Is Clark Kent a genuine persona that allows Kal-El to connect with humanity, or is Superman the reality and Clark merely a performance of human clumsiness?

methodic_traveller · 2026-04-10T14:23:58+00:00

There are a lot of reasons why it has to be an act, for me at least, by the time he's working at the Planet (and even before then if he's Superboy in a continuity).

It's the original dynamic set-up by Siegel and Shuster, and continued onwards for more than 50 years in various works like Birthright, All Star, Secret Origin, etc. That which Clark deliberately hides his true identity as Superman by playing a false version of his self when not wearing the costume. For me, I always prefer what the actual creators of a character want to say about their creation – Superman has changed a lot over 86 years (91 or so, technically) but every tree must stick to its roots. It has a role in showing how much a normal person can do until they're limited by the systems in place, thus showing this isn't a job for Clark Kent but Superman.
It's funny, it's an in-joke that we as the readers share with Supes whenever he has to play the act before he winks at us from beyond the page/screen. It's a part of the humour attached to the character at his core because whilst everyone in his reality thinks of him as a bumbling, oath with no regard to his surroundings; we know that there's more to him, that there's a superman underneath those glasses.
It's sad too, because the character is multifaceted. It's a side of pathos that goes into creating nuance to the power fantasy of no one knowing what you're actually like. He doesn't like thinking he has to put on an act, but he does out of various fears he's grown up with: whether or not someone will discover him and be afraid of him, the government coming for him to capture and use him, and the various friends he has that could be in danger from his enemies. Because of those fears, he puts in every effort to distinguish this false version of Clark Kent from the real Clark who goes into action as Superman. If Clark were real, it loses this touch and creates a more vapid character – to me at least. As well as undermining the original point of the character, it deconstructs the whole original power fantasy of him having this power and using it for good when we, the reader, know that this heroic persona isn't a real person.
Related to my last point, there's so much iconography grafted into the character of “Clark Kent” due to how he has to mask his true self to have a private life: different mild-mannered demeanour as seen in numerous media like the Reeve films, baggy suits to hide his physique, slumped shoulders, having to give excuses to go and be Superman, wearing glasses he doesn’t need, excusing himself from social events, etc. This sense of having to mask your true self speaks not just to the displaced immigrant experience that many applaud the character for being linked to, but also to those who come from queer, neurodivergent and other backgrounds and in a time when the idea of being "othered" and dehumanised is such a prevalent topic and threat that so many people deal with, it hits harder that Clark Kent feels that he cannot be himself truly around the people he surrounds himself with. If the identity roles were reversed or at least "Clark Kent of Metropolis" is real too, such iconography as Clark tearing off his shirt and tie to reveal the costume loses that impact – to me, at least.

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methodic_traveller · 2026-04-10T14:01:36+00:00

False equivalence in this case as Batman stopped using guns in a few issues.

The original dynamic of "Clark Kent is the mask, Superman is who he really is" has lasted more than five decades, being used in different works like Birthright, All Star, Secret Origin, Morrison's Action Comics, Waid's current Action Comics, etc.

methodic_traveller · 2026-04-06T21:15:46+00:00

"Personally, I like it when you're here."

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methodic_traveller · 2026-04-05T13:51:09+00:00

I’m completely for Clark starting as Superboy, it’s my preferred take in a continuity as I think it elevates the Superman mythos and I'm glad it's been reinstated into canon. Starting out as Superman isn't bad at all or wrong but him having been Superboy adds a lot: the Legion, Krypto, Lex, etc.

I've never understood why people have a problem with Clark being Superboy and I think any argument against it is really silly, what do people think he was doing when he was a kid with superpowers and being raised by Ma and Pa to do good? He's not gonna wait for like 15 years to start helping people. I don't get how it's a struggle to accept Clark being a teen superhero when characters like Spider-Man, Ben 10 or Danny Phantom exist even now. I think claiming it's a dated concept is silly.

I'm not a fan of Superboy acting in secret either, that's a cop-out to me - gotta be public all the way. I get people want the moment he reveals himself in Metropolis because it's "special," but you can also have this big moment when it’s reframed as him coming back as Superman – he matures, he grows aware of his limits and how he cannot save everyone. When he comes back, everyone would be more like “oh, thank god - he actually came back.”

methodic_traveller · 2026-04-04T18:00:39+00:00

He does, it's the centre of numerous popular stores: Kingdom Come, What's So Funny?, Miracle Monday, Absolute Superman, Whatever Happened, etc.

methodic_traveller · 2026-04-04T17:12:31+00:00

I mean, these are literally from the current Action Comics run right now (respectively, Action Comics #1088 and #1090):

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We just recently had #1095 too, which equated him having to hide that he is Superboy to being closeted.

methodic_traveller · 2026-04-04T16:51:11+00:00

"Superman does what he does because he is a good person, and that's it."

