Review by masoudhouse - The Metropolitan Man

masoudhouse 's review for:

The Metropolitan Man by Alexander Wales

4.0

dark reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

First thing you need to know: The Metropolitan Man is a fan fiction of Superman set in the 1930s (the same decade that Superman first debuted).

The second and even more important thing to know: this is a rational writing work, part of a literary movement to write stories where stories may:

Focus on intelligent characters solving problems through creative applications of their knowledge and resources.
Examine of goals and motives: the story makes reasons behind characters' decisions clear.
Provide intellectual pay-off: the story's climax features a satisfying intelligent solution to its problems.
Create aspiring rationalism: the story heavily focuses on characters' thinking, or their attempts to improve their reasoning abilities. This is a feature of rationalist fiction, a subcategory of rational fiction.
Produce thoughtful worldbuilding: the fictional world follows known, consistent rules, as a consequence of rational background characters exploring it or building realistic social structures.

(Taken from the rational subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/)

I share the above because this story is written by Alexander Wales, one of the most prolific writers of this style. And viewing the above tenets, the Metropolitan Man hits all of these. However, as much as I love both the movement and the overall story, I had some gripes with it as a comic fan of Superman. In turn, I may be biased because of that same fact, so understand that my views of source material will affect my following criticisms:

Pros:

The Era: the 1930s presents an interesting setting for the story, especially for Lex. Lex Luthor is just as brilliant as ever, and it's fascinating to see Wales show how the modern version of Lex--the suave super-genius billionaire--would operate through the lens of 1930s technology. Modern day hand-waving tropes include the "I'm using expensive and encrypted computers to cover my crime" bit...Wales has to consider a non-digital/analog tech/pre-atomic era and all of the nuances that includes. Adds interesting layers to the story's events.
Character Takes: I loved the different take on Lex Luthor and Lois Lane. Lex doesn't outright show disdain towards Superman. No, in this story he smartly hides his contempt while trying to undermine Superman in secret. Lois, on the other hand, contends with the knowledge of a seemingly altruistic but also invasive alien being in a more paranoid journalist way, worried about her privacy and the idea that Superman can watch and listen to them all at any time. More and more, she takes action to address her fears and concerns, leading her to some interesting choices.

Cons:

Also Character Takes: Lois' paranoia adds a layer of pessimism into a story that is already dripping with tension and high stakes. And while it was refreshing to see a Lois who isn't in love with Superman or sweet on Clark, it also removed some chemistry between all of the characters. To be fair, this seems to have been the author's intent, so I'm not judging the mechanics of the writing; however, it was deflating to have Lois increasingly more cynical and disgusted as the story went on.
Additionally, Clark is--for some time, to me--the weakest character of the three main viewpoints (there are quite a few perspectives we view, but Lex, Lois and Clark are the main ones), up until the latter end. We view Clark through others' eyes, namely Lois, who are really disdainful or dismissive of him. When we get more time with him, the rationalist part of me wanted him to make clearer communication choices than he ended up taking on numerous occasions. If anything, the story feels like it's chosen a "side" with Lex, in that he is the smartest and most capable character; then Lois; then Clark far in the back.
The Ending: I cant' say much without spoiling it, but I really didn't like it. It was written well enough, but what happens and why just felt off to me.

All of this said, I still enjoyed the journey. Rational writing has introduced me to some amazing takes on old stories (including a surprisingly and existentially profound Animorphs series, a comedic but sharp Aladdin retelling and a hilarious take on the old "here are pills that give superpowers, you can only have one, and why?" Facebook posts of the 2000s and 2010s). This is a solid story to add to the halls of rational writing, though I do wish there were certain small differences.

Content Warnings