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At six years old Clark Kent lifts a tractor over his head.
His parents tell him everything is fine. They tell each other every thing is fine. They tell themselves everything is fine. Clark suspects that he’s done something wrong. He can hear their hearts beating frantically in panic. He wants to cry. Tries to apologise.
‘Its fine,’ they assure him over and over. They keep saying it. ‘Everything is fine. You’ve done nothing wrong…
…but; never ever do it again! Especially not in front of other people.’
By six and a half Clark understands that other people can’t lift tractors. They can’t do lots of things he can. He’s different.
‘It’s fine,’ his parents assure him, it’s ok that you're different; but Clark knows it’s not.
If it was, then why would it be a secret?
…
At eight years old Clark Kent discovers Hercules.
He stares transfixed at the screen as the cartoon boy runs super-fast and then lifts giant bales of hay over his head as if they weighed nothing. Just as Clark himself can.
As long as no one but his parents are there to see it of course.
He’s learned by now. The difference between what he can do and what a normal boy his age should be able to do. He knows not to let others see how different he is.
Different from everyone.
Everyone but Hercules.
‘He’s like me,’ Clark realises with wonder. ‘He’s just like me.’
A boy from somewhere else. Fallen to Earth. Found and raised by kind farmers. Gifted with incredible strength but lost and searching for his place in the world.
Hercules. Son of Zeus.
Maybe that’s where Clark is from too? A son of Zeus? A god lost on Earth?
‘Yes’, he decides, ‘That’s it. I’m like Hercules.’
On the screen Clark watches as Hercules grows from a lost boy into a hero.
‘I can be a hero too’, he thinks, smiling at the idea.
…
By ten years old Clark Kent could recite every word in Hercules off the top of his head and would often be found humming the songs, caught up in the magic and wonder of a story that felt like it was made just for him.
He thinks Megara is the prettiest most perfect girl in all the world.
…
At sixteen years old Clark Kent stands in his parent’s barn. In front of a spaceship. The spaceship he had arrived on Earth in. The spaceship his parents had found him in. The spaceship they had stored away all these years. The spaceship they had finally decided he was ready to see.
Clark took deep measured breaths that his strange non-human body didn’t really need and tried to remain calm as his sense-of-self crumbled to dust.
A spaceship. His spaceship.
He wasn’t a god.
He was an alien.
…
‘I can still be a hero,’ he decides eventually, ‘whatever I am, wherever I’m from, I can still be a hero.’
…
The recordings of Jor-El were a poor substitute for Phil: legendary trainer of heroes, but it was the best Clark had.
…
At twenty-four years old Clark Kent meets Lois Lane.
He thinks she’s the prettiest most perfect woman in all the world.
‘I’m a damsel, I’m in distress, I can handle this, Have a nice day.’
He can practically hear her voice saying the words. It’s like his childhood dream girl stepped out of his tv screen and into a smart business suit.
He longs to hear her call him wonder boy.
Instead, she anoints him with a slightly different moniker.
…
Superman tries to explain to the people of Earth that he is an alien.
The newspapers insist on calling him a god.
…
In time, they call him a hero.
…
At twenty-seven years old Clark Kent meets Diana Prince, daughter of Zeus.
He flies himself into orbit and spends five minutes screaming at the top of his lungs into the void of space where it won’t be heard; flinging himself through a series of wild somersaults. He takes deep, calming, utterly unnecessary breaths of airless space, then flies back down to the bemused looking Amazonian still standing where he left her and offers his hand with a smile, his whole body vibrating with excitement.
“It is an absolute pleasure to meet you,” he tells her sincerely, “I have so many questions.”
…
Diana had never seen Hercules, but of course she knows the name. She teaches him stories from the legends her mother told her.
Clark teaches her all the songs.