Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Superman: Birthright, Issue #3 – “A Legacy Reborn”! In the previous installment, Clark Kent does a pretty poor job of keeping Kobe Asuru safe and he gets knifed in the gut. Abena is pissed, but Clark thinks he did the Ghuri a great service! Oh well.

Clark Kent goes home to his parents’ farm. After a small how-do-you-do, he tears up the barn to find his famous crashing-on-Earth-as-a-baby space pod. There he finds the large piece of fabric with the trademarked Superman logo on it (all rights reserved). He asks his mom to sew him a costume.

And the rest is history!

But no, we still have ten issues to read.

Superman: Birthright, Issue #3 [November, 2003]
Written by: Mark Waid
“A Legacy Reborn”

I think it’s nice that Clark’s mom sewed a costume for him at Age 25. If the guy’s so fucking super, you would think he’d be able to handle this task himself. Women’s work, I suppose, right Clark?

“It’s not like I can just take this project to a tailor. No… I think we’re wise keeping this all to ourselves,” muses Clark as he and his mom walk down the farm. A guy in the shadows is listening to all this. There’s always a Guy in the Shadows, isn’t there? Even when there really shouldn’t be any shadows to speak of.

Clark is positively excited that this is all coming together! Pants are moist with anticipation! He’s even got DRAWINGS and SKETCHES laid out on the kitchen table for the costume design and colors! And that dastardly Guy in the Shadows, he’s peeking in on this part too.

Never fret, dearest readers, the guy lurking is only Jon Kent the Chainsmoker. There’s a look of sadness in his eyes as he peers at his family in secret. He takes a trip to Clark’s childhood bedroom, which looks untouched since the day his boy left home…

There’s also a large hole in the ceiling, no doubt a relic of one of Clark’s early-aged misadventures.

“Son,” Jon comes back downstairs and tells his beefy hunk ‘o junior that he needs help with a few farm related farm chores. Clark is all yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah just a second pops.

Clark and Martha boot up Clark’s endlessly-charged Kryptonian iPad to view a picture of a few superheroey-types for reference. They look stupid in their costumes. Perfect!

Clark is currently wearing a “got milk?” shirt, lmfao.

They both start oohing and aahing and strokin’ and fawnin’ over all these really hot Kryptonian scientists and warriors. “They wanted me to carry on for them here…like it’s my calling, my birthright.” Ha, sounds familiar. Maybe they should make a limited series about that. Ooops! I completely forgot about Dad! He’s probably upset that I forgot all about him and his stupid farm work.

Sorry, Pops! The last two minutes and fifteen seconds really got away from me!

“Pretty soon, you can go play-acting in your little costume. That’s great,” Jon huffs as he walks on through.

It’s like, look dad. You should be happy I even bothered to come back. I was having way more fun in Ghana getting shot at.

Martha gives Clark a look like “BRORRT”, like “BZZZRT”, like the artist doesn’t know how to draw eyes or faces or noses or expressions.

Later that evening, Martha confronts her passive aggressive husband about his weird, closed-off behavior ever since THE LIGHT OF THEIR LIVES came home.

“Got no axe to grind. Don’t see the problem,” Jon grunts with a frown and tries to continue with his bedtime routine of bottling up emotions until he’s killing cows with his shotgun in a murderous rage.

Now’s not the time to shut down, sir. Clark is home and he’s at a very crucial turning point! Maybe talk to him and bring him back down to reality. Make him see that he’s still just like us!

“Well, that’s just it, isn’t it? He’s not.”

Martha freaks out at this and tells him to hush his goddamned mouth.

Whoops! Heh heh, super hearing! Look on the bright side, at least the bed springs aren’t squeaking.

The next morning, Martha talks about an early school memory where a science teacher posited the notion of alien life. The whole class laughed and laughed at this. Even Martha! Well, ever since Clark’s ship crashed, she wishes she could go back in time and apologize to that teacher. “Hardest secret I ever had to keep, Clark.”

Clark is barely listening. He’s snooping around the barn. “Found out last year that I could focus my vision like a microscope, and it’s been a while since I’ve examined the rocket.”

Martha starts guilting the lad about being away so long and visiting so infrequently. It’s not Clark’s fault that his dad doesn’t like reading emails! The old man can barely work a calculator. And not even one of those TI-83 Plus graphing calculators! Like, the solar powered ones that ain’t need no batt’ries.

“You’d think someone who didn’t get along with his own father would be a little warmer to his son,” Clark grumbles as he shoots eyeball lasers at a shoe for some reason. What he should know about Jon’s dad, Matthew Kent, is that he was a “spiteful, needy man who worked hard to make Jonathan feel stupid and insecure.” And how dare you entertain the idea that Jon feels any differently toward you now than he ever has before? Now go to your room, young man, or you’ll get such a spankin’.

So what’s up Dad’s butt? Martha doesn’t really know.

Jon walks into the barn and they’re both like “HA HA WE WERE JUST TALKING ABOUT YOU! Hehe, not like that, it’s all good! Hey, wanna see the progress on the costume?

Jon’s like “nah.”

