Does the general public not know that Lois is trying to prove that Superman=CK

[The World]

I just always see that comment come up from time to time when the Superman character is brought up. That it's stupid that Lois doesn't know that Clark Kent is Superman despite being around both so much. Do most people not know she's trying to prove that Superman is Clark Kent and he always thwarts her?

[Kuwagaton]

I think the problem is that for one thing it's somehow not obvious (to anyone) and that somehow she's never had decent proof to make a statement.

[Patrick Gerard]

I like Morrison’s take that LOTS of people look like Superman.

My wonky solution was always that Superman’s rocket sprays down a mutagenic virus that subtly alters a lot of babies born around then to be identical as a form of camouflage.

And you can use the virus to explain Super-Menace and Zod of Pokolistan (Zed Ruskin or something like that as I recall?). Some people react more strongly to the virus.

But Jor-El could naturally foresee facial recognition tech and so he’d arrange for millions of doppelgangers to camouflage his son.

Maybe Luthor even discovers it and Clark is presumed to be one of the K-virus babies.

[Restingvoice]

I just always see that comment come up from time to time when the Superman character is brought up. That it's stupid that Lois doesn't know that Clark Kent is Superman despite being around both so much. Do most people not know she's trying to prove that Superman is Clark Kent and he always thwarts her?

No.

Honestly, they really don't know.

It's like how people don't know Bruce Wayne has a truckload of charity works and only know him as the vigilante who beat up poor and mentally disabled people

[Jim Kelly]

No normal person within the world of Superman ever sees that Clark Kent looks like Superman. So it's suspicious that Lois Lane would ever think this--when the rules of the world say that the glasses and combed back hair is a perfect disguise. If the comics have Lois suspecting they are one and the same, that breaks the logic of the fictional world. If it's not obvious to most people, it should not be obvious to her.

I always feel that if someone is going to suspect that the two are the same person, then it should be for other reasons--not that they look alike. Maybe Lois gives Superman a new watch for Christmas and then when she goes to work she sees Clark wearing the same watch--is Superman a regifter or is he Clark Kent?

[Digifiend]

Yeah. Over at Marvel, Kamala Khan's disguise is no better (she only wears a domino mask in costume, which wouldn't disguise you any better than glasses would). But people (her mother, and later her friends) figured it out based on her behaviour (always sneaking off), rather than her looks.

[seismic-2]

In the Silver Age, Lois's continual attempts to prove that Clark Kent was in fact Superman's secret identity were a big part of maybe half of all Superman stories. That's why in the Byrne relaunch he made sure that Superman never let it be known that he has a secret identity, so the whole issue just didn't come up, even among people who spent most of their working hours around Clark Kent.

[manwhohaseverything]

Superman's secret identity is taken seriously by the general real world public, when it's meant to be a joke. That's partly on dc. They have made it serious.And the id doesn't work with seriousness .i mean, think about it the likes of smartest on earth have fallen for it.

[Jim Kelly]

I can't really blame the editors for using the secret i.d. plot so often in the post-Code comics--because it was a way to create drama without violating all the rules of the Code. However, Clark proved to people--especially Lana and Lois--that it was impossible for him to be Superman, in countless stories, so that anyone would be insane to keep insisting that he is. In a more realistic continuity, Lana and Lois would just accept that Superman and Clark are two different people on account of the mountain of evidence that proved that to be the case. Of course, the classic comics weren't trying to construct a realistic continuity and, in every new story, it's as if the characters are starting from a blank slate.

[seismic-2]

Of course, the classic comics weren't trying to construct a realistic continuity and, in every new story, it's as if the characters are starting from a blank slate.

True. Comics were written for kids, so it was assumed that there would be a nearly complete turn-over in readership every few years, and that pretty much eliminated the need (and indeed, the desirability) of long-term continuity.

[Patrick Gerard]

In the Silver Age, Lois's continual attempts to prove that Clark Kent was in fact Superman's secret identity were a big part of maybe half of all Superman stories. That's why in the Byrne relaunch he made sure that Superman never let it be known that he has a secret identity, so the whole issue just didn't come up, even among people who spent most of their working hours around Clark Kent.

She very almost never tried to prove Clark Kent was Superman. She frequently tried to prove that Superman had a secret identity. Clark was almost never considered as a candidate.

[seismic-2]

She very almost never tried to prove Clark Kent was Superman. She frequently tried to prove that Superman had a secret identity. Clark was almost never considered as a candidate.

We must have been reading different comic books back then. I remember that by 1960 it had happened so often that Jerry Siegel wrote a story about the first time that Lois suspected Clark was Superman. You can read about it here. By that time, Lois's suspicions about Clark had practically become a trope. At least that's how I remember it, but of course memory is certainly malleable after all this time, sadly.

[Digifiend]

True. Comics were written for kids, so it was assumed that there would be a nearly complete turn-over in readership every few years, and that pretty much eliminated the need (and indeed, the desirability) of long-term continuity.

Yeah, it was New Teen Titans that finally changed this, isn't it? Marv Wolfman had come over from Marvel, where he'd been writing Amazing Spider-Man. Marvel had always embraced long term continuity. After the Crisis, all other books followed suit.

[Jim Kelly]

I'd say that, by the early 1970s, a lot of DC titles embraced a fluid continuity from one issue to the next (and there are comics before that that also had greater continuity). Lois Lane changed to become a more independent woman and wasn't so fixated on getting married to Superman (which supposedly was the reason for her obsession with his secret identity).

The problem with too much continuity is that DC always had better sales in regular stores and at newsstands, rather than in the growing comic book store market. However, a kid like me could never depend on getting those comics from month to month. You were always bound to miss an issue--and then I'd have to go looking in every other store to try and find the comic I'd missed. Teens might have the resources to find every issue--and I ended up subscribing (which had its own problems)--but most people, and especially little kids, would pick up a comic as an impulse buy. And it was always disheartening when the story in that issue was to be continued.

Being a Superman fan really meant that you sampled the comics from month to month. One month you might try out ACTION and JIMMY OLSEN. The next month ADVENTURE COMICS and WORLD'S FINEST. It didn't mean following every Super title from month to month. What kid had that kind of money to throw away on comic books? So the standalone stories in all the comics made it easier to try out all the different titles, without fear of only getting half a story and never finding the other half.