And Who Disguised As Clark Kent.... by Dave Goode

Born at the tail-end of the "baby boom" I grew up on reruns of The Adventures of Superman.As such there really isn't any other Superman to me other than George (no relation to Steve) Reeves. Long before the Ilya Salkind produced movies Reeves made us all believe that "a man could fly". And more importantly he taught us to believe in "truth , justice and the American way". But as great as he was as Superman, Reeves may have been even cooler as Clark Kent. 

 

As a kid you watch a show titled The Adventures of Superman to see the titled hero fly, smash through walls, have bullets bounce off him and punch out bad guys. It was as I grew older I began to appreciate Reeves performance as Kent. It was Kent who carried the show. He did the leg work. And he was private eye cool doing it.No one looked quite as casual cool as Reeves acting with his hands in his pockets. Watching Reeves as the investigative reporter you could easily imagine him starring in a series of detective movies for Monogram.

The Clark Kent as written for Reeves was respected by the police , who in the form of Metropolis police inspector William Henderson , often sought out his advice. His employer Perry White , editor of the Daily Planet completely trusted and respected him as well. Someone else who respected Kent were the members of the underworld who feared that he would figure out and expose their nefarious schemes. The only person that didn't seem to respect Kent was fellow Daily Planet reporter portrayed by Phyllis Coates in the shows 1st season. In subsequent seasons when the character was played by Noel Neill she respected Kent as much as everyone else. Though they were rivals.

George Reeves was far from the Clark Kent created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster for the comics. But you have to remember they created him at a time when comic books still had a comic quality. Many adventure features had comic relief sidekicks. The Superman comic books had Superman as his own comic relief in the form of Clark Kent. Kirk Alyn and Christopher Reeve portrayed Kent in that manner. But as for myself and the millions who grew up with George Reeves we prefer our Clark Kent mild-mannered not wimpy.