LEX LUTHOR
HONORED WITH MEMORIAL

By Kathy Romita

Three months ago, Smallville's world-famous, jet-setting playboy took himself off the market, breaking hearts around the globe. Our own crown prince, Lex Luthor, married Dr. Helen Bryce. The storybook romance of the dashing young millionaire and his physician bride took a tragic turn shortly after the couple exchanged vows. The pilot of the Luthors' plane parachuted out of the aircraft, leaving the newlyweds to fend for themselves.

The bride survived. And now it's official--the groom perished.
Luthor's grieving widow, Helen, returned to Smallville recounting a honeymoon nightmare featuring a selfless act of heroism from her husband. She remembers sharing a champagne toast with her groom on the jet. The next thing she can recall is awakening in time to see the pilot grab their money and jump out of the plane. With only one parachute left, Luthor valiantly offered it to her, and he went down with the crippled craft.
Luthor's father, Lionel, was forced to call off any further search and rescue efforts and face the horrible truth...his son is no longer alive. Services for Lex Luthor took place yesterday in Metropolis.

Lex Luthor rose to prominence in Smallville two years ago when he took the helm of Fertilizer Plant No. 3. Young Luthor bought the plant and founded LexCorp. The young gun turned an unprofitable plant into a moneymaker, but his father decided to close the facility anyway.
Lex Luthor has earned the respect of many Smallvillians through his fierce determination and diligent work. He also reopened the historic Talon with Lana Lang, restoring the dilapidated building and converting it into a hip coffeehouse.

A troublemaker as a teen, Lex Luthor was expelled from several academies. During his college years, Luthor was known more for his barhopping and womanizing than for his grades. By the time he moved to Smallville, however, Luthor had put his wild ways behind him, buckled down and turned his life around. Married for a very brief time to Desiree Atkins last year, Luthor annulled the union after Atkins tried to have him killed.

"Trouble seemed to follow Lex. But it looked like he finally found what he needed with Helen. He died on the happiest day of his life--his wedding day. I will miss him," said Martha Kent. Plant manager Gabe Sullivan added, "Lex was a great boss--a natural born leader. Loyal. Trustworthy. Supportive. He knew we were wary of him in the beginning. But he earned our trust. I can't believe he's gone."

The aircraft was lost en route to a private beach in St. Barts.
Surviving Lex Luthor are his wife, Dr. Helen Bryce, currently residing in Smallville, and his father, Lionel Luthor, who lives in Metropolis. Luthor's half-brother, Lucas, lives abroad. Lex Luthor was preceded in death by his brother, Julian, and his mother, Lillian. Preferred memorials should be sent to the Smallville Food Bank.

POPULAR MECHANIC
GUNNED DOWN
By George "The Streak" Talmer II

Tragedy hit Smallville again yesterday as auto mechanic Leonard Wallace was found dead outside of B.B. Davenport's Auto Shop. The cause of death appears to be a gunshot wound to the chest. Authorities have ruled the incident a homicide.

Wallace leaves behind a wife, two children, a famous prize-winning sow and scores of saddened fishing buddies. Included among his Saturday morning Morley Reservoir crew was former Sheriff Mark "Wink" Waid, who stated, "This is an atrocity. What could anyone possibly have against Leonard Wallace? The man was one of our finest citizens."

Leonard Wallace rebuilt his entire house after it was demolished by the 1989 meteor shower. Many in the community assisted Wallace in the rebuilding process, and he never forgot. Business partner B.B. Davenport said, "Because of the generosity he and Rebecca experienced after the shower, Leonard made it a point to try to give something back to the people of Smallville every day he could. That's why you seen him out on the road on weekends helping folks with their flat tires and such--free of charge. Whoever done this is pure evil."

Leonard got some regional press attention back in 1994 when he and his son Tommy took first prize at the Kansas State Fair for their pet Yorkshire White sow. Tatonka was the heaviest pig to ever compete in the state fair, weighing in at 632 pounds. Wallace attributed the sow's size to a steady of diet of vegetables he grew in his meteor rock-lined garden.

Sheriff Nancy Adams reports, "There are no suspects at this time, 'cause there ain't any motives. I've only been in town for a couple of months, and even I know how wonderful Leonard was to his wife, his children and his and B.B.'s customers and all the other folk around here."

