Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
Season 1, Episode 4 (3 Oct. 1993): “Neverending Battle”
by Daniel LeVine, Gene Reynolds

Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman - Season 1, Episode 4

Title: “Neverending Battle”

Medium: television series episode

Original airdate: 3 Oct. 1993

Publisher:
Written by: Daniel LeVine
Directed by: Gene Reynolds

10 characters in this story:

Character (Click links for info about character and his/her religious practice, affiliation, etc.)	Religious Affiliation	Team(s) [Notes]	Pub.	# app.
Superman (Clark Kent)	Methodist / Kryptonian religion	Kryptonians; Super Friends...  The Justice League		13,409
Lois Lane	Catholic	Raleigh College [Superman's girlfriend, then wife]		3,859
Jimmy Olsen	Lutheran	The Legion of Super-Heroes [Superman's pal]		1,896
Perry White	Baptist; Elvis worship (ordained)	[Superman's (Clark Kent's) boss; Daily Planet editor]		1,574
Jonathan Kent	Methodist	[Superman's adoptive father]		816
Martha Kent	Methodist	[Superman's adoptive mother]		827
Lex Luthor	Episcopalian (lapsed); Nietzschean atheist	Injustice League; Secret Six...  Secret Society of Super Villains; The Injustice Gang; The Legion of Doom		1,508
Inspector William Henderson		[police commissioner; police detective]		123
Cat Grant	Catholic (lapsed); promiscuous hedonist	[Daily Planet gossip columnist; co-worker of Clark Kent]		140
Lucy Lane	Catholic	[Lois Lane's sister]		226

Timecode: 0 minutes, 17 seconds: Scene: interior offices of the Daily Planet. The office is extremely busy and chaotic. Perry White rushes into the room asking photographer Jimmy Olsen something.

Perry White: Olsen, where are those blowups of Superman?

Jimmy Olsen: Uh, lab's backed up. Turnaround might take a couple hours.

Perry White: Turnaround! Oh! Great shades of Elvis! What are we here here? The Daily Planet, or second stringers from the Weehawken Gazette?

Timecode: 0 minutes, 47 seconds: Lois Lane, Clark Kent and Cat Grant are standing behind a sketch artist who is attempting to draw what Superman looks like. Lois Lane and Cat Grant are both providing a description. Cat Grant's dialog further pegs her as a rather one-note character. She seems to be entirely preoccupied with sex and seems utterly promiscuous and sexually immoral.

Cat Grant: Bedroom eyes.

Jimmy Olsen: Hey, if he is an alien, mayb he doesn't get the old, you know, itch.

Cat Grant: One way to find out.

Jimmy here reacts to Cat's comment by wondering if Superman has sexual desires. Although they don't realize it, Cat and Jimmy, in talking about Superman's sexual feelings or lack thereof, are actually talking about Clark Kent, who is standing right next to them. Of course, they don't realize this, as nobody here knows that Clark is really Superman. Clark is morally very conservative and this talk makes him feel rather uncomfortable. He makes a face and adjusts his tie as he is briefly shown in a close-up.

Lois Lane: A possible visitor from another planet arrives on Earth . . . and all you can think of is hauling him off to your lair to try him out?

Cat Grant: Test-drive, Lois. Couple of hours behind the wheel . . . I know for sure if we're talking import or domestic.

Clark Kent is visibly disturbed and/or disgusted by Cat's comments. Cat walks away. Lois continues working with the sketch artist.

Lois Lane: No, the features are too coarse. Think noble. Think . . . Greek god.

Sketch artist: A Greek god?

Lois Lane: For example, the chin, it's square, but not plain . . . the chin of a man who stands for something.

Timecode: 3 minutes, 23 seconds: Wearing an expensive bathrobe, Lex Luthor is standing on a balcony outside his penthouse apartment. He is looking through binoculars. The camera cuts to show what he is looking at: three pigeons perched on a railing on a nearby building. At least one of the birds is very white and looks rather like a dove. Then the camera cuts to a shot of the sky, and we see a hawk or falcon flying through the air and suddenly going into a dive. The bird of prey swoops down on the doves and captures the pigeons to eat. After seeing the three pigeons get killed, Lex Luthor smiles with great satisfaction.

