Invite Clark Kent to an interview with a Senior General in a small village in the Nevada desert. Clark arrives to an empty village full of plastic mannequins. The whole village disappears in a flash of light.
Clark arrives back to the CIA office the next day with excuses that he couldn't make it to the interview.
At some point it must have become a hazing ritual. New CIA recruits had to have been goaded into attempting to assassinate him on super short notice, as a joke.
What's this flattened piece of metal doing on the table? Wait a minute... Are you Superman in disguise and the bullets fired from a silenced gun bounced off your invulnerable chest and landed on the table? ...What am I saying? If that were true, Superman obviously would have eaten them to hide the evidence.
i imagine kryptonians drop logs dense like nibblonians' pebbles. which are also so dense they only require wiping/bideting when for example supes is sick.
so like, he probably uses a lead bowl and a portal to the Phantom zone to take care of his deuces.
If my night shamalamalan directed it would be really good for like the first 40% and then everything after a certain point would feel incredibly paint-by-numbers
I suffer a similar problem, in that I can't tell written stories well (I rely too much on auditory pacing and gestures. I also can't world build for shit, so y'all have got that going for you at least.
[nerd alert] There was a Superman comic where someone alerts Clark Kent to a Luthor scheme and Superman shows up to wipe it out. The source confronts Kent, enraged that he took the easy way out. She wanted Kent to write the story and bring it to the world's attention, not have Superman make the problem disappear
It's not an assassination but the new Superman opens with the consequences of him stopping an invasion of definitely-not-Palestine by the definitely-not-Israelis
There was a Superman: The Animated Series episode where someone put a bomb in Clark Kent's car (or something like that) and it went off and the episode dealt with him having to come up with a plausible explanation for how he survived.
The Late Mr. Kent. One of the best episodes of the series. He finds evidence that a death row inmate is innocent, gets, "assassinated," by the real killer (which also destroys the evidence), and has to find a new way to clear the man/catch the real killer while also seeing how the people close to him deal with his, "death." And, boy, that ending.
Clark goes back to his rural childhood farm town for the holidays. Holly, a big city CIA assassin on her first assignment, comes to town under the guise of being a photographer there for their big Christmas festival. Holly struggles to find opportunities to kill this enemy of the state, between the charity work Clark's does for the festival and the seemingly persistent attention he revcieves from his highschool sweetheart, Lana (who looks remarkably similar to Holly in build, complexion and hair color) and her daughter Sarah. So she stages a honey trap to lure him to his demise. With each failed assassination attempt she finds herself falling victim to her own trap and she finds herself falling in love with him. Eventually Holly breaks down and confesses that she's actually there to commit an illegal murder for the government but can't because her newfound love for Clark has made her rethink her career path of state sanctioned murdering people for money. She runs off into the snow, tears running down her face. At the festival Clark is delivering fresh pies to the charity fund raiser booth when he hears the news. Holly's car was pulled from a frozen lake with a body inside. While damage from the wreck makes identification difficult, they are certain it Holly is dead. A forlorn and heartbroken Clark feels lost but then the crowd parts and he sees Holly! They rush into each other's arms. "How?" Clark asks. "I couldn't just leave, they would come after me. The only way out was to fake my death." Holly answers between kisses. "Then who was that in your car?" "Don't worry about it", she says as they kiss. Credits roll as Sarah wonders the crowd searching for her missing mother.
Superman was first published in 1938. He'll enter the public domain in 2034.
However, the only things going into the public domain then are the first year of Superman comics, which didn't include some key aspects of the Superman mythos. For instance, while it was established in the first issue that Superman came from a destroyed planet, it didn't tell us anything about that planet; we saw it blow up in the first panel but we didn't get its name or see any of its people. That would be added in the newspaper comics, which would start in 1939 (so they wouldn't be in the public domain until 2035.)
Likewise, we don't see anything about Clark Kent's childhood in the first year of the comics; that would be fleshed out in the novel The Adventures of Superman by George Lowther (one of the script-writers on the Superman radio series) in 1942, so it'll be in the public domain in 2038.
Superman also was just really strong, really fast and really tough in those first stories. He didn't start using X-ray vision until 1939, he didn't fly until 1941 and he didn't have heat vision until 1961 (although he'd been performing heat vision-like feats with his X-ray vision for years prior to that.)
