Will The Real Clark Kent Please Stand Up?

In the wild Silver Age of DC Comics, Superman creates specific rooms in his Fortress of Solitude, each a celebration of one of his friends. He makes a Lois Lane room, a Jimmy Olsen room, and … a Clark Kent room? Yes, at one point, Superman was so paranoid about keeping his secret identity safe that even in his private Fortress of Solitude, he carried on the charade that Superman and Clark Kent were entirely separate people.

This makes a certain amount of sense because the most famous secret identity of all does, in a way, seem like a separate character from Superman. In Superman II, Christopher Reeve’s Clark gives up his powers to live as a human, and we see Clark Kent physically separate from the body of Superman. Ditto Superman III, in which Clark has to fight a cruel and aggressive version of Superman. The psychological implications seem fairly clear and somewhat obvious: Superman is the fantasy many of us have about ourselves, while Clark is the reality. As comic legend and Phantom Tollbooth illustrator Jules Feiffer put it so wonderfully in 1965, “Superman’s fake identity was our real one, that’s why we loved him so.”

But is it really that simple? Is Clark Kent merely a facet of Superman? Is he a separate character? Or, is Clark the true and knowable character?

How Radio Invented Clark Kent

In one of the arresting trailers for the new 2025 Superman, we see David Corenswet’s Clark Kent transform into Superman, simply by changing the pitch of his voice. This trick is a longstanding tradition with Superman actors, but, ironically, it wasn’t created by the comic books. While the secret identity of Clark Kent has been present in the Superman mythos since his first appearance in Action Comics #1 in June 1938, the transition between the two personas was pioneered by a medium in which the audience couldn’t even see what was happening — the radio. Starting on Feb. 14, 1940, actor Bud Collyer forever defined the compartmentalization of Clark Kent from Superman when he took his voice down a few octaves in the first episode of the radio show The Adventures of Superman. As Glen Wheldon writes in his book Superman: The Unauthorized Biography, this moment of transition was “something that comics couldn’t capture.”

Why did Superman need the medium of radio to truly define Clark Kent? “I think it speaks to the imagination in your mind’s eye, you can kind of fill in those gaps even more elaborately,” Marc Thompson tells Inverse. Recently, Thompson played the voice of Clark Kent/Superman for a new audiobook version of the critically acclaimed comic book series, All-Star Superman, a 2005 comic series from Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely, that has been cited by DC Studios CEO James Gunn as one of the biggest inspirations for the new film. “I wonder, too, if it’s something about wanting to almost put yourself in that character’s shoes,” Thompson adds, suggesting that hearing the transition between Clark and Superman brings us closer to both.

“Superman’s fake identity was our real one, that’s why we loved him so.”

“When all the thoughts were coming to me, the concept came that Superman could have a dual identity,” Jerry Siegel, the first Superman writer who co-created the character with Joe Shuster, admitted years after the first appearance of Superman. “And that in one of his identities he would be meek and mild, as I was, and wear glasses, as I did.”

Note that Siegel says one of his identities. In the early Golden Age issues of Action Comics and, eventually, the standalone, history-making Superman comic, Superman sometimes adopts other disguises beyond Clark Kent. In fact, in certain stories, he’s partially a Sherlock Holmes, masquerading as mobsters, construction workers, and even a retired, down-on-his-luck boxer. The idea that Superman was a shapeshifter, capable of changing his appearance for the purposes of fighting crime was likely a holdover from the radio and pulp character the Shadow, who could use a kind of mind control to manipulate people into concealing his presence. This is all to say that for a few years at the beginning, the solid notion of Clark Kent as the “real” man was less consistent.

Searching For The Real Superman

“In Siegel and Shuster imagination, Clark isn’t the real Superman,” Wheldon argues in his 2013 book. “He’s a caricature. A goof. A broad imitation of a species that he evidently regards as weak and ineffectual.”

This idea, of course, didn’t become the predominant perception of Clark at all. At first, the 1938 comics had baby Kal-El get picked up by a “passing motorist” after his rocket crash-landed on Krypton. This means that for a few years, Superman was in an orphanage before getting adopted by a kindly childless couple, who, eventually, became Ma and Pa Kent from Smallville. For Superman historian and author of the official 2024 book Superman: The Definitive History, Ed Gross, the idea that Superman is raised in Smallville by the Kents defines the character more than any one moment in his biography.

“I know a lot of people think that Superman is the real guy and Clark Kent as the identity. I don’t believe that. At all.”

“I view him primarily as Clark Kent from Smallville. I think Superman is the costume he puts on when he goes out to save people and to be the hero, be the inspiration for people,” Gross tells Inverse. “I know a lot of people think that Superman is the real guy and Clark Kent as the identity. I don’t believe that. At all.”

