jimmy going from “AAAAAHHHHH” to “Wuh-guh?”

“You okay?” said Clark, holding Jimmy bridal-style.

“Y-yeah,” said Jimmy, clutching his chest and catching his breath. He glanced over at the League of Lois Lanes and brought up his camera, snapping a picture.

“I don’t think Perry’s going to believe this one,” said Clark, letting Jimmy readjust himself so they could both have an arm free, then flying toward the League headquarters.

“I can take pictures for me,” said Jimmy, zooming his camera lens in on the golden android now swooping around headquarters, dipping out of turret fire and trying to look for a vulnerable point of entry. “Huh, Amazo flies like you,” said Jimmy, watching Amazo blast at turrets with heat vision.

“No he doesn’t,” Clark said defensively.

“Clark, he’s doing the fist-forward, knee-up thing. You’re literally doing that right now,” said Jimmy.

Clark glanced down and straightened out his leg self-consciously, then after a second, bent it up again. “Okay, this is going to sound weird and I honestly do not have an explanation for it, but I need the knee for steering. Not 100% of the time, obviously, but it’s more of an art than a science and—Look out!” Jimmy flinched himself smaller and Clark had to barrel roll out of the way of a flaming turret that Amazo had ripped off of headquarters and tossed away. Clark’s jaw tightened as Amazo punched through the wreckage where the turret had once been and disappeared to the interior of headquarters, well, they had a point of entry, now.

“That’s not the point I’m trying to make!” said Jimmy, as Clark was forced to take a long swooping detour to dodge additional debris, “Even with a learning AI, all a robot has is what you put into it. I learned that when I was putting Scoops together.”

“Jimmy, I saw the Spider Lady jamming all kinds of stuff into Scoops,” said Clark, banking hard to dodge more turret fire, “And it has Ivo’s parasite suit for a body now. We don’t know what it’s really capable of.”

“I know, but,” Jimmy’s shoulders bunched up and he cringed closer to Clark as they narrowly dodged a hunk of debris exploded by turret fire, “What I’m saying is, when he duplicated your powers, he must have also duplicated how you use them! How you think about them! He’s running Clark software!”

“Or maybe that’s just how my flying works?” said Clark.

Jimmy just gave him a flat, furrowed-brow look that told Clark, It’s actually really embarrassing that we still don’t understand 70% of how your powers work at this point, and Clark just kept flying after Amazo, diving through the jagged gap that Amazo had just blasted through.

Clark didn’t exactly get a decent look at the League of Lois Lane headquarters the first time he had come there, mostly due to the fact that pretty much his entire time spent there was spent fighting an impish interdimensional chaos god and getting thrown through various portals. And also kissing Lois for the first time. He liked that part. There was just as much chaos this time as last time, however. Dozens of League members were firing at Amazo as the android flew around, firing heat vision at various load-bearing structures and forcing the different clusters of Loises to flee falling rubble and reposition themselves.

“…he’s not heat-visioning directly at them,” said Jimmy, as Clark set him on the ground.

“Of course not! That would be horrible!” Clark blurted out before catching himself, “…Clark software,” he said after a beat.

“Clark software,” said Jimmy.

“Kryptonian!” He heard Lois’s voice and his head swung around.

Wait—Oh this is going to get so confusing, he thought as he found himself looking into the eyes of robot-arm mohawk Lois, pointing a gun at him.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve showing your face around here,” said mohawk Lois. All three of them flinched at the sound of a massive rumble as Amazo smashed through one of the walkways arching throughout the headquarters.

“Look, I don’t think any of us have time for this,” Clark spoke very quickly, “I don’t mean the League any harm, I’ve just been dragged around and electrocuted by an evil Lois all day—”

“Just like you were ‘dragged around’ by Mxyzptlk?” Robot-arm Lois arched an eyebrow.