The symbolism of this scene is already apparent, but is rendered even more clear by later dialog: Lex Luthor is a hawk and he preys on doves. On a more literal level, it is clear from this scene that Lex Luthor is not a member of PETA and probably not in any way an "animal rights" believer.

Lex Luthor sits down at a small table on the balcony, helped by Asabi, his South Asian assistant. Asabi wears a turban and South Asian (probably Indian) clothing in the tradition of Sikhs, and may well be a Sikh. But he has no beard. Asabi seems like he is probably a Sikh or a Hindu, but he is probably not devout in whatever religion he belongs to, given the fact that he willingly works for a man who openly flaunts his own evil thoughts in front of him. Asabi may be a Sikh who continues to dress in a traditional manner due to his upbringing, but has lapsed in some ways from his faith. One sign of this would be his clean-shaven face.

Pseudo-Asian music plays while two beautiful young Japanese women emerge from the apartment carrying a pogo stick. Their dress (according to our Japanese native observer) appears to be more Chinese than Japanese. But they speak Japanese to Lex Luthor and he speaks Japanese back to them. Given what we see of Lex's sexual proclivities in earlier episodes and later in this one, it is likely that these Japanese women are among an endless parade of diverse women used by Lex Luthor for his own sexual enjoyment without regards to traditional morality or the feelings of the women themselves.

After the Japanese women exit, Lex Luthor looks at newspapers and is disturbed when he sees all of them feature headlines about Superman. On his calendar he notices that Lois Lane has cancelled her lunch appointment with him. He calls her, but gets her machine. The message on her machine says to not bother leaving a message unless it is about Superman. This contributes to Lex Luthor's emerging hatred of Superman.

Timecode: 6 minutes, 56 seconds: Lois Lane and Clark Kent are discussing Superman, who Perry White is urging that they find for further interviews and news stories. Cat Grant walks up and further illustrates that she thinks almost entirely about sex and that she is also constantly willing to say things designed to humiliate or torment Lois Lane.

Cat Grant: Hmm . . . Wait a minute. I get it. You and Superman joined the old Zero Gravity Club up on the space station, didn't you?

Lois Lane: Excuse me?

Cat Grant: Oh, oh, oh, it's okay. Don't worry, your secret's safe. No one would believe it, anyway.

Lois Lane looks offended and insulted as Cat walks away, but Clark just chuckles. He seems to have figured out what Cat Grant is all about by now and has largely decided just to laugh at her and pity her rather than feeling too threatened by her or taking her seriously.

Perry White: All right, everybody, let's think. What would draw Superman out? Use your instincts. Beat the bushes, turn the stones, get me Superman!

Clark Kent: [To Lois Lane] So, where do we start?

Lois Lane: We? There is no we.

Clark Kent: How do you know that I don't have the inside track on finding Superman?

Lois Lane: Sure, Clark. And when you run across Jimmy Hoffa and the Easter Bunny, why don't you reel them in, too?

Cat Grant is touching up her make-up while listing to Lois Lane reject Clark Kent's suggestion that the work together on finding Superman. Cat decides to once again try to make a pass at Clark.

Cat Grant: "We" sounds good to me. Oui, that's French for "yes," isn't it?

Cat suggestively strokes the large magnifying glass she is holding while she talks to Clark here. Clark is absolutely not interested. He smiles at her but verbally "shoots her down" and walks away. During this entire exchange between Clark and Cat, trampy music plays in the background underscore.

Clark Kent: Not in Smallville.

Clark Kent gets what appears to be an important phone call and he quickly departs from the office. In the next scene we see him looking at a run-down apartment while the landlord shows him around. Timecode: 8 minutes, 30 seconds.

Landlord: It's the quietest building in Metropolis. You married?

Clark Kent: No.

Landlord: Girlfriend?

Clark Kent: No.

Landlord: Boyfriend?

The landlord asks Clark rather matter-of-factly if he has a boyfriend. Clark doesn't say anything in answer, but turns around and gives the landlord a withering look. Clark is morally conservative and was raised in rural Kansas in a very traditional family. He has only been in Metropolis a short time. He looks rather taken aback by the landlord's question which suggests the possibility that he might be gay. The look on Clark's face may also suggest that he is worried that the landlord himself might be gay or might be hitting on him.

Landlord: Me, I mind my own business. Where you from?

Clark Kent: Kansas.

