Kill the tyrant Kal-El before his rise to power
April 4, 2016 9:38 AM   Subscribe

 
If this version of Martha had existed in the bloated sadness that is the current DCEU films Batman v Superman would have been ten minutes long and ended with cookies.
posted by Wretch729 at 9:56 AM on April 4, 2016 [8 favorites]


This fic is up on AO3 as well, if you want to add that link or use it instead for ease of reading purposes. Leave a kudos for the author if you enjoyed it! You can leave them even if you're not logged/don't have an AO3 account.
posted by yasaman at 9:59 AM on April 4, 2016 [9 favorites]


Mrs. Mosley will be particularly interested in this. Thanks!
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 10:05 AM on April 4, 2016


Great story - thanks for sharing.
posted by YAMWAK at 10:12 AM on April 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


Well I teared up, and I generally don't care much for superhero stuff. But apparently I'm a sucker for Ma Kent, Badass.
posted by emjaybee at 10:13 AM on April 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


"Whoever’s son he’d been before, they’d lost their naming privileges. That’s what happened when you shot a baby into space. "

This is where the story grabbed me. Well done, and thank you for sharing!
posted by sobell at 10:16 AM on April 4, 2016 [5 favorites]


I was initially very wary of a cussing, shotgun-wielding Ma Kent, but when I realized how the story was playing out I got on board.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:36 AM on April 4, 2016 [2 favorites]


For the last two weeks now, people have been pointing out Superman things that get the character right, and in a way that is utterly antithetical to the last couple movies. This. Two different ones where Superman intervenes in someone's suicide attempt. They're everywhere It's not rocket science. People get Superman!

And yet Zack Snyder, of all people, gets to decide how Superman is depicted in what is arguably our most important cultural medium. Surely we live in the worst of all possible worlds.
posted by Naberius at 10:40 AM on April 4, 2016 [11 favorites]


This is the grimdarkest timeline.
posted by kyrademon at 10:43 AM on April 4, 2016 [12 favorites]


The thing that impresses me is you could hand this script to Zack and he'd (probably) do a decent job of it.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:50 AM on April 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


The best Superman stories are the ones that are about the ordinary people that surround and are affected by Superman.

That's right, I'm talking about all 163 issues of Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 10:53 AM on April 4, 2016 [19 favorites]


I stumbled on this on Tumblr yesterday and read it and was delighted by it. Glad to see it on the blue.
posted by rmd1023 at 10:58 AM on April 4, 2016


Well, this made my afternoon, and I'm generally not big on fanfic. But, this was really well done.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:08 AM on April 4, 2016 [2 favorites]


There's a gnostic gospel called Infancy Gospel of Thomas which tells a story about Jesus in his childhood. Mostly, Jesus kills other children who bother him. When people complain, he makes them blind. He's chastised by Joseph, and, I guess, grows up to not just kill anyone who bothers him, willy nilly.

I imagine that was what Superman's childhood was like.
posted by maxsparber at 11:13 AM on April 4, 2016 [10 favorites]


Thank you, this was lovely.
posted by alasdair at 11:18 AM on April 4, 2016


> For the last two weeks now, people have been pointing out Superman things that get the character right, and in a way that is utterly antithetical to the last couple movies. This. Two different ones where Superman intervenes in someone's suicide attempt. They're everywhere It's not rocket science. People get Superman!

In some ways, all the bloated arena rock of the 70s deserves some of the credit for punk. This feels similar.
posted by benito.strauss at 11:19 AM on April 4, 2016 [4 favorites]


I just read this on Tumblr and am so glad it made it over here. Note-perfect - I don't give a shit about Superman, but this is time-travel done right.
posted by restless_nomad at 11:22 AM on April 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


“Ouch.” That was apparently enough to guilt him into hugging her, but secretly she thought he wanted to anyway. Mostly because he hugged her much tighter than was strictly necessary. “Stay safe, Mrs. Kent.”

Whoever wrotes this needs to write both Superman and Batman, stat.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:23 AM on April 4, 2016 [11 favorites]


There's a gnostic gospel called Infancy Gospel of Thomas which tells a story about Jesus in his childhood.

