smartpopbooks (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} smartpopbooks) wrote,@ 2006-06-28 13:06:00 |
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Superman Returns! (along with Karen Haber)
BenBella's heading en masse to Superman Returns tomorrow afternoon-- for now, here's Karen Haber's essay on Superman for your reading enjoyment. (And if you like what you see here, you can always check out our Man From Krypton for more great essays on the Man of Steel!)
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Clark Kent Just Gets Better Looking Every Day
Karen Haber
Be honest. Can you think of Superman without thinking of Clark Kent? Of course not. They go together like French fries and ketchup, like Batman and neurosis. And yet, in the late 1980s, Superman’s secret identity was very nearly done away with during a continuity makeover.
Not every comics superhero has a secret identity: Wonder Woman (in her current incarnation), the X-Men, and The Fantastic Four are among the super-heroic folk who choose to face the world without a hiding place. Their “private” names are public knowledge and they don’t have any occupations other than their super roles. (This is not to say they don’t attempt to avoid attention in public: they often dress in a concealing manner, wear hats, drive inconspicuous vehicles, and in general behave like celebrities trying to avoid paparazzi.) And, for a time, in the 1980s, the notion was floated that perhaps Superman should join their ranks. Thankfully, that idea was shot down.
I admit that it’s easy to diss Clark Kent. He began life as nothing more than a plot convenience invented by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in 1938. His primary purpose was to provide a respite and a front for Superman. After all, how could even a superman be Superman full time, 24/7, without an occasional coffee break?
Besides, a secret identity is a terrific plot element. It builds in a point of tension and potential conflict. This has been especially useful in the Superman comic series, where having an omnipotent hero has created problems for the writers over the nearly seven decades that the caped one has been playing skyscraper leapfrog.
Now, however, it’s time to sit up and pay attention to Clark. It is my contention that Clark Kent, Superman’s daytime alter ego, not Superman himself, has emerged as the more interesting and intriguing character in both the comics and electronic media. Yes, Clark Kent possesses a humanity that is far more interesting than the death-defying feats of his super-powered persona. Clark Kent is the real man behind the Man of Steel. Happily, the comic book writers agree with me: recent plotlines have been distinctly Kent-centric. How did this happen?
Let us return to the beginning: just before dawn in a hayfield on a Kansas farm, where a rocket ship from another planet has just crash-landed, revealing its precious cargo: an alien infant, miraculously unhurt. Enter two important players in the Superman saga: Martha and Jonathan Kent, childless farmers. Of course the child is taken in, cared for, and in time, adopted. His peculiar arrival and origins are camouflaged and withheld from the public. Clark grows up in the bosom of a supportive, wholesome, traditional family, absorbing basic human values and Western Judeo-Christian morality, and identifying with his parents. As his unusual powers reveal themselves, his salt-of-the-earth adoptive parents help him come to terms with his abilities, teaching him to control and conceal them.
The great responsibility of these awesome powers and the necessity of using them to help mankind is part of the gift that the Kents give Clark. The other is his sense of humanity. When Clark comes of age, he leaves home to see the world, finds his way to Metropolis and enrolls at the university where he studies journalism. Clark graduates and finds a job at the Daily Planet at the same time that he emerges as Superman and meets Lois Lane. But that’s only the beginning of the story.
The Once and Future Kent
From the debut of Superman (Action Comics #1, 1938) until perhaps fifteen years ago, everything about Clark Kent was staged for the benefit of his alternate identity. His job as a reporter for the Daily Planet was convenient for receiving news before the general public and provided an explanation for his presence at crime scenes. What’s more, the nature of the job was such that he didn’t have to punch a time clock or account for his whereabouts, just make his deadlines. And to draw attention away from any noticeable correlation between Kent and Superman, Clark Kent adopted a quiet, passive personality, and pretended to be conservative, introverted, and cowardly. Jules Feiffer, writing in The Great Comic Book Heroes, raised the possibility that the Clark Kent identify was even a penance performed by Superman, “a sacrificial disguise, an act of discreet martyrdom.” Feiffer attempted to make a case for Superman as a “secret masochist” for whom his alias as a weakling was a means of punishing himself for his overwhelming super powers.-
Feiffer is not alone in making a case for Superman-as-self-martyr. But I don’t buy it. Superman is, by definition, an alien, and therefore should be free of masochism and other human psychological frailties. Why does he need to punish himself? Hasn’t he already been punished enough by losing his family, his birthright, his world? Is masochism a learned trait? (Dr. Freud, please pick up the white courtesy phone. . . .) Let’s assume that Supes avoided that particular lesson when he was being schooled by the Kents in all things human.
As Feiffer puts it, in the beginning, “Clark Kent was the fiction.” Well, yes, but as I’ve already mentioned above, over the decades since Feiffer made this point, there’s been an inversion of identity for the Man of Steel.
Feiffer does make an interesting, if debatable, observation: that Clark Kent was invented not to serve the story, but to serve the reader: “[Kent] was Superman’s opinion of the rest of us, a pointed caricature of what we, the noncriminal element, were really like. His fake identity was our real one. That’s why we loved him so.” This glib, snarky analysis utilizes Superman to take a jab at people in general—Feiffer’s vocation—but it puts the wrong emphasis on the wrong syllable. First, Superman doesn’t feel any contempt for humankind (i.e. the reader) nor for Clark. Rather, he loves and protects humanity. And he values Clark for good reasons that I’ll discuss later. Of course the reader enjoys identifying with the hero ,but it is for his super powers and all the wish fulfillment and escapism they provide, not because his alter ego is reassuringly powerless. It’s my contention that the reader so enjoys identifying with the super powers of the superman that Clark’s cowardly ways became an unnecessary obstacle to that groovy mind meld. We needed a better Kent so that we could better embrace the totality of the character.