Finally, while Clark Kent was a reporter from the beginning, his paper was originally called the Daily Star. It wouldn't be known as the Daily Planet until 1940 (no in-universe explanation was given for the change; they just suddenly started calling it by a different name. Its editor also changed from being named George Taylor to Perry White, although aside from the name the characters were the same.)
However, one foundational piece of Superman media is already in the public domain; the Fleischer/Famous Studios cartoons from the 1940s. Their owners didn't file the paperwork to extend their copyright (back when that was necessary) so they've been in the public domain for decades. Up until now that didn't mean much since Superman himself was still under copyright, but anything introduced in those cartoons such as the Mechanical Monsters (an army of giant robots that Superman fought in an early cartoon) or the Arctic Giant (basically Godzilla before Godzilla existed) would immediately be fair game. Arguably Superman's flight was also introduced in those cartoons, but there are some earlier comics where it's debatable whether or not he's flying or just jumping with bad physics.
Okay, so the only thing really missing is the x-ray vision. The whole point is that he's under cover/being Clark kent like the entire time, so he doesn't necessarily need to fly.
he's a sports journalist! it's Louis Lane the CIA would try to take down. Clark Kent keeps his journalistic ambitions low so no one pays too much mind. he then feeds scoops to Louis and Jimmy Olsen
64 Comments
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca · 128 pts · 310d
Invite Clark Kent to an interview with a Senior General in a small village in the Nevada desert. Clark arrives to an empty village full of plastic mannequins. The whole village disappears in a flash of light.
Clark arrives back to the CIA office the next day with excuses that he couldn't make it to the interview.
Vikthor@piefed.world · 62 pts · 310d
That's so easy that my favourite archeology professor could do it.
ramble81@lemmy.zip · 19 pts · 310d
Just need a refrigerator!
Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip · 107 pts · 310d
I'm sure the CIA wouldn't be that surprised at being unable to kill someone.
Not after 634 failures against Fidel Castro
_stranger_@lemmy.world · 74 pts · 310d
At some point it must have become a hazing ritual. New CIA recruits had to have been goaded into attempting to assassinate him on super short notice, as a joke.
Archer@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 310d
“We purposely trained him wrong... as a joke.”
cRazi_man@europe.pub · 28 pts · 310d
Confirmed: Fidel Castro is Super Hombre.
Honytawk@lemmy.zip · 57 pts · 310d
Hoimo@ani.social · 59 pts · 310d
What's this flattened piece of metal doing on the table? Wait a minute... Are you Superman in disguise and the bullets fired from a silenced gun bounced off your invulnerable chest and landed on the table? ...What am I saying? If that were true, Superman obviously would have eaten them to hide the evidence.
Grimy@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 310d
I would have called the waiter and blamed it on the kitchen. No suspicion and a free meal most likely.
MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com · 11 pts · 310d
It is my belief that the real Clark would never complain about food he was served.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 310d
hes too mild mannered.
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 310d
dude is going to have the heaviest shits later.
that toilet is gonna look like this when he's done spraying lead out his well toned kryptonian ass.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 310d
i imagine kryptonians drop logs dense like nibblonians' pebbles. which are also so dense they only require wiping/bideting when for example supes is sick.
so like, he probably uses a lead bowl and a portal to the Phantom zone to take care of his deuces.
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 310d
imagining all the criminals in the phantom zone getting shredded by a lifetime of super poop is hilarious.
Jarix@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 309d
Viva la dirt league needs to be sent this idea. Poste haste!
stray@pawb.social · 15 pts · 310d
Good thing he's wearing one of his Kryptonian shirts today.
maccentric@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 310d
Nope, all patrons were given mandarin robes to wear, the bulletproof kind, just in case
ivanafterall@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 309d
Does anyone know a good Moo Goo Poo recipe?
halvar@lemy.lol · 50 pts · 310d
i would watch that movie
lobut@lemmy.ca · 48 pts · 310d
If M Night Shyamalan directed this, it would be a Superman reveal at the end with a cheesy one-liner.
"why won't you die?" "because I believe in truth, justice and the American way"
<Fin.>
silasmariner@programming.dev · 25 pts · 310d
If my night shamalamalan directed it would be really good for like the first 40% and then everything after a certain point would feel incredibly paint-by-numbers
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 310d
yeah he does pretty great in establishing fictional universes, not so much in telling the stories in them.