Unlike a lot of superheroes, Clark Kent is unique insofar as in most continuities, he has a happy childhood with functional, loving parents. As Gross maintains, this fact, more than anything is the argument for why Clark Kent is the real, inner persona, and everything else, a public persona. Whether the Kents both survive to see Clark become Superman changes from different versions, but from 1938 to as recently as the wonderful anime-inspired animated series My Adventures With Superman (starring Jack Quaid), the Kents are depicted as Clark’s rock, and the people who made Clark who he is. In the very first scene of the CW series Superman & Lois in 2021, Superman (Tyler Hoechlin) gleefully accepts a compliment from someone who admires his supersuit. “Thanks, my mom made it for me!” he says before zooming off into the sky.

The gee-whiz wholesomeness of Clark Kent isn’t just an old-fashioned affect for the sake of making him seem like he’s a guy from Kansas who grew up on a farm. In the 1978 Superman, Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) is incredulous when Clark (Christopher Reeve) uses the word “swell.”

“There are very few people left in the world who feel comfortable saying that word,” Lois says to Clark, mocking his naive, country-bumpkin kindness. But, in the very next scene, Clark does something truly swell. As Lois is robbed at gunpoint, Clark does not reveal himself as Superman, but does slyly deflect the bullet, and pretends to fall over. “Golly, I guess I must have fainted,” he says to Lois. Later, even when nobody is around, Clark affects his ability to use the elevators correctly, which, just like in the Silver Age Comics, indicates just how far Clark will go to cover up his true identity. Even when nobody is around, he’ll trip over himself.

The Real Clark Kent

Essentially, there are not two personas of Superman. There are three. The “Clark Kent from Smallville” that Gross talks about is very much who he is on the inside. Superman is the persona who saves the world. But there’s a third Clark here that, arguably, Reeve perfected more than any other actor or comic book artist.

“The bumbling guy is the secret identity,” Gross explains. “That’s the one that’s there to throw people off.”

But there’s something more than that, too. If you linger on the 1978 movie, and the moment where Clark stops the bullet and takes zero credit, the reason for the bumbling version of Clark is clear. Just as Superman can deflect bullets, Clark can deflect attention because, at the core of the character, he is truly humble enough not to take the credit. When he feels the world needs the symbolic bravado of Superman, the red cape and blue tights come out. But if he can get things done as Clark Kent, he almost prefers that. As Reeve portrays him, becoming Superman is a last resort, not a full impulse. He doesn’t transform into Superman during the robbery, but, a few scenes later, when Lois is dangling from the crashing helicopter, he flies in to save the day. And, even as that scene ends, he’s still very much Clark Kent, albeit with a bit more confidence. “I certainly hope this little incident hasn’t put you off flying, miss,” he says, and then goes a little nerdy. “Statistically speaking, of course, it’s still the safest way to travel.”

“The man who stays, the loyal guy that she really wants, that’s Clark.”

Lois doesn’t notice this is the same man who fainted earlier in the day, not because of the flimsy disguise of the glasses, or even the voice per se. Instead, it’s all about context. Superman is front and center. Clark is behind the scenes.

“I never really thought to make Clark Kent less sexually desirable than Superman,” says Rob Ventre. An actor and strength trainer, Ventre played Superman/Clark Kent in a 2007 Off-Broadway revival production of the 1966 musical It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Superman. “Lois Lane certainly was attracted to Superman, but she wasn’t going to marry him. The man who stays, the loyal guy that she really wants, that’s Clark.”

So, if Clark Kent is the real character, the true core of Superman, what does Clark Kent actually want? In most versions of the story of Superman, the answer is twofold. Because Clark is from the planet Krypton, his journey is always one of self-discovery. In the 1978 film, the teenage Clark, played by Jeff East, asks, “Who am I?” when he discovers the Fortress of Solitude. Jack Quaid’s young Clark Kent asks the same thing when he first learns of his alien heritage.

This layer, the idea that Superman is constantly trying to go inward and reconcile his science fictional origins with his down-to-earth life, is perhaps the most important piece of the Clark Kent puzzle. And one sometimes overlooked aspect of the character is that he likes telling the stories of other people. Like Lois Lane, Clark Kent is a journalist, but he’s not always chasing the biggest front-page story like she is.

“Not everything Clark Kent does as a reporter is hard-hitting journalism,” Gross explains. “Sometimes it could be human interest stories, it could be whatever he wants. It’s him interacting with people on a human level that Superman never could.”

This fact, more than anything, that Superman chose to be a journalist, is the ultimate proof that Clark Kent is his truest self. Superman didn’t become a journalist and write about the real world just to stay close to world events. He’s got super hearing for that. He’s a journalist because he wants to be a journalist. He writes about stories nobody else is telling, because he enjoys that work, and thinks it’s important to tell the truth on a broad scale. And, of course, he’s very good at this job. Flying faster than a speeding bullet might be great for saving lives. But being an incredibly fast typist helps him hold down a job, too.

Superman hits theaters on July 12. Superman (1978), My Adventures With Superman (2022), and Superman and Lois (2021) all stream on Max. The All-Star Superman Audiobook is available from Penguin Random House and on Audible.