Yes, in the beginning, Clark was a wimp, boring and in-the-way, a limp meat suit that Superman put on and took off at will. Throughout the Golden Age (1938-1955) and Silver Age (1955-1970), Clark laid low, playing the role of a Cowardly Lion. What a difference a few decades make. The changes began in the 1970s, as writers started to really struggle with “The Superman problem.” Every writer who has been in the DC Comics bullpen has had to cope with Superman’s omnipotence, and every writer will tell you that omnipotence really gets in the way of plotting a good story. Although Siegel and Shuster’s Superman began life with considerably reduced super powers (“. . . faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings . . .”), by the 1950s he had developed such awesome abilities as Super Hypnosis, Super Vibration, Invulnerability, and Time Travel. Desperate writers have been trying to disempower him ever since.
Back in the 1970s, Superman writer Denny O’Neil gave voice to the Superman Dilemma: “There’s no problem he can’t solve. So you end up writing stories that are either internally inconsistent or bogged down in explanations.” O’Neil, by the way, acknowledged that one reason for deemphasizing Superman’s powers was to
make his own job more interesting.
Because of their ephemeral nature, comics—particularly long-lived ones like Superman—suffer chronically from long term story-continuity problems. The Superman comic book—and character—has survived more than sixty years, through societal upheavals and revolutionary cultural changes. Editors and writers have come and gone, some more engaged by the deeper implications of the character than others. (A few have been, to put it kindly, severely logic-challenged.)
As Clark gained in interest and stature, his alter-ego seemed to undergo a reverse process: Superman was whittled down by kryptonite and discontinuous editors and writers until a Great Big Fight (Crisis on Infinite Earths, #1-12) was required to kill off extraneous characters and plotlines and clear the decks. Once the fog had lifted, DC hired über-fixer John Byrne to reinvent the Man of Steel and give the entire cast an up-to-date makeover. Fans have been debating the changes ever since.
With Byrne’s controversial revamp of the Superman persona/story continuity, we find a more dynamic, aggressive Clark emerging—one who is a respected journalist, interested in a social life and, ultimately, marriage to his colleague, Lois Lane. He doesn’t
even bother to comb back his hair. The new Clark Kent was someone who might not slink away from danger, but rather run towards it. He might even have had sex once or twice. (Although how his partner survived the intimate impact is not well understood....on that, more anon.)
Despite Byrne’s best efforts, the comics never took their focus off the Man Of Steel. It took the electronic media to begin the shift in emphasis. Real changes in Clark Kent must, in part, be credited to two television series, Lois & Clark and Smallville.
In Lois & Clark, (ABC, 1993-1996) viewers enjoyed the novel experience of watching Clark and Lois interpreted as two extremely attractive, sexy people who circle each other, flirt, solve crimes, and flirt some more, all the while moving ever closer to the bedroom, and, ultimately, the altar.
The effect of this was to heighten the notion that a) Clark was a viable sex object and b) Lois wanted him. The unique point this series made was that Superman was not the center of attention: the relationship between the two reporters for the Daily Planet took the spotlight.
It was a new, invigorating perspective. (A collateral effect here was to make Lois extremely foxy and interesting, a high-powered investigative reporter instead of a desperate man hunter.) DC Comics President Jenette Kahn had been involved in the development of the new TV series, and she mandated that the comic books’ plot lines
reflect plot developments in the TV show. The result was to intensify the focus on Clark’s emotional life in the comics, the courtship of Clark and Lois, and their eventual marriage.
Continual attention was paid to Clark in Smallville, (WB, 2001-present) where his back-story in Kansas took center stage. The writers for this series departed from the Superman comics storyline to posit that the orphaned Kryptonian developed his superpowers only gradually during adolescence and found them difficult to master..(Now there's an adolescence from hell: acne and unreliable super-speed. Just imagine how the kids would point and laugh.)
Again, through this interesting, innovative show, Clark was brought forward as the lead character, no longer an afterthought or adjunct. His attempts to control his unusual abilities and deal with the emotional challenges of adolescence generated sympathy and affection and furthered the development of his character.
Once again, the writers of the Superman comic books paid attention to this new take on Clark. Recent Superman comics have reflected those changes. Clark, now affectionately called “Smallville” by Lois, is enjoying greater story emphasis.
Meanwhile, comics themselves have changed dramatically, thanks to the graphic novel revolution of the 1980s led by such visionaries as the late Will Eisner, Art Spiegelman, Frank Miller, and Alan Moore. The result: grittier, more realistic treatment of characters and storylines. As the popular culture shifts with each new generation, comic books reflect those social changes. The Superman of the Golden and Silver Ages was a compensating dream of power and grace for his alienated inventors and readers. The Post-Silver Age Superman reflected the societal upheavals of the late twentieth century. As for the twenty-first century, the focus seems to have shifted yet again, to more emphasis on emotions and relationships, and on psychological reality, even if the reality being portrayed is that of a superbeing.
The result has been an inversion of the Superman/Clark Kent equation. What was once the supporting role in the Man of Steel opera has become a major attraction—perhaps the major attraction, as Clark Kent steps forward, an intriguing, fully-developed character with a wife, a life, and a very interesting secret.
It’s Lonely at the Top
Perhaps we should pause to consider all things Kent-ish from the Man of Steel’s viewpoint. To most of the residents of Metropolis, the notion that Superman might prefer a life more private is an impossible notion to fathom. Even Superman’s arch-enemy Lex Luthor refused to believe that Superman had a secret identity. Luthor couldn’t believe that anyone so powerful would want to be anyone else.
