Superman: Secret Identity... For Dummies

So last week I went out with some friends. We went to a nice chill spot near downtown. One of the ladies with us gets a phone call and says one of her friends will be joining us. The guy shows up and instantly I recognize him. ...from 7th grade. I’m 25 now, so this was some time ago since the last time I saw him. He was the grade above me and used to pick on me actually. He looked nothing like I remembered. He had to be 6’4, had a deep voice, a square jaw and no longer rocked the box top fade, and yet I remembered him. He took one look at me, with my beard, taller stature, glasses and hat covering my head and said WHOA ! I REMEMBER THIS CAT !

But How ? With all those years and changes separating us and obscuring our idea of what one another should look like, one has to wonder how it is that we, two guys who haven’t seen each other since childhood, would recognize one another in an instant, and yet for YEARS people in Metropolis couldn’t tell Clark Kent from Superman because of a pair of glasses and a slick back hairstyle.Even Lois Lane, who dated Superman and worked with Clark everyday couldn’t tell the difference. Superman doesn’t even make a point to change his voice like Batman. Who the heck wouldn’t know the difference? Lois seemed suspicious in her different incarnations but often through aside her doubt when Superman and Clark were able to appear in the same place at the same time, thanks to some trickery on Clark/Superman’s part. However, if a guy can fly, leap over buildings in a single bound, get shot through the chest and still live, shoot alternating lasers and heat out of his eyes, make his breath so cold it can freeze you in a block of ice, and FLY INTO THE SUN it’s not much of a stretch to think he could create body doubles. What type of awful reporter is she ? She’s faced with proof amongst easily deniable odds and she goes... “Well, that’s just impossible!”, holding on to this belief, even when the next day she sees the guy fighting a reanimated dinosaur.

I don’t want to pick on Lois because she’s obviously not the only one. It’s like all of Metropolis is under some moron trance. Glasses and different hair do not make you unrecognizable ! I mean wasn’t it obvious in the 90’s when Superman grew out that super mullet white man gheri curl, and Clark showed up with the same dang hair style IN A PONYTAIL, as if that was going to hide anything ? I don’t even know if they wrote an excuse for that..or just ignored it as if we were just as stupid as the people they created in the comic books. “You see Clark has a ponytail and Superman doesn’t.. That makes them look totally different.. with glasses !” I sure hope there was some sort of retcon that went on, where Superman has always had a weird power to make certain people see Superman as a Spaniard or something totally unrelated to Clark, but that wouldn’t explain how Batman found out the secret of his own accord. I feel a migraine coming on. Could you please give people more credit than that ? Ugh... I know it’s just a comic book character but his way of hiding his identity is flat out stupid. When his mom gave him those non-prescription glasses and said “Here Clark, hide in plain sight,” he should have used his heat ray to set something random on fire and then flew away. Retorting “ Mom, your an idiot. “... Later to find that he couldn't think up anything better himself and it not mattering because the people of the DC Multiverse are slower than pet turtles on a crutches when it comes to seeing past horrible disguises.