Clark Joseph Kent

Superman

Alien Physiology: Clark knows next to nothing about his birth species or his home world, but he knows that his body interacts with the world around him in ways completely different to everyone else. He can go for weeks without food, days without water, and even hours without air. He has come to believe that his cells absorb sunlight and process it incredibly efficiently, storing up over a lifetime on Earth and allowing him to do things that would be otherwise impossible. What Clark finds both exhilirating and concerning, though, is that even after years of trying to control and understand his abilities, he is still barely scratching the surface of what he is capable of.

Strength: The first of his abilities to manifest, Clark's muscles are able to generate more kinetic energy than should be possible, allowing him to move massive objects with his bare hands. Thus far, he has been able to hold up several thousand tons of rubble, lift the equivalent weight of a skyscraper, and tow a sinking oil tanker (weighing in excess of 225,000 metric tons) to safety. Though moving these immense weights does cause him a great deal of stress and even pain, he has shown no signs of actual injury afterward, indicating that if he can work through the strain, he is capable of doing far more.

Gravity Manipulation and Flight: While the exact process is still unknown, Superman is capable of expanding and manipulating his own gravitational field to an incredible degree. This, among other things, allows him to fly at hypersonic speeds, and grants him a sort of 'tactile kinesis' that aids his incredible strength, holding together superheavy objects that should buckle under the strain of their weight being focused entirely on his hands. While Superman has only recently demonstrated the ability to fly, he was previously capable of jumping over a quarter-mile into the air, though Clark does not know if this was due more to his gravitational manipulation or to his sheer strength.

Speed and Reflexes: When tapping into his reserves, Clark can move quickly enough to dodge bullets fired at point-blank range, and in a straight sprint, is capable of reaching speeds of up to Mach 30. However, moving at full speed creates a tremendous amount of turbulence in his wake, and in populated areas he rarely moves above Mach 1.

Durability: Superman seems thus far impervious to most, if not all, conventional weapons. Small-arms fire seems to have no effect on him at all, and heavy explosive or armor-piercing ordnance does little more than leave bruises or scratches-- and even those have become less effective over time. Not long after his debut, in an unfortunate misunderstanding that led to a skirmish with the US Military, Clark was struck in the head by a shell from the rotary cannon of an A-10 Warthog and briefly lost consciousness. Two months later, a similar headshot from an unmanned drone barely caused him to flinch. Clark has felt weakened and sickened in the presence of the metahuman known as the Atomic Skull, suggesting his powers may be sensitive to certain forms of radiation.

Enhanced Senses: Clark has always been able to perceive the world in ways he could never quite describe. His eyes are sensitive to the entire electromagnetic spectrum, and can even focus in ways that let him see through solid objects, this 'X-Ray vision' capable of filtering through up to six inches of solid lead. His hearing is also incredibly accute, able to focus on minute details at great distances, and his extremely attuned sense of touch allows him to control his immense strength without unwittingly causing damage to everything and everyone around him.

"Heat Vision:" Clark can emit stored energy through his eyes, in the form of incredibly powerful lasers that can cut through solid steel almost instantaneously. Though he typically only uses this ability as an ad-hoc welding or cutting torch, Superman has on occasion used it as an offensive weapon, generating beams hotter than the core of the sun. Doing this, however, drains his reserves of power, and can even cause him to lose consciousness if he overdoes it.

Hand-to-Hand Combat: In the rare occasions where Superman has had to fight an opponent of equivalent power, he has demonstrated an affinity for boxing, wrestling, and the use of improvised weapons. While Clark lacks any formal martial arts training, his raw power, keen senses, and sheer tenacity more than make up for it.

Clark Kent always knew he was different. Growing up in the quiet little town of Smallville, Kansas, where nothing unusual ever seemed to happen, he found himself the cause of unusual happenings all the time. Like the time he flipped over his father's tractor to retrieve a lost toy. Or the time he started seeing people's skeletons in the middle of class. Or after he found out his friend Lana's father had been abusing her, only for the man's clothes to catch fire when Clark gave him an angry glare. These incident, and dozens more like them, left Clark confused and afraid, but comforted by his mother and father, Martha and Jonathan Kent, who showed him the old stories of Captain America and the Justice Society. The things that made him different also made him special, they told him, and he could use those special things to do some genuine good in the world. He could be all those old stories made real: a real, true, honest-to-God superhero.

