Mainly for the reason that Superman is tired of lying to everybody.
OK, the whole concept of "secret identities" has been taking a hit for the last decade or so. There are a lot of super heroes who don't even bother with the conceit of a double identity and the ones that do seem to play kind of fast and loose with the whole concept. Seriously, who doesn't know Bruce Wayne is Batman is a shorter list than those those who do.
The biggest blow to super hero secret identities comes from TV shows and movies based on comic book super heroes. The studios are all, "Look, we're paying good money to see Actor X in the role of Hero Y and damn it, we want to see their face."
How many damn times have Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland have ripped their masks from their heads as Spider-Man?
Still, the whole dichotomy of the super person spending part of their day not being that super person has been at the heart of super heroes since day one.
Literally, day one in the case of the mighty Superman disguised as mild mannered Clark Kent, a fixture in the Superman narrative since Action Comics#1.
Losing that piece of the Superman mythology just feels weird and a more than a bit wrong. When Superman rescues a kid from a fall and the kid says, "Thank you, Clark Kent!", it's a bit too surreal.
Still, props to Brian Michael Bendis for following up on the consequences of Superman deciding to "live his truth".
Perry White is looking at the upside. Making money in the newspaper game is not an easy prospect these days but damned if the Daily Planet can boast that Superman is writing for them. That's gotta be worth a few extra clicks on the ol' Daily Planet website and maybe even shlep a few extra copies of the print edition while they're at it.
Reporters who don't work for the Daily Planet are not as magnanimous about it. They realize they've been competing against a reporter who can see through walls, hear secret conversations miles away and can type at super speed.
The revelation that Superman was hiding in plain sight as Clark Kent also begs the question of what else is Superman hiding.
The question of Superman's character takes a hit when a Daily Star reporter receives video taken at the formation of the United Planets.
Where Superman says he will speak for Earth.
So who is this guy to say he speaks for Earth?!?
The whole concept of the United Planets takes a hit too when Mongul finds out that Superman was spending part of his days just being a normal human which royally ticks him off. So Mongul (or rather his son also named Mongul who just killed off his dad) goes to the United Planets meet up to kick everybody's ass.
By the way, Lex Luthor is pissed too.
Oh, and to complicate things further, Lois Lane has info from Lex that the current owner of the Daily Planet is the head of a super criminal organization called the Invisible Mafia.
And damn, just when things were just starting to go so well for Perry White and the Daily Planet.
All this story and more was told over recent issues of Superman and two specials, once focused on the reaction of heroes to Superman's reveal and the other on the villians' take on this news.
At this point, I'm going to veer away from the Superman narrative and vent at the comic book business.
Each of those two specials were $5.99. Yep, 6 bucks a pop. And I didn't even get a complete story. The 2nd of the two volumes ends with set ups to follow the story in Superman, Action Comics and Supergirl. I spent 12 dollars for a series of admittedly interesting but nonetheless inconclusive vignettes across the DC universe addressing the impact of Superman's revelation but essentially, it's $12 for an advertisement setting up stuff that will happen in other books.
It's a rip off, DC! And I'm not happy about it.
Which erodes that good will I was experiencing thanks to Brian Michael Bendis and his handling of this remarkable phase in the life of Superman. I may not agree with the decision for Superman to reveal his identity as Clark Kent but I do think Bendis is doing a very capable job of navigating the new and possibly treacherous currents of Clark Kent's new status quo.
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