It can be said that Lois's timeliness theory was perfectly executed. The order of news is very important. Sometimes, some people suppress certain news not to eliminate it completely, but just to buy time. As long as it is delayed to the right time, its impact is greatly reduced.
This time is no exception. Lois acted much faster than the military, directly releasing the news of her poisoning and her relationship with Superman first. Thus, when the military subsequently revealed Clark's identity, that news easily became an appendage to the previous two.
If this news had been released first, everyone might have focused on discussing where Superman actually comes from or why he is fighting other alien monsters.
But now, everyone's attention is focused on Lois being poisoned. As soon as this news broke, people naturally believed that this was an important clue revealing the military's attempt to silence her. Once seen as an appendage, it no longer seems that important,
Although many people are discussing the issue straightforwardly under this piece of news, on other platforms, public opinion is developing freely. Almost everyone speculates that because Lois's poisoning was exposed, they immediately targeted her boyfriend to suppress the journalist.
This is not uncommon. If they can't go after the person directly, they go after their family and important friends to distract their attention and tarnish their circle of friends, thus reducing the public's impression of them.
So the question returns to the original point: why did the military poison Lois?
What exactly made them even resort to going after her boyfriend in a roundabout way, determined to ruin her reputation?
At this moment, the Daily Planet published a "Los Angeles Illegal Immigrants and Homeless Investigation Report." This report was actually written by Clark, based on his real experiences in Los Angeles, accompanied by some official statistics. At a glance, there's nothing significant about it; most Americans are used to it — if illegal immigrants and homeless people die, they die; it doesn't affect much.
However, as the first newspaper company to arrive on the scene after Lois was poisoned, their actions at this moment attracted a lot of attention. Then many people noticed that the report vaguely pointed out issues like the recent sharp decline in the number of homeless people and the different directions in which vehicles collecting bodies were traveling.
This is surely it; they're definitely being taken away for some unspeakable experiments. The seasoned veterans of America's golden era of intelligence gathering understand this, don't they? Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are for bio-viruses, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays for genetic modification, and the remaining day is used to silence related personnel.
Thus, the general outline of the situation becomes clear: due to the existence of aliens, the military is massively collecting bodies or simply capturing live people for experiments, and in the process, they inadvertently created the monster flying over Metropolis.
The brave independent journalist Lois had already discovered their actions, conducted an investigation in Los Angeles, and returned to Metropolis with important information, only to be discovered by the military, who attempted to silence her.
Failing to poison her into silence enraged the military, leading them to try to suppress her reputation and divert attention by exposing her boyfriend Superman's identity, in an attempt to gain a public opinion victory.
But the biggest flaw in this matter is that generally speaking, Americans would not go through the trouble of using poison for a silencing operation—especially an armed department like the military, which usually just shoots directly.
However, Lois's relationship with Superman perfectly explains this flaw. Come on, when her boyfriend is Superman, you can't just show up with a gun at her door without making Superman laugh.
Because Lois was always under Superman's protection, the military had no way to use their usual violent methods, so they had to resort to poisoning her with a different approach. Perhaps due to a lack of expertise, the poisoning attempt also failed. It wasn't until it could no longer be covered up that the matter was exposed.
America truly lives up to its reputation as a country with separation of powers. The greatest advantage of this system is: when one department gets in trouble, the other departments inevitably add insult to injury. It's like an arm-wrestling match between your left hand and right hand, with zero-sum competition, each trying to kill the other off.
As soon as the military's issue arose, Congress immediately initiated an inquiry, demanding an explanation from the military. It sounds like concern for the people, as if they've taken up the people's cause, but in reality, it's about clearing their own name by incriminating the military.
The military found themselves in a tough spot. After playing the hunter all day, they finally got pecked by the goose themselves, and they couldn't outplay these journalism students. So what can they do?
There's no way to avoid the inquiry; otherwise, they'd be directly convicted. Pushing a few internal scapegoats is probably not enough; they must find a way to shift the blame. Even if they can't shift all of it, at least they need to deflect part of it to lessen their own guilt.
And who's the best scapegoat? Naturally, Lex Luther.
In fact, it's not even accurate to call him a scapegoat; he actually did it in the first place. Did you really think there were no cameras in our lab?
Previously, they didn't hassle Luther over this because the whole incident with capturing Zod was already too shadowy to see the light of day, plus Luther was their own invitee, and exposing it proactively offered no benefits.
