Mysteries of Love in Space #1 - “Glasses” (2019)
written by Jeff Loveness art by Tom Grummett & Cam Smith
I’ve gotta reblog this again because it’s honestly fantastic “he could be anyone and he chooses to be kind” shows such an amazing understanding of Superman as a character, who I think a lot of people who don’t understand him really struggle to write, Jeff Loveness continues to kill it, inhumans spiderman special, groot, he’s written so little and yet I remember like every moment, I really really hope he gets a series soon he more than deserves it
This is Superman. The great man of steel truly is just Clark Kent with superpowers, and keeping a different set of secrets. Clark Kent comes first. We mock his secret identity, but the change really is as simple as a pair of glasses and change of clothes; and nobody notices because how could Superman walk around like a normal human, racing to catch buses and losing his keys, talking to people like his equals? Why would he?
Luthor in particular I think would never understand this. With his technology and business expansion and political campaigns and constant other plots for domination, he always thinks of himself as superior to everyone else - doesn’t know who he is if he isn’t - and so is consumed by the need to prove that again and again. He cannot fathom ‘the alien’ deigning to ‘pretend’ to be normal. He would absolutely fall for the pair of glasses and change of clothes, and proceed to have a massive breakdown over how the world’s most intelligent person could possibly be fooled by such a pathetic, obvious trick.
But the whole reason Superman exists is that he sees all life on Earth as of equal value. He cares about it, for the sake of it. Superman couldn’t exist without Clark for long, if Clark were to fake his death or something (which I’m sure he has at some point in comics history) - he needs to be an ordinary guy with an ordinary life, otherwise he’d just be an ordinary guy trying to carry the weight of two planets on his shoulders. One a shroud of death, grief, silence and unknowns; a family name that only means solitude to him; nothing of except food he’ll never taste and history he’ll never learn and he can’t even remember the smell of the air; infinite infinities of things he and nobody else in existence will ever know, and yet he is supposed to represent it? The other present and solid under his feet, overflowing with life, lives, in motion and in the balance, laughing, loving, hurting, helping, and every now and then he looks around and it’s suddenly crushing how little they fathom how precious they are, and the air smells like car exhaust and the flowers in the new cafe’s window boxes. Because no matter what clothes he’s wearing, he is an ordinary guy. Who happens, by a random quirk of his biology plus an unintended environmental factor, to be the most powerful person on Earth. That load would be impossible to bear if he didn’t allow himself to be human. Couldn’t tell jokes to the kid next to him on the bus and see their eyes light up, couldn’t be Lois’s “Glasses”.
So yeah. This is a perfect Superman or more accurately Clark Kent comic.