In his early teens, as his incredible abilities began to manifest, Clark became more curious about where he came from, how he could do all of these impossible things. After a string of arguments that led to Clark accidentally knocking over the farm's grain silo in frustration, Jonathan and Martha finally sat him down and told him the truth. He was not merely adopted, but found in a pod that crashed down from the sky like a meteor. The Kents had happened upon the crash site and, realizing they couldn't simply leave an abandoned child to fend for himself, took him in. Hoping to find some answers about his origins, they had searched the pod, but were only able to take two things from it before the site swarmed with black helicopters and unmarked Hum-Vees: a crystalline ball which hummed with a life of its own, and a red cloak, emblazoned with a logo that looked for all the world like a stylized letter 'S.' Clark was, for lack of a better word, an alien. A strange visitor from another world. Not only was he not the same family as his adopted parents, he wasn't even the same species. The shock of this revelation was too much for Clark to take, and at age 16, he ran away from Smallville, traveling the world to find a place where he might fit in.

For the next nine years, Clark spent his life on the road, meeting new people, helping where he could, and fighting injustice and oppression where he saw it. Invariably, however, whenever he would be forced to use his abilities, the people around him would be terrified, wondering what else this unassuming country boy was hiding. He quickly began using a long line of assumed identities, discarding them and moving on whenever someone got too close to finding him. Despite making greater efforts to cover his tracks, there was one person who started seeing a pattern-- and more importantly, seeing a story. It was while working to depose a warlord in the African nation of Nairomi that Clark first met Lois Lane, who had been tracking him for over a year and was convinced enough of Clark's kind-hearted nature to approach him. While his first instinct was to withdraw, he listened long enough to take some of her words to heart: that he shouldn't have to keep running from himself, that he could own his abilities instead of hiding them, and that in time the world would come around and see him for who he was rather than what he was. Sadly, before he could begin to work with Lois on this new direction, Clark had to return home to Smallville; during Clark's years away, Jonathan had contracted cancer, and didn't have much time left.

While spending those final days on the Kent farm, Clark talked with Jonathan and Martha about his travels, about meeting Lois, and about his place in the world. Taking the old red cloak they had found in his pod, and remembering the old stories and comic books he would read with his dad, Clark fashioned a makeshift costume, little more than a cape and a blue T-shirt with the cloak's logo on it, but it was an effective enough mock-up until they could make a better one. His 'practice' costume would have to do, however, when news broke of a terrorist attack on the Science Spire in the city of Metropolis. Clark sprung into action, promising to tell the ailing Jonathan all about it when he returned. After foiling the attack, holding up several thousand tons of collapsing building long enough for civilians to flee, he flew into the air for the whole world to see and sped back to Smallville....only to find that his father had passed while he was away. Still, Martha consoled him through choked-back tears, he had gotten to see his son stand tall in front of the world, to see him save lives, and to hear what the world called him in return: the "Superman."

This is a Superman that's still very new to the job, still very rough around the edges, and is more or less making up the rules as he goes. He doesn't have Pa Kent around to give him the moral of the week, nor does he have the Fortress to go talk to the computer-ghost of Jor-El, so he's less concerned with 'changing the world' or fulfilling some meta-fictionally aware 'destiny' of becoming Superman, and more focused on the tasks and the people who are right in front of him.

The downside of this is that he's also less restrained when it comes to taking action. He's bull-headed, quick to anger, and getting a little full of himself. While ultimately Clark is still the kind-hearted and good-natured country boy he's always been, he's also very much a classic alpha-male who's becoming aware of just how powerful he really is, and he's starting to like it.

Overall, the story I have for Ultimate Clark isn't necessarily about how he becomes a hero, but how he becomes a man, how he starts to define his principles and shape his actions around them. In the modern age where a lot of guys don't truly "grow up" until they're well into physical adulthood, this sort of belated coming-of-age story I think would really suit Clark, showing how he goes from being some guy in a cape to becoming the Man of Tomorrow.

Lois Lane: A fellow reporter at the Daily Planet, Lois had followed rumors of Clark's activities for years before his official debut, and was the one who coined the name 'Superman.' Lois is well aware of Clark's secret, and is a close personal confidant. Both of them have begun to harbor romantic feelings for each other, but neither has said it out loud.

Jimmy Olsen: Clark's roommate, a photographer at the Planet, and an obsessive devotee of the new 'cape culture' that's begun to emerge with the arrival of Superman.

Martha Kent: Clark's mother, who still lives in their old home in Smallville, Kansas.

General Calvin Swanwick: A Lieutentant General in the United States Army, commanding special forces assigned to monitor--and if necessary, neutralize-- Superman.

Bruno Mannheim: The head of the Mannheim Syndicate, one of the largest and most prolific organized crime syndicates on the Eastern Seaboard.

The Atomic Skull: The tragic result of military experiments to create their own metahumans, a trio of special forces operatives named Joseph Martin, John Corben, and Nathaniel Tryon were fused together into an insane, monstrous abomination that emits lethal blasts of radiation.