Timecode: 10 minutes, 1 second: Scene: A dimly lit building inside one of Lex Luthor's buildings. Three well-dressed employees of Luthor sit in a room that Lex is looking down on from a control booth of some sort. There is a black man, an older white gentleman with a cane, and a woman, all wearing expensive business attire.

Behind Lex Luthor a light marquee reads "Know Thy Enemy," which is an addage that Lex Luthor lives by as if it were scripture. It essentially is a verse of scripture for Luthor, as it comes from Sun Tzu's The Art of War, a book that Luthor reads and reveres with the same fervor that other people reserve for more traditionally-recognized books of scripture such as the Bible, Quran, Talmud or Book of Mormon. In the following scene, Luthor explains teachings from this book to his employees. These teachings form the basis of the plot of this episode, in which Lex Luthor attempts to test Superman and learn more about his new enemy.

Lex Luthor: What do we know about Superman?

Jules Johnson (black employee): Man, he can really jump, for a white guy.

Lex Luthor: Yes, but how far? How high? I mean, is he, for example, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound?

Old employee: Well, of course, he is immensely powerful.

Lex Luthor: Yes, but how powerful? I mean, more powerful than an avalanche? More powerful than a locomotive?

Monique Kahn (female employee): He's still a man. [Uncrosses and re-crosses her legs, thus suggesting that she could use her body to seduce Superman.] All men are weak.

Lex Luthor: Obviously, we know very little. So, I've designed a series of tests for Superman, and I need your help.

Monique, the female employee, moves her head and shrugs her shoulders in a way that clearly indicates that she doesn't agree with what Lex Luthor just said about tests. Lex Luthor notices her agitation.

Lex Luthor: Yes, Monique?

Monique: Let me hire a couple of shooters, and I'll turn Superman into a large wet spot. Testing won't be necessary.

Lex Luthor: Have you ever read Sun Tzu's The Art of War?

Monique: I'm waiting for the Reader's Digest version.

Lex Luthor: Sun Tzu was a general of ancient Imperial China and he teaches us, paraphrasing, of course: "Knowledge precedes victory; ignorance precedes defeat."

Monique: Really? Well, an Uzi precedes a bloody mess, even in China.

Lex Luthor: Let's do it my way.

End of scene. Throughout the rest of the episode, Lex Luthor proceeds to devise a series of tests to find out more about Superman's powers. Most of these tests endanger the lives of others. Lex Luthor genuinely believes in and strives to live by the words of Sun Tzu's The Art of War.

Timecode: 14 minutes, 10 seconds: We see Lex Luthor give the order by phone to the old employee to push the female employee (Monique) off a building, in the hope that they can time how long Superman takes to rescue her. Lex Luthor's assistant Asabi is with him, starting and stopping the timer, when they watch this test from afar. Clearly Asabi is aware of and complicit in Lex Luthor's criminal and immoral activities.

Timecode: 27 minutes, 33 seconds: Clark Kent's new landlord comes by to deliver keys to the apartment. He sees that Clark is beginning to clean up the place. The landlord has brought the wrong keys, however, and so he leaves to get the right ones. When he comes back Clark is on his way out the door and leaves. The landlord looks in the apartment and sees that, miraculously, it is already clean. (Clark used his super-speed to clean up the place far faster than would be humanly possible.) The landlord looks again and can't believe what he sees. He closes the door to the apartment and makes the Catholic sign of the cross. He sort of ends his cross-making half-heartedly, however, suggesting that maybe he isn't a devout Catholic or that maybe he has decided to just refuse to believe what he saw and dismiss it from his mind.

Timecode: 29 minutes, 59 seconds. Perry White, publisher of The Daily Planet, is in his office relaxing with his feet in a "Mr. Foot" appliance, which uses water and vibrations to massage the feet. Perry is listening to a portable stereo (a "boom box"), which is playing classic Elvis Presley music. On the wall behind Perry is a framed photo of Elvis Presley, the "King" that Perry clearly "worships" more than any traditional prophet or other mortal.

Jimmy Olsen barges into the office. Perry White has intentionally been giving Jimmy Olsen menial jobs beneath his station as a photographer and journalist. Perry is trying to push Jimmy to assert himself, but Jimmy doesn't know this. Jimmy thinks that Perry White is simply being an abusive boss. Clark has encouraged Jimmy to stand up to Perry. So now Jimmy has come to Perry's office to assert himself. But he isn't quite ready to do so, and ends up backing down and sucking up to his boss instead of telling Perry off.

