Clark Kent

### Alias

SupermanMan of Tomorrow, Man of Steel, Big Blue Boy Scout, Flying Man (Nicknames)

### Family

Jor-El (Biological Father; Deceased)Lara Lor-Van (Biological Mother; Deceased)

Jonathan Kent (Adoptive Father)

Martha Kent (Adoptive Mother)

### Affiliations

Lois Lane (Crush)Martian Manhunter (Ally)

The Daily Planet (Team)

House of El (Last Surviving Member)

### Date of Birth

December 15, 1998 (Age 22)Kryptonopolis, Krypton

### Residence

Metropolis, New York, United States of America

### Portrayed By

Tanner Buchanan

**Clark Kent** is an intern for the Daily Planet and the last surviving member of the Kryptonian race. Born Kal-El of Krypton, he was sent to Earth by his birth parents moments prior to the destruction of his homeworld. Found by two farmers, he was raised in Smallville, Kansas with upstanding morals. Deciding to use his powers to help people, he became the superhero known as **Superman**.

## History

### Early Life

Kal-El was born on Krypton in the city of Kryptonopolis as a member of the Kryptonian Noble House of El. Kal-El’s father, Jor-El was a gifted engineer and a scientist. Kal's parents were not among the ignorant nobles of Krypton. Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van were aware of the cost of the luxuries they enjoyed and foresaw the destruction of their planet coming. When attempts to stop the impending doom were halted, they took measures to guarantee that the House of El would not perish. Minutes before destruction of the planet, Lara Lor-Van loaded her young son onto a starship designed by her husband and sent him off into space, heading toward Earth.

In the midst of the meteor shower, Kal-El crash-landed in Smallville, Kansas, where he was found by two farmers, the Kents. Unable to produce their own children, Jonathan and Martha chose to take this boy in and protect him. They named him Clark and took steps to make it appear they had adopted the boy.

As Clark grew up under the yellow sun of Earth, his alien physiology reacted and gave him incredible strength, speed, and a variety of other abilities. Jonathan instilled Clark with an honest work ethic and sense of justice; while Martha urged Clark not to use his powers openly, as she feared exposing his secret would endanger him. Clark also investigated the spaceship he came to Earth in and found a device marked with a strange symbol resembling an ‘S’. Despite trying for years, he could never figure out what it does.

In his teen years, Clark befriended Pete Ross and found his first love in Lana Lang and discovered his passion for journalism, leading him to an internship at the Daily Planet in Metropolis after college.

Clark also began using his powers to help people in need, wearing a homemade costume his mom made, featuring the same ‘S’ found on the device and spaceship from his homeworld.

### Man of Tomorrow

A few months into his internship at the Daily Planet, Clark brings coffee to the reporters covering the launch of an orbital rocket telescope at S.T.A.R. Labs by billionaire Morgan Edge. There, he meets S.T.A.R. Labs janitor Rudy Jones, who informs Clark about extraterrestrial experiments being conducted inside the lab. The launch party is then interrupted by Lex Luthor, a young genius billionaire who has recently taken over his father’s company. Luthor introduces Edge to Lois Lane, a recent college grad and budding journalist who was the recipient of a LexCorp scholarship. Lois presents evidence of Edge’s gross negligence in front of the entire press conference, resulting in Edge’s arrest. As Luthor smirks on, Edge’s rocket malfunctions and misdirects, heading towards Metropolis. Clark quickly changes into his costume and flies the rocket into space, where he learns that he’s healed and empowered by the sun. All the while, he’s watched by a mysterious figure in a trench coat.

After exposing Edge, Lois is offered a position as an investigative reporter at the Daily Planet where she meets Clark, who forms a crush on her. Lois reveals that Lex Luthor helped her get access to evidence to incriminate Edge and thus remove his competition, but she further details how she’s actually using Lex in turn to investigate his own suspected corrupt behavior. Lois also begins converting Clark’s costumed adventures and dubs him ‘Superman’.

S.T.A.R. Labs reports a UFO heading towards Metropolis at an extremely fast rate and Clark goes to investigate, only to find himself face-to-face with an alien bounty hunter called Lobo. Lobo reveals that Clark is the last of his kind and has a bounty on him, which Lobo is after, leading into a fight between the two across Metropolis. Clark takes the fight elsewhere to S.T.A.R. Labs causing an explosion with Rudy caught in the crossfire and gets covered in an alien substance. Lobo discovers Clark's weakness is Kryptonite that was forged in his ring and uses it to beat him up with it. The figure arrives, exposing himself as a Martian, and intervenes in the battle. As the Martian distracts Lobo, Clark uses the sun to heal himself, returning to finally defeat Lobo. Afterwards, Clark faces a dilemma of whether he should reveal himself to the world or keep his identity a secret despite the consequences.

