abstract | - Costume: Superman wears a dark blue bodysuit complemented by red boots, and a long, flowing red cape. There is a highly stylized Superman insignia - consisting of a large red letter "S" inscribed within a yellow shield, which is bordered in red - emblazoned on his chest. The back of Superman's cape bears a similar insignia, except that this one consists of a yellow letter "S" inscribed within a yellow shield bordered in yellow. History: Clark Joseph Kent was born in Smallville, Kansas and raised on a farm just outside the town. When Clark began attending elementary school, he quickly made friends of classmates Lana Lang and Pete Ross. He picked up good values from his loving hard-working parents Martha and Jonathan Kent, learning responsibility in helping with chores around the farm. He also acquired his parents' love of reading and often derived as much pleasure from sitting under a tree with a book as he did from a fast game of softball. For all intents and purposes, Clark appeared to be just another normal, healthy American boy. But he was not normal. For he was mutant and as he entered puberty his cells began storing and processing the radiation of Earth's sun in a way that would endow him with numerous superhuman abilities. As he grew older, Clark became increasingly stronger and more powerful. The first noticeable consequence of his power came when Clark was 13 years old. Taking a short cut across a pasture, he was trampled by an angry bull, but he sustained no injuries. A few months later, Martha Kent was astounded to see her son casually lift the back end of their pick-up truck to retrieve a ball that had rolled out of reach. At the age of 14, Clark discovered that he could see farther and in increasingly greater detail than any of his friends and that he could see through solid objects if he concentrated and he also developed the ability to emit heat from his eyes. Soon after Clark began wearing eyeglasses to help control his vision powers, so he didn't accidentally look somewhere he shouldn't or set something on fire. Even after he learned to control his supervision, he continued to wear the glasses as they made him feel normal, flawed...more human. A little while after turning 17, Clark found that he could step off into the air and fly. His joy at the discovery of his power was boundless, as was his parent's astonishment. Throughout their son's adolescence, Martha and Jonathan kept his incredible abilities secret and always stressed the importance of this secrecy to Clark. His parents feared that if knowledge of Clark's powers became public, he might be taken away from them. They suspected that some people would be afraid of him or consider him a monster and that unscrupulous people would try to exploit his powers. They knew that at the very least, the inevitable publicity would disrupt their lives for all time. Moreover, Clark's parents cautioned him that while his powers were a great gift, they didn't necessarily make him a better person. Martha and Jonathan impressed on the boy the responsibilities that power entails. They also taught him that each individual should strive to leave the world a better place than they found it. As firm believers in the Golden Rule, they told Clark that he should never use his special powers to set himself up as better than anyone else or to make other people feel useless. But youthful exuberance often overcomes the best intentions. During his senior year in high school, Clark began to utilize his strength and speed on the footfall field, becoming the star of the team. After winning the final game of the season almost single-handedly. Clark found his stern-faced father waiting on the sidelines. Jonathan had a long talk with his son about his great powers needing a nobler purpose than winning sporting events. After hours of discussion and reflection, Clark shamefacedly agreed with his father. He realized that the time had come to shoulder his responsibilities. Months later, after graduating from high school, Clark said an emotional goodbye to his parents. For the next four years, he wandered the Earth, mastering his amazing powers and employing them - always in secret - to help other people, to save lives, and to prevent disasters. Places he went to include India, the High Sierras, China, Bangkok, the Amazon, and the Sudan. He traveled, observed, and learned much about the ways of the world, but finally he concluded that he needed a more formal education. He moved to New York City and enrolled in Empire State University. Clark threw himself into his studies. He decided to major in journalism, but he eagerly took as many additional courses as he could, obtaining a board base of knowledge in both the sciences and humanities. He also found that he could apply many of his travel experiences for additional credit. During this time, Clark acquired an abiding love for New York City and its people. It was in that city, not long after graduating summa cum laude from ESU, that circumstances forced Clark to use his powers in public for the first time. The Constitution, NASA's experimental space plane, was ending its maiden flight with a landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport. Daily Globe reporter Lois Lane was one of the crew members aboard the space plane as part of NASA's Journalists-in-Space program. She had been submitting daily reports on the Constitution's