Superman's Secret Identity? Gimmie a Break!

[Jim Thompson]

If I saw him on a semi regular basis? Yeah I think so.

I live in NYC so it's not uncommon for me to see celebs around town. When Bill Murray walked into the coffee shop I was in I recognized him right away as did many other people in there. And this was despite the fact that he wasn't wearing a jumpsuit or an unlicensed particle accelerator on his back.

Was he wearing a disguise?

[Auguste Dupin]

Yeah, was he trying to pretend he was not Bill Murray?
Besides, who really know how Superman looks like? Lois, Jimmy, Perry, and the other spandex boys.

[Jim Thompson]

The thing of it is, Conan Doyle got it right years ago when he wrote that people see but they do not observe. It is this, as much as anything, that would assist Clark in his deception.

[chris6909]

the point is valid though .. Yet i've never encountered it as a problem .. I,ve hardly ever even thought it through .. Simply cause it doesn't matter .. Not to me anyway .. A fictional character's disguise issues is hardly on my radar .. I just enjoy the stories and the uniqueness of the character .. Thats really all there's to it .. If you can look at it that way, i'm sure you might become a fan

[Auguste Dupin]

Personnally, the explanation "he's a super actor" has always been good enough for me.

[Two Headed Sex Beast]

My other question is, does the glasses disguise work for everybody or just Superman? If Jimmy Olsen came in one day wearing glasses would everybody be thinking, "who the hell's THIS guy?"

[Auguste Dupin]

When I was in high school, I wore glasses. One day, the glasses were broken and I had to pass the entire day without them. At one point, one of the girls of my class look at me very closely. I ask her what's going on, and she says she never noticed I had blue eyes. And we were, well, not friends, but she wasn't ignoring me or anything. Since that day, I accepted that the glasses worked as a disguise. True, they are not enough by themselves (but Clark isn't just wearing glasses, aspointed out earlier, he changes his body language, uses a different voice, and act "out of character"), but they do hide things.

[kalorama]

I'm sure plenty of people have noticed the resemblance between Superman and Clark, but just write it off as coincidence or some kind of cosmic irony. The fact that he doesn't wear a mask (and the rumor that he has a hidden base--the Fortress of Solitude--where he hangs out when he's not heroing) all contribute to the belief that he doesn't have a secret ID, which eliminates any reason to suspect a connection between Clark and Superman. That and the fact that--through the use of robots and shape-changing friends (e.g., Martian Manhunter) Superman and Clark have been seen together in public on more than one occasion.

[Let's Kill Hitler]

Yeah, it is rediculous.

But it's also a staple of Superheroes in general, in a lot of cases many characters secret identities seem unbelievable. I mean I find Superman/Clark Kent more believable than say Robin or Hal getting away with domino masks. In fact you could probably work it out just looking at costumes who have a small part of the face exposed, only full length masks like Spiderman's work really work all that well.

And there are many cases where guessing a superheroes identity would be a case of just putting 2+2 together (now who's the right build, who has the motivation and who's rich enough to afford all those bat gadgets?) It's just one of these things you have to except.

Though I have to say, looking at All Star Superman (and you can never look too much at All Star Superman) that comic did it, while not realistically, believably within the context of the world it existed in. I mean look at the way Frank Quitely drew Clark/Supes



It's an incredible transformation on page. The same man looking completely different while having exactly the same features and build. All Supes does is slump his shoulders and suddenly all that muscle is puppy fat. I know a bloke who looks like this Clark Kent but looks nothing like Superman, maybe if he spent the next 10 years at the gym. It's incredibly well done. I see other images where Clark is wearing a tight fighting shirt and tie and has a bit of fashion sense and I think "God, no, what are you doing, their going to see it!"

There's also body doubles like Robots or Bruce Wayne posing as Clark which he's done a couple of times (they do look very simular). Also with Superman not wearing a mask no one even thinks he HAS a secret identity. He's not hiding anything, he's out there in plain sight, no one discovers his disguise because no ones looking for it.

All that being said once again yes, it is stupid. But it's something you can't really get around unless you want to give Superman a mask or Clark a prosphetic nose or something like in Secret Identity. But it's kind of an excepted part of the mythos at this point, and I also think it's fun to play around with. I mean All Star did that too. There's this great scene where Clark takes off his glasses and stares Luthor straight in the face shouting at him in fustration and Lex still can't see who he is. He thinks he's a genius but he can't see whats right under his nose. Or the scene where Clark attacks Luthor while surrounded by the Daily Planet crew and they go "Wow, great Clark Kent disguise Superman!" It doesn't even occure to them that Supes has been hiding amongst them.

[Mr. Nox]

Aside from bits others have mentioned such as efforts on Clark's to appear different such as baggier clothes, hairstyle, style of speech, etc., I think it might be that the average citizens have trouble thinking Clark Kent, reporter for the Daily Planet, is the great and powerful superhero Superman.

I actually think that's the route taken one time when Lex found out since he couldn't imagine why someone as powerful as Superman would do a job like that.

[The Batman]

And I mean, they expect me to believe that an alien from another planet is going to look just like a human being!?! And that he can fly and shoot lasers from his eyes!?! For reals, that's just ridiculous. Gimmie a break!

[Two Headed Sex Beast]

But how did Superman know that everybody would buy the glasses disguise? That seems like a hell of a gamble. Why would he take the risk if he's concerned about keeping his identity a secret?

[The Batman]

It wasn't a risk. He knew it would work. It's a comic book and he's Superman. It's just how things go. He's got super-genre-awareness.

[Let's Kill Hitler]

But how did Superman know that everybody would buy the glasses disguise? That seems like a hell of a gamble. Why would he take the risk if he's concerned about keeping his identity a secret?

He might have discovered it by chance. He didn't always have the Superman/Clark Kent persona when he was a kid. Maybe he put on a pair of glasses for a laugh and the idea came to him when everyone wondered where he'd disappeared to

But really, there's certain things you can't really justify, they're just tropes of the mythos that you can't really escape and just have to accept. Like in Star Trek how there's so many aliens that look like humans with gills on their face or something. Or in Lord of the Rings why they didn't just use the eagles to go straight to Mordor in the Fellowship. Or in Happy Potter why magic with all it's amazing powers doesn't have the equivelent of lazer eye surgury. You just accept it and move on.

[Two Headed Sex Beast]

Alright I surrender. The glasses work as a disguise. It's just a comic. I get it. I'm over thinking it.

BUT! What if the enemies in the DCU discover this trick? Will every super villain be bespectacled!