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Krypton bred me, but it was Earth that gave me all I am, all that matters.
It was Krypton that made me Superman... but it is the Earth that makes me human! |
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— Himself |
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The world knows Superman as The Man of Steel, hero of Metropolis, the United States, and the World. He stands as a symbol of hope and an emblem of truth, justice, and a highly idealized version of what one might call the American Way: liberty and equality for all.
Still well-known but less famous is Clark Kent: a farm boy from Kansas who grew up to attain modest fame as a writer and journalist, primarily attached to the Daily Planet but also frequently featured online and on television.
Personality
Clark is in many ways an all-American boy who grew up and became one of those most dangerous of things: an idealist. He was a boy scout growing up, but he was also a kid who hung out at the arcade and ate pizza. He worked hard on the farm, earned good grades, and performed admirably on the athletic teams (until he had to quit) but his favorite album is still And Justice for All by Metallica. There is a popular perception of Clark that he comes from some sort of 1950s time capsule, but in Clark's case the wholesome upbringing wasn't a false front, and he wasn't raised to quietly accept injustice. The Kents were quite progressive in as many ways as they were traditional, and they raised a son who is a genuinely good-hearted person, but Clark is also a man of boundless curiosity, consumed by the same fundamental questions that fuel the human race: Who are we? Where have we come from? What is our place in the Universe?
Then there's that other bit, the Spider-Man axiom: "With great power comes great responsibility," and when one lives in a veritable world of cardboard that balance exists on a knife's edge. Clark is deeply attuned, particularly thanks to his senses, to the world around him, and he believes without question that he has to do everything within his power to make that world a better place, to help others, to justify the way he uses his gifts. He also has to constantly hold himself back, keep from letting loose, and measure each moment. Will he abandon one responsibility to help someone in need? When is helping others doing too much, preventing them from standing on their own? Every question and criticism that is levied at Superman is one that Clark has wrestled with privately, and he continues to do so. While very traditional in some ways, Clark Kent is no blithe do-gooder from a bygone era. He is a critically aware, deeply thoughtful man who wants to do all he can to help others.
Background
The man who thinks of himself as Clark Joseph Kent was conceived and born as Kal-El on a distant world, Krypton, to Jor-El and Lara. Like Moses in the tales of old, he was placed into an interstellar basket in the form of an experimental spacecraft and cast upon a river of the cosmos, carried by sophisticated computer program and telemetry to the planet Earth, where Jor-El had calculated that his son would have the best chance at a good life. And a good life is exactly what the boy had.
Clark Kent grew up a healthy boy, strong and free from childhood ailments. His parents instilled in him a deep and abiding sense of morality: truth, justice, and compassion. Clark was a good kid, but he was also a kid. He got in occasional trouble, and he learned life lessons like kids tend to do. As he became a teen, he worked for his parents on the farm and held down part-time jobs to pay for things. He worked on cars, did well in school, and excelled at sports. He had a happy childhood and a very healthy adolescence.
This all changed with The Talk. There had been a series of odd incidents: strange headaches that left Clark convinced he had seen through solid objects, an "impossibly" strong showing when he tried out for the varsity football team, and even a couple of truly bizarre incidents involving the spontaneous combustion of a woodworking project and a copy of Catcher in the Rye. As these events became too many to ignore, Jonathan sat Clark down and explained the truth of his mysterious crash-landing amongst the cornstalk's of the Kents' back forty. Jonathan showed Clark the spacecraft that had brought him to Earth. And so began the process of struggling with and eventually accepting his identity.
After finishing high school, Clark had discovered most of his powers. Led by a crystalline device from his spacecraft, he found his way to the Arctic Circle, where the device constructed a place for his education to continue. Holographic artificial recreations of his Kryptonian parents taught Clark of his people, his powers, and his heritage, and in time Clark came to accept these and master his powers. He traveled the world for year or two, always returning to the "Fortress of Solitude," as he called it, and eventually decided on a career in journalism, which he'd already been considering while in high school. After graduation, he impressed a number of industry notables with his body of work, having built up quite an extensive online portfolio of work, and so he found himself with a job at one of the last great metropolitan newspapers, The Daily Planet.