“Yes!” said Clark, “I got lied to! I didn’t have any context on any of this multiverse stuff last time I was here! I was fighting him alongside you. Why do all of you have such insane trust issu—Right, sorry, Evil Me’s, and you’re all Lois.” Clark pressed his fingertips to his forehead with frustration, but they all winced again as headquarters rumbled again and Clark looked over to see another group of Loises shooting at Amazo. “Just—Whatever! Shoot at me if you want, but I’m trying to stop that robot, same as you.” Clark moved to take off, then paused, glanced over his shoulder and said, “Sorry for snapping,” and then took off after Amazo.

“I’m gonna see if there’s anything here that can help us beat him!” Jimmy shouted after Clark before running off.

“Hey, you’re not authorized to—!” Mohawk Lois shouted after him, “Oh for—’’ she turned her gun back on Amazo.

As Clark flew towards Amazo, arcing out of the way of energy blasts from different League members, it occurred to him that he was not in the habit of making plans. The closest thing in his head that amounted to a plan was ‘Don’t let any league members get killed’ and ‘Try not to bring the whole headquarters down’ He wasn’t really sure how he was going to do that, but he figured the first thing he could do was make sure Amazo’s attention was on him and not on the Loises or their headquarters, and to the best of his knowledge that required punching Amazo in the face. The Android only seemed to barely register his presence before his fist made contact. There were still elements of Ivo’s parasite suit in Amazo’s appearance, so Clark had a natural instinct not to make contact with it any longer than a few milliseconds, but where Clark could very much feel Ivo’s resentment and hunger behind the glowing purple eyes of the Parasite, for all its physical similarity, Amazo’s expression was… empty. Impersonal. Even as Clark’s fist smashed into it. The force knocked Amazo back and Superman kept surging forward, still punching.

Clark, shoulders, he remembered Lois’s repeated corrections from that morning and angled himself just in time for Amazo’s fist to go flying past his head, giving him an opening for a one-two jab to Amazo’s face and rib plating. Clark tried to remember Lois’s positioning and movements from their sparring that morning, the economy of movement and reaction, the flow from one strike to another, and found he was honestly surprised at how many hits he was getting in because of it. Jab, jab, uppercut, jab, right hook—

Amazo seized his arm and whipped him around like a flail, first sending him flying, then smashing through one of the walkways. Clark heard Lois screaming—Wait, no, she’s back in your world— but he was already instinctively diving in the direction of the scream. Of course, it wasn’t his Lois but it was still a Lois—one with an eyepatch and a mullet, and whose League sidearm was some kind of elaborate sniper rifle, tumbling through the air.. The falling rubble didn’t really give him the space to catch them bridal-style so the catch was really more of a tumbling mid-air tackle with him covering the back of their neck with his hand and then using flight to angle himself so that he took all the hits from the falling debris, all the while the butt of their rifle was jamming him awkwardly in the solarplexus. Still, it only took him a few seconds to right them both in the air and fly up to a safer walkway along the walls.

“Are you all right, Miss Lane?” he asked, setting them down.

“Mx. Lane,” they corrected, dusting themselves off.

“Oh, gosh, sorry. Are you all right, Mx. Lane?”

“I’m fine, thanks,” said eyepatch-mullet Lois, readjusting their rifle.

“Good—” said Clark before Amazo rammed into him from the side with the force of a freight train. Amazo and Superman both slammed into a wall, sending more dust and debris tumbling down from the ceiling. Amazo had both Clark’s arms pinned against the wall, forcing him to headbutt it. The hard strike from an invulnerable skull sent Amazo stumbling back and Clark grunted in pain, rubbing his own forehead, recovering from the pain just in time to see Amazo resuming a ready fighting position.