The beginning of Christopher Moore's amazing Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal has the boy Jesus repeatedly killing a lizard, then popping it in his mouth to resurrect it for his little brother James' amusement. I have always loved this introduction of Moore's conception of Joshua (as he's called in the book) as a child first. And it pleases me to realize it's probably rooted in the Gospel of Thomas.
posted by sobell at 11:28 AM on April 4, 2016 [7 favorites]


That was lovely. Thanks for sharing, Mr. Encyclopedia.
posted by lord_wolf at 11:42 AM on April 4, 2016


From the same author: Clark Kent has the power of improv

"my favorite thing that Clark Kent does is try to figure out how a Normal Human Man would respond to getting injured. like if someone shoots at him he can say “oh he missed” and if someone tries to punch him he can kind of roll with it and barely avoid getting hit so they don’t smash their hand while going “oh ow oof what a punch ouch”

but then here comes the Joker with a comically large wooden mallet and now Clark has to figure out how Normal Human Man Clark Kent could conceivably survive this without making it obvious that he is not actually a Normal Human Man. just 'oh goddammit i’ve never even seen someone get hit with one of these before, the joker’s probably seen all kinds of people get hit, he knows what this is supposed to look like but i have no goddamn idea i am so fucked' "

Similarly, "there was a golden age superman comic where someone called a hit out on clark kent, and so a sniper tried to shoot him while he was out having lunch with lois

except he’s fucking superman so the bullets just fell off his chest into his lunch and clark just had to pretend nothing happened and hope lois wouldn’t notice that someone just fucking shot him

the hitman thinks maybe he just missed and gets ready to shoot him again, but then he’s watching through the scope as clark starts to eat the fucking bullets to hide the fucking evidence, acting like everything is totally normal as he noshes down on lead

dude just packs his shit up and leaves town because reporters in this city eat bullets for lunch and he’s not fucking with that no way no how"
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 11:42 AM on April 4, 2016 [29 favorites]


“Technically, you won’t remember whether or not I hugged you.”

I read this in Kevin Conroy's voice and it made my goddamn day.

This was excellent and it made me really believe that it could be an episode of the animated Justice League.
posted by numaner at 1:08 PM on April 4, 2016 [10 favorites]


That was awesome. It not only got Clark right, it gave us a version of Bruce Wayne that we sorely need now too.

Someone should make this into a comic. Or a movie. Or a Justice League. Something!
posted by nubs at 2:19 PM on April 4, 2016 [4 favorites]


Someone should make this into a comic. Or a movie. Or a Justice League. Something!

Promotional short for the rebooted DC cinematic universe, helmed by someone with talent and a heart.
posted by suetanvil at 3:07 PM on April 4, 2016 [3 favorites]


Followup observation from the author:
Number of twenty-something dudes who’ve reblogged to express their total horror at the very idea that Ma Kent might be capable of a murder: 2

Number of moms who’ve reblogged to confirm that they would straight-up shoot a motherfucker in the face no regrets no mercy: enough more than two that I have not bothered to keep track
posted by Shmuel510 at 3:40 PM on April 4, 2016 [42 favorites]


Thank you, that was delightful.
posted by mwhybark at 3:47 PM on April 4, 2016


Ya know, the newsfilter and movie fandom and political talk and stuff are all nice, yes, or I think so anyway. But this, a link to a nice thing some random person wrote on the internet, this is what Metafilter is about.
posted by JHarris at 4:57 PM on April 4, 2016 [9 favorites]


Fanfic is always terrible.

So this can't be fanfic.
posted by ten pounds of inedita at 5:07 PM on April 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


It's all fanfic, but we have a worldwide gentleperson's agreement to call it "official" if the right people pay the author for it.
posted by JHarris at 5:09 PM on April 4, 2016 [7 favorites]


I loved this. Thank you for posting it, Mr.Encyclopedia.

I don't feel any need to see it again as a comic, movie, or TV show. But I'd love for there to be comics, movies, or TV shows written by Kitty Unpretty and other people who can write that well about these characters.
posted by straight at 6:00 PM on April 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


I tend to prefer fan film to fanfic because you don't have to do any work to get you through the inevitable awkward bits. This was almost seamless.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:11 PM on April 4, 2016


I'm not one for fanfic myself, but I know Best of the Web when I see it.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:31 PM on April 4, 2016 [4 favorites]


Number of moms who’ve reblogged to confirm that they would straight-up shoot a motherfucker in the face no regrets no mercy: enough more than two that I have not bothered to keep track

Oh yeah, absolutely. What are you supposed to do, let them kill your space baby?
posted by emjaybee at 7:46 PM on April 4, 2016 [6 favorites]


Oh god, this is just the best.