That night, a hospitalised Rudy awakens and discovers he has the ability to drain energy from life and turn people into husks. The Martian visits Clark in his home in Smallville and properly introduces himself as J'onn. J'onn reveals to Clark his true origins and that they must keep themselves a secret to humanity due their history of xenophobia. He then helps Clark activate his device, which contains a recording of his biological parents, telling him about his family and homeworld and giving him the coordinates of an old Kryptonian scout ship in the Canadian Arctic sent to Earth a century ago to observe the humans.

Clark enters the ship and encounters the ship’s A.I., who tells him more about Krypton’s history and demise and gives him a new suit made of indestructible Kryptonian material.

A monster attacks S.T.A.R. Labs to find answers but frees Lobo in the process after draining the energy from his cell. However, due to draining energy, the monster is converted into a parasite-like being and begins attacking Metropolis, endangering its civilians. Superman and J'onn head to battle the Parasite. While battling them, the Parasite manages to extract information from them; although as a result, Superman's abilities are drained and J'onn is burnt to death. A powerless Superman turns to Lex Luthor for help to gain him access to space so he can use the sun to restore his abilities.

Through S.T.A.R. Labs CCTV footage, Superman realises Rudy is the Parasite thanks to Lobo's grenade which allowed Rudy to be absorbed with the purple liquid from the lab. The two formulate a plan to defeat the Parasite by shutting down Metropolis' power and lure him to a power plant so that the Parasite can absorb its power, which would kill it if it absorbed all of it. Luthor also reveals he had recruited Lobo to his cause to use his Kryptonite ring in an attempt to weaken the Parasite's absorbed Kryptonian abilities.

As their plan commences, the ring fails and the military intervene, only to make the Parasite stronger. Luthor equips the ring to a LexCorp magnifying pulse rifle and shoots Parasite with it, taking it down. He then attempts to double cross Superman with it but is stopped by an alive J'onn, who reveals his death was just a projection he created. Luthor flees with J'onn following. With the plan failed, Superman then attempts to calm the Parasite down by using his morality against him. While doing so, Superman properly introduces himself to the world. Suddenly, the plant's reactor begins to overload. With Superman still weak, the Parasite sacrifices himself to stop it. The following day, Superman and J'onn part ways before Lobo reveals there might be more Martians and Kryptonians out there.

## Characteristics

### Personality

Clark is a mostly upbeat person with a positive attitude and outlook on life. He was raised by his parents to have a strong sense of right and wrong and stand up morals. He desperately wants to use his powers to help people and be a role model for the citizens of Metropolis, but struggles to constantly do the right thing. Despite his invulnerable nature, Clark struggles on the interior, facing serious self-doubt and feeling a lack of identity between not knowing where he came from, what he’s totally capable of and hiding his true self from the world. He worries about human‘s xenophobia and also deals with some survivor’s guilt over being the last of his race and mourns the life he never got to have. When the Parasite steals his powers, Clark feels completely helpless as mental state collapses, but he refuses to back down from the fight anyways and risk letting innocent get hurt. Clark can also be timid, shy and all-around awkward, something he plays up to further show differences between him and Superman, who Clark portrays as being more confident and self-assured.

### Abilities

Thanks to Earth’s yellow sun, Clark’s Kryptonian physiology is charged with solar energy, giving him a wide range of abilities. Clark poses nigh-invulnerability, super strength, super speed, flight, super hearing, x-ray vision, telescopic vision, heat vision and freeze breath. He’s virtually indestructible, with a few exceptions, the most important being Kryptonite, a meteorite born from the core of Krypton’s world, capable of de-powering, hurting and even killing him.

Clark is also a skilled investigator and journalist, noted by Perry White as likely to have a bright future as a reporter, high praise for someone so young.

### Appearance

Physically, Kryptonian and humans look identical on the surface level, likely due to the close distance between the two planets (as well as the possibility of Kryptonian and humans interbreeding centuries ago), with most differences occurring at the internal level. Clark has the appearance of a Caucasian human male, with black hair and blue eyes. As Clark Kent, he slicks back his hair and wears more baggy and awkward clothes as well as a large pair of glasses that help obscur his identity. As Superman, he has his more natural appearance, with wavy hair and no glasses, as well as his signature suit. His first suit was homemade by Martha Kent and was destroyed in his battle with Lobo. His second suit, whose design was inspired by the first, was created at the Fortress of Solitude out of indestructible Kryptonian materials.

## Trivia

* Tanner Buchanan was the first actor cast for the film, and thus in the DCU overall.
* Clark’s parents don’t actually know the exact date of his birth, but chose a date a few days before his arrival in Smallville.
* Currently, only three people know that Clark Kent is actually Superman - his parents and J’onn J'onzz. Rudy Jones also learned his identity prior to his death.