Superman debuted soon after, and over the years since Superman has become a household name, an icon, a living simple of hope in an age of mythical gods and heroes who walk among mortal humankind.
SKILLS
Superman is in excellent physical shape, even without consideration of his super powers.
Although initially Superman relied fully on wild swings and titanic strength to carry the day, he has spent years training his control. Superman's fighting style includes what he has learned from fellow heroes, but he has also studied the Kryptonian martial arts of Torquasm-Vo and Horu-Kanu. Beyond merely learning to fight, much of this means having learned specific control. For Clark, this training has meant as much the ability not to cause excess injury to others as it has to actually defeat opponents.
Superman is very experienced with his suite of powers and as such can execute one after another knowing how to combine strength, speed, heat vision, chilling breath, and his environment to overwhelm even the most powerful foes and mitigate the possibility of injury to others.
Diplomacy - Competent Level
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Superman is a talented diplomat capable of settling disputes between rival world powers with some active-listening and directed conversation. Truthfully, this is equal parts charisma and equal parts notoriety, for even those that hate the idea of Superman have a hard time being completely bullheaded in his presence.
Journalism - Expert Level
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Clark Kent has been in journalism for nearly two decades. Starting with his graduation from Kansas Statue University he immediately got a job in Metropolis where he began writing "puff pieces" before working his way up to the city desk and then finally branching out to true investigative and international pieces.
Clark has a BA in Journalism, but that has been augmented by the teachings left to him by his biological father, Jor-El. As such, he is well-versed in Kryptonian history, culture, and sociopolitics. Clark of course speaks the language of his home, including a fair approximation of the Daxamite dialect and certain other alien tongues. He has also made an extensive study of the languages of his adoptive home planet, Earth.
Leadership - Expert Level
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The combination of his standing in the world and his upbringing via Jonathan and Martha Kent, Clark has become an excellent leader. Clark's leadership technique is a bit different than one might expect given his power set. Instead of being a commanding presence, Superman is more a uniter and tends to lead through collaboration.
Observation - Expert Level
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Superman is exceptionally observant, allowing him to take full advantage of his enhanced senses when it comes to perceiving the world around him.
Even a basic Kryptonian education granted Clark a knowledge of science to rival that of an experienced professional in any conventional scientific field. With his command of Kryptonian science and technology, he is easily one of the most capable beings on Earth. This knowledge also includes extensive experience with Kryptonian physiology and medicine, as well as expertise in other xenosciences.
ABILITIES
Power: Breath - Enhanced Level
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Clark can create a number of effects by expelling air through his lips. He can cause heat dissipation, super-cooling the air like an arctic wind, able to rapidly freeze objects up to the size of a large armored vehicle. The air can be released at normal temperature or in rapid gusts or blasts, akin to gale force winds. Clark's tremendous breath control also allows him to pull in oxygen through his nose while cycling it back out through his mouth, thus keeping up a sustained breath effect, or to hold his breath for nearly an entire day before needing to take in additional oxygen. This allows him to travel through space or underwater for extended periods.
Power: Flight - Supreme Level
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Clark is able to fly by manipulating kinetic force around his body, allowing him to attain hypersonic speeds within an atmosphere. Outside of an atmosphere, he can attain much greater speeds.
Power: Heat Vision - Enhanced Level
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Clark can utilize stored solar energy to affect heat diffusion. While his breath can dissipate heat, his eyes can focus it, allowing him to expel beams of heat at any target in his line of sight.
Power: Invulnerability - Supreme Level
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Clark's molecular density is greater than that of a normal human, but even more key to his invulnerability is a micro-thin force field that encloses his body. The field does not prohibit Clark from touching, tasting, or otherwise interacting with the world, but it does filter out harmful effects, antigens, and nearly anything that might damage him physically. With access to solar radiation from a star of yellow or greater intensity, Clark also heals very rapidly and completely, allowing him to regenerate from nearly any harm, even many "fatal" injuries. The force field can also be projected a short distance outside his body, protecting anything held very close to him, such as his clothing or a person or object held close against his body.
