And how in the world would Clark be able to disguise that physique behind a mere business suit? Nobody ever mentions how buff he is? I think he does a little shape shifting. If one were to use calipers to determine the ratio of head to shoulders for Clark and Superman, Clark’s shoulders are definitely narrower.
Actually, Superman would be able to work out if he descended into Kandor where he’s powerless.
Lotta IRL football players & bodybuilders are large, but not misshapen in suits. See the various ESPN talk show commentators for examples.
Cut the suit loosely, wear a soft belly anti-girdle and you too can be secretly buff as shit.
The OP of course is silly. Superman is whatever shape the artists choose to draw; pizza addict or hyperbuff occur at the will of the dude(tte) wielding the pencil.
And he’s been both extremes and everywhere in between over the decades.
I’ve always liked the idea that Clark doesn’t need to do anything about people “recognizing” him. If your co-worker was a dead ringer for Christopher Reeve, would you assume he secretly was Christopher Reeve, or would you just think, “Huh, that guy looks a lot like that one actor.”
Superman’s a traditionally handsome, dark-haired white guy. There’s tons of people who look like that. I imagine Clark hears, “Anyone ever tell you you look just like Superman?” all the time.
Probably Bruce Wayne does, too.
I’m sure you’re right about this chronology, but I do remember reading about “jumps” as the explanation for Superman’s ability to fly, and it wasn’t a particularly old comic – probably circa late 50s or early 60s. I wish I knew what comic this was. I think it was the same one that included the history of Krypton’s demise, and Superman’s adoptive father suddenly clutching his arm as he suffered a fatal heart attack. Maybe it was a reprint of something much older.
I always thought that the bulky, blocky suits that Steve Reeves wore made him look smaller when he was just Superman. None of the followers except for maybe Chris Reeve looked so super-impressive.
Some of the modern artists make Supe so huge that picturing him as Clark Kent becomes impossible. Here’s a Reddit thread with a picture and the heights and weights of the movie people.
Presumably you meant George Reeves. Steve Reeves played a different fictional strongman. 
Comparing George Reeves to some of the more modern interpretations is a good illustration of how our standards for what a strong guy looks like have changed. While George was a big guy, and in pretty good shape, he wasn’t “cut” the way that modern bodybuilders are, with distinctly well-defined muscles. In those days, just having that barrel-chested look was enough to be a convincing Superman.
George. Sorry, George.
Steve was cut, though.
Superman was flying in his radio show years before the Fleischer cartoons. In fact he even flew in an issue of the comic book before the cartoons. An artist who was more familiar with the radio show than the comic book drew him flying in 1941’s Superman #10.
Was Reeve the first to portray Clark Kent as a geeky, socially awkward type? I happened to see some episode of the '50s, George Reeves series. Even in his secret identity, Clark is still the driving force of the group. He’s strong, smart, takes action, etc.
How has the portrayal of Kent changed over the years? Has he gone from strong and capable, to shy and retiring; what drove the changes, and when?
He answered the Charles Atlas advertisement in the back pages of his own comic book.
I think that he probably was. George Reeves, as you saw, played Clark as a smart, dogged, no-nonsense investigative reporter. So did Kirk Alyn, to a somewhat lesser extent, in the Columbia serials.
Many people forget the radio show, but Clark was portrayed the same way there as well. I’ve often said that the Superman radio show was really more like “The Adventures of Clark Kent, Intrepid Reporter.” Clark carried most of the action–Perry White called him “my best reporter” quite often–with Superman only stepping in occasionally to handle the odd sinking ship or train derailment.
Be that as it may, to some of us “of a certain age,” as they say, George Reeves was the quintessential Superman, and everyone else has been a poor imitation.
Reeve was portraying Clark Kent on his first day at the Daily Planet, before he was an established, self-confident reporter. George Reeves and Kirk Alyn were portraying him later in life when he was that established reporter.
This is a bit of a bugbear for me in general, not just in superman.
In genres like superheroes, fighting games, you’ll have skinny female characters who can kick ass…ok, there’s some kind of magic or whatever in that fictional universe. But then why do the male characters need bodybuilder physiques? And why, for the male characters only, is power often correlated with muscle size?
I have no problem with the logic either way, but I prefer that they pick one self-consistent rule.
(And, before anyone says it, I don’t necessarily have an issue with a skinny woman beating up on guys in a non-magical universe…it’s just a very different situation from the way it is often portrayed. And I’ll leave it there, as to say more is to start a hijack)
Those pics remind me of a current young actor with a baby face, and they found excuses to have him display his chiseled form. That’s as vague as I can get
Sure, ‘water’…
It makes sense someone strong would look the part. And Superman can always leap tall buildings and lift cars to workout. He only gets a gym membership because of occasional negative thoughts, leading to unwise New Years Resolutions. He rarely goes to the gym, after being criticized for accidentally damaging too much equipment.
Marvel used to do parodies of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues with its female characters, and later some of the males as well. The women did not have gym bodies.
In fact, they brought it back this year.
Sheer cheesecake, nothing else.
This was in one of the early books in John Byrne’s run on Superman. Lex Luthor commissioned a billion-dollar supercomputer to determine Superman’s identity. It correctly identified Superman as Clark Kent but Lex refused to believe it (and fired all the computer technicians.)
He simply couldn’t accept that someone like Superman would pretend to be some normal schlub. (And given Lex was a complete megalomaniac it’s easy to see why he might think that way.)
That’s one good example of the trope, but I was actually thinking of a much later one, where Pete Ross (one of Clark’s Smallville friends who knows about his powers) comes to visit him in Metropolis, and is shocked when Clark meets him casually standing in front of a giant poster of Superman. Pete asks if he’s worried about people recognizing him, and Clark explains that it’s not really a problem.
Henry Cavil was able to demonstrate this principle in real life - when Man of Steel came out, he hung out in Times Square in front of the advertisement for it, dressed in street clothes. Nobody recognized him.
Most people most times see what they expect to see. A dude in a business suit is a dude in a business suit. A dude in a superhero costume is a superhero.