Archer@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 310d
M. Night Worldbuilder
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 310d
I suffer a similar problem, in that I can't tell written stories well (I rely too much on auditory pacing and gestures. I also can't world build for shit, so y'all have got that going for you at least.
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social · 2 pts · 309d
Has anyone ever seen M. Night and Sanderson in the same room?
DagwoodIII@piefed.social · 33 pts · 310d
[nerd alert] There was a Superman comic where someone alerts Clark Kent to a Luthor scheme and Superman shows up to wipe it out. The source confronts Kent, enraged that he took the easy way out. She wanted Kent to write the story and bring it to the world's attention, not have Superman make the problem disappear
pigup@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 310d
The s stands for shithead
veniasilente@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 308d
Ah those were the times...
JokeDeity@sh.itjust.works · 32 pts · 310d
Change it to the IDF and it's Clark reporting on Gaza.
SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world · 26 pts · 310d
The IDF would nuke all of Metropolis, Kent Clark would walk out unscathed and they’d call him anti-semitic.
Natanael@infosec.pub · 7 pts · 310d
Did
https://www.haaretz.com/life/2025-07-16/ty-article-magazine/.premium/anti-israel-pro-immigration-james-gunns-superman-is-a-kinder-blockbuster/00000198-124c-d3d2-a7dc-1edecc750000
cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 310d
I'd watch that movie. Whether he tries to kill them back or it's pure non-cathartic comedy.
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social · 3 pts · 309d
... Did you see the new Superman movie?
JokeDeity@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 309d
No, I haven't enjoyed superhero movies in like almost 2 decades, the genre lost it's heart and soul for me mostly due to the MCU empire.
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social · 3 pts · 309d
It's not an assassination but the new Superman opens with the consequences of him stopping an invasion of definitely-not-Palestine by the definitely-not-Israelis
JokeDeity@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 309d
I did hear a small bit about that, good on Gunn.
GraniteM@lemmy.world · 31 pts · 310d
There was a Superman: The Animated Series episode where someone put a bomb in Clark Kent's car (or something like that) and it went off and the episode dealt with him having to come up with a plausible explanation for how he survived.
pjwestin@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 309d
The Late Mr. Kent. One of the best episodes of the series. He finds evidence that a death row inmate is innocent, gets, "assassinated," by the real killer (which also destroys the evidence), and has to find a new way to clear the man/catch the real killer while also seeing how the people close to him deal with his, "death." And, boy, that ending.
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 2 pts · 309d
"Bar- I mean The Flash saved me just in the nick of time!"
ivanafterall@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 309d
"I guess they call it a fugue state? I don't really remember what happened."
EndOfLine@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 310d
Make it a Hallmark Christmas movie!
Clark goes back to his rural childhood farm town for the holidays. Holly, a big city CIA assassin on her first assignment, comes to town under the guise of being a photographer there for their big Christmas festival. Holly struggles to find opportunities to kill this enemy of the state, between the charity work Clark's does for the festival and the seemingly persistent attention he revcieves from his highschool sweetheart, Lana (who looks remarkably similar to Holly in build, complexion and hair color) and her daughter Sarah. So she stages a honey trap to lure him to his demise. With each failed assassination attempt she finds herself falling victim to her own trap and she finds herself falling in love with him. Eventually Holly breaks down and confesses that she's actually there to commit an illegal murder for the government but can't because her newfound love for Clark has made her rethink her career path of state sanctioned murdering people for money. She runs off into the snow, tears running down her face. At the festival Clark is delivering fresh pies to the charity fund raiser booth when he hears the news. Holly's car was pulled from a frozen lake with a body inside. While damage from the wreck makes identification difficult, they are certain it Holly is dead. A forlorn and heartbroken Clark feels lost but then the crowd parts and he sees Holly! They rush into each other's arms. "How?" Clark asks. "I couldn't just leave, they would come after me. The only way out was to fake my death." Holly answers between kisses. "Then who was that in your car?" "Don't worry about it", she says as they kiss. Credits roll as Sarah wonders the crowd searching for her missing mother.
zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 8 pts · 310d
There's the twist M Night Shyamalan wishes he could still pull off.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 309d
You can't leave us hanging like that! What happened to Lana, you monster!? What did you do to her!?
