Daily Planet Article Outing Superman As Clark Kent Arrives Online

[Jumpoff AKA JohnnyBlazed]

You'd be okay if Lois outed The Flash? The only superhero who has family in prison.

Not ok ,but she doesn't have that personal connection with Barry that she does with clark. I guess it's just strange for me because growing up it's always been Lois AND Clark ( I still in my head canon think of her and him as married) and all of this just feels ......wrong

[Jumpoff AKA JohnnyBlazed]

Yeah, I mean I have ex girlfriends I'm not on speaking terms with but man I doubt they'd out my biggest secrets (if I had any) to the world. That's a biiiiiiiig jump.

lol trust me I know that feeling.

[Airtrap]

That is probably just something that a editor or marketing guy wrote based on some cliff notes, i wouldn't put much into that "article". Maybe the named persons could become intersting (Emil Hamilton in particular) but that's about it

[manofsteel1979]

I'm giving Yang the benefit of the doubt here by saying that I believe he had very little to do, if anything to do at all, with the article. Regardless of who wrote it, however, it's just sloppy storytelling.

I could see the possibility this copy was not written by the Superman office,but WB/DC's marketing arm. Remember this is just a promotional leiflet. It is possible we may not even see the real "in story" article and what Yang and co intend may be different to how DC/WB want to market it.

In other words, Yang (and the actual Superman people) may not want to throw Lois under the bus in their story, and their intentions for Lois may be honorable,but the marketing arm that has been pushing the "power couple" hard the last couple of years would likely jump at the chance to make Lois look horrible for it's benefit AND sell more of SUPERMAN #41-#44 via shock value. it wouldn't be the first time DC's marketing wing was at odds with what was actually published in the comics. Remember the marketing arm in the run up to the New 52 kept insisting until the 11th hour that it was not a reboot but instead a relaunch....and what was published was a hard reboot for everyone but Green Lantern and Batman (at least initially.)

I wonder how much input the creators have with the marketing side of things. I wager not a whole hell of a lot.

[Auguste Dupin]

I'm giving Yang the benefit of the doubt here by saying that I believe he had very little to do, if anything to do at all, with the article. Regardless of who wrote it, however, it's just sloppy storytelling.

Hard to tell when we don't know what the story is.
Then again, if the article is written by some editor somewhere, then that means it's just a marketting coup and that it's literrally meaningless.

[Airtrap]

I wonder how much input the creators have with the marketing side of things. I wager not a whole hell of a lot.

I remember when the Batgirl Variant Cover was released the writers said they have never seen it before it was released and Variant Covers are a Marketing thing

[Darth Kal-el]

I love Lois as a character and don't understand the problem with her revealing the secret. I don't see it determinedly harming the character and it adds drama that she is the one. Lois will be fine,it's just a story and I am excited for the ride

[manofsteel1979]

I love Lois as a character and don't understand the problem with her revealing the secret. I don't see it determinedly harming the character and it adds drama that she is the one. Lois will be fine,it's just a story and I am excited for the ride

It's not the simple act of her revealing the secret that may damage the character...it's motive and HOW she does it that may or may not cause harm.

Let me cut and paste my response in another thread from a few days ago to elaborate more on this....

But, about what you said there, the issue isn't Lois Lane being kept perfect. No one is perfect, not even Superman. However, a Lois Lane who would go off on a whim and expose Clark Kent over hurt feelings without stopping herself and thinking " wait...by doing this I pretty much not only ruin my best friends life, and put a target on my head, but pretty much disrupt the lives of all my coworkers, my sister, my father all the innocent people that happen to be Clark's neighbors, everyone in Smallville..." Well...to me that is highly reckless and selfish and makes her look like not just a bad reporter, but just a horrible all round person, and being sorry later won't cut it. If it turns out Lois did indeed expose Clark because her feelings got hurt, then I don't see how the character can be redeemed in this continuity short of it later being revealed she was replaced by a double or mind controlled.

If it turns out it was a dire life and death situation that causes it, (which is what everything is pointing to at the moment EDIT: and now thrown into doubt thanks to this article today), then yes, it's completely consistent with who we know Lois is. The above I described ends up being the case...they might as well kill off her character or otherwise write her out completely, because the character is irrevocably destroyed.

