Clark Kent has the advantage that no one would think that the guy slouched at the next desk doing the third rewrite on a story about local government funding cuts is secretly a godlike superbeing.
Here’s the big one, basically him shifting between characters entirely through body language, Clark to Superman to Clark: https://youtu.be/tNUu6Lf9mVU?t=77
I enjoy that Clark Kent is Superman’s best attempt at blending in with humankind. Deep down, that gentle, dithering, weak nerd is what he really thinks humans are.
Eh, I kinda hate that interpretation of Clark, to be honest. One of the (many) things that I loved about the 90’s Superman TAS was that Clark Kent in that show *was* him, but him as he’d be without powers. Not playing up or down to the audience, absolutely capable of being a strong, intrepid reporter.
Because that Clark Kent feels like a person, not a caricature, which is what a lot of the interpretations of the character often go for.
Not in the sense of the Abrahamic god, but more of a Greek or Norse idea – a human-like figure with power beyond our means, but still a fallible being who can be injured or killed.
Also, Superman doesn’t have a secret identity. He’s done interviews. Everyone knows his real name is Kal’El and he’s a refugee from the destroyed planet krypton, where his entire family died apart from his cousin Zor’El. They live in a crystal palace at the north pole, and spend their time there with the memories of their lost homeworld when they aren’t out protecting the Earth and its people in gratitude for the new home they’ve made here.
Just because you might kniw someone who kind of looks like them doesn’t mean they’re the same person. I had a math teacher who kind of looked like George Foreman and, to my knowlege, has never never been photographed in the same place at the same time with him. That doesn’t mean that the famous boxer leads a secret double life teaching high school kids trigonometry. I know who George Foreman is and I know who Mr. Sherman is and even if they kind of look alike, they’re not the same person.
Also, Superman and Clark Kent HAVE been seen at the same place at the same time, on multiple occasions, even on live television in some versions of the continuity.
I mean, seriously, you’re telling me that a guy who can fly in space, shoot lasers outta his eyes, push the planet around, etc. would waste his time playing reporter when he could be anywhere he wants doing whatever he wants?!
The same guy with such a ridiculous savior complex and super hearing that they train people on the other side of the planet to call for him specifically when in danger because that’s the thing most likely to get you saved in the least amount of time no matter where in the world you might be? That guy? You think HE’d waste time he could be saving more cats from trees writing news articles about himself?
I mean, I hear the rest of the Justice League give him a hard time for being TOO GOOD! And you think he’d rather be writing puff pieces for the Daily Planet and making goo goo eyes at Lois Lane than doing more good? That boyscout? Really?
Linda Walkerton: You probably can’t expect too little of her. Beyond ‘will probably not personally murder someone.’ I would totally buy her bailing a kidnapper out, though! Wonder what she thinks of Leland.
Since, you know, we’ve NEVER HEARD HER SAY A WORD ABOUT LELAND. (Who among other things threatened Walky pretty clearly in front of a teacher, given Walky’s terrible acting, but you know. He has such potential!)
Possibly more impressive, Billie knows it first. Look at her posture in the first panel — that’s sheer “So, the obvious guess as to what Linda and Charles’re up to is…” She’s not trying to find an extravagant guess about how they’re being terrible, this is what she assumes is par for the course.
What Sal gets is the way this idea will come about.
It has morphed from a horse to a donkey and needs to be dropped.
‘Drop the Dead Donkey’ has been the subject of many column inches. Various journalists have with great authority explained its provenance as a well-known industry expression. The truth, sadly, is that the writers made it up.
I think it’s hilarious. It’s one of the jokes that disappears for a long time and then just when I forget about it, someone brings it up and makes me cackle.
We still don’t have definitive proof on who Amazi-girl is. Maybe we never have! *Casually burns literal mountain of evidence proving Amber is Amazi-girl*…Maybe we never will.
