NAME: Clark Kent. Otherwise known as Kal-El.

CANON: DC Cinematic Universe; Man of Steel.

CANON POINT: Just after his talk with Jor-El and his true heritage. Before he (somehow?) shaves and dons the supersuit.

ARRIVAL TYPE: Accidental.

IC USERNAME: ck

HISTORY: Bloop.

PERSONALITY: "That must be incredibly scary and lonely, not to know who you are or what you are, and trying to find out what makes sense. Where's your baseline? What do you draw from? Where do you draw a limit with the power you have? In itself, that's an incredible weakness."

At his core, Clark Kent is a Good Guy. There are a lot of quotes flying around about the Superman mythos, some of varying opinion: he's a Good Guy, he's a Boring Guy, he's the world's most ridiculous cover story — but at his core, the thing that really drives an alien being from another planet that's nearly godlike and a on-the-nose immigrant/messiah story is that he's moralistic and good and right, and he'll fight for it. He's Superman. The important thing to remember about Snyder's iteration, though, is that he's not Superman. Not really, and not just yet.

It's obvious by the time we meet Clark that he's had a really long and difficult childhood. He grew up knowing he was different, and that difference while, at first, made a young Clark's early years really angry and frustrated and chaotic, was tempered a lot by the guidance of his father and mother. It didn't destroy him: it didn't make him cruel, or unfeeling, or tempted not to care. Instead, he took that in. He got better. Restrained is a pretty good word to describe one of the more obvious traits in Clark as a verifiable cause-effect of growing up so ostracized. It's in everything from the literal restraint that comes with Kryptonian physiology and being able to, say, solve all your problems by flying/violence/laser eyeballs, to the way he holds himself. He doesn't beat the shit out of some guy for grabassing (though he's tempted, and in the end fucks up the guy's truck — proving that he's not exactly 100% moral temptproof), and he still hitchhikes places. He also holds himself with a specific economy of movement, like he's always aware of how imposing he can be physically. Clark is all straight spines and broad shoulders, and he's not particularly emotive: his voice has a register somewhere around 'politely disinterested with a dash of passing friendliness'. Some of this restraint is completely for self-preservation and flying under the radar, as one might be able to guess from a secret alien. Other parts of it, one gets the feeling, is because he's been alone for so long — particularly when you look at how emotive a teenaged Clark was, or how he is around his mother.

"How do you find someone who's spent a lifetime covering his tracks? You start with the urban legends that have sprung up in his wake. All the friends of a friend who claim to have seen him. For some, he was a guardian angel. For others, a cipher, a ghost who never quite fit in."

At thirty-three Earth years, Clark has spent a good part of those years buoyed by the traumatic death of said father with one key tenet: nobody on Earth is ready to accept him. So what do you do, when you're so desperate to know who you are, know that that search has to be done in secret, that you're well and truly alone on the planet? You hide. Parts of Clark live a little on the edge of a knife, like he's scraped away the parts that need other people. It's sad — and obvious, when space dad Jor-El tells him about his heritage. (Telling responses include "Why didn't you come with me?" and "So I'm alone?" with some really fine heavy-swallow acting by Henry Cavill.) But that self-imposed isolation and loneliness and restrained way of living hasn't ever stripmined from him any sense of doing what's right. In a (slightly) later part of the film than his pull-point, Lois says, "The only way for you to disappear altogether is to stop helping people ... and I sense that's not an option for you." Clark has a long history of choosing the well-being of others over his own secrecy. He values his own secrecy and self-preservation but never beyond the lives or well-being of others. Remember, the part where I said he was a Good Guy?

"I have so many questions. Where did I come from? Why did you send me here?"

Because of his pull-point, Clark is still trying to come to grips with who he is — or what he is, what he's meant to be and whether that's something he recognizes in himself. Jor-El has filled in the blanks, sure, and that means answers about where he came from, why he came here, but what does that mean for himself as a person? It's a question he's still trying to answer. Sure, he might know more, but what does that mean anyway? Essentially: so what? Is it time for him to save the world? Is it time for him to go back to living his own life? Clark might not be so afraid or alone anymore, armed with a specific kind of knowledge, but that doesn't change the outward expressions of who he is. His primary weakness is this specific lack of concentrated belief. He knows what he is. Maybe he's better at understanding who he is. But who is that — how does that person act? Clark is navigating existing in two distinct worlds as immigrant-outsider and person-at-home. Jor-El told him he could be a "force for good", but it's true what they say about answers bringing more answers: Clark is a little less lost, sure, always in search of the good path, the right actions, but he's still questioning and constructing that identity.

INVENTORY: Clothes on his back (white henley, jeans, socks, shoes). And... that's it?

CHANGES: Clark is Kryptonian. Basically, he's got super everything: super speed, super sight, super hearing, super endurance, super strength. Super laser eyes. He's not particularly the type of guy who'd break the Clock just for shits and giggles, but I'm completely willing to nerf. I plan to put him at "stronger than the average bear" and exnay his flying altogether (since he hasn't, technically speaking, figured out he can do that just yet; maybe it'd be interesting to reintroduce it at a later stage for a reward or development thing?), but I'd like to keep his xray vision and his supersight/hearing/endurance, and maybe put his laser eyes at "can make a piece of metal cherry-hot, but can't slice through buildings" (includes being able to boil water by looking at it, this is endearing to me). His strength sits at maybe about 80% — able to punch concrete or totally wreck a car with great effort, but doesn't collapse skyscrapers just from barreling into them. Let me know if you want other things nerfed out!