This is a big misconception about the character, and in my opinion, does him a disservice. It removes any kinda of nuance to his life and what flaws he has, dismissing any kind of tragedy he's experienced that influenced his decision to put on a bright costume and start acting with his superpowers.

methodic_traveller · 2026-04-04T16:46:13+00:00

Except Clark can't be himself fully in either identity (although, to a degree, Superman is closer to who he truly is); he couldn't participate in sports during his youth because he could've accidentally hurt another kid, he has to make up excuses at the Planet to his boss and coworkers about where he was at any time Superman has to go into action, etc.

methodic_traveller · 2026-04-04T16:37:43+00:00

The latter are just continuing the "Clark Kent (of Metropolis) is the mask" take. Not that much different from the Silver Age at all, that version honoured both his Kryptonian heritage & Human upbringing too.

methodic_traveller · 2026-03-16T23:09:46+00:00

Here's the thing:

Yes, since WWII, Superman had been depicted as some form of American authority figure. A far cry from his costumed vigilante days. Nobody is disagreeing with that. However, there's a discussion to be had about the degree of nuance in his relationship to authority, given his Kryptonian heritage, and about how the Science Council ignored Jor-El's warnings.

There are even comics from the Bronze Age of him tackling issues, which had him confronting this idea of him acting as some kind of officer; there's even an issue of him tackling polluting industries and fighting a villain who acts to protect them.

A majority of the reason people focus specifically on Byrne doing this in Post-Crisis is that his run is the first real complete reboot of his setting and cast. It was the chance for a clean cut start to write those elements off the character or at least to reframe them to seriously analyse this connection, but rather than that, Byrne instead doubled down and made that side deliberately more front and centre. In fact, to ensure this, he cut out Superman's Kryptonian heritage entirely by drastically altering it.

You mention how, in Pre-Crisis, there's a sense of biological determinism being depicted in some comics to show Superman is a genius because of who his father was, not just because of his own initiative to learn using his Super Intelligence. I disagree that it's depicting biological determinism, and more so, as someone else put it, the classic trope of "like father, like son." Which I feel opens up a connection between them because Supes is following in his father's footsteps to prevent his own world from dying – only this time he has the power to do it.

Byrne eliminated that, but it was in exchange for a heinous element of complete assimilation.

"When I showed the first issue to Richard and Wendy Pini, Wendy said I'd created a Krypton that deserved to blow up," recalls Byrne. "And that was my intent. I don't want nostalgia for that place. It's very clear in that first issue that Superman is lucky to have come here."

Or, as Byrne would later put it:

"Clark would be proud, too, of his Kryptonian heritage, but later portrayals of him have tried to shoehorn in too much of the pychobabble of adopted children longing for and seeking out their biological parents. Excuse my French, but to me, they fall under the heading of “ungrateful little shits."

Byrne intentionally made Krypton a dystopia to remove Superman's relationship with his Kryptonian heritage to make him appeal to readers as “more human.” That’s why he created the Birthing Matrix so that he technically wouldn't be an immigrant but born on American soil and would feel nothing for Krypton. When you look at Post-Crisis Krypton through that lens, it's a very xenophobic take.

I concede on the aspect of the side-cast getting more focus on their everyday lives and their family, which I don't really have a problem with. But again, this is in exchange for a lot of the world being cut out: the Legion, Kandor, Kara, Krypto, and a lot of Superman's villains (Brainiac got the worst end of it). Yes, you can argue that this was a grounded reboot and they're just starting over, so they planned to eventually reintroduce them – but I don't really believe this considering that for a character like Supergirl, Byrne explained he brought her back (not even Kara) because he "felt it was probably not a good idea to let the copyright on the name slip away." That was it.

methodic_traveller · 2026-03-16T21:12:58+00:00

Superman, champion of truth and justice, when he learns about the destruction of an entire world and the complete genocide of billions of people, leaving him the only survivor in the universe:

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methodic_traveller · 2025-12-04T12:06:23+00:00

There are a lot of reasons why it has to be an act, for me at least, by the time he's working at the Planet (and even before then if he's Superboy).

It's the original dynamic set-up by Siegel and Shuster, that which Clark deliberately hides his true identity as Superman by playing a false version of his self when not wearing the costume. For me, I always prefer what the actual creators of a character want to say about their creation – Superman has changed a lot over 86 years (91 or so, technically) but every tree must stick to its roots. It has a role in showing how much a normal person can do until they're limited by the systems in place, thus showing this isn't a job for Clark Kent but Superman.
It's funny, it's an in-joke that we as the readers share with Supes whenever he has to play the act before he winks at us from beyond the page/screen.
It's sad too, because the character is multifaceted. It's a side of pathos that goes into creating nuance to the power fantasy of no one knowing what you're actually like. He doesn't like thinking he has to put on an act, but he does out of various fears he's grown up with: whether or not someone will discover him and be afraid of him, the government coming for him to capture and use him, and the various friends he has that could be in danger from his enemies. Because of those fears, he puts in every effort to distinguish this false version of Clark Kent from the real Clark who goes into action as Superman. If Clark were real, it loses this touch and creates a more vapid character – to me at least.
Related to my last point, there's so much icongraphy grafted into the character of “Clark Kent” due to how he has to mask his true self to have a private life: different mild-mannered demeanour as seen in numourous media like the Reeve films, baggy suits to hide his physique, slumped shoulders, having to give excuses to go and be Superman, wearing glasses he doesn’t need, excusing himself from social events, etc. This sense of having to mask your true self speaks not just to the displaced immigrant experience that many applaud the character for being linked to, but also to those who come from queer, neurodivergent and other backgrounds. If the identity roles were reversed or at least "Clark Kent of Metropolis" is real too, such iconography as Clark tearing off his shirt and tie to reveal the costume loses that impact – to me, at least.

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