Billie’s the respectable richwhite-passing daughter Linda wanted. Billie is therefore better able to leverage ‘what the actual fuck? No, do not try to get a student expelled because her dad’s a kidnapping, murdering mobster, she had nothing to do with that except as a victim! Why are you helping the mobster?’ than Sal is (ie, not at all,) and Walky burned what little credit he has against Linda’s Wanting To Speak To The Manager (which would pretty much just be ‘the surprise of speaking up to disagree at all,’ with MAYBE a ‘I know Mike wouldn’t want Amber expelled’ but who knows,) sticking up for Sal. If Billie says it, well, Sal hasn’t been putting crazy ideas in BILLIE’S head the way she must have with Walky.
She’s still the same in this universe. But it’s still enough that non-Joyce people can tell; I think Dorothy even told Danny that she was sending a half-Asian cheerleader with glasses his way.
Yeah, ‘white-passing’ (I forgot the ‘reasonably’ which is the necessary modifier) is quoting Billie directly about her surrogate daughter status. If even she agrees with Sal it’s a factor, that’s a sign it’s fairly obvious. (Back discussing the care package cookies and the disparate treatment between her and Sal.)
Walkyverse Billie is white, DOA Billie being half-Chinese is new. (Most visible in the strips around the two late-stage Shortpacked weddings, where her skin is distinctly pink and it is WEIRD.)
If Amber is responsible for the kidnapping, and Amazi-Girl is Amber, and Sal is Amazi-Girl, then Sal is responsible for the kidnapping. It’s simple logic.
I forgot for a hot minute she thinks Sal is Amazi-Girl, there are 10 people in total that know that it’s actually Amber and she hasn’t caught up yet….Anyway I feel like what they should do is not bring just one extra person but probably stage an intervention with her along with everyone else who was held captive ( especially including Amber because this would be a nother scenario where Linda is the one I villainizing someone she hasn’t sat down and have a conversation with) and explain to her that she’s taking this out on the wrong person.
I mean she won’t listen to reason but maybe an group of people in a closed space and a bit of public shaming could help since she so concerned on not looking bad.
And that’s why the Oxford comma is important. I initially read that as saying she’s drawn to bad ideas like pseudosciences, were are actually political ideologies which are based on a combination of lies and pyramid schemes. ;p
Sal is right, which is ironic of something Billie said in Walkyverse about journalism. In both Walkyverse and Dumbing of Age Billie is really skeptic about things that are obviously true, which ironically makes her gullible enough to believe lies and be as misinformed as an antivaxxer or a flat earther.
Billiew is the perfect example of an skeptic that doesn’t question the media but questions what her friends and family say.
Fucking hell, has Billie ever actually SEEN Amazi-girl? Because just the body type differences alone would prove to her that they’re not the same person.
Pretty sure there was overlap between the two of them at the Party Of Doom. Which had solid enough lighting Billie SHOULD have been able to see 1) AG is thicc, 2) AG is white. That said she showed up and immediately went into Substantial Knowledge Of Horrible Things Mode (realizing Joyce had been roofied and asking her important questions about allergies and such) so her focus was understandably not there. I suspect Billie just Did Not Process AG’s appearance there AT ALL.
Billie has been shown to reach absurd conclusions. She didn’t offer explanation for the skin before but she has suggested her hair could be a wig and that usually Sal’s boots have heels for other differences. She imagines Sal could put together an amazing disguise.
Billie, being Amazigirl is not a parentally-approved extracurricular. Especially not for Sal. I’m thinking that Sal could win a Nobel and they still wouldn’t approve.
“Yes, Billie, because we’d just go around telling everyone Amber’s secret identity. It isn’t as if there are several gangs and other groups looking to get her because of her interference in their activities!”
Also, telling it to Billie in the same breath that you point Billie at your mom is probably a good way to make your mom find out, and your mom is just looking for any way she can to hurt Amber.
…. yes, it is too a way for your mom to find out, you’ve been at this school for a couple of months now, haven’t you learned that’s how hijinks work yet?
To be fair to Billie, she’s going off what the abductees all told the paper, and Walky has just confirmed that that’s what they said. Which means that while they all know Amber = Amazi-Girl, they’re trying to keep her out of trouble by revealing the fact.
Walky just admitted that they all lied by omission. Billie is quite right to be suspicious.
Now, just before we take the last panel to suggest that Billie is good at her job, there’s the penultimate panel, which reveals the opposite, because she’s so fixated on the idea of Sal being Amazi-Girl that she thinks the fact Sal wasn’t abducted is evidence in favor of that idea. No, Billie. Based on the story they’ve told, it is reasonable for you to no believe Amber is Amazi-Girl. But it is not an argument for Amazi-Girl being Sal.