But now things have reached this point, and it's no longer a question of whether someone dies or not, but how many. So to reduce the number of casualties, of course, they have to divulge Luther's involvement.
At the inquiry meeting, the military directly presented surveillance footage. The footage indeed showed Luther tampering with Zod's test subject. The evidence was conclusive, leaving no room for denial. On the same day, Lex Luther was arrested and jailed.
This time, the charges were too severe, the evidence too overwhelming, leaving almost no room for defense. Moreover, in an effort to clear their own names, the military had released the information early. The stock price of the Luther Group plummeted, and those market predators who had long eyed Luther Group finally began to make their moves.
This behemoth that once almost ruled Metropolis made no more noise when it collapsed than a pebble falling into water. When Clark saw Luther's shaved head in the prison photo on the front page, he didn't feel much happiness, just a bit of regret.
What he didn't expect was that the day after Luther's imprisonment, on his way back to his apartment, a group of men in black stopped him and invited him into an alley nearby.
Clark was somewhat speechless. He didn't know what the other party's purpose was with this move. For ordinary people, it would be full of mystery, but he is a superpower user who can directly see through people's internal organs. Therefore, when the woman in black appeared, there was not only no mystery, but Clark could see her fatty liver at a glance.
"Hello, ma'am, what do you want from me?" Clark asked.
The other party took out her ID from her jacket, showed it to him, and said, "Government and government agent, primary person in charge of the Sky Eye Plan, Amanda Waller. The famous Superman, sir, I'm here to talk to you about a plan the government has been conducting for over a decade. We see hope in advancing the plan through you. Do you have time?"
"Actually, I wasn't free," Clark said truthfully, "but since you put it that way, I don't seem to have much room to refuse. Where do we go to talk?"
This strong Black woman didn't seem to expect Superman to be so cooperative. After a pause, she still said, "Get in the car first."
Clark followed her into the car. Besides the driver, it was just the two of them inside. Amanda said, "I know you may not have heard of the Sky Eye Plan, but I must tell you, you are not the first superpower user we've discovered."
"Oh, alright." Clark's response was very flat.
Amanda frowned again. In the past, when she said this to certain superpower users, they would be very interested, either chasing her with questions about others or asking about their own abilities.
"In fact, you are not the first alien we've discovered either." Amanda threw out another message.
"But I should be the most valued one, it's my honor." Clark's perfunctory response was plainly visible.
This time Amanda deeply frowned and asked, "Have you seen other superpower users or aliens besides yourself?"
"Yes, I've seen them on the murals exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum." Clark shrugged, "Recently, there's been talk online that aliens landed in Ancient Egypt long ago. Seems like I'm relatively late."
"To investigate and manage people like you, the government initiated an action called the Sky Eye Plan. To ensure Earth's safety, we have been monitoring superpower users."
"But you obviously didn't monitor that monster, or you wouldn't have needed me to step in." Clark knew his words were somewhat sharp, but he was indeed irritated by this woman's attitude. You privately monitor all you want, but coming to me to say it is provocative, isn't it?
Unexpectedly, Amanda wasn't angry. She just nodded and said, "Indeed, that monster appeared too abruptly for us to react. If not for you, Metropolis might already be destroyed. You are truly a hero."
These words made Clark feel a bit better. After all, ever since his identity was revealed, he always felt people were looking at him with strange eyes. Though he saves people without expecting a reward, he was still happy to be praised.
"Precisely because of this, we sought you out, hoping to establish collaboration. In case of emergencies or disasters that we can't respond to, we hope you can step in to save people."
"That's not an issue," Clark said, "but if it's just this, you could have sent me an email, no need to make it so formal, right?"
But Amanda shook her head and said, "It's not that simple. You haven't experienced this kind of model before, have you?"
Clark finally heard something unusual and said, "You're hoping to hire me to do things for you?"
"You could say that." Amanda was blunt, "However, we won't restrict your freedom, nor require daily attendance, just showing up during incidents to solve problems we can't."
"So, what will you have me solve?"
"Like that monster before, you handled it well. That time was indeed our oversight, failing to spot the monster's existence beforehand. However, we have made some effective warnings in the past. Once at the base, we can show you data. If future incidents arise that match your abilities, we will notify you to resolve them."
Clark didn't speak, just watched as the car drove into the underground garage. When he exited the elevator, he found this was indeed a large base, and it seemed to have some history. People worked methodically and orderly.
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