#25 Well, the relationship gets more and more oppressive and we find Lois is actually a 2nd wave feminist, and he has to wear the ring just to prove he isn't cheating on her. In reality, its a way to control him.
Eventually, Lois gets pregnant. One night when the big game is on, she needs pickles like right now. He takes the ring off, goes to the store, and is back before the commercial is over. Even brings back a pint of Rocky Road. Lois flips at the loss of control, tells him never again with taking off the ring. Clark starts going to the liquor bar and becomes a lush, which is ok, because it means he doesn't have his powers, and can get yelled at when he gets home.
Eventually the sympathetic bartender (Woody Harrilson) convinces Clark to get a fake Kriptonic ring, and Superman wears this instead of drinking, just to feel normal. Still, his crime fighting days are over as this would give up his game.
One day he uses his x-ray and discovers the kid will be a boy. Now he is really nervous and closes down, further fueled by Batman stories and how Superman's glory days are over. He has since left his job at the Planet so he can have some space from Lois, and takes up a job selling shoes. Hilarity ensues as he has to pretend to be drunk when he comes home, nearly getting caught time and again with the fake ring on.
Child is born, and expectedly Lois is pissed its a boy. She harangues Clark incessantly, threatening to expose his secrets in the news - his alter ego, where the Fortress of Solitude is, how Kyrptonians love bits resemble those of pigs, that he has Brie Larson toes, everything. So he has to take it.
His son Yawn grows up watching this, becomes a 3rd wave feminist because that is how men should be treated, especially this 'drunken bore'. Naturally this leads him to The Blue Oyster where he meets Freddy Mercury's unknown son, whose own mother raised him wishing she had an abortion.
Levity occurs as he tries to build his cuckshed as Clark instead of Superman, and eventually has to give himself another altar ego as a crime fighter, dresses strange and nerfs himself, tags onto Batman as Robin, and has to suffer that indignation from Batman's constant slurs against Superman being past his prime.
Just can't win. The laugh tracks make the show funny, framing him as a doddering fool. |