Maybe I read too many comics, but honestly, if I were a reporter on the superhero beat, I would assume that the more evidence there was that someone wasn’t the hero’s secret identity, the more likely it was. Nobody’s been photographed with Superman more often than Clark Kent.
That’s technically correct (the best kind of correct). Amber did get kidnapped along with them, and Amazi-Girl did “show up” (that is, asserted herself) later.
Even in the official story, they weren’t necessarily both there – Amber was kidnapped, but released to contact Becky, then she informed Amazi-Girl as well, who showed up to the rescue. Then AG vanished as caped crusaders tend to do.
They just need to work in an explanation for why Amber was back at the scene when the police showed up.
I do NOT trust either of the Walkerton parents to have a nuanced and compassionate stance on mental illness and neurodivergence. (Just wait until the ‘Walky’s struggling in his classes because he’s likely ADHD and doesn’t know a way to study that works’ shoe drops.) NOW Amber should be expelled because she’s CRAZY and should be locked up away from good, sane students. (/irate sarcasm.)
“next you’ll tell me she wears a MASK”
…wait
Billie’s definitely cut out for journalism. All of Clark Kent’s co-workers have this same disorder.
Eh, Lois has figured it out. Multiple times.
Ya but then Superman gaslighted Lois nearly every time.
Clark Kent has the advantage that no one would think that the guy slouched at the next desk doing the third rewrite on a story about local government funding cuts is secretly a godlike superbeing.
The slouch and general body language help with that. A lot.
Christopher Reeve really made this believable.
I post/link that clip at least once a year. It’s still incredible to watch.
Which clip?
They already linked it this year, sorry
Must be this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtrXDq5OTn4
Here’s the big one, basically him shifting between characters entirely through body language, Clark to Superman to Clark: https://youtu.be/tNUu6Lf9mVU?t=77
I enjoy that Clark Kent is Superman’s best attempt at blending in with humankind. Deep down, that gentle, dithering, weak nerd is what he really thinks humans are.
Eh, I kinda hate that interpretation of Clark, to be honest. One of the (many) things that I loved about the 90’s Superman TAS was that Clark Kent in that show *was* him, but him as he’d be without powers. Not playing up or down to the audience, absolutely capable of being a strong, intrepid reporter.
Because that Clark Kent feels like a person, not a caricature, which is what a lot of the interpretations of the character often go for.
It also gave us the best, bar none, instance of Clark Kent admitting to Lois Lane that he’s Superman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfAvN6rXdkM
Dunno if I’d say godlike. Maybe demigod. Depending on which rendition and storytelling medium he’s featured in. Mostly I’d just say he’s magic.
Kinda like Mike, except he doesn’t have the superpower of tormenting masked heroes while unconscious.
Not in the sense of the Abrahamic god, but more of a Greek or Norse idea – a human-like figure with power beyond our means, but still a fallible being who can be injured or killed.
Also, Superman doesn’t have a secret identity. He’s done interviews. Everyone knows his real name is Kal’El and he’s a refugee from the destroyed planet krypton, where his entire family died apart from his cousin Zor’El. They live in a crystal palace at the north pole, and spend their time there with the memories of their lost homeworld when they aren’t out protecting the Earth and its people in gratitude for the new home they’ve made here.
Just because you might kniw someone who kind of looks like them doesn’t mean they’re the same person. I had a math teacher who kind of looked like George Foreman and, to my knowlege, has never never been photographed in the same place at the same time with him. That doesn’t mean that the famous boxer leads a secret double life teaching high school kids trigonometry. I know who George Foreman is and I know who Mr. Sherman is and even if they kind of look alike, they’re not the same person.
Also, Superman and Clark Kent HAVE been seen at the same place at the same time, on multiple occasions, even on live television in some versions of the continuity.
I mean, seriously, you’re telling me that a guy who can fly in space, shoot lasers outta his eyes, push the planet around, etc. would waste his time playing reporter when he could be anywhere he wants doing whatever he wants?!