All those hits and barely a scratch on him, thought Clark, trying to catch his breath. There was a terrifying click in his brain of 'I don't have to hold back.' He did though, he knew he did. Taking an approach of ‘all heat vision all the time’ would put Amazo on the evasive, and likely cause a lot more damage to the structure around them both. There were all the league members running around to consider. Lois's voice overlapping on itself, varying in volume and pitch, shouting orders to each other which sometimes resulted in scattered showers of energy blasts at both him and Amazo. They weren't using kryptonite guns at this point, at least. He may still be a threat, but as far as they were concerned, he was the primary thing keeping Amazo from bringing the whole headquarters down on everyone's heads.

Or at least I should be, thought Clark, wincing as some rubble tumbled down behind Amazo. The android rushed him and for a brief, mad, moment, Clark saw the ghost of his own movements in the android’s stance and speed. Lois had chided him that morning about his own stance in a fight, but looking at it now, in another body, he could see his own logic behind it. He hated how inhuman his powers could make him seem, but also, intimidation itself was a very effective tactic in a fight that actually reduced how much he had to actually fight, and thus reduced the risk of seriously injuring someone with super-strength, and a lot of that time that intimidation involved sending the message of ‘guns aren’t going to work, here.’ Just making himself a big mass coming at you fast, undeterred by bullets, so that your only instinctive option was moving out of the way.

Always sheeted forward, thought Clark with a short huff, before blasting Amazo with as much heat vision as he could summon. Amazo was knocked back, then looked at him, its own eyes blazing with furious heat vision, before two hard energy blasts hit it in the side of the head. Clark’s sight went upward to the eyepatch Lois looking down the scope of their rifle. Amazo turned to look in that direction, too and Clark instinctively gave the android a hard diagonal uppercut before it could make visual contact. Clark knew his own invulnerability was finite, and thus, Amazo’s had to be, too. Though they seemed evenly matched for now, Clark knew his own body was still repairing itself from all the damage it had taken while he had that inhibitor collar on. If it came down to a battle of stamina, the android would absolutely have him beat. But he wasn’t the only one fighting Amazo. His eyes flicked back up to the eyepatch Lois, who was now yelling at other league members to get into position.

“Keep the fire up from all sides!” Clark called up to the eyepatch Lois, “Discombobulate, and overwhelm it!”

Clark brought his own forearms up just in time to block a hard punch from Amazo.

——

Jalana and Lewis were hustling through League headquarters, both equipped with their heavier sidearms, on their way to the site where many of their fellow League members were already engaged in combat with Amazo.

And the Kryptonian? thought Jalana as multiple orders and reports from other League members streamed out of her gauntlet.

“Of course it’s an Android,” Lewis huffed as they ran, “What is with Earth 12-M and making gods our problem?!”

“It’s not a god yet,” said Jalana.

“Yet,” said Lewis, “if that thing hits the cell block and gets its hands on any of the beings we have in custody—” he was cut off as headquarters rumbled around them.

“At this rate, it’ll bring the whole place down before it has a chance to do that,” said Jalana.

“Which will still mean a catastrophic mass-escape of dangerous interdimensional criminals and entit—” Lewis cut himself off as Jimmy Olsen sprinted past both of them. “Was that..?”

“Jimmy!?” Jalana pivoted on her foot to call after him and he skidded to a halt.

“No time to talk!” said Jimmy, “Where are the League archives?!”

“First of all, how did you get here?” said Lewis, “Second of all, no, there’s no way multiversal hell you’re not getting into League Archi—”

“They’re this way!” said Jalana, racing to catch up with Jimmy and grabbing his arm, “You won’t be able to get in there without League clearance!”

“Oh sure! Just… drag your sketchy doppelgänger into the inner sanctum of League intelligence!” Lewis called after them furiously. “It’s not like we have rules or consequences or anythi—” he was cut off as the entire headquarters rumbled with another impact. “For the love of—” Lewis muttered under his breath as he cocked his sidearm and turned around to continue running toward the main chamber where the Kryptonian and android were fighting.