Please contact the Lowell County Sheriff's Department if you have any information regarding the murder. Eddie Cole will be scattering Leonard's ashes over the Morley Reservoir this Saturday morning at 11:00. A celebration of Leonard's life will immediately follow at his house off Riverbend Road.

CUB REPORTER
ENTERS
THE LIONS' DEN
Local Girl Becomes Junior Columnist At Daily Planet
By Jim "Slim" Bradlee

By now, anyone in Smallville who doesn't know the name Chloe Sullivan just hasn't been keeping up with the news.

As the longtime editor in chief and main reporter at The Smallville High Torch, Sullivan almost single-handedly publishes the weekly SHS student newspaper, sprinkling her sometimes cynical, sometimes hard-hitting commentary with fanciful hypotheses trying to tie together the various unusual events around Smallville High School and the town in general. After becoming personally involved in one such incident, Sullivan even landed herself a front-page story in The Smallville Ledger.

Now, Sullivan is poised to hit the big time with an even bigger audience. After completing an internship at Metropolis' paper of record, The Daily Planet, Sullivan has been given the chance to write her own weekly column, "Sullivan's Travels," at the Planet. Although she seems to have toned down her rhetoric a bit, Sullivan displays her characteristically unflinching journalistic sensibilities in a recent multipart series titled "The Suicide Slum Vigilante: Misunderstood Hero?"

Sullivan has also worked in the video medium, producing a series of short exposés called "The Chloe Chronicles" based on her whimsical pet theories regarding the meteor rocks. "The deeper I got into the story," she comments, "the more I knew I was onto something. There are just too many similarities and smoking guns. If it weren't for school starting up again, I'd be doing a lot more of these."

Perhaps anticipating the kind of bemused reaction she must be tired of receiving, Sullivan added, chuckling, "Hey, please, keep denying the truth that's right in front of you. It makes my job that much more fun."
Meanwhile, Sullivan's supervisors at the Planet couldn't be more positive about her work. "Chloe is quite a talent!" exclaims staff writer Ron Troupe. "For a junior columnist, she's really shaken things up around here. She's even got us staffers watching our backs!"

Never one to mince words, Sullivan agrees--sort of. "Let's just say I'm looking forward to bringing the Planet into the 21st century. A mainstream paper like this has a responsibility to expose the stories that really affect people's lives, and frankly I'm not seeing it yet. However, I have become an expert in picking up dry cleaning and finding the best soy latte outside of The Talon."

URBAN LEGEND:
Faster Than a Speeding Bullet?

By Max Taylor
The Daily Planet

In this and future issues, we will reprint four of the famous "Urban Legend" articles that appeared in Metropolis' Daily Planet this summer.

Kyle Anderson likes to spend his summer afternoons perfecting his rail slides on the steps in front of the downtown branch of the Bank of Metropolis. His days are usually full of varying degrees of excitement as he and his buddies dodge rent-a-cops and MPD mounted policemen. But last Saturday afternoon, Kyle got a glimpse of something a little more eye-opening than a police filly's hoof inches from his backside. He says he saw a "dude in a ski mask" rob an ATM (Automated Teller Machine). If you are playing along this summer, then you know Kyle got a glimpse of the Urban Legend.

"I never saw anything like it," says Kyle, who looks like he's observed quite a few things that are undoubtedly "rad," "dope" and/or "sweet" in his short lifetime. "He just walked up to the ATM and punched his fist right through it. He must have grabbed five grand. One second he's there, the next he's gone." When prompted, Kyle elaborated, "He just vanished. Dude took off faster than a speeding bullet, yo."

As our red-hot summer presses on, few things around town have been more captivating than the almost daily exploits of the Urban Legend. The sightings continue to pour in, and skeptics are slowly being converted to believers.

Max Taylor--The Daily Planet

I, for one, am reserving judgment. Is the world ready for--dare I say it--a super man? If all this is real, we as a human race must be ready to embrace the possibility of a paradigm shift in our conventional thinking. In the times of the gods, was the common man so stunned when he saw Hercules or Zeus? It's a question to ponder as we brace ourselves for what this new millennium has to offer.