Pete Ross

Clark Kent's best friend since they were kids, the boys grew up together in Smallville until Clark eventually moved to Metropolis to begin his career as a reporter.

## Superman Family Album

Clark and Pete were always tightknit best friends, with both having affections for their classmate Lana Lang. The trio of friends expanded into a quartet with the arrival of Whitney Fordman. While antagonistic at first, he eventually started growing close to Clark, Pete and Lana, becoming the fourth friend in their group.

While Clark was level-headed and Whitney a bit more willing to push the envelope, Pete stood the middle ground, never really sure which friend's idea to follow. It was during an adventure where the boys made the attempt to stay overnight in a haunted house where Pete's bravery started to develop when he thought Clark was in trouble. It was then that Whitney realized that he might be attracted to Pete, although it was completely one-sided as Pete knew they'd be better off as friends, which Whitney knew was the right thing to do. Pete agreed to help Whitney figure who he really was, even agreeing to help him seek out a date for an upcoming dance..

### The Secret Keeper

When the boys went on another campout later that night, Pete ended up being attacked by a bear and seemingly knocked unconscious. Thinking Pete was out, Clark used his powers to safely take the bear elsewhere, not realizing that Pete had witnessed the whole thing, keeping the incident to himself.

Weeks later, an incident at school involving a nail gun forced Pete's hand when he helped Clark cover his secret. Pete revealed that being the only one to know made him feel special and agreed to help Clark cover when he needed to use his powers to help others.

## Paralyzed

Sometime later, Lana's older brothers decided to make Clark's life a living hell for dating their sister and goaded Clark into a challenge to prove himself. They tricked him into going into a deep cave where they planned to set off an explosion to trap him. Overhearing, Pete and Whitney followed them so they could warn Clark, only to be attacked by Lana's brothers. Falling into a pit, Whitney helped pull him out just as the explosives were about to go off, but luckily Clark's superhearing allowed him to figure out the plan and got rid of all of the explosives but one.

The remaining bomb went off and Pete pushed Lana out of the way, taking a pile of falling debris himself. Getting Lana and Whitney to safety, Clark used his powers to dig Pete out before the cave fully collapsed. At the hospital, Clark was horrified to learn that Pete couldn't feel his legs.

After learning that his paralysis was permanent, Pete fell into a depression, but not on the level of Clark, who reasoned that he could use his heat vision to cure his best friend. Luckily Martha Kent was there to talk him out of this before it was too late.

Clark, Lana and Whitney decided to get everyone together and make Smallville more wheelchair accessible while promising Pete that he was still their friend. With Clark and Lana going to Europe for summer vacation and Whitney practicing for the upcoming football season, that left Pete to decide what he wanted to do with his life over summer break...

## Appearances

Pete appears in the back-up Superman Family Album segments of Action Comics, although the present day version is planned to appear at some point along with the adult versions of Lana and Whitney.