Superman Movieverse Forum

Bruce’s helicopter deposited them at the heliport on top of the Daily Planet parking garage. From there they took a limo to Centennial Park where the service for Superman was being held. Bruce was quiet, somber even, as though he really believed this was Superman’s funeral.
 
Two MFD ladder trucks were sitting to either side of the main road into the park. The ladders were extended, nearly touching at the top, and an American flag was suspended between them. The rest of the flags in the city were at half-staff. The governor had declared a week long state of mourning for the superhero.

Lois couldn’t even begin to guess what it took for Metropolis to get Superman’s body away from the Mexican government, or the other agencies that would have wanted to dissect him, to find out what made him ‘super’. But then, if Clark was really Superman, the body in the casket couldn’t really be Superman, could it? She resolved to ask Bruce about it once they were alone.

A dais had been set up at the west end of the park, sitting next to a small white windowless building that Lois didn’t recall ever seeing before. On the far side of the white building a small orchestra had been arranged. It was currently playing Copeland’s Fanfare for the Common Man. On the dais itself, a bier had been set up and there were a number of folding chairs at the back of the platform. A simple podium decorated only with a metal plaque depicting Superman’s shield had been set up to one side of the bier.

The park was already crowded with on-lookers. Lois wondered how many of them were because Superman had touched their lives in some way. Or were they there for the spectacle? She was one of the top investigative journalists in the nation but she realized she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer to that question. She was afraid she’d be disappointed in the answer.

Bruce led the way to their reserved seats in the front row. A short distance away she spotted Perry and his wife, Richard and one of the girls from research. Richard looked like he’d been through hell. His eyes were bloodshot, nose raw. She wanted to go over to him, to comfort him, but she felt Bruce’s hand on her arm. He shook his head ever so slightly.

Lois nodded. She had agreed to not contact anyone she knew. Bruce was going to hand her letter to Richard after the service. Richard looked over in her direction, but there was no sudden recognition in his face. She was just one of the crowd - Bruce Wayne’s female companion of the day. At the moment she was blonde with dark sun glasses and a little black dress that cost more than the entire wardrobe she’d left behind.

The audience fell silent and Lois heard a slow rumbling rhythm. She realized after a moment that she was hearing drums. The funeral procession had entered the park. After a few moments four drummers appeared, representing the military services. Lois wondered who had arranged that. To her knowledge Superman hadn’t been a favorite of the U.S. military establishment. He was a wild card and they didn’t like wild cards.

The drummers were followed by two black horses in black harness pulling a cart with a simple coffin. Their hooves beat a dis-synchronous rhythm on the pavement.  The coffin had an United Nations flag draped over it as a pall.

The carriage was followed by a rider-less horse, a pair of boots turned backwards in the stirrups, an honor guard with rifles, and a formation of uniformed police and fire fighters. Each had a black band across their badge. Lois recalled reading somewhere that the bands were traditionally made from the black lining of old uniform hats. She didn’t know if that was true, but it was a nice story.

The official procession was followed by a mixed group of ‘civilians’, people who had simply fallen in with the procession as it moved through the city to the park. People who wanted to pay their last respects, people who didn’t want to let Superman go.

She saw Jimmy was taking photos, catching the arrival of the procession.

Six uniformed officers – three police and three fire, all wearing white gloves – picked up the coffin and made their way to the dais. The officers place the coffin on its bier and stood at attention as a group of clergymen and women gathered on the dais. Lois had never seen, never even imagined, a group as ecumenical as this one. Ministers, priests, rabbis, mullahs, lamas, and monks – Metropolis was well known for its racial and religious tolerance and it had myriad and diverse religious groups. And it seemed that every one of them had sent someone to invoke the deity on Superman’s behalf.

After a minute or so, one of the police officers stepped over to the podium, tucking his uniform hat under his arm. He looked solemnly over the assembly. “I am Inspector William Henderson of the Metropolis Police Department. I have been asked by my fellows in uniform to say our piece since I was the one of us who had the most contact with him.” He paused a moment as if deciding what to say.

“Superman first appeared in our fair city nine years ago and he proved his worth by saving lives that first day,” he began. “He proved his worth every day he was here, never asking for anything in return except that we put aside our differences and care for each other.

“My first impression of him was that he was young, very young. Not much older than my own kids. My second impression was that he was far wiser than his years. He cherished life and he believed in the rule of law. He never took an oath to uphold our laws, to serve our people, but he did just that. He put his own body between gunmen and innocents. He walked into fire. He swallowed bombs. He didn’t have to. He wasn’t paid to. It wasn’t his job. But every time he did, that meant someone lived who might not have otherwise. Every time he did, a police officer or fire fighter or a civilian was able to go home to their loved ones.