But that’s exactly the point. Superman wants to be Clark. He needs to be Clark. It’s my contention that Superman needs Clark Kent much more than Kent needs the Man of Steel. After all, who is Superman? We know about his superpowers: Flight, Super-Strength, Heat Vision, X-Ray Vision, Flight, Super Speed, and Super Breath. His major weakness is famous as well: deadly green Kryptonite, the remainder of his home planet’s radioactive core, scattered throughout the universe. (Admittedly, it has a surprising tendency to show up in the vicinity of Earth.) Continued exposure to it will kill Superman. He’s also vulnerable to loss of air, loss of solar radiation (which eventually renders him powerless), magic, and illusion. He fills out a tight red and blue costume nicely. But does he have a sense of humor? He’s noble, courageous, loyal, self-sacrificing, kindly, well-intentioned, modest, inspiring. As more than one critic has observed, he’s a super Boy Scout.
His is not a fashionable super hero persona. Yet Superman is the standard against which all other crime-fighting super heroes measure themselves, at least in the DC universe. But is he really anything more than a collection of super abilities and attitudes? Recent comic storylines have included exploitation of his potential super-ego by psychological weaponry, but otherwise there is little evidence of his egoistic tendencies. He is known to have a temper, carefully controlled, that has occasionally been unleashed on extreme villains. There have also been hints that he’s lonely. And rightly so. Superman is a stranger in a strange land. His unique status makes him the ultimate imposter: he began his life on Earth as an imposter, a super-powered alien pretending to be human, acting in ways counter to his natural inclinations in order to maintain his charade. Imagine the unbearable loneliness of the caped long-distance flyer, made explicit in many recent Superman tales. Superman is an alien, the sole survivor of a vanished world and culture. He’s almost godlike in his abilities—but raised as a human being in a human family. Superman can’t help but be torn between what he feels he should want and have but can’t: “normal” life, marriage, and a family.
If Superman is, as writer Jeph Loeb has put it, “a Boy Scout whipped by his selflessness,” then Clark gives him permission to stop being so . . . damned . . . good. Clark is the place the god can go to become mortal. Drop the cape. Pick up a martini. Close the eyes and dream.
Clark Kent provides the pleasures of ordinary human life that Superman must crave but feel he has no right to, a “room of his own.” Brunch on the patio. The Sunday morning newspapers. Idle chat, the opportunity to step outside the power, the glory, the mantle of greatness, the opportunity to savor mundane things. Take out the garbage. Shop for groceries. Enjoy connection, context, familiarity. Most important: Clark allows the possibility of love and companionship. After a long day of high drama and danger, Superman must draw a sigh of relief whenever he can put his supersuit away and curl up on the sofa with Lois.
Clark is that necessary link to the human, to the emotional connection for which a weary god must long. He provides Superman with that most potent of human pleasures, emotional intimacy. Through being Clark, Superman gains an understanding of the people he protects and serves. He is the door through which Superman the Kryptonian, the alien, enters humanity. Without Clark, Superman would be left out in the cold.
As Superman, he is very nearly a supreme being, and supremely lonely. His extraordinary powers extend his own his sense of alienation exponentially. No one except, perhaps, Wonder Woman can understand his position, and she has all those Amazons to keep her warm—depending upon which story continuity you choose to follow It’s lonely at the top. So let’s show a little sympathy for the Superman, consigned to his huge operatic role. High above the oxygen layers, looking down through the ozone hole at his blue and white adopted planet, how Superman must fret, like a single parent over a particularly fractious yet lovely child. How grateful he must be for Clark, who allows him to live as a human man in a human world.
A Far Better Geek Dream
As, over the years, the writers have continued to tweak Superman’s powers while emphasizing his humanity and vulnerabilities, they have inevitably moved Clark closer to center stage. Why have readers accepted the new emphasis on Kent? Isn’t he the frustrating, high-achieving dream of normality that eludes so many of them, of
which they don’t want to be reminded? Doesn’t he represent the very values for which they yearn and yet feel such contempt? He’s a mundane guy in a business suit and glasses. Someone you wouldn’t look at twice. Perhaps it’s his wonderful secret—enviable powers that set him apart—that redeems him in the eyes of the readers. Is Clark Kent perhaps a far better geek dream than his caped alter-ego? I think so. He has it both ways: the gift of fitting in, and the knowledge that he is secretly way superior to you or me or anyone we know. Clark, in fact, has a nicer deal than Superman. He has an actual life. And it’s getting better every day.
Of course, the Clark Kent who I remember is not the one that teenage readers know today. We all have our timelines and our eras. So which flavor of Clark do you prefer? The massive-chested incarnation still in print? The earnest, humorless onlooker of years ago, pretending to have a life but merely biding his time until he could race into a phone booth? (And now that everybody has cell phones, will he have to settle for those coin-operated portable toilets . . . or as in the first Superman movie, a revolving door?) The 1940s coward? The farm boy: a persona to which he can—and does— retire? (When, in the “alternate world” graphic novel Kingdom Come (DC 1994), Lois was killed by the Joker, Superman put away his cape, took up overalls, and spent ten years on the farm—a holographic illusion—in his Fortress of Solitude.) The Clark Kent provided by the TV show Smallville: a young boy who will grow up to be Superman? The fearless foreign correspondent of the current comic book series?
It’s a bit confusing, depending upon your position on the continuity wheel. Choose a Clark, any Clark. Are we speaking here of the “mod” TV reporter of the 1970s? Kent without powers? With or without his foster parents? Married to Lois or dodging her crude attempts at ferreting out his Big Secret? As stated earlier, there have been dizzying variations on the Man from Smallville because of the shifts of editors and writers and their competing, noncontiguous storylines. Even Crisis On Infinite Earths didn’t really solve the problem.
I admit that it’s difficult to give up my old-fashioned notion of Clark-the-cringer, Clark-the-coward, Clark the guy who is always tiptoeing in the other direction when danger strikes. But I’m willing to try. The revamped Clark is far more palatable, even admirable. He lives a more normal life in gratitude to his adoptive parents for teaching him how to impersonate a human being. And the Kents did a good job of imbuing him with an understanding of human behavior, morals, the concepts of the common good, and the desire to be of service. Perhaps they taught him how to care as well. While an argument could be made over nature versus nurture, there’s no doubt that Clark cares. Let’s admit it: he’s a considerable rival to Superman.