[misslane]

I love Lois as a character and don't understand the problem with her revealing the secret. I don't see it determinedly harming the character and it adds drama that she is the one. Lois will be fine,it's just a story and I am excited for the ride

The problem with Lois revealing the secret is that it is fundamentally bad journalism. One of the cornerstone of journalistic ethics is the code to minimize harm by only revealing a source if doing so will benefit the greater good more than the alternative of keeping it secret. It's bad journalism to not at least give the subject the opportunity to tell his story and to not attempt to tell all sides of the story. Beyond that, if indeed Lois is a hero and her character is supposed to be untarnished by her actions, then her apologies to Clark in the "Divergence" sneak peak are contradictory. She claimed she had "no right" to reveal Clark's secret, and that she should have found "another way" to do it. While I would expect a certain degree of empathy and guilt for exposing Clark's secret, I would not expect Lois to outright admit that she not only shouldn't have done what she did, but that she did it all wrong. The only way any of this makes sense or is excusable is if someone is pulling her strings or Lois had knowledge that revealing the truth would protect more people from some yet to be revealed villain than it would harm people by not holding Superman publicly accountable.

[manofsteel1979]

I remember when the Batgirl Variant Cover was released the writers said they have never seen it before it was released and Variant Covers are a Marketing thing

Yeah...that's another good example.

It's possible the whole purpose of the article was to cause a fevor and debate like this one....and when the actual arc is printed, it may not even remotely reflect what this article infers.

I'm praying that's the case. If not, DC will lose me as a reader and I have a feeling I won't be the only one bailing. I refuse to support the character assassination of one of the foundational characters of not only the Superman mythos,but the superhero genre.

[Airtrap]

Yeah...that's another good example.

It's possible the whole purpose of the article was to cause a fevor and debate like this one....and when the actual arc is printed, it may not even remotely reflect what this article infers.

I'm praying that's the case. If not, DC will lose me as a reader and I have a feeling I won't be the only one bailing. I refuse to support character assassination.

They went with "shock" value with this piece and some sneak peeks.

Some Sneak peeks literally "lied" to us and got contradicted in the next issue in June and i would bet the whole Lois and Clark at the Motel door thing ("I had no right") will not happen or it will be totally different, same for the "twist" in SM/WW

[Jim Kelly]

Has Lois been demoted? She's now just a staff writer?

Playing devil's advocate for a moment, I think that if they can't use Lois Lane as the main love interest and a hero in her own right--because Wonder Woman has taken that spot--she would make an excellent villain. I think she could even rival Lex Luthor as Superman's No. 1 villain. That would be a way for DC to put Lois back on top as one of their leading characters--since villains seem to attract more attention than heroes these days.

[misslane]

It's possible the whole purpose of the article was to cause a fevor and debate like this one....and when the actual arc is printed, it may not even remotely reflect what this article infers.

This possibility really doesn't make me hate it less or make me feel any better. Making Lois look bad for PR purposes while making her look slightly better in actual stories is not cool. Character assassination for the sake of publicity and page hits is just awful. I wish DC would realize that positive PR can work in their favor, too. Fans can be just as outspoken and excitable about good things, and there's the added benefit that those people might actually want to buy what they are selling.

[manofsteel1979]

This possibility really doesn't make me hate it less or make me feel any better. Making Lois look bad for PR purposes while making her look slightly better in actual stories is not cool. Character assassination for the sake of publicity and page hits is just awful. I wish DC would realize that positive PR can work in their favor, too. Fans can be just as outspoken and excitable about good things, and there's the added benefit that those people might actually want to buy what they are selling.

I agree....but I'd be willing to read the story itself and ignore all the marketing crap. To me all that matters ultimately what is published in the actual comics themselves,not what marketing WANTS us to think or how they want us to interpret what is between the pages.

However if Superman #41-44 paint Lois as a petty and bitter and subpar journalist with an axe to grind, willing to betray a good friend of 5 years for a headline as the tone of this article as written here implies...well....I'm done. The comics and their content is what matters. I will pass final judgement when the last page of #44 is read by me in SEPTEMBER.

[Auguste Dupin]

The problem with Lois revealing the secret is that it is fundamentally bad journalism. One of the cornerstone of journalistic ethics is the code to minimize harm by only revealing a source if doing so will benefit the greater good more than the alternative of keeping it secret. It's bad journalism to not at least give the subject the opportunity to tell his story and to not attempt to tell all sides of the story.

But Clark isn't a source, he's the story. A source is someone who gives you information on the story you're working on, and keeping it a secret certainly never meant not writing the article. It's not the same situation at all. So what you're saying doesn't apply here. Also, if not giving the subject the opportunity to tell his side of the story in the very first article made on the subject is bad journalism, then the guys who revealed the Watergate are bad reporters.