“You wouldn’t believe how many nights she had me go over the 'our son is a crab’ action plan.”
“Pa, you knew I wasn’t going to turn into a giant crab, right?”

#HEY KITTY WHAT DID YOU DO THIS WEEKEND
#WELL I WROTE 6.5K OF A FANFIC ABOUT MARTHA KENT SHOOTING PEOPLE

posted by jenfullmoon at 9:46 PM on April 4, 2016 [3 favorites]


I love this so much.
This is how you write a superman story.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 12:45 AM on April 5, 2016


Oh! Right! And the one where Superman finds out that Captain Marvel is really just a kid and gets really pissed off that someone would deliberately give superpowers to a kid, and goes off on Gandalf before taking Billy Batson under his wing.

God damn it, Zack Snyder! It's not like there aren't a thousand examples of what Superman's supposed to be like out there.
posted by Naberius at 6:30 AM on April 5, 2016 [7 favorites]



Oh! Right! And the one where Superman finds out that Captain Marvel is really just a kid and gets really pissed off that someone would deliberately give superpowers to a kid, and goes off on Gandalf before taking Billy Batson under his wing.


God, the look on Superman's face at the end of page 2.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 7:37 AM on April 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


Number of moms who’ve reblogged to confirm that they would straight-up shoot a motherfucker in the face no regrets no mercy

What truly made Clark Kent into Superman was not the fact that Martha Kent would straight-up shoot a motherfucker in the face -- it was the fact that her reaction was less "How do I make sure I can shoot the next motherfucker in the face" than "How do I make sure my son doesn't grow up to be the kind of asshole that gets motherfuckers sent to the past to kill him?"

That's what this story got right and what too many Superman writers don't.
posted by Etrigan at 7:49 AM on April 5, 2016 [17 favorites]


Bingo Etrigan. The big thing that I noted is that after each incident, Ma and Pa Kent do something that changes the future so that the "shooting a mother-fucker in the face" thing never happens...until it is Brainaic, which is the right timeline.

This story is about how the choices you make as a parent affect the kind of adult who goes out into world. None of us want to raise a kid who has people coming back into the past to try to kill them.
posted by nubs at 8:04 AM on April 5, 2016 [8 favorites]


I do wish a motherfucker would show up every now and then so I could shoot them and get an insight into how to better raise my kids.

I guess since they're not, I'm doing something right? I wonder if Klara Hitler had this problem.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 11:48 AM on April 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


Thanks for posting this, I spotted it at work yesterday, but was at work and couldn't read it. Glad I got the reminder here, its great.
posted by Fence at 12:43 PM on April 5, 2016


Well, that was really very nice!
posted by maryr at 2:37 PM on April 5, 2016


This story was great. Just great.

And…

Oh! Right! And the one where Superman finds out that Captain Marvel is really just a kid and gets really pissed off that someone would deliberately give superpowers to a kid, and goes off on Gandalf before taking Billy Batson under his wing.

The water...in my eyes...where did that...Puny Human Heart!

If those few panels didn't make you get misty then you probably liked Batman V Superman.
posted by device55 at 6:25 PM on April 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


If we're linking to other great Superman / Batman / Wonder Woman stories, I have to recommend JL8 - a charming fan comic about the Justice League as eight-year-olds.
posted by straight at 11:04 PM on April 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


Oooooh that is good straight, I award you a point.
posted by JHarris at 3:54 PM on April 6, 2016


Ooo, Yale's posting again. Damn, where did I leave off?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 4:58 PM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


If we're sharing fanfiction, I kind of like this discussion between Bats and Supes about the role religion and faith played in the boy scout's upbringing--and that's in spite of me not really being a fan of religious/spiritual fiction. It certainly counters the movie notion that he thinks of himself as a Christ-like figure, and I like the way Ma and (especially) Pa Kent are presented (even if they don't have really large roles.) Actually, it feels to me like an old World's Finest issue where Bruce and Clark are able to talk about their differences and still respect each other as friends.
posted by sardonyx at 7:23 PM on April 6, 2016 [3 favorites]


From the author: Tumblr responses that "give me strength in my ongoing battle against the twin forces of zack snyder and quentin tarantino"
posted by brainwane at 7:59 AM on April 8, 2016 [3 favorites]


I just read this thanks to the Instagram thread- seriously, this is one of the best Superman stories I've ever read.
posted by happyroach at 6:53 PM on May 2, 2016 [2 favorites]


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