Ethically what is the absolute latest Clark can wait to tell Lois the truth?

[PCN24454]

The question is, who does Lois fall in love with first, Superman or Clark Kent?

Realistically, she has to be an idiot (like Lena is in the Supergirl show) to Not notice Clark and Superman look alike a lot! Especially when she interacts with both upclose. So it depends how she interacts with them. In the old movies, she didn't seem to pay much attention to Clark like she did Superman, but once she starts a romantic relationship and gets really close to his face, she has to notice!!

Never forget: as fourth-wall observers, we the viewers are spoiled by semi-omniscient knowledge.

[achilles]

Never forget: as fourth-wall observers, we the viewers are spoiled by semi-omniscient knowledge.

Wasn't there an episode of Lois and Clark where a time traveler from the future told Lois that she was renowned in the future for being the single stupidest human being ever to have lived for not noticing that Clark was actually Superman. Then he mocked her further IIRC by putting on a pair of glasses and taking them off again to demonstrate...

[rpmaluki]

Wasn't there an episode of Lois and Clark where a time traveler from the future told Lois that she was renowned in the future for being the single stupidest human being ever to have lived for not noticing that Clark was actually Superman. Then he mocked her further IIRC by putting on a pair of glasses and taking them off again to demonstrate...

That same character that mocked Lois ended up in another universe where he too was fooled by a similar disguise.

[Jim Kelly]

Is Superman the kind that all he has to do is look at a woman and she gets pregnant? That might explain the need for the glasses.

The whole premise of the debate assumes a lot. Superman doesn't even marry Lois in some continuities and even then, they don't always have children. What's she doing sleeping with Clark--she doesn't like the guy.

If Lois is stupid because she doesn't know Clark is Superman then the whole Superman universe is stupid--but to single out one woman and malign her intelligence strikes me as going out ones way to be misogynistic toward a female archetype.

[SiegePerilous02]

If Lois is stupid because she doesn't know Clark is Superman then the whole Superman universe is stupid--but to single out one woman and malign her intelligence strikes me as going out ones way to be misogynistic toward a female archetype.

Yes, this trend has always been ridiculous. Lex Luthor knew both Clark Kent and Superman since they were kids, and he never recognized him.

Bruce "World's Greatest Detective" Wayne canonically only figured it out when Clark stripped off his clothes right in front of him and had no idea otherwise.

Lois is not and never was stupid for not being able to see it, NOBODY sees it right away.

[rpmaluki]

I have never understood why Lois always has to be branded stupid because she didn't figure it out from day one, when Lex the supposed smartest human in the DC verse still can't figure it out but you never see the same level of derision thrown his was for being so "stupid".

[Agent Z]

I'm not seeing how Lois is singled out for being fooled by the disguise. The Clark Kent identity has been tge subject of mockery for decades and anyone who falls for it is considered stupid by default. Lois gets an unfair double standard for a lot of things but this isn't one of them.

[Robanker]

I'm not seeing how Lois is singled out for being fooked by tge disguise. The Clark Kent identity has been tge subject of mockery for decades and anyone who falls for it is considered stupid by default. Lois gets an unfair double standard for a lot of things but this isn't one of them.

Lois gets saddled with it more than anyone else in the entire universe, likely because she makes out with Superman so she gets the closest, but yeah. She's also a woman who speaks her mind and refuses to play second fiddle to a man, so that also riles people up and they feel better "putting her in her (intellectual) place." Honestly, it's petty and stupid because much like a lot of Batman's logic errors, Superman's universe is built on you accepting some basic nonsense at the get go.

[manwhohaseverything]

Lois gets saddled with it more than anyone else in the entire universe, likely because she makes out with Superman so she gets the closest, but yeah. She's also a woman who speaks her mind and refuses to play second fiddle to a man, so that also riles people up and they feel better "putting her in her (intellectual) place." Honestly, it's petty and stupid because much like a lot of Batman's logic errors, Superman's universe is built on you accepting some basic nonsense at the get go.

Lex refuses to play second to any man, woman, thing.. Etc as well.People don't largely call him stupid like they do lois.

[Robanker]

Lex refuses to play second to any man, woman, thing.. Etc as well.People don't largely call him stupid like they do lois.

Yeah, but a lot of insecure men can't handle a woman behaving that way. Never underestimate how deep misogyny runs.

[Jim Kelly]

Lois Lane was about the first person in the comics to figure out that Clark Kent and Superman were one and the same--"Man or Superman," SUPERMAN 17 (July-August 1942). And it's not like she was that close to the Man of Steel--he kept her at a distance and treated her coldly. And she was proven wrong. Yet she continued to suspect and she continued to be given proof after proof that they were not the same person--she saw them on repeated occasions in the same room together. For Lois to continue suspecting they were one and the same person verged on insanity.

And hatred for Lois was drummed up for that! The fact that she was so "snoopy" and up in Superman's business was called out as a fault--even though she's an investigative reporter and that's what you're supposed to do. It's like she's damned if she does and damned if she doesn't--she simply can't win with some readers.

