"Wearing the glasses" conclusion poorly reached

[caseybrn]

I think the reasoning behind the "Clark has to wear glasses" conclusion has been/is very poorly reached....

He saw it in the future (hey I loved the 200th but still) and now he is going to do it too.....

I'm not just talking about the silliness of the circular time-travel logic (which could really bring out drawing board from Back to Future in circular madness).....I'm mad because Clark didn't come to putting on the "Clark mask" as an adult/strategic decision...Instead he's just copying his future self...That's as adult as being little, and dressing up like mommy or daddy like they do when they go to work......weak!!!

[doodie8808]

not only that but how are these surpposed to work when everyone under kansas state knows his identify i mean he will be fooling no one and they took to long to make the decision anyway. I always thought the classes disguise was dumb but this takes the cake imo.

[dotsie23]

I think the TPTB crammed everything in to try to put it in the finale. It doesn't make sense especially when Clark wore glasses way back in an earlier season and I would think he should've got the idea to use those as a disguise for his identity....not a very good disguise, but this could've been done the whole time of the show.

[ginevrakent]

Clark has been thinking about using glasses as a disguise for a long time now. First, we saw him trying them out in last season's Idol and in Salvation we saw that Clark's dream of his own future (his dream not a psychic vision) included disguising himself with glasses.

Therefore, I believe it's impossible to credit Clark's visit to the future as giving him the idea or the impetus to start wearing glasses as a disguise. All it did was confirm to Clark that in the future he followed through on an idea he already had.

----- Added 13 Minutes later -----

Also, it's not like Smallville's Clark is unique in getting a lot of information about his future from people who know what they're talking about.

[sunny j]

not only that but how are these surpposed to work when everyone under kansas state knows his identify i mean he will be fooling no one and they took to long to make the decision anyway. I always thought the classes disguise was dumb but this takes the cake imo.

oh thank jaysus. thats something i've been thinking about for months. i'm wondering do the power that be think every one in smallville never mind kansas are not gonna identify who he is?

[lexluthor408]

I think the reasoning behind the "Clark has to wear glasses" conclusion has been/is very poorly reached....

He saw it in the future (hey I loved the 200th but still) and now he is going to do it too.....

I'm not just talking about the silliness of the circular time-travel logic (which could really bring out drawing board from Back to Future in circular madness).....I'm mad because Clark didn't come to putting on the "Clark mask" as an adult/strategic decision...Instead he's just copying his future self...That's as adult as being little, and dressing up like mommy or daddy like they do when they go to work......weak!!!

i was going to bring this up but didn't because people thought his line about the glasses was "funny". But maybe we will see more reasoning in the next episode.

[swellde]

Up until Clark's dream and Homecoming, I was kind of hoping that Smallville's Clark wouldn't even wear glasses since the show had gone so long without them.

Maybe the suit doesn't come from Martha but Jor-El and it has properties that make Clark look different.

[FWvidchick]

I think the reasoning behind the "Clark has to wear glasses" conclusion has been/is very poorly reached....

He saw it in the future (hey I loved the 200th but still) and now he is going to do it too.....

I'm not just talking about the silliness of the circular time-travel logic (which could really bring out drawing board from Back to Future in circular madness).....I'm mad because Clark didn't come to putting on the "Clark mask" as an adult/strategic decision...Instead he's just copying his future self...That's as adult as being little, and dressing up like mommy or daddy like they do when they go to work......weak!!!

The future isn't written in stone. Brianiac only said the he could have that kind of future if he dropped the past. Clark knows that what he see's may not be exactly how he gets it.. he still has to make all the decisions. Knowing he 'could' use glasses doesn't change the fact he has to get to that point and make all the decisions that lead to it. He got two things out of that HC look, a hair cut and glasses both of which he doesn't have to go with. *thinks please don't do the haircut*

Seeing something from the future IMO doesn't negate being an adult.. none of the things he saw in HC were about the battles ahead or any of that which is what really plays a part in his life; where the big adult decisions will come from. Seeing a few things such as being happy with Lois and having 'glasses and a bad haircut' are just moral boosters.

Heck knowing Lois knew his secret didn't make him go "oh gee I'll just tell her " and walk in and blurt it out. He still had reservations on it, he had to work up courage and in the end it was the thought that she would never know the truth that got him to tell not what he saw.
..he referred to the future trip as a 'dream' that was to good to be true. He's not treating it like a guide book.

[Billy Jor-El]

We can argue until Doomsday (oh, wait, that's been done...), but in the mythos Clark Kent's disguise includes the glasses. I'd be disappointed not to see it...even if everyone in this dimension (and a few others it seems), not just Kansas, knows it's Kal-El/Clark/Superman....

[nate-dog1701d]

Clark has been thinking about using glasses as a disguise for a long time now. First, we saw him trying them out in last season's Idol and in Salvation we saw that Clark's dream of his own future (his dream not a psychic vision) included disguising himself with glasses.

Therefore, I believe it's impossible to credit Clark's visit to the future as giving him the idea or the impetus to start wearing glasses as a disguise. All it did was confirm to Clark that in the future he followed through on an idea he already had.

I would tend to agree with this. Also, he wore glasses as part of his disguise in the alternate reality/vision in Apocalypse. The idea's been somewhere in his head for three seasons now.

[Dyanara]

I think we are just going to have to get used to a Clark Kent who is mildly intelligent; there are a lot of things he can not do on his own. The future business has made me question the relationship with Lois more than the disguise thing; but hasn't he been being led too the disguise thing since he came across the nerdy chick who worked at the DP in disguise?

