Maintaining your secret identity

[Morrus]

This is another great big question mark. How common is our Kryptonite (for the remnants of an exploded planet from -- checks modern canon-- 27.1 light years distant, the stuff sure seems to be everywhere on Earth)? Is it a known super-rare object likely put in a lab whenever discovered? Does anyone know we are susceptible to it? Are the people who might wish us ill genre-savvy enough to try to find rare rocks that might make us lose our powers or suffer harm?

IIRC in Smallville (the show) a ton of meteorites from Krypton travelled through the same wormhole as Kal El’s shuttle/pod and showered down on Earth at the same time he crashed down.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is another great big question mark. How common is our Kryptonite (for the remnants of an exploded planet from -- checks modern canon-- 27.1 light years distant, the stuff sure seems to be everywhere on Earth)? Is it a known super-rare object likely put in a lab whenever discovered? Does anyone know we are susceptible to it? Are the people who might wish us ill genre-savvy enough to try to find rare rocks that might make us lose our powers or suffer harm?

Smallville's meteor showers were a good enough explanation for me.

 

[jian]

IIRC in Smallville (the show) a ton of meteorites from Krypton travelled through the same wormhole as Kal El’s shuttle/pod and showered down on Earth at the same time he crashed down.

Yes, you need something like that, otherwise no kryptonite is getting anywhere near Earth.

 

[ART!]

I would wear a full face mask, with a photo of Hugh Jackman's face (super-)stapled to my face underneath that, just in case.

 

[Willie the Duck]

IIRC in Smallville (the show) a ton of meteorites from Krypton travelled through the same wormhole as Kal El’s shuttle/pod and showered down on Earth at the same time he crashed down.

Smallville's meteor showers were a good enough explanation for me.

Right, and for storytelling purposes, it works well enough. The show did a good job of making it right next to Clark's objectives without someone necessarily knowing that it was his weakness. So that's still a toggle we can explore.

A central conceit of that show is that the "meteor rocks" (Kryptonite) are a major cause of all the superpowered chaos that shows up every week to challenge Clark's ability to do good and maintain his secret identity. That's fine of course, I just want to point out that it's an iteration of the Superman story specifically constructed to both make Kryptonite an even bigger foil for Superman than normal and keep him grounded such that a high school student who can suck the fat out of her classmates (for example) is a credible challenge for Superman.

 

[gnarlygninja]

I'm siding with the people saying a secret identity is going to be almost impossible to keep up, modern surveillance is just too good. I'm also not confident that having Superman's powers would make the rest of the world's opinion of you irrelevant, Lex causes plenty of problems for Superman and he's just one smart guy. If multiple countries are dedicating serious amounts of resources to stopping you, that's thousands of devious people who will be spending all day every day thinking about how to stop you.
I personally, with my normal human range of hearing, already have enough trouble with sounds that I carry earplugs or noise cancelling headphones with me outside of my home. I think if you suddenly added super hearing to that, I'd barely be able to function and it probably wouldn't take someone with comic book genius levels of intelligence to figure that out.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

having donated blood

Probably can’t do that if your skin is bulletproof.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

That is a very good point. I think the cameras would still let them track you down, but that would probably prevent any DNA-based approach unless you got into a fight with another super (if there even are any).

Your best bet is to cycle through a series of outfits that can be pieced from common mass-produced clothes. Anything custom will give you away, eventually. And well, as for the problem of your body shape giving you away, that is what capes and cloaks are for, to oscure your body shape.

That’s why I suggested using a full body costume- made from off-the-shelf elements- with added padding to change your silhouette.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I don't think conventional bad guys are going to knock stray hairs or skin off him, but I do think he's vulnerable to his own strength - if he exerts maximum effort to lift something or punch through something, he could scrape himself a bit in the process and leave behind skin or even a bit of blood.

Depends on which Superman power level we’re contemplating as our baseline. Merely impervious to bullets? Maybe.

The guy who can fly through stars? Nope.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I would wear a full face mask, with a photo of Hugh Jackman's face (super-)stapled to my face underneath that, just in case.