Jimmy Olsen: Chief, I have something to say.

Perry White: So . . . say it.

Jimmy Olsen: Okay. Okay. I am . . . I am . . . I am . . . [Jimmy lacks the courage the stand up to his boss now. He looks at the picture of Elvis on the wall and thinks of something else to say to his boss.] I am a huge Elvis fan.

Perry White: [Pointing to the photo behind him.] This is the way I like to remember the King. Not like the last time I saw him in Vegas, December of '71. Jimbo, the man was thirty pounds overweight. He looked like a cross between an ice-cream salesman and a neon sign. Did 15 shows in 11 days. I'll never know how. His eyes were bloodshot, his hands trembled . . . and there was a crack in his voice I'd never heard before.

Jimmy Olsen: That must've been awful for you.

Perry White: Awful? Why, it was the greatest experience of my life . . . Was that all you had to say to me?

Jimmy Olsen: Uhh . . . Yeah. I'm gonna get you that soda now.

Jimmy backs out of the office, rushing to get Perry's soda. Perry turns his Elvis music back on, and closes his eyes, relaxing in quasi-religious reverie to the sounds of his "King."

Clark Kent, afraid that people might be hurt if Lex Luthor continues to arrange "tests" for Superman, has decided to give up being Superman. He put his costume away and has not been going out to help people in his costumed identity. He comes back to the newspaper office dejectedly telling Lois Lane about the victim of a recent drive-by shooting he interviewed for a news story.

Clark Kent: A 15-year-old booy's in critical condition. His mother's in shock. His little sister can't stop crying. There were witnesses, of course, but no one's talking. The officer I spoke to said they've had half a dozen like this in the last week.

Lois Lane: Sounds like a job for Superman.

Clark Kent: Yeah, that would've made a truly great story, wouldn't it?

Lois Lane: Forget the story, Clark. Metropolis needs Superman.

Clark Kent: Why? Do you think he could have stopped any of this? Or that? [Referring to a TV news story Lois is watching, showing a fire and scenes of violent rioting.]

Lois Lane: No. Not even Superman can be everywhere at once.

Clark Kent: Then what good is he?

Lois Lane: What he can't do, it doesn't matter. It's the idea of Superman. Someone to believe in, someone to build a few hopes around. Whatever he can do, that's enough. I just wish that I could tell him that. I hope it's not too late.

In the next scene we see Clark Kent back in his apartment. Lois Lane's words echo in his head as he pulls out his old suitcase and takes his costume back out, determined to wear it again as a hero. Lois Lane's words are, in fact, repeated in the audio track: "It's the idea of Superman. Someone to believe in, someone to build a few hopes around." We see Superman flying over Metropolis once again while he recalls Lois Lane's words: "Whatever he can do, that's enough." Clearly, Lois Lane's poignant and heartfelt words had a tremendous effect on Clark.

Timecode: 42 minutes, 14 seconds: Scene: The balcony of Lex Luthor's penthouse, where his opening scene in this episode took place. His hawk or falcon is on its perched, in the foreground. The camera pans from the bird of prey over to Lex Luthor, who is once again reading newspapers while sipping tea. His South Asian assistant Asabi stands loyally behind him. Lex Luthor is reading headlines that herald Superman's return to heroic action.

Lex Luthor: I think we'll suspend testing for the time being, Asabi. Results are substantially complete. I'm very pleased.

Asabi: Mr. Luthor, I don't understand. Superman has proved himself unbeatable. And you have failed to frighten him off.

Lex Luthor: Yes, he's tough. In fact, he's the opponent I've been waiting for. But unbeatable? No. Superman has a defect. He has a chink in his armor.

Asabi: What is that?

Lex Luthor: Superman has morals, he has ethics. He is unrelentingly good. Because of that, I will win. [Lex Luthor puts on his falconry glove and lifts his bird of prey from its perch.] Good morning, Faust. Another beginning to another fine day in Metropolis. Let's kill some pigeons.

[End of scene.]

The process of listing characters who appeared in this source is not yet complete. Webpage for Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman - Season 1, Episode 4 (3 Oct. 1993) created 23 December 2007. Last modified 11 June 2014.

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