Clark has a life, a pretty damned sexy one. He’s a prize-winning newsman married to the equally dynamic reporter Lois Lane and a player in the high-powered world of mass media. His life might be more rewarding in many ways than that of his muscle-bound alter-ego. Consider the perks of being a prize-winning journalist: you’re in a constant swirl of public connectedness, always on the phone, often at the airport, ever in the midst of life. Deadlines. Headlines. Bylines.
Kent and Lane are a power couple, to put it mildly. Invited to the best parties. Feared, admired, and courted by all the best people. They have a nice apartment, nice clothing, and nice toys. Theirs is a rewarding, stimulating life. Best of all, they have each other. Of course there are risks and dangers, but they mostly pertain to the difficulties of ferreting out information and the revelation of secrets. How do you get a decent mortgage? Can you find a reliable housekeeper? What do you do with those annoying loud neighbors? Poor Superman—he probably has Clark-envy. Clark can turn off the light, roll over, kiss Lois, and go to sleep . . . or keep kissing Lois. Which brings up an issue that has long perplexed Superman/Clark Kent and Lois Lane watchers: Just how do they do it?
The Confessions of Lois Lane
Shall we consider the “confessions” of Lois Lane, theoretical polygamist? Imagine the pros and cons of marriage to Superman versus Clark Kent. Is it more thrillin’ with Superman, more chillin’ with Clark? Does she have the best of both worlds, married to Man and Superman? And what does Lois think? Does she like Clark better than Superman? (I’ll bet that Clark has a better sense of humor. Probably dances better, too.) Does she bother to make a distinction between them? Or is it the same man, with or without the glasses, with or without the cape? (And does he have a pair of spare glasses?)
Clark and Lois married during an interregnum in his superpowers. But now that he’s back in “hi-test ” condition, one can’t help wondering how Lois deals with him physically and sexually. Bottom line: She has married an alien. A very humanoid-looking one, but an alien nevertheless. Does she pretend that he’s human? Does it matter to her? And what about the various changes Superman has been through of late? We all know that Lois is famously resourceful and ultra-courageous, but even her resilience must have been severely tested as her fiancée died, was resurrected, became a being of sheer energy, split into two, and went through several serious hairstyle changes. Who would have blamed her if she’d turned on her heel and left in disgust until the writers regained their sanity?
Let’s pause a moment to consider the matter of rivals: just what went on between Wonder Woman, goddess incarnate, and Superman during the thousand years they spent together in “Asgard, The Thousand Years War ” (Action Comics #761). But to get back to the big question, how can Lois and Clark do the nasty and manage not to kill Lois in the act? After all, he’s the Man of Steel, from the tip of his toes to the tip of his . . . er, well, you get the idea. It gives new meaning to the concept of Safe Sex.
More than one writer has considered what takes place in the Kent/Lane connubial bed. In “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex” (All The Myriad Ways, 1971, Ballantine Books), science fiction author Larry Niven makes a convincing argument that sex between the two of them would, in fact, prove fatal to Lois. And what, one wonders, will they do about children? Could Lois survive a pregnancy? Could she even become pregnant? Remember, Superman is an alien. At least one story line has it that his DNA is incompatible with human DNA, which seems plausible. And once they’ve been married for a while, what happens when they hit that old “seven-year-itch.” Would Lois divorce him for fooling around? And, vice versa?
Why We Should All Have Clark-Envy
Perhaps the clinching point to Clark Kent’s being more interesting and engaging than Superman is the marriage proposal that Lois Lane accepted. It came from Clark. And she accepted it, not knowing he was Superman. (Superman #50). Lois fell in love with Clark. Clark Kent, not Superman. In fact, when Clark told Lois that he was Superman, it caused some stress in their relationship. They weathered that storm and came through as a committed, dynamic couple who went on to marry.
Yes, Clark Kent steadily eclipsed his alter ego until there was a complete reversal of the original relationship between the two. Over the past decade, Clark Kent has been presented as the “real” person, and Superman as the secret identity that protects Clark‘s loved ones from harm. Even his Justice League of America associates call him “Clark,” not “Superman.” Thus Superman becomes Clark Kent’s secret identity: talk about character inversion!
Perhaps John Byrne was right back in 1986. “After all,” he argued, “Clark Kent was who he really was, who he’d been most of his life. Superman was just a red and blue suit he wore.” Perhaps secret identities have outlived their usefulness in comic books. That doesn’t mean, however, that we should jettison them completely. In fact, secret identities might become the must-have accessory of the new millennium. As cell phones and the internet make constant connection the flavor du jour, a hiding place begins to look mighty tempting, doesn’t it?
How appealing, when one’s own life becomes a trifle stale or stressed-out, to be able to translate one’s existence with a word or a quick whirl through a revolving door. Take off a mask. Crawl out of your own personal pressure cooker into your own personal hideout, replete with cashmere robe and slippers. Let’s admit it: we’d all like the option of being Clark Kent and turning down the superheat, wouldn’t we? No wonder Superman enjoys it.
Now that Clark commands the spotlight—can hold up his head and face down danger with a secret smile and maybe a flash of his Super Heat Vision—he’s getting better-looking every day. Best of all, Clark has an option that Superman lacks: in case of a big problem, he can always tell Lois to handle it. Who wouldn’t envy that? And if he ever has second thoughts about his civilian identity, he can recall what Lois once told him (Adventures of Superman #525), “Under that costume, you’re Clark Kent— you’ll always be Clark Kent. You can’t live without him . . . and neither can I!”