The Parasite: Formerly a LexCorp janitor named Rudy Jones, the Parasite has become a ravenous predator that drains the energy of anything it touches, from batteries to living organisms. Its insatiable hunger has made it seek out Superman on multiple occasions.

Livewire: A longtime activist and anti-Superman protester, Leslie Willis held a dormant metahuman gene that, when triggered, transformed her into a conscious entity of pure electrical energy. Her immense power and antagonistic view towards Superman has made her a regular foe, attempting to expose the Man of Steel as a fraud and a would-be tyrant.

Lex Luthor: The CEO of LexCorp, formerly an ailing oil company that he transformed into the largest and most profitable technological firm in the world. Lex wields tremendous power in the tech world and in the media (most outlets of which he personally owns), and has been an outspoken critic of Superman and other metahumans on several occasions. While Clark suspects his motivations and his true intentions are much darker, any connection Lex may have to any wrongdoing has yet to be proven and is, at best, purely conjecture at this point.

"I don't suppose it's in your programming to stand down and tell me what you're doing, is it?" I say as I touch down in Centennial Square, panicked crowds scattering from the sinister-looking automaton that's beginning to climb out of the crater I'd made from slamming it out of the sky. Whatever this thing is, it made a strafing run on a crowded city street, firing on innocent men and women with some sort of plasma weapon before I could stop it. No deaths yet, but several severe injuries. I'm going to make sure that's as far as it goes.

The mechanical monster pulls itself upright, standing a full twelve feet tall, the wings that assisted in its flight folding back into arms with nasty-looking pincers. The plasma weapon in its head charges up as it aims at me, and fires.

For a moment, everything is bright red and searing pain. The blast is enough to melt the glass of the windows around me, would be enough to incinerate a normal person in a fraction of a second.

Honestly, though, I've had worse.

"I didn't think so," I say with just a hint of mock disappointment, before rushing in. I go low and ram my shoulder into its waist, a spear-tackle that launches the both of us up into the air, away from crowded streets and pedestrians. It's quick to respond, though, sending a jolt of electricity surging through my body long enough for it to slip free from my grip. It turns its fall into a dive, deploying its wings again to swoop around for another attack.

I push through the air towards the cybernetic attacker, but it easily slips to one side, and I wince as it blasts me with another ray of plasma. In the air, I'm at a major disadvantage in terms of maneuverability. I found out a few months ago that I can fly, yes, but I don't have much control over it-- it's less 'Peter Pan on strings' and more 'man getting shot out of a cannon.' This thing, however, was built with air combat in mind, so it has no problem flying circles around me.

"Stay still, you-- *ngh!*" I grunt in frustration as I throw a leading right hook, only for the robot to barrel-roll away from the blow, circle around behind me, and connect with a claw that scrapes across my back.

After throwing a spinning back-fist that only meets air, I break away, speeding towards the large satellite dish on the top of the Galaxy News Network Tower. The bowl-shaped dish will cut down on the robot's possible angles of attack, giving me more of a fighting chance.

"All right," I snarl with fists up, "Let's try this again. Come and get me!"

Unable to come at me from the back or sides, the winged robot swoops in for a head-on attack. It pelts me with blast after blast of plasma, but I hold my ground, resisting the urge to charge in and allowing it to outmaneuver me again. The satellite dish starts to melt and rip away behind me, which I'm sure is expensive. Then again, GNN does host that G. Gordon Godfrey blowhard that ties everything I do into some insane conspiracy theory, so I can't say I feel all that bad about it.

Finally, the automaton is within striking range, claws gleaming, and I spring forward. My right arm swings wide for an overhead hook, and the robot's arms move to block....just as my feint intended. Twisting my torso, I bring my left hand up inside its defenses and catch it with a hard uppercut. Ted 'Wildcat' Grant called that punch the Dive-Bomb. Razor Ruddock called it the Smash. I call it a now-headless robot.

As the mechanized attacker begins to fall limply to the ground, I dive after it and catch it, preventing the debris from landing on someone.

"Now, maybe I can take you to someone who can figure out where you came from," I say to the wrecked robot, noticing the number 03 painted on the side of its fuselage.

I hear another set of engines whining, and another, both of them speeding towards me.

"Or maybe I can just ask your friends," I say with a frown, tossing the wreckage of Number 03 onto the GNN Tower rooftop as Numbers 01 and 02 come winding down from the clouds....

.....followed by Numbers 04 and 05......06.....07......

"Okay....so whoever this is, he's got a team....." I mutter to myself....

.....25 and 26......27....28......

......47.....48 and 49.....50.....the skies over Metropolis are now screaming with jet engines and plasma guns, all converging on me.....

I let out a sigh, and I crack my knuckles.