How does no-one know who Spiderman is?

I wish I caught that episode of L&C :frowning:

… but I did see a re-run of Saturday Night Live with Terri Hatcher hosting. Will Ferrell appears on stage and puts on a pair of glasses. Terri doesn’t recognize him and freaks out. Will takes off the glasses and Terri breathes a sigh of relief. “Oh, my God… oh, Will… some creep was just up here, I was so scared!”

Will tries to explain that it was him all along, with or * sans specs*. Then Tim Meadows appears on stage … :slight_smile:

Script here.

Yes, he says something like “Are you *comsmically *stupid?”, then taking off and putting glasses he says “I’m Superman, I’m Clark Kent, I’m Superman”

“How galactically stupid is she?” is the proper quote.

In Superman Returns, they’re starting to wonder whether or not Clark is Superman in the newsroom. Biclops asks, “How tall would you say Clark is?” after they find out how tall Superman is, and they look out into the office just in time to see Clark do some sort of Clumsy Clark thing that Superman would obviously never do, and they bust out laughing and get back to work.

“Galactically stupid” has become a catchphrase in my gaming group, used to signify something that we, as players, know immediately, but our characters can’t possibly figure out.

My favorite take on the Clark/Superman one also comes from the L&C show. At one point, various folks in the newsroom are commenting on the resemblence, and Perry White says “Yeah, the kid does sort of look like Superman. And I sort of look like Nixon; it doesn’t mean I’m him.”.

I recall one pre-Crisis story that began with a meteor heading toward the Daily Planet and everybody yelling at Clark to switch to Superman and stop it – they’ve been humoring him all these years, but there’s no time for that now…

Then, Clark wakes up from the nightmare. :wink:

This is pretty much my understanding of how Superman keeps his identity secret: When he is pretending to be Clark, he generates this persona that is the epitome of meek, geek, and weak. In addition to the physical klutziness, he is also indecisive, submissive and shy. All of these qualities are the antithesis of Superman.
And yeah, Peter Parker’s an idiot.

Bruce does a cameo in all Sam Rami movies

It kinda bugged me that while he and his Aunt have constant money troubles, it never occurs to Peter to try out for his college football or basketball teams (at which he’ll amazingly excel using barely a tenth of his ability) get a big one-year professional contract, get a million bucks, retire back into obscurity and resume crime-fighting.

As does Sam’s brother Ted.

You know, I recall a pre-Crisis issue of Superman. Supes is wondering (at last!), “How much of a disguise are these glasses? Why does nobody see through it?” It turns out that, for the sake of durability, he made his specs out of Kryptonian glass from the spaceship that brought him to Earth; and since he wants to be taken for somebody different while wearing them, he unconsciously sends out a hypnotic suggestion to that effect, its power magnified by the glasses. He notes a sketch done of him (as Kent) by a sketch artist – shows it to Lois and asks, “What do you think, Lois? Does this picture do me justice?” Lois: “[giggle] That’s you to life, Clark!” But the sketch is of a man not nearly as handsome or studly as Kal-El.

Interesting to know that a yellow sun can endow Kryptonian inanimate objects with superpowers!

Superman #330 (December 1978). A classic.

Early on, Supes’ costume wasn’t indestructible because it was Kryptonian, it was made of a “specially treated material” he’d invented himself. By the 1950s, with the red sun aspect established, the costume was sewn-together Kryptonian baby blankets.

Reference.

Personally, I’m okay with the costume simply being some ultra-futuristicky polymer.

Remember what happened the one time he tried to use his powers to make money?

As to the Superman thing, I’ve kist started reading a Superman novel (The Neverending Battle, by Roger Stern, one of the JLA novels from Pocket Star Books), where Superman and Dan Turpin have a discussion about all the people, real and fictional that Superman has been said to resemble - Dick Tracy, a comic strip character named Cap’n Easy, Gregory Peck, Pierce Brosnan, Timothy Dalton, Charlie Sheen - and Turpin comments that every tall, dark-haired white male (at least those who are the least bit handsome, square jawed, and well-built) gets compared to Superman at some point. And Clark, who, while outside of pre-Crisis throwbacks - like SR or AS Superman - isn’t nearly as bad a specimine of manliness as all that, does carry himself differently than Superman, and his glasses and different hairstyle de-emphasis the resemblance, isn’t really that remarkable, in that context. (The ‘I kind of look like Nixon’ thing again.)

Well, Uncle Ben ain’t gonna get any deader. Besides, the problem wasn’t that Peter tried to be a professional athlete - it’s that he refused to stop a criminal when he had the chance.

I think the funniest SNL episode with Superman was the one hosted by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Everyone in the newsroom knew he was Superman, and were mocking his efforts to maintain his disguise. A transcript is here.

Yeh . . . in the comic-book version, he performed on a TV show (in costume), got paid by check, and went to a bank (in costume) and he couldn’t cash the check because it was made out to “Spider-Man” and he had no ID under that name. :smiley:

He takes his glasses off when he transforms.

“That doesn’t make any sense! He wouldn’t be able to see!”

[/Mystery Men] :cool:

There was an issue of Green Arrow a while back when the Chief of Police wanted to talk to Green Arrow about a case, so he just shows up at the flower shop and starts talking to Olly. GA asks how he knew he was Green Arrow, and the Chief says, “Oh, I’m sorry, was that little mask supposed to be a disguise???

At least Dinah wore a wig when she was Black Canary…

I personally could never accept the idea that (comic-book) Peter Parker couldn’t think of a way to profit from his webbing formula. Just imagine 3M selling it as non-lethal police weaponry for crowd control, for a start.

Two words: emotional baggage. Not over the incident itself necessarily, but actually making money for himself with his powers would interrupt the eternal quest for redemption/guilt trip that keeps much of his hero career going. It would never even occur to him.

Oh, and for those who were wondering vis a vis the comics today, Aunt May and MJ are living in Stark Tower, so they’re relatively safe… Not that it doesn’t mean they can never leave without the Secret Service by them, but it’s still not as immediately dangerous as you’d think.