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Superman met his birth parents in a recent battle against Lobo. While he does, he learns how he got his most useful stealth ability.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Superman Vs. Lobo #2, on sale now from DC Comics.
As an alien living on Earth, Superman gets his extraordinary abilities from his Kryptonian makeup, given to him, of course, through his parents. Though they themselves didn’t have powers on Krypton, both Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van knew that Earth’s yellow sun would give Kal-El the powers that would turn him into the Man of Steel/Tomorrow. Yet there were certain abilities they couldn’t give their son, things that the Kent family had to teach young Clark. However, it seems that one of those learned abilities may be hereditary after all!
Superman and Lobo are sent to each others’ recently resurrected homeworlds in Superman Vs. Lobo #2 by Tim Seeley, Sarah Beattie, Mirka Andolfo, Arif Prianto and Fabio Amelia. “The Main Man” meets a group of Kryptonians who have decided to embrace their primal instincts after their cold calculating scientific ways led to their untimely demise. Among them is a woman called Jan-S, who helps the scientist Fel-Kar breed a dangerous army of Lobo clones. However, the truth about why she really got involved in Fel-Kar’s clone project comes as quite a shock — especially to the Man of Steel.
It turns out, though, that Jan-S was really Superman’s mother, Lara Lor-Van, the whole time. She and Jor-El knew that Fel-Kar was up to no good so they had Lara go undercover to make sure his plans didn’t come to fruition, which prevented a cataclysmic clone army from causing untold chaos across the cosmos. This act is notable because of how she went undercover. Though she’s married to one of the most prolific scientists Krypton has ever known, nobody ever recognized her. It’s not like she was wearing prosthetics or a wig, either. Other than her outfit and behavior, nothing else about her was different.
This is very similar to Superman’s own secret identity. Though Lois Lane and many others at the Daily Planet saw the Man of Steel on a regular basis, none saw past Clark Kent’s very simple disguise. Like his mother here, Clark’s outfit and behavior kept his secret. Of course, he had his signature glasses, but Lara doesn’t seem to need them. It wouldn’t be too hard to notice that Jan-S and Lara have the same face without them, anyway.
What she does here is even more impressive, especially since General Zod crashes her undercover work. Zod would surely know Lara if he saw her, and yet he didn’t notice her when he came for Fel-Kar. Even Lobo was convinced by her act, believing they were birds of a feather. It seems then that Superman’s mother may be better at using his underrated ability than the Man of Steel himself.
It’s worth noting that Superman abandoned his dual identity back in 2019. This was thanks to the lies of his other Kryptonian parent, Jor-El. Though he looked up to him his whole life, when he finally met his birth father, Jor-El left a lot to be desired. He made the Man of Steel question everything about his identity and that troubled legacy still haunts him even now. This makes Superman’s comments about his parents’ methods in this series all the more impactful.
Lara’s disguise was used to destroy the Lobo clones before they even got a chance at life. While Jor-El and Lara are pleased with themselves, their son is outraged. Superman thought them evil, but recognized that the clones were sentient beings and wanted to save them. This story takes place before even Lois Lane knew Clark’s secret, so having Superman’s first meeting with his birth parents end like this foreshadows the later troubles he’ll have with his father.
He may disapprove of their methods but he has to admit that, as Clark Kent, he behaves just as his mother did here. Perhaps that’s another reason why he finally abandoned his secret identity. Either way, it adds a whole new dimension to that decision, with Superman trying to be better than both his birth parents.
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