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Footnotes:
1. The Great Comic Book Heroes, Jules Feifer, pg. 11-13.
2. Ibid.
3. Superman, The Complete History, Les Daniels, DC Comics, 1998 pp. 160-16.
4. Superman/Batman:Supergirl #8. Op.cit., p. 133.
BenBella's heading en masse to Superman Returns tomorrow afternoon-- for now, here's Karen Haber's essay on Superman for your reading enjoyment. (And if you like what you see here, you can always check out our Man From Krypton for more great essays on the Man of Steel!)
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Clark Kent Just Gets Better Looking Every Day
Karen Haber
Be honest. Can you think of Superman without thinking of Clark Kent? Of course not. They go together like French fries and ketchup, like Batman and neurosis. And yet, in the late 1980s, Superman’s secret identity was very nearly done away with during a continuity makeover.
Not every comics superhero has a secret identity: Wonder Woman (in her current incarnation), the X-Men, and The Fantastic Four are among the super-heroic folk who choose to face the world without a hiding place. Their “private” names are public knowledge and they don’t have any occupations other than their super roles. (This is not to say they don’t attempt to avoid attention in public: they often dress in a concealing manner, wear hats, drive inconspicuous vehicles, and in general behave like celebrities trying to avoid paparazzi.) And, for a time, in the 1980s, the notion was floated that perhaps Superman should join their ranks. Thankfully, that idea was shot down.
I admit that it’s easy to diss Clark Kent. He began life as nothing more than a plot convenience invented by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in 1938. His primary purpose was to provide a respite and a front for Superman. After all, how could even a superman be Superman full time, 24/7, without an occasional coffee break?
Besides, a secret identity is a terrific plot element. It builds in a point of tension and potential conflict. This has been especially useful in the Superman comic series, where having an omnipotent hero has created problems for the writers over the nearly seven decades that the caped one has been playing skyscraper leapfrog.
Now, however, it’s time to sit up and pay attention to Clark. It is my contention that Clark Kent, Superman’s daytime alter ego, not Superman himself, has emerged as the more interesting and intriguing character in both the comics and electronic media. Yes, Clark Kent possesses a humanity that is far more interesting than the death-defying feats of his super-powered persona. Clark Kent is the real man behind the Man of Steel. Happily, the comic book writers agree with me: recent plotlines have been distinctly Kent-centric. How did this happen?
Let us return to the beginning: just before dawn in a hayfield on a Kansas farm, where a rocket ship from another planet has just crash-landed, revealing its precious cargo: an alien infant, miraculously unhurt. Enter two important players in the Superman saga: Martha and Jonathan Kent, childless farmers. Of course the child is taken in, cared for, and in time, adopted. His peculiar arrival and origins are camouflaged and withheld from the public. Clark grows up in the bosom of a supportive, wholesome, traditional family, absorbing basic human values and Western Judeo-Christian morality, and identifying with his parents. As his unusual powers reveal themselves, his salt-of-the-earth adoptive parents help him come to terms with his abilities, teaching him to control and conceal them.
The great responsibility of these awesome powers and the necessity of using them to help mankind is part of the gift that the Kents give Clark. The other is his sense of humanity. When Clark comes of age, he leaves home to see the world, finds his way to Metropolis and enrolls at the university where he studies journalism. Clark graduates and finds a job at the Daily Planet at the same time that he emerges as Superman and meets Lois Lane. But that’s only the beginning of the story.
The Once and Future Kent
From the debut of Superman (Action Comics #1, 1938) until perhaps fifteen years ago, everything about Clark Kent was staged for the benefit of his alternate identity. His job as a reporter for the Daily Planet was convenient for receiving news before the general public and provided an explanation for his presence at crime scenes. What’s more, the nature of the job was such that he didn’t have to punch a time clock or account for his whereabouts, just make his deadlines. And to draw attention away from any noticeable correlation between Kent and Superman, Clark Kent adopted a quiet, passive personality, and pretended to be conservative, introverted, and cowardly. Jules Feiffer, writing in The Great Comic Book Heroes, raised the possibility that the Clark Kent identify was even a penance performed by Superman, “a sacrificial disguise, an act of discreet martyrdom.” Feiffer attempted to make a case for Superman as a “secret masochist” for whom his alias as a weakling was a means of punishing himself for his overwhelming super powers.-
Feiffer is not alone in making a case for Superman-as-self-martyr. But I don’t buy it. Superman is, by definition, an alien, and therefore should be free of masochism and other human psychological frailties. Why does he need to punish himself? Hasn’t he already been punished enough by losing his family, his birthright, his world? Is masochism a learned trait? (Dr. Freud, please pick up the white courtesy phone. . . .) Let’s assume that Supes avoided that particular lesson when he was being schooled by the Kents in all things human.
As Feiffer puts it, in the beginning, “Clark Kent was the fiction.” Well, yes, but as I’ve already mentioned above, over the decades since Feiffer made this point, there’s been an inversion of identity for the Man of Steel.
Feiffer does make an interesting, if debatable, observation: that Clark Kent was invented not to serve the story, but to serve the reader: “[Kent] was Superman’s opinion of the rest of us, a pointed caricature of what we, the noncriminal element, were really like. His fake identity was our real one. That’s why we loved him so.” This glib, snarky analysis utilizes Superman to take a jab at people in general—Feiffer’s vocation—but it puts the wrong emphasis on the wrong syllable. First, Superman doesn’t feel any contempt for humankind (i.e. the reader) nor for Clark. Rather, he loves and protects humanity. And he values Clark for good reasons that I’ll discuss later. Of course the reader enjoys identifying with the hero ,but it is for his super powers and all the wish fulfillment and escapism they provide, not because his alter ego is reassuringly powerless. It’s my contention that the reader so enjoys identifying with the super powers of the superman that Clark’s cowardly ways became an unnecessary obstacle to that groovy mind meld. We needed a better Kent so that we could better embrace the totality of the character.