——

The doors to the League archives whooshed open and Jalana and Jimmy rushed in. The archives themselves were simply a large holographic interface controlling a massive holographic screen. Jalana was already feverishly typing commands into the interface, making the screen project several security feeds displaying Superman and Amazo fighting at various angles.

“We should probably keep one eye on the fight in case we need to evacuate,” said Jalana, hitting several more buttons. Jimmy watched as several spheres hovered up in front of the holographic interface and started projecting holographic footage of different universes. One screen displayed featureless golden figure fighting Superman (but not his Superman), the other displayed a hulking orange-tan humanoid with green pants and pointed ears, also fighting Superman (but again, not Jimmy’s Superman), and a third displayed a similarly pointed-ear Amazo being mobbed by several powerful looking beings and easily batting them away. Jimmy’s eyes flicked down the spheres projecting the footage. He recognized them all too well.

“Those spheres… This is where Lois got that rock…” said Jimmy.

“Kryptonite? She shouldn’t have been able to access that,” said Jalana.

“I really wish she hadn’t…” Jimmy muttered before his eyes flicked back to the security feed of Clark desperately heat-visioning one of the walkways in the main hall back together before Amazo dropped on him from above like a missile. They didn’t have much time. Jimmy stepped closer to Jalana, “May I?”

Jalana scooted over and Jimmy started typing at the interface as well. “I always wanted the Flamebird channel to have its own research team,” she said, opening several files.

“God, I know,” said Jimmy, “But the problem was—”

“You never get that golden ratio of trustworthy, competent—”

“And an actual believer,” Jimmy and Jalana’s voices overlapped. They made eye contact and both smiled a little.

“So that’s why you keep helping us,” said Jimmy, resuming typing.

“Only other Flamebro in the multiverse,” said Jalana with a grin.

“Is this all you have?” Said Jimmy, motioning with his hands to spread out several holographic files.

“There’s a lot more, but I can’t show you all at once. You can open up League files just by selecting certain details in the footage. I’ve done what I can to give you as much access as I have,” said Jalana, “If you’ve got any new ideas, I’d love to hear them."

A lot of it’s going to come down to Clark, thought Jimmy, turning back to the security footage just in time to see Amazo punching Clark hard in the side of the head, sending him flying. God I hope the super-hearing still works after a blow like that.

“Clark, can you hear me?” said Jimmy.

“Jimmy? Are you hurt? Can you hear me? Where are you?” Clark was yelling on the security feeds as he righted himself in the air and flew to avoid Amazo ramming into him again.

“I’m fine. I’m in the archives, I can hear you over the League security feeds,” said Jimmy, activating several hologram monitors.

“Please tell me this thing’s gotten beaten in other universes,” said Clark as he crossed his arms in front of himself to block the worst of a blast of heat vision from Amazo. Jimmy swallowed hard—even with his invulnerability back, Clark wouldn’t last long taking hits like that.

“Uh, yeah, a couple times?” said Jimmy, feverishly searching through the archives alongside Jalana. Jimmy was well aware of the pain and the irony of having the knowledge of decades of observation of the multiverse at his fingertips, everything he could possibly want to know about all of the mysteries he spent hours ranting about on Flamebird, and only having the time to search information on the android Clark was fighting. He tried not to think about it. Tried to just focus on what he needed to know right now. “Oh! Try vibrating its brain out of its head!”

“How would I do that!?”

“You have super-speed, right? According to the archives, speedsters can vibrate to move through solid objects. So you… vibrate?”

“If it was just a suit around Ivo before, I don’t think it really has a brain?” said Jalana, flinching as the entire structure rumbled around them.

“Scoops! Scoops has to be the brain! Vibrate Scoops out of there!” said Jimmy.

“JIMMY, I DON’T KNOW HOW TO VIBRATE AND I DON’T HAVE TIME TO LEARN,” said Clark, ducking out of a swing from Amazo’s fist.

“Poor Lois,” Jimmy said very quietly to himself.