bluemoon@piefed.social · 15 pts · 310d
inspired by the well documented assassination attemps on Fidel Castro
now available digitally for reading
pr06lefs@lemmy.ml · 14 pts · 310d
Something like Clouseau vs the world's assassins from the pink panther strikes again.
thebeardedpotato@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 310d
Damn it now I want to see this too lol
theuniqueone@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 13 pts · 310d
If only anyone had the courage to portray the CIA as the villains they are.
pr06lefs@lemmy.ml · 9 pts · 310d
Check out the movie "Sicario"
TheBat@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 310d
cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 11 pts · 310d
When is superman off copyright? Not too long after mickey mouse, right?
Edit; wait, anti-zionist, so any money going to it would be shut down¹ instantly unless it was bags of cash. No reason to care about copyright then.
¹by the christofascists who actually do control the banks
WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world · 26 pts · 310d
Superman was first published in 1938. He'll enter the public domain in 2034.
However, the only things going into the public domain then are the first year of Superman comics, which didn't include some key aspects of the Superman mythos. For instance, while it was established in the first issue that Superman came from a destroyed planet, it didn't tell us anything about that planet; we saw it blow up in the first panel but we didn't get its name or see any of its people. That would be added in the newspaper comics, which would start in 1939 (so they wouldn't be in the public domain until 2035.)
Likewise, we don't see anything about Clark Kent's childhood in the first year of the comics; that would be fleshed out in the novel The Adventures of Superman by George Lowther (one of the script-writers on the Superman radio series) in 1942, so it'll be in the public domain in 2038.
Superman also was just really strong, really fast and really tough in those first stories. He didn't start using X-ray vision until 1939, he didn't fly until 1941 and he didn't have heat vision until 1961 (although he'd been performing heat vision-like feats with his X-ray vision for years prior to that.)
Finally, while Clark Kent was a reporter from the beginning, his paper was originally called the Daily Star. It wouldn't be known as the Daily Planet until 1940 (no in-universe explanation was given for the change; they just suddenly started calling it by a different name. Its editor also changed from being named George Taylor to Perry White, although aside from the name the characters were the same.)
However, one foundational piece of Superman media is already in the public domain; the Fleischer/Famous Studios cartoons from the 1940s. Their owners didn't file the paperwork to extend their copyright (back when that was necessary) so they've been in the public domain for decades. Up until now that didn't mean much since Superman himself was still under copyright, but anything introduced in those cartoons such as the Mechanical Monsters (an army of giant robots that Superman fought in an early cartoon) or the Arctic Giant (basically Godzilla before Godzilla existed) would immediately be fair game. Arguably Superman's flight was also introduced in those cartoons, but there are some earlier comics where it's debatable whether or not he's flying or just jumping with bad physics.
cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 9 pts · 310d
Okay, so the only thing really missing is the x-ray vision. The whole point is that he's under cover/being Clark kent like the entire time, so he doesn't necessarily need to fly.
Could work.
Hadriscus@jlai.lu · 6 pts · 310d
wow, loved that dive into duperman history
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 1 pts · 309d
Would 1938 Superman be able to make a mini Superman in his palm?
_stranger_@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 310d
Do a "The Joker" where it's the joker in all but name, just call it "The Journalist"
P1k1e@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 310d
Does Clark Leave the country a lot? Figured he was a more domestic journalist based on absolutely nothing atall
Quill7513@slrpnk.net · 14 pts · 310d
he's a sports journalist! it's Louis Lane the CIA would try to take down. Clark Kent keeps his journalistic ambitions low so no one pays too much mind. he then feeds scoops to Louis and Jimmy Olsen
Mist101@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 310d
Good ol' Louey!
Quill7513@slrpnk.net · 6 pts · 310d
🤦
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 310d
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKt75jUuKJY
TachyonTele@piefed.social · 7 pts · 310d
Along these lines, I really want a batman movie where he's not the star, but a monster in the background hunting the protagonist.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 310d
isnt thats what the suicide squad premise was about, waller was discussing how to take out superman, if he went bad.
ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 309d
That's the excuse she gives, but it's more like that she wants to use criminals to do crimes in a way that the government can't be blamed for
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 309d
that too, because thats kinda what they did, its like special ops/cia with superpowers.