Superman's unique Kryptonian physiology empowers him in many ways. Most of these abilities are granted by the presence of solar energy from what he often refers to casually as a "yellow sun." Technically, stars of the ideal class are G-type in the blue-white through yellow spectrum. This is bolstered by his increased molecular density, making him mildly more durable than a human being even when de-powered. Clark's Kryptonian brain also makes him vastly more intelligent than most humans, and most of his powers are psychokinetically focused by that specialized Kryptonian brain. When empowered by solar radiation, Clark is also immune to all known forms of illness or disease, and only requires an average of two hours of sleep per night to function at peak efficiency.
Power: Senses - Supreme Level
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Clark's senses are psychokinetically augmented by the solar energies within him. This allows him to see as far as the curvature of the Earth allows, to pick out sounds miles away and both hear and see in wavelengths far beyond the human perceptible range. This includes the ability to hear the entire range of audible sound and to see along the entire infrared spectrum. The clarity of his vision is also microscopic as well as telescopic, allowing him to see the structure of matter down to the atomic level.
As a Kryptonian, Clark absorbs solar energy from stars of yellow intensity or greater, such as Earth's sun. This energy is stored within his body, serving as a power source for his race's latent psychokinetic abilities. Unlike a true psychic, Kryptonian powers operate by instinct and physical focus, taking the form if such abilities as are described throughout these traits. If Clark's solar energies are depleted, he can be rendered nearly as powerless as an ordinary human, though his molecular density still grants him modestly enhanced strength and toughness.
Power: Strength - Supreme Level
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Clark's strength is enhanced via a tactile telekinetic field that extends to any object he touches. This field grants the vast majority of his invulnerability to damage, and it also allows him to exert much greater physical force than most other beings. In addition, this field grants stability to whatever he touches, allowing him to perform such feats as picking up an airplane by an otherwise fragile wing or to use a lamp pole as a viable weapon, where it would otherwise shatter in his hands if he forcefully swung it at anything. Clark's solar reserves also grant him effectively limitless stamina and sustenance, allowing him to subsist with minimal rest or nutrition for weeks at a time.
Power: Super Speed - Enhanced Level
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Though his speed is modest by the standards of a Speed Force user, Clark is still capable of moving at supersonic land speeds within the Earth's atmosphere. He is able to perform various physical tasks at roughly one hundred times the speed of a human in optimal physical condition.
ADVANTAGES
Superman has created a number of costumes over the years. Most prominent among these is his classic blue and red costume, complete with cape and eye-catching, red brief-cut trunks. Others are designed to look more low-key for specific situations, such as his black uniform with silver detailing that he uses for doing work that might get a bit messy. (Grease stains don't show up so much on black, after all.) He also has shielding suits, designed to stave off the effects of Kryptonite or other harmful agents, and a variety of Kryptonian-style clothing that lets Kal-El have a "casual" wardrobe without looking too obviously like Clark Kent.
Each uniform is made of super-durable material, woven on a super-loom of Clark's own design, and can stand up to nearly as much punishment as he can. He can also store these uniforms in small nano-pods, which can be worn easily on his person, allowing him to hide a costume or switch out costumes on the fly, as needed. He can also compress down his street clothes into such a pod, storing them for later use while he wears his Superman uniform. Changing only takes a few seconds, so all he needs to do is duck out of sight and move quickly to avoid being seen. Yes, even a phone booth will do!
Clark's position gets him access to information and places he might not normally be allowed. He has also gained popularity and has many contacts through his association with the paper.
Clark grew up with two of the world's most supportive parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent. Not only did they instill in him strong moral values, such as truth and justice, but even in their elder years they remain a very supportive part of Clark's life. After all, there are some things that a hero might go through that all the technology or powers in the world can't help -- but some emotional support and a slice of Ma Kent's apple pie will do wonders. On the Kryptonian side, Clark has quite an extended family, as well, be they blood relations, clones, or adopted. He even has a faithful Kryptonian super-dog named Krypto who will come any time he's called, though to be fair Clark has encouraged Superboy, Kon-El, to be the one to look after Krypto most of the time.
