Would George Reeves Clark Kent have been drafted into WW2?

[Flash Gordon]

Um, actually it is.

In the Golden Age/Silver Age, he was legally adopted from the orphanage. And Post-Crisis, he was 'passed off' as the Kent's biological son.

We are talking about the ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN television show from 1955. Which is evident in the thread title "Would George Reeves Clark Kent have been drafted into WW2?"

Eben and Sarah Kent did not adopt him from an orphanage.

[Flash Gordon]

Yeah.

Clark Kent had a legal identity, which is how he's able to have a job at the Daily Planet, have an apartment, bank account etc.

Clark landed in 1926 and grew up during the dust bowl. The Kents were very poor and 'Smallville' was in the middle of nowhere.

Getting an apartment in New York in the 1940s was a lot different. Clark Kent also scammed his way into a job at the Daily Planet. Before he did that I'd imagine most of his work consisted of labour jobs.

[Adekis]

First of all, they still took him to an orphanage first, and then went back to adopt him later. You can argue that the orphanage just didn't do the paperwork, but at that point I think it's more improbable that they were that sloppy.

Second of all, Clark didn't grow up in Kansas until the Byrne reboot if I recall correctly. Smallville didn't get its name until 1949, and wasn't located in Kansas until 1985 in the comics! Before that, it was located in Maryland of all places! It didn't come up often enough to be common knowledge I suppose, just like the Golden Age placement of "Metropolis, NY" wasn't well known either.

[Flash Gordon]

First of all, they still took him to an orphanage first, and then went back to adopt him later. You can argue that the orphanage just didn't do the paperwork, but at that point I think it's more improbable that they were that sloppy.

Second of all, Clark didn't grow up in Kansas until the Byrne reboot if I recall correctly. Smallville didn't get its name until 1949, and wasn't located in Kansas until 1985 in the comics! Before that, it was located in Maryland of all places! It didn't come up often enough to be common knowledge I suppose, just like the Golden Age placement of "Metropolis, NY" wasn't well known either.

Clark did not grow up in Maryland on the show. He was also not brought to an orphanage, Eben and Sarah found him in a field and just made believe he was their son.

1926 in the United States was a very different time, and the Great Depression was looming.

[seismic-2]

The Selective Service Administration has a separate record system, apart from Social Security, birth certificates, adoption records, etc. Every male (whether a citizen or not!) in the USA was required to register for the draft within 5 days following his 18th birthday. (Every county had at least one office of the Draft Board, where you had to go register. Maybe you could also register at a Post Office, but I don't remember.) Clark Kent claimed some date as his legal birthday, or else he couldn't have enrolled in school, obtained a driver's license, etc., so he would have been legally obligated to register for the draft within 5 days of the 18th anniversary of that date.

[Jim Kelly]

It depends what you mean by draft. My understanding is that men enlisted in the U.S., but the draft board then selected from that pool for where and when they would go. Or do you mean that Clark didn't enlist and instead waited to be drafted?

In Canada, where the war started in 1939, people enlisted rather than wait to be drafted. Both my parents enlisted. The people that waited to be drafted were looked down upon. As Quebec had many men that didn't want to join and were conscripted, those men were not respected by the enlisted men, like my father. They called them zombies.

Mind you, there was a rule that one of the sons on the farm could stay home, as they needed farmers. My father had several brothers who also joined up, but my Uncle Adam stayed on the farm for the harvest time before the R.C.M.P. came for him. Their step-mother had registered her son as the one who got to stay home to do farm work. So the Mounties helped Uncle Adam with the harvest and then he went with them to his induction.

On the T.V. show, in the pilot episode, after his Pa dies, if that was during wartime, Clark might have been needed to stay on the farm as the only son, if the same rule applied in the U.S., given the Kents had no other offspring, not even daughters.

Things like farming--and logging here in B.C.--were all part of the war effort. Even after my father had joined up, he was sent back to the Queen Charlotte Islands to continue logging as he had been doing before his enlistment, because the army needed the materials. It was only after that, that they sent him off to England to join his paratroop unit.

