ID: All right. I’m sitting down with the very legendary Man of Steel for a series of interviews. Because of the sensitivity of this story, I’m going to be withholding my name from the byline until the interviews are completed; I’ll just be signing ID. I'm recording this solely for the purposes of transcribing-
Superman: I’m a reporter. I know how this is done. Let’s just get on with it.
ID: Right. Sorry. Just like Adam West, right to the point. You know what the hell you’re doing.
S: I didn’t know you knew Adam.
ID: I got a chance to interview him. Really excellent guy- and just as cool as I thought he’d be- maybe cooler. But before we get any deeper, do you want to tell people why you’re doing this? I mean, right now, why you’re conducting a no-holds barred interview when for years you’ve really only done fluff pieces with, ahem, Clark Kent and Lois Lane.
S: Okay. Moment of truth,
ID: justice and the American way
S: Are you going to crack jokes the entire interview, or are you done?
ID: Sorry. Attempting to break the tension.
S: Yeah, well, consider it unbreakable supertension and move on. The reason I’m giving this interview is I’m dying. As a lot of you are probably aware, my abilities are roughly solar based. Apparently, Kryptonian skin cells can have the same reaction to too much sun as human skin cells; I have skin cancer. The irony, of course, is that it’s a fairly curable form of cancer in humans; however, my particular physiology makes it virtually impossible to treat. Obviously we can’t just cut it out. I tried chemo and all it gave me was extremely foul gas- so bad Krypto wouldn’t go near me for a month, and Lois made me sleep outside.
ID: Lois?
S: Yeah. We talked it over, talked with my parents. We might have been able to pretend both men disappeared mysteriously after Doomsday, but a second time? No. I’m, I can’t believe I’m saying this out loud to a reporter, but I’m married Lois Lane.
ID: And that means you are
S: Clark Kent, that’s right.
ID: And your parents are
S: In Kansas. I’m not going to broadcast too much about them, just because they’re humble, private folks. They don’t want to become a tourist attraction.
ID: Okay, but I want to talk about the cancer a little more. You’re a founding member of the Justice League, and in your rolodex you’ve got probably the hundred smartest people, magicians, and access to the most advanced technology in the world- maybe the universe.
S: Yeah. And I feel like an ass about that, actually. If Perry [White] got lung cancer, or Jimmy [Olson] had trouble with his prostate… but I guess those are the perks of saving the world, the best and brightest of the world take a shot at saving you when your chips are down. And they all have taken their shot; I can’t believe it’s something we haven’t gotten together to attempt before, actually. I mean, if you added up all of the smaller disasters, you know, the ones that weren’t out and out world-killers, you’d have fewer lives saved than the amount lost to cancer, but we had all this brilliance and power, and we never thought… I hate having regrets. I really always tried to live in a way where I didn’t, where I wasn’t second-guessing, because there was always a reason things didn’t come out for the best, some ideal I was stretching for, even if I didn’t reach it. But as it turns out, all of our tech, Kryptonian, Martian, even a little Apokalyptian, and even with everything we’ve ever gotten from Cadmus, and S.T.A.R. and Wayne… we couldn’t cure cancer.
ID: I kind of understand that, but how is it the magicians couldn’t just say, “Recnac eerf” and it’s done.
S: Apparently, it’s not that simple. If they could wave their wands, I mean, there are a lot of white wizards in our world, they’d have wiped out cancer, and AIDS, and every other disease and ailment known to man. I mean, there are theories, most of which honestly went over my head, that maybe cancer is in part controlled by the Lords of Chaos, or that perhaps there are opposing forces preventing them from fighting cancer on the other side- but the bottom line is the League took their absolute best shot, and so far it hasn’t paid off.
ID: So far?
S: Well you know the League- never knew a cause they could walk away from, so it’s all still ongoing. Batman seems to be taking it the hardest, and when Bruce wants something, he makes it so everyone wants what he wants. He’s dumped at least a billion dollars into various cancer research projects, some of them in his company, some of them not; he even put $175 million into a Luthor project that
ID: Are you aware you called him “Bruce?”
S: I
ID: Did you just out the Batman?
(silence)
S: Oh come on! Like anyone didn’t know Bruce Wayne was Batman! The man has bought half a billion dollars of space stations for the Justice League. He’s bought- and crashed- more fighter jets than Iran. How many multi-billionaires who are 6’1” with lantern-jaws who are in terrific shape are there in Gotham? Come on. I mean, combine that with the fact that everybody sees the direction Batman drives when he leaves town- it’s not like he’s driving so fast you can’t see the direction he’s traveling. I mean, come on. I’m sure he’ll be all kinds of pissed off about this- he’ll probably brood for a while.
ID: I think that might be a good place to end this first session. Off the record, do you think he’ll sue to keep that quiet?
S: Off the record nothing. No. Bruce is a good guy. He gets that if you sue innocent people, all you’re doing is bullying them with money. And bullying, well, at least bullying innocent people, isn’t him. So no. If it were Luthor, or Dale the Whale from Monk, then yeah, absolutely; I love Monk- the characters could practically like in our world, you know. In fact, Lex might sue just for that little name-drop. But if Luthor’s lawyers get at you, just use the name I. W. MORHAS; it stands for I was my own red-headed Australian stepchild- he’ll know exactly who you mean and it’ll piss him off- which it should. Come on, Lex, admit it- you faked your own death and came back as your own red-headed stepchild- admit you stole that off a daytime soap.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section to the interview every Monday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email.