The same guy with such a ridiculous savior complex and super hearing that they train people on the other side of the planet to call for him specifically when in danger because that’s the thing most likely to get you saved in the least amount of time no matter where in the world you might be? That guy? You think HE’d waste time he could be saving more cats from trees writing news articles about himself?
I mean, I hear the rest of the Justice League give him a hard time for being TOO GOOD! And you think he’d rather be writing puff pieces for the Daily Planet and making goo goo eyes at Lois Lane than doing more good? That boyscout? Really?
Every time I forget about that someone brings it up. Every time it gets funnier.
And damn, Sal, no need to murder her.
Same
Also, I “love” that Sal knows her mom is gonna blame her for this shit at some point.
Linda Walkerton: You probably can’t expect too little of her. Beyond ‘will probably not personally murder someone.’ I would totally buy her bailing a kidnapper out, though! Wonder what she thinks of Leland.
Since, you know, we’ve NEVER HEARD HER SAY A WORD ABOUT LELAND. (Who among other things threatened Walky pretty clearly in front of a teacher, given Walky’s terrible acting, but you know. He has such potential!)
Possibly more impressive, Billie knows it first. Look at her posture in the first panel — that’s sheer “So, the obvious guess as to what Linda and Charles’re up to is…” She’s not trying to find an extravagant guess about how they’re being terrible, this is what she assumes is par for the course.
What Sal gets is the way this idea will come about.
The running gag of Billie thinking Sal’s Amazi-Girl always makes me snicker.
Personally I was getting kind of tired of it.
Same, been tired of it. I groan each time it comes up.
It has become a dead horse joke.
It has morphed from a horse to a donkey and needs to be dropped.
‘Drop the Dead Donkey’ has been the subject of many column inches. Various journalists have with great authority explained its provenance as a well-known industry expression. The truth, sadly, is that the writers made it up.
I think it’s hilarious. It’s one of the jokes that disappears for a long time and then just when I forget about it, someone brings it up and makes me cackle.
My immediate reaction to this strip was “Wait, she’s still on that???”
Given what they’ve all been through (well, not Billie) it’s sort of comforting to go to some of the old conversation beats.
Billie’s a smart girl She’ll figure it out eventually.
Is she though?
Kinda-maybe-sometimes-perhaps?
She does dumb things the smart way, and smart things the dumb way. Smart things the smart way just don’t seem to stick.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/yikesy/
Billie… convincing Linda that her daughter is a vigilante superhero kicking college student ass all over campus is not going to help anything.
In honesty, if they found out Sal was occasionally helping Amazi-girl with her thug beatdowns, it would not go over well.
“Sal, did you attack that poor white boy [accused of rape by some hussy]?”
Ugh, that made me throw up in my mouth a bit.
We still don’t have definitive proof on who Amazi-girl is. Maybe we never have! *Casually burns literal mountain of evidence proving Amber is Amazi-girl*…Maybe we never will.
The tags make it very clear that Amber is NOT Amazi-girl.
…. but if she’s not Amber… and if she’s not Sal… WHO IS SHE???/?
Faz.
I am here for this alternate timeline comic.
Gizmoduck, clearly.
Bloodrose.
Walky, just point out that five different people saw her put on and take off he.mask. She Showed up later because she was released before the rest,
Also she kind of took off her costume in public after confronting Blaine
And they have been seen in the same space at the same time multiple times before then
Also they very visibly brawled at a congresswoman’s rally!
What good does Walky think Billie can do here? I’m genuinely curious, does he think that Billie can somehow fix this?
He thinks that their parents are more likely to listen to Billie than Sal.
Billie’s the respectable
richwhite-passingdaughter Linda wanted. Billie is therefore better able to leverage ‘what the actual fuck? No, do not try to get a student expelled because her dad’s a kidnapping, murdering mobster, she had nothing to do with that except as a victim! Why are you helping the mobster?’ than Sal is (ie, not at all,) and Walky burned what little credit he has against Linda’s Wanting To Speak To The Manager (which would pretty much just be ‘the surprise of speaking up to disagree at all,’ with MAYBE a ‘I know Mike wouldn’t want Amber expelled’ but who knows,) sticking up for Sal. If Billie says it, well, Sal hasn’t been putting crazy ideas in BILLIE’S head the way she must have with Walky.The crazy part is that Billie is fairly obviously at least half Asian, so I wouldn’t even say she’s immediately white passing.