I would imagine, despite the U.S. joining the war effort late, most of the men would have rather enlist than wait to be drafted to avoid the stigma. A guy like the George Reeves Clark would have wanted to enlist right away, if Ma would let him. All the Justice Society men enlisted as soon as the U.S. declared war--they didn't wait to be drafted.

The George Reeves Clark Kent has that way about him that all those that served had. It was a look of having been through those tough days together. The way he talks to Bill Henderson, you just know they were both in it and had seen some things.

In the comics, Clark wanted to be inducted but he failed his exam by accident not on purpose. Of course, that was a pretty silly excuse for why Clark wouldn't have joined up--but they needed to give him some excuse, without making it look like he was a shirker, because any fit man of his age was expected to join. Now, if Clark had simply passed his exam and gotten in, I think he could have been assigned to Special Services and wouldn't have seen any action.

[seismic-2]

The TV version of Superman was supposed to be about 25 years old when he moved to Metropolis in the first episode (1952). He would thus have turned 18 in 1945. Some 945K men were drafted in 1945 and 183K in 1946. Even if Clark were not among them, he would likely have been called up in the Korean War: 219K men were drafted in 1950, 551K in 1951, and 438K in 1952.

[DochaDocha]

Second of all, Clark didn't grow up in Kansas until the Byrne reboot if I recall correctly. Smallville didn't get its name until 1949, and wasn't located in Kansas until 1985 in the comics! Before that, it was located in Maryland of all places! It didn't come up often enough to be common knowledge I suppose, just like the Golden Age placement of "Metropolis, NY" wasn't well known either.

Where was the location of Smallville in Superman: the Movie? I assumed it was Kansas, but maybe I pieced that together only after getting that from the comics.

[Jon Clark]

Where was the location of Smallville in Superman: the Movie? I assumed it was Kansas, but maybe I pieced that together only after getting that from the comics.

I think it was generic but implied to be the US mid-west. Byrne took the movie idea and used it by making the Post-Crisis Smallville be located in Kansas. Every incarnation since has followed suit.

[Adekis]

Where was the location of Smallville in Superman: the Movie? I assumed it was Kansas, but maybe I pieced that together only after getting that from the comics.

Apparently it was Kansas in the film script, but that was the first time it ever had been, and the comics took until Byrne to agree with the movie.

[Jim Kelly]

Apparently it was Kansas in the film script, but that was the first time it ever had been, and the comics took until Byrne to agree with the movie.

And actually filmed in Alberta, Canada (where John Byrne lived).

[Adekis]

And actually filmed in Alberta, Canada (where John Byrne lived).

Oh yeah! Good catch, I forgot that! Wasn't the TV show Smallville filmed in Canada as well? Something to do with having a longer corn season than the American midwest, I think.

[Jim Kelly]

Oh yeah! Good catch, I forgot that! Wasn't the TV show Smallville filmed in Canada as well? Something to do with having a longer corn season than the American midwest, I think.

SMALLVILLE was filmed in British Columbia, west of the Rocky Mountains, SUPERMAN (1978) was filmed partly in Alberta, east of the Rockies. SUPERMAN III was also filmed in Alberta, in pretty much the same region as the first move. I believe the growing seasons are a bit different in each province. I know that it starts to get cold in Alberta in September, where it doesn't in this part of B.C., so they might have a longer season here. But Alberta has much more prairie land--rich, black earth--and different varieties of crops that are suited to the climate. Relative to the United States, B.C. is to the state of Washington as Alberta is to Montana.

[phantom1592]

I read once that Clark tried to enlist, but in the eye exam he accidentally used his x-ray vision and read the eye chart in the next room, which got him declared 4-F for poor vision.

I could swear I read a story back in the 1950s where Superman (not Clark Kent) was considered ineligible to be inducted into the Army, because the doctors wouldn't be able to give him the required inoculations that all recruits are given on the first day. The hypodermic needles couldn't pierce his skin.

I have memories of this too. Clark laughing while the doctors were bending needles trying to give him shots. For that matter i remember similar things happening when he was left at the orphange... It would be very easy for Clark to NOT be eligible for service and i'm sure that's what would have happened.