Someone told me recently that Clark Kent is leaving his job as a reporter for The Daily Planet. I don’t really keep up with the comic book storylines, but this surprised me. After all, he's been a journalist at Metropolis' daily paper for decades.
To be honest, though, I never really thought Clark was a great journalist. Sure, there was that whole "truth, justice and the American way" jazz, but his editor, Perry White, was always hollering at him about making deadlines.
You'd think that someone who is the fastest typist Perry White has ever seen could make a deadline.
Instead, every time something newsworthy happens, Clark disappears, leaving Lois Lane to do all the work. And that was OK, I guess. Lois was always a hard-nosed, tenacious reporter.
Yet despite being a brilliant woman and an ace reporter, she was never able to see through Clark's meager disguise of simple glasses and a flashy cape to discern his true identity as Superman.
"In her defense," my friend Kurtz suggests, "they were really big glasses."
That Lois couldn't figure that out never made much sense to me. I wear glasses. I don't suddenly become unrecognizable when I take off my glasses. I can't, for instance, walk down the aisle at the grocery store without my glasses and have people think I am someone else.
"Look, Mom, it's Superman."
"No, son, it's just that idiot from the radio station without his glasses."
Other superheroes do a better job of hiding their true identities. Spider-Man's costume covers his entire body, including his whole face. Batman's cowl covers two-thirds of his face, and Batman is always careful to talk in a more menacing voice than his alter ego, millionaire Bruce Wayne.
Superman apparently bases keeping his identity a secret on the fact that he surrounds himself with idiots.
I don't know what Clark is going to do once he leaves The Daily Planet. He's still a young man, and there doesn't seem to be a need for him to devote all his time to his role as Superman.
I guess he could stay at home and be a house husband while Lois brings home the bacon. That could present problems in time, though. Lois doesn't exactly strike me as the kind of woman that would tolerate her husband just lounging around the house while she's out putting in a hard day's work.
"Yeah, you're faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. So what? The least you could do is get your lazy butt off the sofa and have supper ready when I get home."
Given all his special powers, he could do just about anything. You've seen these places that offer helicopter tours of scenic locales. He easily could offer those, and he wouldn't need the overhead of, you know, actually owning a helicopter.
But I think his best bet is to go back to his boyhood home and take over the family farm. Sure, farming is hard, demanding work. But, really, how long would it really take for Clark Kent to plow the back 40?
On the farm, he could work the land when he needed to, but would be able easily get away when his superhero duties called, too.
One thing bothers me about Clark leaving The Daily Planet, though.
What in the world is Superman going to do with a gold watch?