[ginevrakent]

I think we are just going to have to get used to a Clark Kent who is mildly intelligent; there are a lot of things he can not do on his own. The future business has made me question the relationship with Lois more than the disguise thing; but hasn't he been being led too the disguise thing since he came across the nerdy chick who worked at the DP in disguise?

If seeing Andrea Rojas wearing glasses in Vengeance is an example of this Clark Kent being led to the disguise, then this Clark Kent is the least led Clark Kent out of all of his iconic counterparts. All of the other Clark Kents, except for those who we don't even see how or when they decided to wear glasses, were told by someone else to wear them. It's funny, though, I don't recall anyone questioning the intelligence of those Clark Kents.



In Richard Donner's Superman: The Movie, Superman is instructed on dual identities; he's basically told what to do.

JOR-EL: You are revealed to the world. Very well. So be it. But still you must keep your secret identity.
SUPERMAN: Why?
JOR-EL: The reasons are two: First, even you cannot serve humanity twenty-eight hours a day...
SUPERMAN: Twenty-four.
JOR-EL: Or twenty-four as it is in Earth time. Your help would be called for endlessly, even for those tasks which human beings could solve for themselves. It is their habit to abuse their resources in such a way.
SUPERMAN: And secondly?
JOR-EL: Second: Your enemies will discover their only way to hurt you - by hurting the people you care for.
SUPERMAN: Thank you, Father...

Another origin story, this time Batman's in Batman Begins, also featured several people trying to teach or persuade Bruce Wayne to do certain things related to his hero and civilian identities:

Ducard: A vigilante is just a man lost in the scramble for his own gratification. He can be destroyed or locked up. But if you make yourself more than just a man if you devote yourself to an ideal and if they can't stop you then you become something else entirely.
Bruce: Which is?
Ducard: Legend, Mr. Wayne.

Ducard: You have learned to bury your guilt with anger. I will teach you to confront it and to face the truth. You know how to fight six men. We can teach you how to engage. You know how to disappear. We can teach you to become truly invisible.

Ducard: Theatricality and deception are powerful agents. You must become more than just a man in the mind of your opponent.

Rachel: You care about justice? Look beyond your own pain, Bruce.

Ducard: You have to become a terrible thought. A wraith. You have to become an idea!

Alfred: In the depression, your father nearly bankrupted Wayne Enterprises combating poverty. He believed his example could inspire the wealthy of Gotham to save their city.
Bruce: Did it?
Alfred: In a way. Their murder shocked the wealthy and the powerful into action. People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy.

Alfred: If those are to be the first of many injuries to come it would be wise to find a suitable excuse. Polo, for instance.
Bruce: I'm not learning polo, Alfred.
Alfred: Strange injuries, a nonexistent social life. These things beg the question as to what exactly does Bruce Wayne do with his time and his money.
Bruce: What does someone like me do?
Alfred: Drive sports cars, date movie stars. Buy things that are not for sale. Who knows, Master Wayne, you start pretending to have fun you might even have a little by accident.

----- Added 11 Minutes later -----

As for the Lois future stuff, I disagree, but seeing as how this isn't a thread about that, I'll be brief. Clark didn't see anything significant in the future about his relationship with Lois. He even explains to Brainiac 5 that the life he saw he had with Lois was already one he had "always hoped" he would have, which we know is true because he dreamed that very future (it wasn't a psychic dream; Clark's not psychic) in Salvation. He continues to show that he doesn't even take that future for granted, like he did in Icarus when he had doubts he could make things work with Lois (he worried about Lois only being married to the Blur, which of course wasn't the case in the future he visited). Clark also only told Lois his secret because Lois said she was willing to take the risk. Before that, Clark not only thought he had gone about the secret issue incorrectly (he said he did it "wrong"), he also told Isis that he wasn't willing to risk sharing that part of himself with Lois yet. In sum, I can't think of how going to the future has negatively affected the portrayal of Clark and Lois's romance. Nonetheless, if that's how you see it, I can respect that.

[wafflles87]

oh thank jaysus. thats something i've been thinking about for months. i'm wondering do the power that be think every one in smallville never mind kansas are not gonna identify who he is?

Us humans don't see reality as it really is, we see it through filters that our mind places on everything. Basically, we see what we believe to be true and possible, not what really is. Now, most of the times, those two coincide, however our perception of reality can, on occasion, vary from what is really happening around us.

How this applies to Smallville is if Clark starts wearing the glasses, and changes his attitude a bit to be a bit more reserved, and... nerdy, as he put it, and keeps up with that for few months before making his first public appearance as Superman in circumstances where his face can be clearly seen, it's extremely unlikely people will make the connection, other than those close to him, but everyone close to him already knows the secret anyway so...

Besides, the whole idea of Clark Kent hiding behind glasses is never perfect in other media either, but it's become like, part of pop culture. I mean just think about the comics. Lois had known Clark and Superman for YEARS and she never made the connection, and keep in mind that unlike Smallville, she had repeated close contact with both over the years. For us it may sound ridiculous, but then again, it's been done for so long, we kinda just accept it.

[borednow]

... how could it not be?

I mean the whole idea. If I wear glasses know one will recognize me! ... it's a dumb idea, how could you concluded a dumb idea any way but poorly?

[DrEmil]

Why are glasses and a nerdy behavior a bad idea, people?

Think about it....we all had nerds in high-school....they wore glasses they read comics they were good in math and physics they had no good social manners....heck! I was one of them....
if I went and played football or do a heroic act and someone heard or thought about it than one would say: "No! Not a chance this geek is capable on doing such a thing!"It's all about the reputation....as Clark said on the "Masquerade" trailer: 'I'll be hiding in plain sight'....sth that if you think about it is the best hiding spot.....