Yes, in the beginning, Clark was a wimp, boring and in-the-way, a limp meat suit that Superman put on and took off at will. Throughout the Golden Age (1938-1955) and Silver Age (1955-1970), Clark laid low, playing the role of a Cowardly Lion. What a difference a few decades make. The changes began in the 1970s, as writers started to really struggle with “The Superman problem.” Every writer who has been in the DC Comics bullpen has had to cope with Superman’s omnipotence, and every writer will tell you that omnipotence really gets in the way of plotting a good story. Although Siegel and Shuster’s Superman began life with considerably reduced super powers (“. . . faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings . . .”), by the 1950s he had developed such awesome abilities as Super Hypnosis, Super Vibration, Invulnerability, and Time Travel. Desperate writers have been trying to disempower him ever since.
Back in the 1970s, Superman writer Denny O’Neil gave voice to the Superman Dilemma: “There’s no problem he can’t solve. So you end up writing stories that are either internally inconsistent or bogged down in explanations.” O’Neil, by the way, acknowledged that one reason for deemphasizing Superman’s powers was to
make his own job more interesting.
Because of their ephemeral nature, comics—particularly long-lived ones like Superman—suffer chronically from long term story-continuity problems. The Superman comic book—and character—has survived more than sixty years, through societal upheavals and revolutionary cultural changes. Editors and writers have come and gone, some more engaged by the deeper implications of the character than others. (A few have been, to put it kindly, severely logic-challenged.)
As Clark gained in interest and stature, his alter-ego seemed to undergo a reverse process: Superman was whittled down by kryptonite and discontinuous editors and writers until a Great Big Fight (Crisis on Infinite Earths, #1-12) was required to kill off extraneous characters and plotlines and clear the decks. Once the fog had lifted, DC hired über-fixer John Byrne to reinvent the Man of Steel and give the entire cast an up-to-date makeover. Fans have been debating the changes ever since.
With Byrne’s controversial revamp of the Superman persona/story continuity, we find a more dynamic, aggressive Clark emerging—one who is a respected journalist, interested in a social life and, ultimately, marriage to his colleague, Lois Lane. He doesn’t
even bother to comb back his hair. The new Clark Kent was someone who might not slink away from danger, but rather run towards it. He might even have had sex once or twice. (Although how his partner survived the intimate impact is not well understood....on that, more anon.)
Despite Byrne’s best efforts, the comics never took their focus off the Man Of Steel. It took the electronic media to begin the shift in emphasis. Real changes in Clark Kent must, in part, be credited to two television series, Lois & Clark and Smallville.
In Lois & Clark, (ABC, 1993-1996) viewers enjoyed the novel experience of watching Clark and Lois interpreted as two extremely attractive, sexy people who circle each other, flirt, solve crimes, and flirt some more, all the while moving ever closer to the bedroom, and, ultimately, the altar.
The effect of this was to heighten the notion that a) Clark was a viable sex object and b) Lois wanted him. The unique point this series made was that Superman was not the center of attention: the relationship between the two reporters for the Daily Planet took the spotlight.
It was a new, invigorating perspective. (A collateral effect here was to make Lois extremely foxy and interesting, a high-powered investigative reporter instead of a desperate man hunter.) DC Comics President Jenette Kahn had been involved in the development of the new TV series, and she mandated that the comic books’ plot lines
reflect plot developments in the TV show. The result was to intensify the focus on Clark’s emotional life in the comics, the courtship of Clark and Lois, and their eventual marriage.
Continual attention was paid to Clark in Smallville, (WB, 2001-present) where his back-story in Kansas took center stage. The writers for this series departed from the Superman comics storyline to posit that the orphaned Kryptonian developed his superpowers only gradually during adolescence and found them difficult to master..(Now there's an adolescence from hell: acne and unreliable super-speed. Just imagine how the kids would point and laugh.)
Again, through this interesting, innovative show, Clark was brought forward as the lead character, no longer an afterthought or adjunct. His attempts to control his unusual abilities and deal with the emotional challenges of adolescence generated sympathy and affection and furthered the development of his character.
Once again, the writers of the Superman comic books paid attention to this new take on Clark. Recent Superman comics have reflected those changes. Clark, now affectionately called “Smallville” by Lois, is enjoying greater story emphasis.
Meanwhile, comics themselves have changed dramatically, thanks to the graphic novel revolution of the 1980s led by such visionaries as the late Will Eisner, Art Spiegelman, Frank Miller, and Alan Moore. The result: grittier, more realistic treatment of characters and storylines. As the popular culture shifts with each new generation, comic books reflect those social changes. The Superman of the Golden and Silver Ages was a compensating dream of power and grace for his alienated inventors and readers. The Post-Silver Age Superman reflected the societal upheavals of the late twentieth century. As for the twenty-first century, the focus seems to have shifted yet again, to more emphasis on emotions and relationships, and on psychological reality, even if the reality being portrayed is that of a superbeing.
The result has been an inversion of the Superman/Clark Kent equation. What was once the supporting role in the Man of Steel opera has become a major attraction—perhaps the major attraction, as Clark Kent steps forward, an intriguing, fully-developed character with a wife, a life, and a very interesting secret.
It’s Lonely at the Top
Perhaps we should pause to consider all things Kent-ish from the Man of Steel’s viewpoint. To most of the residents of Metropolis, the notion that Superman might prefer a life more private is an impossible notion to fathom. Even Superman’s arch-enemy Lex Luthor refused to believe that Superman had a secret identity. Luthor couldn’t believe that anyone so powerful would want to be anyone else.
But that’s exactly the point. Superman wants to be Clark. He needs to be Clark. It’s my contention that Superman needs Clark Kent much more than Kent needs the Man of Steel. After all, who is Superman? We know about his superpowers: Flight, Super-Strength, Heat Vision, X-Ray Vision, Flight, Super Speed, and Super Breath. His major weakness is famous as well: deadly green Kryptonite, the remainder of his home planet’s radioactive core, scattered throughout the universe. (Admittedly, it has a surprising tendency to show up in the vicinity of Earth.) Continued exposure to it will kill Superman. He’s also vulnerable to loss of air, loss of solar radiation (which eventually renders him powerless), magic, and illusion. He fills out a tight red and blue costume nicely. But does he have a sense of humor? He’s noble, courageous, loyal, self-sacrificing, kindly, well-intentioned, modest, inspiring. As more than one critic has observed, he’s a super Boy Scout.
