“There’s a starman, waiting in the sky,
He’d like to come and meet us,
But he knows he’d blow our minds!”
Clark Kent is not many things. It’s a bit of an odd statement, a bit turned around or topsy-turvy. There are many things that Clark Kent is not. That’s a better way to put it, though it makes Clark Kent more passive — a bystander in a universe that seems to call on his aid over and over and over again.
For one, Clark Kent isn’t Superman. Of course, we know that Clark Kent IS Superman, because, well, he just is. He puts on a silly spandex suit, adorned with an S that he swears means “hope” in his world. (It’s just a typo, his original name was going to be Huperman). He goes out, saves the world, then comes back and kisses Lois Lane in time for dinner. Or something.
But to the world, Clark Kent is not Superman. He’s not super. Frankly, he’s just a man. He was a farm boy, from Smallville, Kansas. (Or something — he’s been rebooted so many times that I’m just using my favorite versions.) He was a guy raised to be upstanding, good, just, and kind, and he found himself in a brand new city, Metropolis itself, in the center of the hub that makes the whole thing tick.
What else isn’t Clark Kent?
Well, he’s not a nobody. He’s certainly not a nobody, with or without the glasses and suit. Y’see, the Clark Kent of the Daily Planet, he’s an up-and-coming reporter! He’s got some big scoops, and yessiree, that man is going places. Why, he might even make it big to the New York Times! He may not be Superman, but you don’t have to be Superman to make a difference, and Clark Kent shows that in spades.
And then it’s off to the one I’ve left for last.
Clark Kent is not an alien. Sure, Clark Kent is so much faster and stronger and better and more powerful than us. Sure, he can fly faster than a plane and higher than a satellite, he can travel through space unimpeded and eat bullets and shrug off punches and kicks as if someone lightly blew on him.
Clark Kent clearly isn’t human. He can’t be human — he must see us as lesser beings. How could he not? We go through life with so much fear and uncertainty and doubt. We cannot simply punch our problems away, and if we try, we can’t know we’ll be alright. We are so fundamentally fallible, so weak, so incapable. Why would Clark Kent ever want to see himself as human?
The answer to that question is something that DC and the world at large have been struggling with for a very long time. We’ve spent so much time working through evil Superman — he hates us, he sees himself as our king, he’s here not for us but for some other strange reason. He’s Homelander, he’s Omniman, he’s a character that would be evil because there is no way a man who had everything, who could do anything would be benevolent. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Clark Kent must be corrupted.
Yet there’s something forgotten about Clark Kent. He’s a farm boy raised by two people who love him very much, who will be there for him as long as they’re able, who taught him to love, to fight for good, to stay the course. Who stood by him when he played catch and went to prom and got so nervous in a public speaking class that he squeaked. (Okay, the last one was me.)
Clark Kent loves his parents and his dog and his world and he was taught that the best he could ever do was stop evil when he saw it because that’s what we want people to believe.
Clark Kent is a man, and he’s not just any man, he’s the best of us. Not as Superman — not at all as Superman, because a man dressed in spandex flying through the air is just so passe now.
But Clark Kent is a hope for a humanity that is better. The sort of humanity we should strive for, not all-powerful and all-knowing, but always willing to step up and do something. That damned letter on his chest, that “S” that he says is hope, it’s real. It isn’t just that one special guy from Metropolis will save the day — it’s that anyone could. It’s the hope that we can be better.
There’s a new Superman movie coming out, the first standalone flick I’d consider since 2013’s Man of Steel. It opens with a Superman who is battered. It opens with a Superman who is defeated.
We will all be defeated one day. None of us can ride waves and chase highs without the inevitable crash. We cannot pretend the world will be kind to us forever, because it tends to be so cruel. It tends to leave
us battered.
A battered Superman does not stoically get up. He calls for his dog — Superdog! — he gets pulled, by his cape, to safety.
Superman is not all-powerful. Nor is he our better. Clark Kent is human. He loves and fights and loses and hurts just like the rest of us.
Clark Kent is not our messiah, but he will always be our hope.
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