10 Superman Questions That Always Confused You

6. Why Can No One Tell That He's Really Clark Kent?

Superman Clark Kent
DC Comics

Possibly the most boring thing anyone could ever say about Superman (apart from accusing him as being boring himself), would be to say that his secret identity makes no sense. As Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent, the only thing that distinguishes Kal-El from his heroic alter-ego are a pair of spectacles and a mild-mannered persona, so it should come as no surprise to hear that certain readers aren't onboard with the concept.

In truth, the only answer you need to dispel the idea of Clark Kent ruining Superman is a simple "It's comics - you bunch of killjoys!" (seriously), there's a science to his secret identity that most may not be aware of. In fact, former Superman actor Henry Cavill even took to the streets of New York to test the theory himself, and the results were actually quite surprising.

Without even donning any glasses at all, Cavill stood in the middle of Times Square in a Superman T-shirt and didn't get recognised once. Clearly that must go someway in illustrating the value in a good pair of specs being able to hide your identity, but there's more to it than that.

If you can't take Cavill's word for it, then why not the CIA's former head of disguise Jonna Mendez? As she says, it's more than just the visual disguise, but how people inhabit a role. Having spent years hiding his identity, it would be fair to say that Kal-El is better at it than most.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.