Superman's new reality? No secret identity

Brian Truitt | USA TODAY

Most of us already knew Clark Kent was Superman — those glasses could only fool people for so long. But now the truth is out in the comic-book pages, too.

Action Comics and other DC Comics titles are dealing with the Man of Steel’s outing thanks to a story written by longtime friend and former love interest Lois Lane. In the current story line of Superman, writer Gene Luen Yang and artist John Romita Jr. are digging into what led to that journalistic decision and the immediate fallout, plus unveiling a new villain that’s as geeky as he is dangerous.

With Superman No. 42 out Wednesday, the creative team is hitting the “truth” part of that old “truth, justice and the American way” mantra pretty hard as well as the concept of Superman as “the Man of Tomorrow.”

“Superman was created in the late 1930s and humankind’s idea of what the future would be was very different,” Yang explains. “A lot of the future was put in terms of physical strength and speed, and Superman was the embodiment of that.

“Nowadays our idea of the future has changed and when we think of the future now, a lot of it is in terms of information.”

The debuting bad guy, whose name Yang and Romita are keeping hush-hush for now, is the head of HORDR, which Yang describes as “a cross between a tech company and a gang.” The writer pitched the antagonist as “an evil Mark Zuckerberg” who embodied all the different dark sides of California’s Silicon Valley culture, around which Yang grew up and still lives.

Romita gave the villain a design reminiscent of The Matrix but simplistic in design when compared to the robot minions that constantly surround him. More of a taskmaster than a supervillain, he also has way more malevolence than muscle.

“A lot of people around the world now are skinny nerdy guys,” says Yang.

Adds Romita: “We’ve got a skinny guy who can’t throw a baseball and he’s our president, so there we are.”

Before that character is introduced, an emotional moment occurs in the new issue where Lois is confronted with physical evidence of Clark being Superman for the first time.

Yang feels Romita’s art naturally captures the essence of who she is, and to prepare for his current gig, he read a bunch of old Superman comics from the late 1930s and early ‘40s, realizing that the aspects of Lois people adore the most were there at the very beginning.

“She was always hardnosed, she was always a competitor to Clark, she always had a sense of who she was, she was always really grounded and understood her mission in life,” Yang says. “She was ahead of our society and that’s why people love her for it.”

As Superman’s Superman in a way — being just as heroic, brave and courageous as him, even without powers — Yang feels Lois is a great contrast for the Man of Steel even though they’re not in a relationship right now.

“I like the dynamic that they have right now, with being friends with a slight sexual tension underneath their friendship,” the writer says. “It gives her character a chance to shine.”

Some fans were miffed at the thought that Lois would betray Superman and expose his secret identity to the world, and Yang agrees “it’s a big deal to out one of your best friends like that.”

But Romita promises there’s a “a very, very well-done explanation. It’s not what you’d expect and everybody’s making a concerted effort to not make people’s eyes roll: ‘Oh God, the same old (stuff) again.’ It’s difficult with a character this iconic and this old.”

Even with that coming between them, the artist says that Clark will still have an unavoidable connection with Lois — especially since he’s become more humanized in every way recently.

Romita and previous Superman writer Geoff Johns introduced a new ability to the hero’s arsenal — a supremely powerful solar flare — that leaves him powerless for a time. He and Yang are now building on that: “He’s not going to be great at realizing he’s a little slower and weaker than he used to be,” the writer says, “and that will have consequences.”

Plus, with his secret identity out in the open, Lois, Jimmy Olsen and his colleagues at the Daily Planet have all become targets of his enemies, Romita adds. “This is a cosmic character who should be attacked by cosmic-sized characters, and I don’t think they sweat a couple of people working in an office building.”

Superman’s new look is reflective of this fresh status quo. DC wanted to strip him down to his bare essentials so they've given him a haircut, wrapped his fists in red fabric, and lost the cape and costume in favor of jeans and a T-shirt with a throwback “S” design from the 1940s Fleischer cartoons.

Romita calls it “the George Costanza look” since it’s the opposite of what everybody expects from Superman, but he admits it is integral to where he is now.

“Half of fans will like it, half of them won’t,” the artist says. “If they just drop the book because you changed something, then they’re not good enough to please anyway. But you’ve got to look to change, and hopefully it’ll be two-thirds liking it.”

With just a couple of issues under his belt, Yang has been surprised at how flexible and deep a character he is. And while he’s normally thought of as everybody’s favorite uncle or a Boy Scout leader, it doesn’t mean Superman doesn't always have to be nice or constantly say the polite thing.

“He can get angry, especially with injustices in the world,” Yang figures. That said, one of the things that is so attractive to him about the Man of Steel is “he always fights for the underdog, he always sides with the powerless, and in today’s world that just feels very timely.”