“We know he proved his worth while he was with us, because we know how much we missed him when he left to seek his home. And we know how glad we were when he returned to us.

“He once told me he didn’t consider himself courageous because it was easy to stand in front of a bullet or walk into an inferno if you knew it couldn’t hurt you. I asked him what it was that he was afraid of and his answer was ‘failure’. I was able to tell him that day that was what the rest of us were afraid of too. Those of us in uniform don’t consider ourselves courageous. We go out everyday and we do our jobs. Sometimes we don’t get there fast enough, or we find we’re not strong enough or smart enough and we fail in doing our job protecting the public. Sometimes that failure means one of us doesn’t make it home. But we don’t call it courage.

“He didn’t consider himself courageous. But when this city, this world was threatened, he didn’t flinch from the duty he’d taken on himself. He went out, knowing he might not come back, knowing the odds were against him. We were lucky that day. He lived. But heroism has a price. Those that prey on the innocent, the weak, the defenseless – they hate heroes. And because he was a hero, because he defended the weak and the innocent, because he thought the rule of law was an essential part of being civilized, he was cut down by those who abhor everything he stood for.

“Superman did not carry a badge or a gun, nor did he carry a Halligan or wear a fire helmet, but my brothers and sisters in uniform and I, we’re proud to call him one of our own. He was one of Metropolis’s finest, one of her bravest and I was privileged to call him my friend.  We will miss him and we all swear that his killers will be brought to justice.”

Lois though she saw tears in the older man’s eyes as he left the podium and put his hat back on. He saluted the coffin and then joined the other officers standing on the dais, guarding the coffin.

More prayers and invocations, poems and hymns. A baritone from the Metropolis Opera Company sang a familiar spiritual. Lois had heard it at other funerals but hadn’t paid attention to the lyrics. The orchestra struck up the accompaniment.

Going home, going home,
I'm a going home.
Quiet-like, some still day,
I'm just going home.

It's not far, just close by,
Through an open door.
Work all done, care laid by,
Going to fear no more.
Mother's there, expecting me,
Father's waiting too.
Lots of folk gathered there,
All the friends I knew.

Nothing's lost, all's gain,
No more fear or pain,
No more stumbling by the way,
No more longing for the day,
Going to roam no more.

Morning star lights the way,
Restless dreams all done.
Shadows gone, break of day,
Real life has begun.
There's no break, there's no end,
Just a living on.
Wide awake with a smile,
going on and on...

Going home, going home,
I'm just going home.
It's not far, just close by,
Through an open door.
I am going home.....
I'm just going home....

Going home, going home,
Going home, going home,
Going home....

Lois realized she didn’t even know if Clark believed in God or an afterlife. Somehow she thought he did, but it wasn’t anything he had ever discussed with her, or if he had tried, she hadn’t been listening. How many other things had he tried to discuss with her and she hadn’t been listening?

She felt tears begin to run down her face. Bruce put his arm around her and pulled her close. “I was so mean to him,” she whispered. “It was so easy to love the superhero, why was it so hard to see the man?”

“He worked very hard at being invisible,” Bruce whispered back. “Maybe he worked too hard at it.”

One of the fire-fighters took the podium.

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings.
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of; wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hovering there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air;
Up, up the long delirious burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace,
Where never lark nor even eagle flew;
And while, with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high, untrespassed sanctity of space
Put out my hand and touched the face of God. (1)

Lois remembered that poem from high school lit. It had been written by a young pilot and it seemed even more fitting for a man who flew without those silver wings.

Finally, a husky black man approached the podium and the microphone. “Brothers and sisters,” he began. His voice was deep and musical. “We, the family of humankind, have gathered here to celebrate the life and mourn the passing of a great and kind man. We do not know his name. We knew him only as Superman.

“He was different from us, possessing powers and abilities almost beyond imagining, but he did not use those powers to set himself above us.

“No, Superman used his powers to bring comfort to those in need and hope to those mired in the depths of despair.

“And he could fly. Oh, how he could fly! He soared through our skies – some say like a great bird, but I say like an angel.

“I once saw him tear apart the walls of a burning building – rip them apart with his bare hands –  and pluck a young baby from certain death, cradling that child in his mighty arms as gently and as tenderly as would that child’s own mother.

“It is said that Superman had enemies. Well, there were among us men who made of him their enemy; that cannot be denied. But his real enemies were the enemies that bedevil us all: greed... fear... hate… ignorance. He fought those enemies and inspired others to fight them as well.

“Superman came to us, a stranger from another planet. He was many things to many people. Some saw him as a champion of life, others as a protector of the oppressed, and still others as a mighty warrior in the bat¬tle for truth and justice. And, yes, he was all those things and more. But mainly, he was our friend.

