Hi all, long time no see. First off let me apologize if you found yourself in the position of reading this story and enjoying only to be left high and dry by my lack of updates. I'd also like to apologize for a lack of communication on my part on the status of this story.

I know as a reader that both of these things are highly frustrating and when I first started this story back in 2011 (iirc) I endeavored to not be one of those authors that did that to their readers and unfortunately that's exactly what I ended up doing.

For those who are curious as to the state story, I might as well just get this out of the way right now. I will be returning to finish Smallville: Steel and Marble. I'd like to have the next chapter up by July 15th at the latest and after that, shoot for releasing a chapter every couple of weeks. At that pace, I should be finished by about this time next year. I know that's not exactly speedy, especially after damn near seven years without an update but I hope you'll bear with me. If not, I completely understand and just want to say thanks for coming along for the ride thus far and I hope you found something enjoyable in my story.

As far as my writing goes, I'm actually a bit ahead of you guys. I have a few chapters written but they are frankly speaking god-awful in their quality and I'd be embarrassed to post them in the state they are in. I'm going to gut them down to the skeleton and rewrite them into something presentable. After the story's eventual completion, I'd like to go back through it and fix some things, tighten up continuity, expand on some concepts and give parts of the story more room to breathe, think of it as more of an expanded edition than a full rewrite.

Those concerned with just the story can probably stop reading here as I'm about to go on a bit of rant about DC's handling of not only SM/WW but the DCnU as a whole. I've been sitting on this for awhile, and what if nothing else is writing good for if not to use as a tool for catharsis?

I remember in 2011 when news came out that DC was going to reboot their Universe that I felt

excited, change was on the horizon and Superman who was at the time in pretty desperate need of a reboot was going to get the face lift he needed to return to prominence as the face of DC comics. I will say going in that I fully expected DC to revert to the status quo of Lois and Clark in the new continuity but was nonetheless optimistic that a lot of the problems of the Post Crisis continuity would be ironed out.

Much to my surprise though the rumors started coming out that the powers that be were considering putting Superman and Wonder Woman together in a romantic relationship and possibly giving them their own book. This was a game changer and I can't overstate what a big deal this was for the community as a whole. You have to understand that in terms of canon material, up until that point we as a community only had various ship teases (a few that made zero sense, Immortal Beloved I'm looking at you) and a handful of out of continuity stories that ranged from amazing (Kingdom Come) to horrendous (Distant Fires).

A canon relationship was validation in the realest sense and it's success meant so much more than just a comic run, there were deeper implications in the social sphere of Superman's portrayal going forward. The worst part was dealing with a huge amount of incoming from some of the more vitriolic shippers of the Lois and Clark relationship, a legion of grousing disillusioned Post Crisis stans, and those who tried to couch SM/WW as an affront to feminism (seriously) but that was all background noise, Superman and Wonder Woman was canon!

When I stopped updating this story in December of 2012 I remember feeling my need to write Smallville: Steel and Marble had cooled, the Superman/Wonder Woman relationship was in good hands, things were proceeding pretty smoothly and the future looked bright. Over the next few years there were hiccups (Future's End) but things on the whole were alright.

You all know how this story ends up though, 2015's Convergence happened bring large swaths of out of continuity characters back into the proverbial fold including the Post Crisis Superman and Lois Lane. At this point I remember being concerned but cautiously optimistic, maybe the older Superman and the current one would have a passing of the torch moment, similar to what the Post and Pre Crisis version of the character had done years ago. I also remember fan scuttlebutt that the event was a way DC could backdoor the older continuity into place, something DC denied more or less saying that there was room for all the continuities to have their own stories.

Whatever the reason (and that has been a subject of heavy speculation) DC reversed course, they abandoned the DCnu in all but the most perfunctory sense, killed off the DCnU Superman, had a radical soft reboot of Wonder Woman (basically stating that the events of the DCnU had been a fevered dream), brought the Post Crisis continuity back, Frankensteind it with what I assume they felt was salvageable and chopped off 20 or so years from Superman and Lois' age.

I put down all of my DC books and haven't looked back since. I felt a very visceral sort of betrayal by DC, silly perhaps given their track record but it was how I felt nonetheless. Superman/Wonder Woman became painful for me to even read about and it was made all the worse by the chest pounding from the aforementioned section of DC fans. I more or less dropped out the fandom and while I briefly considered dipping my toes back in, I couldn't bring myself to.

My attitudes have changed over the last 18 months or so and while DC s*** the bed as far as I'm concerned, I realized I couldn't let their colossal mishandling of two of my favorite fictional characters take away my enjoyment of them.

So I'll end this by saying I'm looking forward to getting back in the saddle and I'll see you all for the next update

-Sov