“I HEARD THAT,” said Clark, catching Amazo’s other fist, swinging the android up and over his head and slamming him into the floor. Clark suddenly blinked. “Hey, I countered!”

“Okay, look,” said Jimmy, “All I’ve got here is vibrating, making it fight another Amazo—”

“We are not doing that,” said Clark.

“And um, sending it into some kind of giant interdimensional amoeba—” he looked over his shoulder at Jalana, “Do you guys have a giant interdimensional amoeba lying around?”

“No, we don’t have limbo cells lying around!” said Jalana, looking at him like he was completely insane.

“Okay, jeez, you had Mxy’s hat so I figured I’d ask,” said Jimmy, turning back to the monitor.

“Okay, look,” said Jalana, “I know I gave you full access, but you really shouldn’t be looking through all that—“

“Prime Directive, I know,” said Jimmy, continuing to type, “Superman, the other option is… it just goes full god and loses interest in you.”

“How often does that happen?” yelled Clark, catching a large chunk of ceiling rubble before it fell on some fleeing League members.

“…It’s not really clear. I’m on this page now that’s talking about how the more powerful a thing is, the harder it is to consistently predict across dimensions.” Jimmy blinked and turned around at Jalana, “So wait, you guys have that whole file on evil Supermen, but the truth is you don’t actually know if he’s going to turn evil.”

“Eh—” Jalana’s mouth hung open helplessly.

“The possibility was always reason enough,” another voice spoke up.

Jimmy reeled around to see a tall, older, and very sober-looking version of Lois standing in the archive doorway,

“Leader Lois!” Jalana saluted, “But—you should be in the command hub.”

“I was informed the Kryptonian didn’t arrive here alone,” said the Leader Lois.

“Lewis…” Jalana hissed under her breath, glancing off.

“I know it’s not your intention to undermine me,” said the Leader Lois, shutting her eyes to maintain composure as the whole headquarters rumbled around them before flicking them open again, “And given the direness of the situation, I do understand there has to be a certain degree of flexibility in our ranks,” she stepped forward, giving an aware but indifferent glance to Clark fighting for his life with Amazo on the security feeds, “But with that flexibility in mind, I cannot, as leader of this League, simply allow you to go rogue, commanding a Kryptonian of all things.”

“We’re not commanding him, we’re helping—” Jimmy started.

“I take it the Android has duplicated the Kryptonian’s powers?” said the Leader Lois, ignoring him.

“Y-yes, ma’am,” said Jalana.

“So it’s duplicated his weaknesses as well,” said the Leader Lois, pacing forward and putting a hand on the holographic interface next to Jimmy. “All League members, you are hereby ordered to switch to kryptonite rounds.”

“Wait—you can’t—Clark, get out of there!” Jimmy shouted.

“No!” The Leader Lois said sharply, “Kryptonian, if you can hear him, I know you can hear me. If you’re on our side, I need you to blast that thing with as much ice breath as you can. We’ll keep our fire focused on the android and not you. Immobilize it so we can put it down.”

There was a pause on Clark’s end, punctuated by the brief sound of a fist landing, then a sober, “Okay.”

“Clark, no way, even a little splinter of that stuff—” Jimmy started.

“It—nnggh—sounds like our best bet,” said Clark, trying and failing to keep Amazo in a headlock on the security feeds.

“Can I just say that I’m really freaking sick of our ‘best bet’ being the option that sounds most likely to kill you?!” exclaimed Jimmy as Amazo threw Clark off by pretty much flipping him over its head. Jimmy looked at Jalana, “Back me up, here.”

But she just looked at him with a crinkled brow, “If we can get enough damage in before the Android can adapt…” Jalana’s voice was hesitant, and Jimmy felt a chill of dread on the back of his neck. “Kryptonite rounds aren’t actual kryptonite—they just use the radiation,” she added, quickly.

“Which can still kill him,” Jimmy emphasized.

