Great start and middle, garbage lacklustre ending.

I regret wasting my time reading this.

Wow what a great story.
Really entertained me for an evening ! Thank you for this!

I enjoyed the story and really, that was the only way the story could have ended.

I do kinda wish there was a epilogue. I always ask myself, what happens next? What happens after the villain kills the hero? What happens when the next monster, alien invasion or world ending disaster comes and theres no Superman to stop it?

So I kinda wish there was a epilogue touching on that or even a short sequel of the consequences of Luthor actions when aliens invade or something.

Bleak, but unfortunately all too believable.

Thank you for the story, I really enjoyed it. Even to the end, I supported Superman through and through, but I can understand where Lois and Lex are coming from. Disagreeing with a compellingly written viewpoint character (Lex) is an uncomfortable feeling, but it's important to be able to sit with that feeling, and I thank you for that as well. The story was both enjoyable and thought provoking, through and through.

*But there was no reason to emphasize her race, was my point. It's naturally a given that she would be focused on. America was a predominately white country back then, and it's unlikely that anyone, even the most staunch of progressives, would've made a note on her race back then.

I think her being the daughter of a famous and rich man and Superman not arriving in time would factor into the fame, more than anything. Granted, though, race would be more important in those times than in the modern day.

I am very impressed by the breadth of your historical knowledge. Player pianos and orphan trains and such, as an example. (I never even knew about orphan trains; it's a concept that actually seems almost surreal.)

Sudden insights are not bullshit or any type of magic, they actually are quite helpful most of the time (though, granted, a few times, they can lead to dead ends). It is a good point, though, that great insights usually only happen after a great deal of thinking about some topic or having had much experience in some sort of thing.

Ah, so you were saving it for a later chapter. Of course. You probably wouldn't have brought up the hours otherwise, and skimmed over it so. Character-wise, I suppose Luther just overlooked something painfully obvious; It happens to the best of us.

Even with all the false data reports, I would think that a more accurate result could be drawn. A few might skew the results, but not by much. Then again, vectors might not produce that much data, and within 10 city blocks is pretty good for in terms of precision...

Surprised Lex doesn't consider the possibility that Superman might be disguising himself as a regular human with a day job, given how obviously well the daytime hours line up; perhaps he's under the fault subconscious assumption that Superman is above all that?

Alas, this was never going to end with Clark and Lex working together. The world would have been all the greater if it did, but Lex would never have accepted. I love that Lex wins here from just being lucky. A million different things could have happened that ended with Superman completely unharmed and Lex unarmed, defeated or just killed. For all his brilliance, for all his schemes and plans, Lex Luthor defeated Superman by being very lucky. I wonder which annoys him more, the imperfect victory or the admitted second thoughts that things could have worked by working with Superman.
Overall, I quite enjoyed this. It's hardly the version I'm used to thinking about, but everyone felt like they had real depth. Lex made for a good villain protagonist, and it's interesting seeing such a human, realistic depiction of Superman. Also Mercy was just the best.

Superman being something developed by Kryptonian tech to blend in with humans explains all of Lex's questions about why the alien race would happen to evolve in that manner; it just didn't. A cross between a spider and an eel? That's intense.

There's an excellent duality here, because it's so easy to understand Lois' rage and Lex's fear, but at the same time we know Superman is trying he can to be good. I can't blame Lois for feeling betrayed, but I also just want someone to give Clark a hug.

This is where this story becomes a tragedy, isn't it? Calhoun may be dead, but he's essentially won by Superman killing him. Superman is no longer infallible to the public, no longer the paragon of humanity. Honestly, I'm still loving this and am eager to see what Lex does next, I'm going to be feeling bad for Clark through these final three chapters.

Oh dear, Martha... I don't know if Floyd's going to die, but he's not going to have a happy life after that. Yet again, an excellent scene from Superman about him desperately trying to stay good, to be that hero despite his pain.