His is not a fashionable super hero persona. Yet Superman is the standard against which all other crime-fighting super heroes measure themselves, at least in the DC universe. But is he really anything more than a collection of super abilities and attitudes? Recent comic storylines have included exploitation of his potential super-ego by psychological weaponry, but otherwise there is little evidence of his egoistic tendencies. He is known to have a temper, carefully controlled, that has occasionally been unleashed on extreme villains. There have also been hints that he’s lonely. And rightly so. Superman is a stranger in a strange land. His unique status makes him the ultimate imposter: he began his life on Earth as an imposter, a super-powered alien pretending to be human, acting in ways counter to his natural inclinations in order to maintain his charade. Imagine the unbearable loneliness of the caped long-distance flyer, made explicit in many recent Superman tales. Superman is an alien, the sole survivor of a vanished world and culture. He’s almost godlike in his abilities—but raised as a human being in a human family. Superman can’t help but be torn between what he feels he should want and have but can’t: “normal” life, marriage, and a family.
If Superman is, as writer Jeph Loeb has put it, “a Boy Scout whipped by his selflessness,” then Clark gives him permission to stop being so . . . damned . . . good. Clark is the place the god can go to become mortal. Drop the cape. Pick up a martini. Close the eyes and dream.
Clark Kent provides the pleasures of ordinary human life that Superman must crave but feel he has no right to, a “room of his own.” Brunch on the patio. The Sunday morning newspapers. Idle chat, the opportunity to step outside the power, the glory, the mantle of greatness, the opportunity to savor mundane things. Take out the garbage. Shop for groceries. Enjoy connection, context, familiarity. Most important: Clark allows the possibility of love and companionship. After a long day of high drama and danger, Superman must draw a sigh of relief whenever he can put his supersuit away and curl up on the sofa with Lois.
Clark is that necessary link to the human, to the emotional connection for which a weary god must long. He provides Superman with that most potent of human pleasures, emotional intimacy. Through being Clark, Superman gains an understanding of the people he protects and serves. He is the door through which Superman the Kryptonian, the alien, enters humanity. Without Clark, Superman would be left out in the cold.
As Superman, he is very nearly a supreme being, and supremely lonely. His extraordinary powers extend his own his sense of alienation exponentially. No one except, perhaps, Wonder Woman can understand his position, and she has all those Amazons to keep her warm—depending upon which story continuity you choose to follow It’s lonely at the top. So let’s show a little sympathy for the Superman, consigned to his huge operatic role. High above the oxygen layers, looking down through the ozone hole at his blue and white adopted planet, how Superman must fret, like a single parent over a particularly fractious yet lovely child. How grateful he must be for Clark, who allows him to live as a human man in a human world.
A Far Better Geek Dream
As, over the years, the writers have continued to tweak Superman’s powers while emphasizing his humanity and vulnerabilities, they have inevitably moved Clark closer to center stage. Why have readers accepted the new emphasis on Kent? Isn’t he the frustrating, high-achieving dream of normality that eludes so many of them, of
which they don’t want to be reminded? Doesn’t he represent the very values for which they yearn and yet feel such contempt? He’s a mundane guy in a business suit and glasses. Someone you wouldn’t look at twice. Perhaps it’s his wonderful secret—enviable powers that set him apart—that redeems him in the eyes of the readers. Is Clark Kent perhaps a far better geek dream than his caped alter-ego? I think so. He has it both ways: the gift of fitting in, and the knowledge that he is secretly way superior to you or me or anyone we know. Clark, in fact, has a nicer deal than Superman. He has an actual life. And it’s getting better every day.
Of course, the Clark Kent who I remember is not the one that teenage readers know today. We all have our timelines and our eras. So which flavor of Clark do you prefer? The massive-chested incarnation still in print? The earnest, humorless onlooker of years ago, pretending to have a life but merely biding his time until he could race into a phone booth? (And now that everybody has cell phones, will he have to settle for those coin-operated portable toilets . . . or as in the first Superman movie, a revolving door?) The 1940s coward? The farm boy: a persona to which he can—and does— retire? (When, in the “alternate world” graphic novel Kingdom Come (DC 1994), Lois was killed by the Joker, Superman put away his cape, took up overalls, and spent ten years on the farm—a holographic illusion—in his Fortress of Solitude.) The Clark Kent provided by the TV show Smallville: a young boy who will grow up to be Superman? The fearless foreign correspondent of the current comic book series?
It’s a bit confusing, depending upon your position on the continuity wheel. Choose a Clark, any Clark. Are we speaking here of the “mod” TV reporter of the 1970s? Kent without powers? With or without his foster parents? Married to Lois or dodging her crude attempts at ferreting out his Big Secret? As stated earlier, there have been dizzying variations on the Man from Smallville because of the shifts of editors and writers and their competing, noncontiguous storylines. Even Crisis On Infinite Earths didn’t really solve the problem.
I admit that it’s difficult to give up my old-fashioned notion of Clark-the-cringer, Clark-the-coward, Clark the guy who is always tiptoeing in the other direction when danger strikes. But I’m willing to try. The revamped Clark is far more palatable, even admirable. He lives a more normal life in gratitude to his adoptive parents for teaching him how to impersonate a human being. And the Kents did a good job of imbuing him with an understanding of human behavior, morals, the concepts of the common good, and the desire to be of service. Perhaps they taught him how to care as well. While an argument could be made over nature versus nurture, there’s no doubt that Clark cares. Let’s admit it: he’s a considerable rival to Superman.