Modeled after his home planet, Krypton, the Fortress of Solitude is hidden within the Arctic Circle. As a fully appointed Kryptonian outpost, the Fortress possesses advanced technological amenities roughly equivalent to those that would have been found in the most advanced cities of Krypton just prior to its destruction. It has advanced defenses, living quarters, laboratory facilities, and all the other features that a superhero might find useful in their base of operations. In recent years, it has also been refitted to house additional allies, since Superman is no longer the only Kryptonian on Earth.
In addition to the advanced amenities it also houses the sum knowledge of all of Krypton. The Fortress vaults also include many objects are those he's encountered in his travels, with specific examples being: The Phantom Zone Projector, a Legion Flight Ring, an armory of collected future-tech weapons, and of course various servitor robots (only a few of which have been made up to look like him). He has a zoo containing various orphaned intergalactic animals that have "washed up" or been abandoned on Earth over the years.
In many cases, Superman's interactions with the masses are colored by his general good will and adoration from the people. He personifies the good guy archetype for the public and is a hero and a role model toward many.
WEAKNESSES
Though beloved by the large majority of the public, Superman is hated by villains everywhere, especially by those who he comes into contact most with. There are a handful of evildoers who will stop at nothing to try and kill the Man of Steel or those close to him.
When Krypton was destroyed, some of the planet's matter was charged with radioactive energy from its star, Rao, interacting with the crystalline material of Krypton's planetary body. The end result was the gemlike green substance known as "Kryptonite." The molecular and radioactive properties of Kryptonite make it harmful to Kryptonian cells, thus making it harmful and toxic to them. If Clark is struck by a Kryptonite weapon, he will be harmed as a normal mortal would. Even being near Kryptonite causes him to feel physically ill.
However, the rate of recovery once removed from the emissions is as rapid as the rate of damage, and Clark will be back to normal in under an hour after exposure if he can directly absorb enough solar energy. Kryptonite radiation can be blocked by lead or super-dense materials. Clark routinely undergoes Kryptonite serum treatments of his own design. As a result, the toxic effects of Kryptonite are much reduced for him. It can still harm him when used as a weapon, but it takes much longer for the toxic effects to weaken him, and even if they do, he is much more likely to be incapacitated than killed.
There are other, rarer forms of Kryptonite as well, such as red Kryptonite, which induces bizarre effects for a period of about twenty-four hours, or gold Kryptonite, which temporarily suppresses most Kryptonian powers in a manner similar to red solar radiation.
Against the powers of magic or various mental psychic powers, Kryptonians have no special defenses. They are not explicitly "weak" against these forces so much as they cannot especially resist them. Many psychic powers and magical effects can ignore Clark's various defenses and resistances, harming him or affecting him much as they would an ordinary Earthling. Notably, however, Clark has an exceptionally strong will, and after several bad experiences with being mentally influenced, he has undergone extensive training with various allies. As a result, it is now virtually impossible to affect him with mind-control or other mental compulsion. This gives him no protection from direct mental attacks, which he weathers about as well as a strong-willed human being.
Superman bases his interactions with the public and criminals on a strict moral code that forces him to uphold truth, justice, and due process. He has vowed to never kill and will often attempt to find the diplomatic solution until it is clear that will not work, or if someone is in imminent harm.
Clark requires solar energy to function at peak capacity, or his powers fade to greatly reduced levels or disappear entirely if his solar reserves are empty. Clark cannot absorb energy from the lower frequency of orange K-type stars, and the radiation from red M-type stars actually disrupts his absorption process. Under the light of such a star, he will begin to lose his power at a slow but steady rate. Within a few hours of such conditions, he will be effectively drained of his powers.
Superman has kept his identity a secret to protect those he cares about. If his identity were to become public, he would put his parents and those he loves at risk. The very thought of it terrifies him, and he must take great precautions to maintain his secret.