“He did not care about our religious beliefs or our politics. He did not care about our nationalities or our gender or the color of our skins. He cared about people. He cared about us. We are, all of us, richer for hav¬ing known him, and poorer for having lost him.

“Superman was, as I said, from another planet – and I do not know what God, if any, he worshiped. But I pray to my God to comfort and protect him, as he comforted and protected us all.” (2)

There were so many prayers. But none had been as personal, or as direct, as that black minister’s, except perhaps Inspector Henderson’s. The image of Su¬perman as an angel was oddly comforting. He had flown like an angel.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.(3)

Overhead Lois heard the thrum of helicopters. She looked up to see a formation of four police helicopters approaching from the south. When they were overhead, one of the copters veered off to the west, leaving the other three aircraft in formation – the missing man.

On the dais, the uniformed men stood at attention. When the helicopters passed, Henderson and one of the other pall bearers folded up the flag. That done the pall bearers lifted the coffin and somewhere a bagpiper started a mournful rendition of Amazing Grace.

The pall bearers took the coffin down the side steps to the small white building. The bronze-covered door was open and a concrete vault was set in the center of the floor. The pall bearers set the coffin on a frame on top of the vault. Later, the coffin would be lowered into the vault and the top would be sealed. But now, the officers turned as one and left the chamber, closing the door behind them.

The bagpiper finished the dirge and the honor guard fired off three volleys. A twenty-one gun salute. A bugler sounded out Taps. After a while the spectators began to disburse.

Bruce hurried over to Perry and Richard and handed Richard the small white envelope with her note. She watched as Richard opened the envelope and read the note: ‘Richard. My son and I are okay. We hope to get in touch with you soon. LL.

She saw Richard’s head come up and he looked around the area but he still didn’t recognize her. Lois fought down the urge to wave at him. This was too public a place.

Then Richard threw the note back at Bruce and walked away, the girl from research tagging behind him like a puppy. Perry and Bruce watched after him, then Perry’s shoulders sagged and he shook his head. Perry and Bruce spoke for a moment and Perry nodded. Bruce headed back to Lois and she saw Perry’s eyes follow the billionaire and for a moment, Perry looked straight at her and Lois was almost certain he saw through her disguise.

Then he turned away, taking his wife’s arm, and followed Richard.

“It didn’t look like that went over very well,” Lois commented as Bruce came up to her and they started walking back to the limo.

“I was afraid he wouldn’t take it well,” Bruce admitted. “My sources tell me he didn’t take Luthor’s revelation about Jason White’s parentage well either.”

“I… his fiancée never told him he was her son’s father,” Lois said carefully.  “She just gave up trying to convince him he wasn’t. His name wasn’t even listed on the birth certificate.”

“I’m told that didn’t sit very well either, when he found out,” Bruce said.

“He knew,” Lois protested, keeping her voice low. “That was one of their regular arguments, that she never put him down as the boy’s father, that she wouldn’t set a wedding date. A fiancé has no legal standing as next of kin.”

“Why didn’t she just go ahead and marry him?” Bruce asked.

“I don’t know,” Lois said. It was something she’d been thinking about even before Luthor’s attack. Richard was kind, intelligent, loving - a great catch. But as much as she loved him, some part of her simply had been unable to commit to him heart and soul. Some part of her was still waiting for her knight in shining armor to come back and sweep her off her feet.

Only he came back and discovered she was engaged to another man. He was too much the gentleman to try and come between her and her betrothed.

“It was a lovely ceremony,” she finally said.

“Yes, it was,” Bruce agreed. “He was important to a lot of people.”

“Who was…” She nodded her head in the direction of the park.

He seemed surprised then resigned at her question. He beckoned her into a coffee shop, paid for two mochas and sat down in a back booth, away from the front door. “An up and coming actor was killed in a car accident four days before Luthor shot Kent. He bore a striking resemblance to a certain mild mannered reporter working for a great metropolitan newspaper, and a certain Kryptonian refugee.”

“You’re sure it was an accident?” Lois asked.

Bruce nodded. “The other driver was drunk. DOA. There was no evidence either vehicle was tampered with.” He chuckled but there was little humor there. “The actor had just been cast to play Superman in a movie about his return from Krypton. Superman even attended the memorial service.”

Lois sipped her coffee as she contemplated how to phrase her next question. “Is my son’s father all right?” she said after a long moment.

“He’s alive.”

“Can I see him?”

“He should be at the mansion by the time we get back,” Bruce said. “But I need to warn you. He was very badly hurt.”


A/N:
(1) Fl. Officer John Gillespie McGee (1922-1941)
(2) Reverend Leroy’s eulogy comes from the novel: The Death and Life of Superman by Roger Stern. © 1993
(3) Robert Frost, A Road Not Taken