Clark has a life, a pretty damned sexy one. He’s a prize-winning newsman married to the equally dynamic reporter Lois Lane and a player in the high-powered world of mass media. His life might be more rewarding in many ways than that of his muscle-bound alter-ego. Consider the perks of being a prize-winning journalist: you’re in a constant swirl of public connectedness, always on the phone, often at the airport, ever in the midst of life. Deadlines. Headlines. Bylines.
Kent and Lane are a power couple, to put it mildly. Invited to the best parties. Feared, admired, and courted by all the best people. They have a nice apartment, nice clothing, and nice toys. Theirs is a rewarding, stimulating life. Best of all, they have each other. Of course there are risks and dangers, but they mostly pertain to the difficulties of ferreting out information and the revelation of secrets. How do you get a decent mortgage? Can you find a reliable housekeeper? What do you do with those annoying loud neighbors? Poor Superman—he probably has Clark-envy. Clark can turn off the light, roll over, kiss Lois, and go to sleep . . . or keep kissing Lois. Which brings up an issue that has long perplexed Superman/Clark Kent and Lois Lane watchers: Just how do they do it?
The Confessions of Lois Lane
Shall we consider the “confessions” of Lois Lane, theoretical polygamist? Imagine the pros and cons of marriage to Superman versus Clark Kent. Is it more thrillin’ with Superman, more chillin’ with Clark? Does she have the best of both worlds, married to Man and Superman? And what does Lois think? Does she like Clark better than Superman? (I’ll bet that Clark has a better sense of humor. Probably dances better, too.) Does she bother to make a distinction between them? Or is it the same man, with or without the glasses, with or without the cape? (And does he have a pair of spare glasses?)
Clark and Lois married during an interregnum in his superpowers. But now that he’s back in “hi-test ” condition, one can’t help wondering how Lois deals with him physically and sexually. Bottom line: She has married an alien. A very humanoid-looking one, but an alien nevertheless. Does she pretend that he’s human? Does it matter to her? And what about the various changes Superman has been through of late? We all know that Lois is famously resourceful and ultra-courageous, but even her resilience must have been severely tested as her fiancée died, was resurrected, became a being of sheer energy, split into two, and went through several serious hairstyle changes. Who would have blamed her if she’d turned on her heel and left in disgust until the writers regained their sanity?
Let’s pause a moment to consider the matter of rivals: just what went on between Wonder Woman, goddess incarnate, and Superman during the thousand years they spent together in “Asgard, The Thousand Years War ” (Action Comics #761). But to get back to the big question, how can Lois and Clark do the nasty and manage not to kill Lois in the act? After all, he’s the Man of Steel, from the tip of his toes to the tip of his . . . er, well, you get the idea. It gives new meaning to the concept of Safe Sex.
More than one writer has considered what takes place in the Kent/Lane connubial bed. In “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex” (All The Myriad Ways, 1971, Ballantine Books), science fiction author Larry Niven makes a convincing argument that sex between the two of them would, in fact, prove fatal to Lois. And what, one wonders, will they do about children? Could Lois survive a pregnancy? Could she even become pregnant? Remember, Superman is an alien. At least one story line has it that his DNA is incompatible with human DNA, which seems plausible. And once they’ve been married for a while, what happens when they hit that old “seven-year-itch.” Would Lois divorce him for fooling around? And, vice versa?
Why We Should All Have Clark-Envy
Perhaps the clinching point to Clark Kent’s being more interesting and engaging than Superman is the marriage proposal that Lois Lane accepted. It came from Clark. And she accepted it, not knowing he was Superman. (Superman #50). Lois fell in love with Clark. Clark Kent, not Superman. In fact, when Clark told Lois that he was Superman, it caused some stress in their relationship. They weathered that storm and came through as a committed, dynamic couple who went on to marry.
Yes, Clark Kent steadily eclipsed his alter ego until there was a complete reversal of the original relationship between the two. Over the past decade, Clark Kent has been presented as the “real” person, and Superman as the secret identity that protects Clark‘s loved ones from harm. Even his Justice League of America associates call him “Clark,” not “Superman.” Thus Superman becomes Clark Kent’s secret identity: talk about character inversion!
Perhaps John Byrne was right back in 1986. “After all,” he argued, “Clark Kent was who he really was, who he’d been most of his life. Superman was just a red and blue suit he wore.” Perhaps secret identities have outlived their usefulness in comic books. That doesn’t mean, however, that we should jettison them completely. In fact, secret identities might become the must-have accessory of the new millennium. As cell phones and the internet make constant connection the flavor du jour, a hiding place begins to look mighty tempting, doesn’t it?
How appealing, when one’s own life becomes a trifle stale or stressed-out, to be able to translate one’s existence with a word or a quick whirl through a revolving door. Take off a mask. Crawl out of your own personal pressure cooker into your own personal hideout, replete with cashmere robe and slippers. Let’s admit it: we’d all like the option of being Clark Kent and turning down the superheat, wouldn’t we? No wonder Superman enjoys it.
Now that Clark commands the spotlight—can hold up his head and face down danger with a secret smile and maybe a flash of his Super Heat Vision—he’s getting better-looking every day. Best of all, Clark has an option that Superman lacks: in case of a big problem, he can always tell Lois to handle it. Who wouldn’t envy that? And if he ever has second thoughts about his civilian identity, he can recall what Lois once told him (Adventures of Superman #525), “Under that costume, you’re Clark Kent— you’ll always be Clark Kent. You can’t live without him . . . and neither can I!”
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Footnotes:
1. The Great Comic Book Heroes, Jules Feifer, pg. 11-13.
2. Ibid.
3. Superman, The Complete History, Les Daniels, DC Comics, 1998 pp. 160-16.
4. Superman/Batman:Supergirl #8. Op.cit., p. 133.
