Secret Identity
Superman's secret identity as Clark Kent is one of the DC Universe's greatest secrets. Only a few, trusted people are aware of it, such as Batman and other members of the Justice League, Superman's cousin Supergirl, and Clark's childhood friend Lana Lang (In pre-Crisis stories, Lana did not know but their friend Pete Ross did, unbeknownst to anyone—including Clark). Lex Luthor, other supervillains, and various civilians have learned the secret identity several times, though their knowledge is usually been removed through various means (the boxer Muhammad Ali is one of the very few to deduce the identity and retain the knowledge).
Traditionally, Lois Lane (and sometimes others) would often suspect Superman of truly being Clark Kent; this was particularly prominent in Silver Age stories, including those in the series Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane. More recent stories (post-Crisis) often feature the general public assuming that Superman has no secret identity due to the fact that he, unlike most heroes, doesn't wear a mask. In "The Secret Revealed," a super-computer constructed by Lex Luthor calculated Superman's true identity from various information that had been assembled by his staff, but Lex dismissed the idea because he could not believe that someone so powerful would want another, weaker identity. In post-Crisis continuity, Lois Lane, feeling that someone like Clark could not be Superman, never suspected the dual identity beyond one isolated incident before Clark finally revealed it to her. In "Visitor," Lois finds Superman at the Kent farm with Lana Lang and asks him point-blank if he is Clark Kent. Before he can answer, the Kents tell her that they raised Superman alongside Clark like a brother. In the 2009 retcon of the mythos, Lois Lane is fully aware from the beginning, along with Perry White, that the meek, pudgy and bumbling Clark Kent deliberately holds himself back: however, still far from associating him to Superman, they simply believe he's hiding his qualities as a good reporter. In the current continuity established by DC's "New 52" relaunch in 2011, Lois Lane remains unaware that Clark is Superman.
In the future of the Legion of Super-Heroes, his secret identity is historical fact, with exhibits at a Superman Museum depicting the hero and his friends and family's adventures.
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Famous quotes containing the words secret and/or identity:
“There will be but few people who, when at a loss for topics of conversation, will not reveal the more secret affairs of their friends.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Unlike Boswell, whose Journals record a long and unrewarded search for a self, Johnson possessed a formidable one. His life in London—he arrived twenty-five years earlier than Boswell—turned out to be a long defense of the values of Augustan humanism against the pressures of other possibilities. In contrast to Boswell, Johnson possesses an identity not because he has gone in search of one, but because of his allegiance to a set of assumptions that he regards as objectively true.”
—Jeffrey Hart (b. 1930)