flight to the nation's media, and an enormous crowd had congregated at the airport for the historic landing. All was going according to plan until a small civilian plan slipped into the secured airspace and collided with the space plan. Fused together by the impact, the airplanes plummeted earthwards, out of control. Clark Kent, watching the landing in the midst of the gathered crowd, realized that he had only moments to prevent a crash and leapt skyward. Grabbing the Constitution, he put all of his strength and his astounding power of flight into righting the crafts and bringing them in for a landing. Once the ships were safe on the ground, Lois immediately disembarked to question him. Their eyes met, and for a moment, neither of them could say a word. Then the crowd surged past security barricades, surrounding the hero-of-the-day. Clark was mobbed by people clutching and pulling at him. They all wanted to touch him. Their voices rose in a roar of offers and demands. To Clark's mind, it was as if they all wanted a piece of him. Appalled by the crowd's reaction, Clark fled the scene before he could be identified, flying to think at the farm back in Kansas. Lois Lane, meanwhile, filled her story of the rescue, describing as best she could the unknown "Superman" who had saved the planes and the crew's lives. Unsure what to do, Clark sought guidance from his parents. Jonathan Kent suggested that Clark adopt a costumed secret identity, in which he could publicly use his powers for good. Clark and his parents devised his new identity as Superman, taking the name that the Daily Globe reporter had given her mysterious rescuer. Martha Kent created Superman's uniform, employing Clark's suggestions. She remembered how the only items of clothing that had survived her son's developing powers were those that fit most snugly, so she designed the uniform to be skin-tight blue bodysuit. Clark and Jonathan together designed the distinctive S emblem on a triangular shield for the chest and red cape of his uniform. Working with his parents, Clark devised subtle tricks of appearance by which he could divert any attention from his resemblance to Superman. His glasses changed the shape of his face when he wore them and the slightly tinted lenses darkened his bright blue eyes. Clark would adjust his style of dress, wearing looser clothing to hide his very muscular physique. He would also adjust his posture by slouching to appear a little shorter and soften his voice. He also tidied up his seemingly naturally messy hair. Clark reasoned that by appearing unmasked as Superman, he would distract most people from even considering that he might spend part of his time as someone else. Besides, not wearing his glasses while in costume already made his face look very different to an astonishing degree. As an added precaution, as Superman he would vibrate his face at an almost infinitesimal level. It would be so slight to be completely unnoticeable to someone looking at him, but would be enough so that photographs would only show his features as a blur, thus preventing the danger of photos of both identities being reliably compared. Returning to New York, Superman quickly made his presence known. Nothing escaped his attention, from simple purse snatchings to three-alarm fires to attempted bank robberies. Exhilarated by the opportunity to operate openly, Superman seemed to be everywhere at once in the days that followed. The effect of Superman's actions against the criminal element caused a major down turn in crime, but neither the police nor Lois Lane could get any firm details on their city's new hero. Threatened by Superman many New York City crime syndicates formed a single organization under the leadership of Bruno "Ugly" Mannheim. He unified the cartels into "Intergang" and hit back at Superman with mutant henchmen. The police responded to the incident by forming the Special Crimes Unit (SCU). Closer ties between Superman and the police were fostered when Clark used a carefully managed "interview" to scoop a job at the Daily Globe and to explain Superman's agenda. His sudden appearance with the scoop of the decade earned him Lois's enmity. She had delivered a similar story onto the desk of the Daily Globe's editor, Barney Bushkin, which she had obtained by deliberately putting herself in danger to lure Superman to her rescue. When Superman first appeared in New York it was a city controlled by one man, Lex Luthor. Luthor had pulled himself out of the slums and had built a multinational empire called Lex Corp, with holdings in almost every major industry. He directly or indirectly employed nearly two thirds of the people in New York City. That power base made Luthor the most powerful man in New York and he did not let people forget it. He used carefully arranged charitable donations and civic schemes to create an image of a benevolent businessman, yet behind the scenes Luthor controlled the Mayor's Office and often used his own security force to strong arm opponents into shady and illegal deals. Of course carefully faked documents and a legal web made sure no evidence could ever be pinned on Luthor. He was never arrested until he tried to ensnare Superman in his web. Seeing that Superman had eclipsed him, Luthor was determined to bring this intriguing outsider on to his team. He staged a high society party on his private yacht knowing that it was going to be targeted