“The longer you spend arguing this, the worse our odds get. The worse his odds get,” said the Leader Lois.

“I already said I can do it,” Clark said over the security feeds.

Jimmy’s lips thinned as the Leader Lois once again hit the ‘all-comms’ button on the holographic interface, “All League members, hold fire until the Kryptonian’s signal. Then give that Android hell.”

Jimmy’s heart was pounding in his ears as Amazo and Superman punched and heat-visioned and raced and grappled across the various security feeds, the rhythm of the fight made all the more startlingly clear by the unnerving lack of fire from League members.

I should be able to figure out how to stop this, thought Jimmy, The whole reason I came along was to make sure Clark gets home. Evil Lois acted like I could figure out anything—there has to be a better way than this—there has to be—

Jimmy’s shoulders flinched as Clark managed to get a kick in hard enough to send Amazo hurtling downwards, blasting the Android with heat vision to further put distance between them. There was a half-second pause, and Jimmy realized Clark was taking in a full breath before shouting “NOW!”

Clark tended to reserve ice breath for putting out fires and was often wary about using it in spaces where people were too close by. The first few days following the discovery of ice breath as one of his powers went from a general excitement at the concept of a power that Clark didn’t have to worry about the destructiveness of as much as super-strength or heat vision, to “I should actually do some research on cold and its effects just to make sure we’re safe about it—it’ll help me get better at using it!” This quickly turned into, “Jimmy, did you know that freezing literally makes human cells explode?” And, “Jimmy, if it’s not immediately treated, frostbitten tissue has to be removed to prevent infection.” And, “Jimmy, hypothermia can kill in under an hour.” And of course, “JIMMY I COULD GIVE SOMEONE THROMBOSIS.” Jimmy had to confiscate Clark’s laptop from him for several hours after that delightful series of web searches, while also insisting to him that “Clark it’s breath—I’m pretty sure you can control breath,” and eventually having to conduct experiments with pork tenderloins to be sure Clark could encase organic tissue in ice without freezing the tissue itself. Seeing Clark put everything into ice breath now, made that memory turn Jimmy’s stomach.

Here was Clark throwing out all the contents of his lungs into an environment that was filling very quickly with radiation that was deadly specifically to him. And of course he’d do it, too—even if Clark knew he wasn’t Amazo, even if Clark knew he couldn’t have known what the Spider Lady was planning on using him for, his powers were personal enough to him that he felt responsible for other entities using them. The high whoosh of ice breath was soon drowned out by the shrieking blast of League energy pistols and rifles. Amazo, previously trying to regain its flight, convulsed in an uncharacteristically organic agony as it was hit by blaze after blaze of kryptonite rounds as Clark kept forcing it down, down, down, with ice breath. Jimmy looked over his shoulder at the Leader Lois, who was cast in an eerie green light from the security feeds surrounding them all. Amazo’s convulsions shrank as frost feathered all over the android’s plated surface, sickly mint green-tinged ice crystals spreading from between its joints and plates. Jimmy watched as the silhouette of Amazo was lost in the blaze of white and green, and soon obscured completely as frost feathered over the security feeds. That roar of arctic breath petered out to soundlessness, and the shrieks and blasts of the kryptonite rounds also ground down to a few stray fires, then nothing.

The Leader Lois drew in a long breath through her nostrils before activating a comm feed on her gauntlet. “Report: Is there movement on the android?”

Lewis’s voice sounded over her gauntlet, “The Kryptonian’s ice breath has severely limited our visuals, but we’re not seeing movement from either.”

“C-Clark?” said Jimmy, his voice finally returning to his throat.

There was no response through the security feeds. All footage was completely obscured by frost and dust and smoke.

“Superman, are you okay?!” Jimmy called again. Jalana wasn’t looking at him, hunched over the holo-console, bracing her hands against it for support, eyes squeezed shut.

And still there was no answer.

“Clark!” Jimmy took off running out of the archives.