How Superman Became the Most Recognizable Superhero

How Superman Became the Most Recognizable Superhero

Larry Holzwarth - April 15, 2022

How Superman Became the Most Recognizable Superhero
Superman’s Fortress of Solitude has changed locations and appearances many times over the years. comicbooks.com

17. Little has ever been known about Clark Kent’s home life

Although Clark Kent lives in Metropolis, having grown up in Smallville, little is known of his actual residence after leaving the bucolic community and farm. He had an apartment at 344 Clinton Street in Metropolis, where he lived for years. Superman kept a room for Clark’s use (in order to protect his secret identity and fool his friends) within his Fortress of Solitude. The Fortress of Solitude serves as Superman’s retreat and private refuge, and like all things Superman there have been several. His first such refuge was called his Secret Citadel, cut out of a mountainside not far from Metropolis. Later versions have appeared in the Arctic, the Antarctic, the mountains of Peru, the Amazon, under the Sargasso Sea, and orbiting in space. Despite its formidable location and defenses, it has been breached many times by Superman’s enemies, including Lex Luthor, Brainiac, and others.

While in Metropolis Superman lived as Clark Kent, in the apartment mentioned above. In the 1980s another reboot of the Superman story created a more assertive Clark than his predecessor, and that version of the character proposed marriage to Lois Lane, as well as revealing his long-held secret of being Superman. They were finally married in 1996, as the Kents rather than as Mr. and Mrs. Superman. The engagement was a long one, complicated in part by Superman’s death in combat. Another complicating factor was the television series Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, which did not want the couple married prematurely. Lois and Clark had not yet married when Superman died in January, 1993, beaten to death by the supervillain Doomsday. It took another three years to resurrect the Man of Steel and get him to the altar, disguised as Clark.

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