It’s not that obvious! Joyce thought she was Mexican!
Joyce, admittedly, is not good at race.
Anyhow, Billie’s own self-description was “reasonably white passing.”
IIRC in the Walkyverse, her mom’s Chinese and her dad’s British.
Headcanon says they met in Hong Kong and emigrated to the US in the mid-nineties before the handover.
She’s still the same in this universe. But it’s still enough that non-Joyce people can tell; I think Dorothy even told Danny that she was sending a half-Asian cheerleader with glasses his way.
On the other hand, Walky is white-passing enough for Linda. By that metric, so is Billie.
IIRC, Billie’s mom being Chinese is specifically for Dumbing of Age, not something that applied in in the Walkyverse.
Yeah, ‘white-passing’ (I forgot the ‘reasonably’ which is the necessary modifier) is quoting Billie directly about her surrogate daughter status. If even she agrees with Sal it’s a factor, that’s a sign it’s fairly obvious. (Back discussing the care package cookies and the disparate treatment between her and Sal.)
Walkyverse Billie is white, DOA Billie being half-Chinese is new. (Most visible in the strips around the two late-stage Shortpacked weddings, where her skin is distinctly pink and it is WEIRD.)
If Amber is responsible for the kidnapping, and Amazi-Girl is Amber, and Sal is Amazi-Girl, then Sal is responsible for the kidnapping. It’s simple logic.
Sal: Amazi-Girl stabbed me in the hand!
Billie: You stabbed yourself in the hand? D-do I need to get you a number for counseling…?
I forgot for a hot minute she thinks Sal is Amazi-Girl, there are 10 people in total that know that it’s actually Amber and she hasn’t caught up yet….Anyway I feel like what they should do is not bring just one extra person but probably stage an intervention with her along with everyone else who was held captive ( especially including Amber because this would be a nother scenario where Linda is the one I villainizing someone she hasn’t sat down and have a conversation with) and explain to her that she’s taking this out on the wrong person.
Right! I want everyone who was there that night to band together against Linda.
I mean she won’t listen to reason but maybe an group of people in a closed space and a bit of public shaming could help since she so concerned on not looking bad.
Shaming in numbers.
Christ Billie is thick as pig shit. She can’t make this situation worse but she’ll definitely try.
… I SO do not agree that Billie can’t make this situation worse.
No, she’s thicc as pig shit, spell it properly.
*sees the speakers’ circuits are fried*
Imma hafta get back to ya.
Walks over with a late-90s MiniDisc boom box and hits PLAY on Bad Communication (E. Style).
B’z is always the right choice. They’re even in one of the best RPGs out there.
I’m confused why making Linda think Sal being Amazi-girl would be a good idea. I doubt she approves of vigilantes
It’s Billie’s idea. Billie is automatically drawn to bad ideas.
Bad ideas like pseudosciences, political ideologies based on lies and pyramid schemes.
And that’s why the Oxford comma is important. I initially read that as saying she’s drawn to bad ideas like pseudosciences, were are actually political ideologies which are based on a combination of lies and pyramid schemes. ;p
*which are actually grrr.
Personally, I would accept both readings.
Same.
Sal is right, which is ironic of something Billie said in Walkyverse about journalism. In both Walkyverse and Dumbing of Age Billie is really skeptic about things that are obviously true, which ironically makes her gullible enough to believe lies and be as misinformed as an antivaxxer or a flat earther.
Billiew is the perfect example of an skeptic that doesn’t question the media but questions what her friends and family say.
Well her family are Walky and his parents.
I can’t believe Billie still thinks Sal is Amazigirl
Fucking hell, has Billie ever actually SEEN Amazi-girl? Because just the body type differences alone would prove to her that they’re not the same person.
Pretty sure there was overlap between the two of them at the Party Of Doom. Which had solid enough lighting Billie SHOULD have been able to see 1) AG is thicc, 2) AG is white. That said she showed up and immediately went into Substantial Knowledge Of Horrible Things Mode (realizing Joyce had been roofied and asking her important questions about allergies and such) so her focus was understandably not there. I suspect Billie just Did Not Process AG’s appearance there AT ALL.