And the cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon/Little Boy Blue and the man in the moon…

Martha and Clark leave the barn to Jon. When they’re out of sight, Jonny Boy picks up a sledge hammer and starts bashing the rocket. Just wailing on it for about nine panels. It doesn’t scratch the thing one bit, but wooden pieces of the barn start splintering and breaking, effectively exposing the outside.

“Uh oh…” Jon thinks before the rocket blasts the fuck off outta there, punching itself through the barn’s framework and turning what was left of the structure into kindling.

Next thing Jon knows, he’s up in the air, safe from the harm of the collapsing barn. A frazzled, shirtless Clark holds his dad about 80 feet in the air. “What on Earth was that about?” Clark demands. Guess who has leverage here? Literally. Don’t anger the kid, he’ll drop you like a rock.

“No good reason,” Jon gibbers, referring to his insane outburst, “Pretty damn fool thing to do. Won’t happen again.” The dude is sweating bullets.

It dawns on Clark that he’s never actually taken his dad up to the sky before. He didn’t think Jon ever wanted to, but Clark was wrong about that. “Fly? Why wouldn’t I [want to]? Guess you don’t know me as well as you thought, huh? Don’t feel bad, Clark, that’s my fault…and now I’m paying for it.”

Clark starts taking the man back down to the ground, all the while Jon moans about not being a real dad and how big of a failure he is. He tried, OH DID HE TRY! But it was no use! Things are weird! Waaaahhh!! “A dad’s job is to give to his son. Pass along what he knows… and enough of who he is to matter. That’s their bond. And if ours was that strong, seven years apart wouldn’t wipe it out.”

Clark tries to start with a big “aww hell no, pops”, but Jon cuts him off again with another pile of speech balloons. Jon’s been quiet because he didn’t want to believe shit is broken between them! But when you, YOU, *shakes angry finger at his degenerate son*, you little snake, you want to CHANGE YOUR NAME? YOU WANT A NEW IDENTITY? What the fuck, kid??

This old man is reminded that he, too, left the house at 18. He, too, spent time as a young man trying to find his place in the world. He, too, embraced a journey to find a sense of self rather than let others decide who he was.

Who gives a shit about your courage, son? I certainly don’t! I’m a bad dad! Waaaahhhhhh!!!

So we’re a lot alike! Remember when you said that I wasn’t like you? No, I fucking HEARD you say it while I was jacking off 70 yards away from the house at 1am. Don’t try to backpedal on that one, Dad.

ANYWAY, Clark doesn’t want to find a new identity, per se. He doesn’t want to stop being Clark Kent. He just wants to find out what else can be incorporated into the whole Clark Kent package! And if that means sexy blue tights, then it means sexy blue tights.

And that also means NO MASK. “If I want people to trust me, they’ll have to be able to see my face.”

No mask?

NO MASK.

So, you’re anti-mask?

YES.

Son, you should wear a mask to protect yourself and others.

NO MASKS. I’M AN AMERICAN AND I HAVE THE FREEDOM TO REJECT THE TYRANNY OF THE MASK.

Ok then. I guess we have to figure out how to hide your real identity then if you won’t wear a mask. You’re making this hard for yourself.

Assless chaps are off the table, then.

First of all, no t-shirts. I can see your 40-pack abs. Every woman on the street will be drooling. Put on this sweater.

Next, let’s brush your hair. Can’t have a disheveled, homeless-ass-looking superhero.

OK, say something out loud…yuck, your voice sucks. Bring it up a notch and speak a little softer, you’re scaring the kids.

Slouch a little bit more, you’re standing up too straight. You look like some military asshole. Put on this suit jacket. Now you look like Don Draper! What do you think?

…

Not quite. Also, your eyes are WAAAYY too blue. You look like a creepy alien. Here, put on these nerd glasses. There, now your eyes are less… well, it looks better.

Nice look, Four-Eyes. Did your mom dress you?

No one will ever guess that the tall, buff, dark-haired, blue-eyed man with the glasses is Superman! Very camouflaged. Incognito as all get-out.

Martha advises him to work on being a boring white guy, which means Clark really doesn’t have to change too much about himself. No one will think twice.

One last thing: working as a reporter? That’s just asking for trouble. You’ll be hanging with piranhas for eight hours a day. You’ll be around a bunch of people whose job it is to expose the truth. Do you think that’s wise, Clarky old boy?

YES! AND NO MASKS!

Fair enough. Now, hanging around a small town is no place for a guy like Clark. He has to be anonymous, and what better place to be anonymous then a large city? New York! Los Angeles! Even Gotham, ha ha! Where do you want to go?

No better place than a fake city like Metropolis!

Final Thoughts

I’m glad that this story started picking up a little bit. I was afraid Clark was going to be hopping around to different exotic locales just to accidentally screw things up for an endless cavalcade of innocent civilians.

I also like seeing more of the human aspect of Superman. He always comes across to me as some dimwit who brute-forces his way through every problem, but it’s nice to remember that he had a somewhat mundane upbringing. I’d like to see a lot more of the Smallville years someday.