I can see if Lois was romantically involved with Clark or Superman, then it would start to seem suspicious that she didn't know. But for many decades, their relationship was never that hot and heavy. He'd often address her as Miss Lane. So it doesn't automatically follow that, of all people, she's the one who should know. And really, given the many times Superman showed he could not possibly be Clark Kent, no one in the universe should have reason to think so. Lois even sometimes would explain to other characters why their suspicions were wrong, based on her past experience of the same thing.

When Lois did sleep with Clark in 1976--it's was only about a year of publishing time before she was demanding he confess to being Superman. The way he handled that left the reader to come to their own conclusions on what she knew--it seemed like Lois did know, but the fact Clark refused to tell her was so disappointing that she gave up on ever expecting him to be honest with her.

So when Superman is rebooted in July of 1986 it only takes about four and a half years for the Man of Tomorrow to reveal his identity to Lois Lane in January of 1991 (by on sale dates). In the real world that might seem like a long time, but in comic book reality that's hardly more than a few months. Thus the modern comics were pretty quick to put Lois Lane in the know before most others (with the exception of Lana, Pete and the Kents).

And Superman did not know he was from Krypton until late in the game. So the revelation of both his secrets to Lois was relatively quick. Neither character has anything to be ashamed of.

Of course, for me even introducing the idea that people see a similarity between Clark and the Big Red S is a non-starter. It's not supposed to be something that anyone would be able to see within that world--and it undermines the fictional reality to have it otherwise.

[The World]

Well I originally thought about the thread with the idea of Superman and Lois in the context of a relationship playing out much like it did with the Post-Crisis comics of Relationship>Marriage>Children. Ethically how close can Clark be with someone while harboring this gigantic secret that affects so many aspects of his life and eventually will bleed into Lois's. Like imagine if he got her pregnant and she had to figure out from the doctor that her baby wasn't even human. This was mainly inspired by another story I heard of a person who had an adopted sibling who didn't know well into their middle age and was contemplating telling them or not.

As for the "Lois is stupid because she didn't figure out the Superman=Clark Kent connection". That to me always felt more like a failure from DC as they didn't properly communicate that it was always a game of cat and mouse with Lois trying to make ann air tight case for the theory that they were the same person. In the comics it's known from the early days that Lois kept meticulous notes of her early encounters with Superman in photo album and that was the beginning of the age old tale of Lois trying to nail Superman as Clark Kent. But the outside media never really seems to bother with that and she is always depicted as either totally oblivious with occasional guesses or she's immediately let in on the secret. Which is a shame because it could serve to highlight her keen investigative mind.

Also the idea that it should be obvious that Superman is Clark Kent doesn't sit right for me. Thinking logically there is no real reason for a hyper efficient alien like Superman to need a job in the first place. Like take for instance Batman, often the writer will have outside characters ask if he's been eating or sleeping to show that he's not taking care of himself. In Superman stories however even internally Superman is really never shown thinking much about food, money, or fatigue. Only in stories like "Who took the Super out of Superman" where some outside element was causing him mental stress that the concept of fatigue really comes up. For all intents and purposes Superman would be lacking basic human necessities because he's so self sufficient.

[DochaDocha]

I think a guy who knew Clark Kent but never got to see Superman up close would ever think they're the same guy, but if someone had a personal relationship with both, like Lois traditionally has, there's no excuse for not knowing they're the same guy. Supes would need to be more proactive about his disguise.

[rpmaluki]

I think a guy who knew Clark Kent but never got to see Superman up close would ever think they're the same guy, but if someone had a personal relationship with both, like Lois traditionally has, there's no excuse for not knowing they're the same guy. Supes would need to be more proactive about his disguise.

Lois actually did suspect they were the same person and proved it several times but he always used some trickery like body doubles where he and "Superman" would be seen at the same time etc to try and dissuade her from pursuing her suspicions and still she kept pushing. Why then does that make make Lois "stupid" for some readers? It's the change in writing and as someone else said, live action or other mediums always neglected to show this part of their story which only reinforced the bad writing.

[Jim Kelly]

The fear of what might happen to Lois if she could get pregnant seems to be a constant worry with Superman in the post-Crisis reality. ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN ANNUAL 3 (1991), "Beyond the Reach of Time," shows a possible future timeline where Lois does get pregnant but dies before carrying the baby to term. This wrecks Clark and he goes off into outer space (again), ending up with Maxima.

I don't really like this either. This all seems to come out of the reboot creators taking seriously Larry Niven's "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" essay--which was first published in KNIGHT, THE MAGAZINE OF THE ADULT MALE, Volume 7, Issue 8 (December 1969). Maybe I'm just too sensitive to what appear to be anti-woman matters--maybe I listened to too much Helen Reddy records in the '70s and went to too many feminist discussion groups in the '80s--but it's kind of creepy when men discuss among themselves the bodies of women. It's like there's this morbid fear of that biology they can never understand, so they create all sorts of horror stories around these issues.

Of course, Louise Simonson wrote "Beyond the Reach of Time," so it wasn't an all-boys club. However, she wasn't the one who introduced this idea into the official continuity. I feel that since it's a fictional reality--the creators have control over what problems exist in that reality. There's no law requiring that people have to see Superman and Clark as the same person in that fiction and there's no law that Lois can't be safe carrying Superman's baby. Writers and artists made all this stuff up--a simple fact that seems to escape some readers.