Billie was also absolutely SMASHED at that party. She was only able to sober up enough to help Joyce.
There was also the time AG helped Billie to bed, but Billie was, again, totally destroyed.
“Of course you think Amazi-Girl was white.”
— Billie, to Joyce
There was a short incident near the beginning of the comic – https://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/04-the-bechdel-test/nerds/ and the two after.
Willis Suspension of Disbelief perhaps?
Billie has been shown to reach absurd conclusions. She didn’t offer explanation for the skin before but she has suggested her hair could be a wig and that usually Sal’s boots have heels for other differences. She imagines Sal could put together an amazing disguise.
Check and mate, Walky
Sal’s not Amazi-Girl, but she’s a semi-amazi-lady. Or something like that.
Is that still a thing?
(How is that a thing anyway, Amazigirl is pretty white, no?)
She’s both Caucasian and rarely gets any sun, so I’ma say she’s not just white, she’s pasty.
Billie is really stubborn. Shaking her of a mistaken belief is a slow, torturous process as Ruth has already begun to find out.
Billie, being Amazigirl is not a parentally-approved extracurricular. Especially not for Sal. I’m thinking that Sal could win a Nobel and they still wouldn’t approve.
They’d probably think: “At last the delinquent girl has started to try!”
I was about to say it wasn’t a parent-approved extracurricular for Amber, either.
Then I remembered it was. 😐
“Yes, Billie, because we’d just go around telling everyone Amber’s secret identity. It isn’t as if there are several gangs and other groups looking to get her because of her interference in their activities!”
“… Now you put it that way, it does sound dumb.”
Also, telling it to Billie in the same breath that you point Billie at your mom is probably a good way to make your mom find out, and your mom is just looking for any way she can to hurt Amber.
…. yes, it is too a way for your mom to find out, you’ve been at this school for a couple of months now, haven’t you learned that’s how hijinks work yet?
To be fair to Billie, she’s going off what the abductees all told the paper, and Walky has just confirmed that that’s what they said. Which means that while they all know Amber = Amazi-Girl, they’re trying to keep her out of trouble by revealing the fact.
Walky just admitted that they all lied by omission. Billie is quite right to be suspicious.
Now, just before we take the last panel to suggest that Billie is good at her job, there’s the penultimate panel, which reveals the opposite, because she’s so fixated on the idea of Sal being Amazi-Girl that she thinks the fact Sal wasn’t abducted is evidence in favor of that idea. No, Billie. Based on the story they’ve told, it is reasonable for you to no believe Amber is Amazi-Girl. But it is not an argument for Amazi-Girl being Sal.
Wouldn’t they also have said that Sal showed up later, with the motorcycle to chase down Blaine?
Maybe I read too many comics, but honestly, if I were a reporter on the superhero beat, I would assume that the more evidence there was that someone wasn’t the hero’s secret identity, the more likely it was. Nobody’s been photographed with Superman more often than Clark Kent.
That’s technically correct (the best kind of correct). Amber did get kidnapped along with them, and Amazi-Girl did “show up” (that is, asserted herself) later.
Even in the official story, they weren’t necessarily both there – Amber was kidnapped, but released to contact Becky, then she informed Amazi-Girl as well, who showed up to the rescue. Then AG vanished as caped crusaders tend to do.
They just need to work in an explanation for why Amber was back at the scene when the police showed up.
Walky and Sal’s parents would understand the whole Amber / Amazi-Girl dynamic, if they only read the comics on the “Dumbing of Age” website.
Which admittedly would make things somewhat MC Escher-ish…
I do NOT trust either of the Walkerton parents to have a nuanced and compassionate stance on mental illness and neurodivergence. (Just wait until the ‘Walky’s struggling in his classes because he’s likely ADHD and doesn’t know a way to study that works’ shoe drops.) NOW Amber should be expelled because she’s CRAZY and should be locked up away from good, sane students. (/irate sarcasm.)
Oh, Billie… But is good to see Walky and Sal work together.
Wow, Billie’s confusion is finally coming to a head.