by a terrorist faction. When the terrorists attacked Luthor deliberately held his personal security force back to draw Superman into the open. Afterwards Superman found himself on the receiving end of a twenty-five thousand-dollar check from Luthor. The outraged Mayor deputized Superman and ordered him to arrest Luthor on charges of reckless endangerment. Lex Luthor was booked and charged like any common criminal, but his lawyers had the charges thrown out and it never came to court. It was the start of a bitter war between Superman and Luthor. The two have come into conflict repeatedly, each despising the other immensely. Superman has since established himself as the greatest champion of justice in New York City, and, indeed, the world. Height: 6'3" Weight: 225 Hair: Black Eyes: Blue Know Superhuman Powers: Superman is a mutant with the superhuman ability to absorb ambient solar energy into the cells of his body and re-radiate it in the form of a bio-gravitational forcefield that permeates Superman's entire body. The gravitational field's connection to his brain endows him with the ability to manipulate and control gravity within and immediately around his personal physical space in the form of very specific manifestations. One specific manifestation is Superman's ability to levitate and fly as a result of having absolute control over his body's gravitational field to the point of being able to negate any outside gravitational influence over him and manipulate that personal gravity field to essentially fall forward in a direction and speed of his own choosing. Also, when he applies physical force on an object, through sheer exertion of his musculature he partially nullifies any outside gravitational influences on that object and exerts the force of his own gravitational field on the object in a manner that endows an affectation of superhuman strength. When Superman lifts or pushes an object of enormous weight, he is in actuality moving the object by physically manipulating a projected gravity field on or around it. He can lift 100,000 tons with serious effort. Superman can even generate a gravity lens on the surface of his eyes, allowing him to magnify an image a virtually countless number of times to the point of being able to see through a solid object by seeing through the atomic structure of the object and focus past it, as a camera focuses beyond the dust on a lens. Certain dense materials, notably lead, obstruct this ability. Because of the presence of the bio-gravitational field, his body has more than simple adhesion and cohesion holding his tissues together. The field augments the integrity of the molecular and atomic binding processes of Superman's entire cellular structure to a degree that almost nothing can puncture or damage his body, making him invulnerable to physical harm. As a consequence of his cells being permeated by a bio-gravitational field and their binding forces being augmented, they are reinforced in such a way that they are not only protected from external harm, but internal forces as well and therefore operate at levels of efficiency that would destroy normal humanoid cells. That has led to an enhancing effect to all of Superman's bodily systems...muscular, metabolic, nervous, and so forth. The enhanced structure of his sensory organs combined with the increased capacity of his nervous system provides for greatly enhanced senses. Superman's visual reception range even covers the entirety of the electromagnetic spectrum. His enhanced metabolic rate, muscular speed, and nervous system grant him incredible speed and rapid perceptions. The combination of augmented metabolic functions and excess solar energy paths that course along his entire cellular structure enables Superman to voluntarily control aspects of his bioelectromagnetic processes to the point of being able to project raw energy from his body. Most prominently, he can project focused beams of high-temperature electromagnetic energy from the surface of his eyes. Superman can also 'breathe' out from his lungs a type of energy that will slow down the molecular motion of an object at such an incredible rate to create ice blocks, as well as freeze objects and opponents. Further, the augmented functionality of his brain cells enhances his memory retention capacity as well as his pattern-matching and analytical skills to the point that his raw intelligence is at a level nearly beyond normal human capability. Weakness: The fatal flaw in Superman's cellular physiology is the unique radiation given off by an extremely rare extraterrestrial mineral named kryptonite. In the most minute amounts, the radiation waveforms and high-energy particles emitted by kryptonite can react catastrophically with the very cellular functions that grant Superman his powers. The briefest contact can inhibit the force of the bio-gravitational field, stripping him of his incredible powers, and further begin a fatal poisoning that totally shuts down cellular activity in the affected areas. Prolonged exposure to kryptonite radiation would eventually kill Superman. However, the rate of recovery once removed from the emissions is as rapid as the rate of damage, and he will be back to normal in under an hour after exposure in optimal conditions. The emissions of kryptonite can be blocked by lead and other super-dense materials.
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