# Superheroes who are actually good at their day jobs? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 8, 2013, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-who-are-actually-good-at-their-day-jobs/655134 "2013-04-08T03:55:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-who-are-actually-good-at-their-day-jobs/655134/61 "2013-04-12T13:05:21Z")
Vixen does fine as (heh) a supermodel – even successfully launching her own line of clothing – in between firing up batlike sonar, or hitting as hard as an elephant, or breathing underwater while swimming like a fish, or whatever. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-who-are-actually-good-at-their-day-jobs/655134/62 "2013-04-12T15:16:39Z")
Let’s forget about jobs/careers for a moment. Peter Parker was a nerdy teenager who was given superpowers. He was a successful photographer and a smart kid with realistic aspirations of becoming a scientist. But on a personal level, he was still awkward with people (especially girls). If you’re a dork by nature, even super powers can’t cure that. Superman has been around a long time, and has been portrayed in many different ways, as has Clark Kent. SOMETIMES Kent is portrayed as a very smart, competent newsman… but sometimes he’s been presented as a bumbler, and he’s OFTEN been portrayed as a hopeless geek in his personal life. Think of the Christropher Reeve incarnation- would Lois Lane ever have fallen in love with Reeve’s Clark Kent? Of course not- Reeve played Kent as a boring klutz with no social skills. And he’s hardly the only actor or writer who’s made Kent look that way. Peter Parker, however, WAS a real nerd. Clark Kent/Kal-El was just playing one. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-who-are-actually-good-at-their-day-jobs/655134/63 "2013-04-12T18:54:09Z")
I don’t think accidently turning himself into a giant green rage monster made Bruce Banner a great scientist. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-who-are-actually-good-at-their-day-jobs/655134/64 "2013-04-12T19:07:13Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I don’t think accidently turning himself into a giant green rage monster made Bruce Banner a great scientist. It’s even worse than that if you think about it. He developed a BOMB that turns the people it explodes on (presumably, in theory, one’s ENEMIES) into giant green rage monsters. Or super-strong green-haired scientists. Or giant-headed green geniuses. Or scaly green monsters. It just seems like it’s not the kind of advantage you want to give the people you just tried to kill. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-who-are-actually-good-at-their-day-jobs/655134/65 "2013-04-12T19:18:46Z")
Now that really would be World War Hulk! ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-who-are-actually-good-at-their-day-jobs/655134/66 "2013-04-12T19:42:45Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > It’s even worse than that if you think about it. He developed a BOMB that turns the people it explodes on (presumably, in theory, one’s ENEMIES) into giant green rage monsters. Or super-strong green-haired scientists. Or giant-headed green geniuses. Or scaly green monsters. It just seems like it’s not the kind of advantage you want to give the people you just tried to kill. Now to be fair, Banner is a scientist. He naturally believed that large doses of gamma radiation didn’t do anything except kill you. Who could have known that instead radiation can give people magic powers? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-who-are-actually-good-at-their-day-jobs/655134/67 "2013-04-12T20:11:50Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Now to be fair, Banner is a scientist. He naturally believed that large doses of gamma radiation didn’t do anything except kill you. Who could have known that instead radiation can give people magic powers? 😛 Reed Richards? Peter Parker? ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-who-are-actually-good-at-their-day-jobs/655134/68 "2013-04-12T22:04:50Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Well, Clark Kent frequently posed as a bumbler, as a clown who always “just missed” the big story he was supposed to be covering. > > That inspired David Carradine’s famous monologue in **Kill Bill** (Tarantino suggested that Clark Kent acted like a cowardly klutz because, deep down, that’s how he saw human beings- as weaklings and fools). Bill clearly only ever read Pre-Crisis Superman. Post-Crisis Clark Kent was nothing of a klutz, and also a very competent reporter. On at least one occasion another publication tried to poach him from the Planet even offering to make him editor in chief. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-who-are-actually-good-at-their-day-jobs/655134/69 "2013-04-12T22:09:38Z")
> [@Mr.Miskatonic](#): > > Underdog could shine the hell out of a shoe in his alter ego job! And he was humble and lovable. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-who-are-actually-good-at-their-day-jobs/655134/70 "2013-04-12T22:14:41Z")
> [@TBG](#): > > Bill clearly only ever read Pre-Crisis Superman. And he didn’t even understand what he’d read. Bill read comic books with a deconstructionist eye: in other words, like an idiot. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2013, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-who-are-actually-good-at-their-day-jobs/655134/71 "2013-04-12T22:35:54Z")
> [@TBG](#): > > Bill clearly only ever read Pre-Crisis Superman. Worse than that - he clearly only read the Silver Age. Golden Age Clark was perfectly competent and confident - he even scooped Lois (who, herself, was competent and confident at the time, not becoming a marriage-maniac until later) occasionally. Even during the period between the Golden and Silver ages, Clark’s excuses weren’t terribly exaggerated. It was in the Silver Age when he’d start getting indigestion whenever there was trouble, or be knocked down by a classmate tossing him a medicine ball. They’d already started pulling back from the exaggerated version of Clark as the Silver Age came to an end, and for a good decade before Crisis, he was back in the Golden Age style. Bill’s interpretation is nonsensical, even then, but the basic premise was only true for ~15 years out of (at the time the movie came out) the 63 that Superman’d been around to begin with. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superheroes-who-are-actually-good-at-their-day-jobs/655134.md?page=3)