Lois had been working full-time for the Daily Planet barely five years, but she’d already made quite a name for herself as an investigative reporter. The power and prestige of the Planet had given her work national exposure, and had led to her being chosen as a civilian crew member for the maiden flight of NASA’s experimental space plane, the Constitution.

The launch went off without a hitch, and Lois had made history as the first journalist in history to file her stories from the stratosphere. As a result of the attention her stories had generated, an enormous crowd --numbering in the hundreds of thousands-- had gathered at the Metropolis International Airport beltway to witness the Constitution’s historic landing.

It was extremely unusual for such a craft to land at a civilian airport, but even with all the difficulties involved in rescheduling the scores of commercial flights to provide ready clearance, everything had gone like clockwork. It looked as though the Constitution would complete her maiden flight in picture-perfect style.

But then….

Despite all precautions, a small civilian jet aircraft somehow slipped into restricted air space. Without warning the small plane slammed into the Constitution’s tail section. For one endless moment the two ships hung there, motionless in the cool Spring air, and then, fused together, tumbled earthward.