Which is the main identity?

[Vanyel]

I know this has been asked before because I did a Google search for it; and it has most likely has been asked here too, but I'll ask it anyway.

Which is the actual identity, Superman/Kal-El or Clark Kent? Does Superman/Kal-El disguises himself as Clark or does Clark disguise himself as Superman/Kal-El? Which is the real person?

I hope I make sense.

 

[RoJoHen]

Well, he was born as Kal-El on the planet Krypton, but he was raised as Clark Kent.

So...yes.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I think Kal-El wants to be human, in the end. He probably considers himself to be Clark first, and Superman second. Earth is his home, and he is happiest when he is Clark. He's only Superman when he has to be.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Depends on the author's goal with the story, really. I've always preferred him seeing himself as Clark Kent seeing as that is how he grew up. The George Reeves version was my primary exposure to the character so the alien Krypton angle has never been a particularly interesting aspect. In Lois and Clark he once remarked to Lois that he is Clark Kent, superman is just what he can do. Far more enjoyable than the lone alien or worse messianic hero takes which just get tedious.

 

[Nerys Myk]

It's complicated. "Clark Kent" the bumbling reporter is a disguise. "Superman" is also a disguise. "Kal-El" is his birthname and depending on which continuity is in play, it's importance varies. In my opinion, the real person is the Clark Kent who was raised by Jonathan and Martha Kent in Smallville. That's who he was for the first twenty or s years of his life and that influences who he is as Superman.

 

[Arrrrgggh]

If you were raised to be someone from before you had any permanent memories, all the way until your late teens upon which you learned that you were adopted, which would you consider yourself to be? The person you are, or the person you never knew you were?

It's pretty much self-explanatory, really.

 

[Vanyel]

If you were raised to be someone from before you had any permanent memories, all the way until your late teens upon which you learned that you were adopted, which would you consider yourself to be? The person you are, or the person you never knew you were?

It's pretty much self-explanatory, really.

So, like nurture vs. nature.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Kill Bill answered this question better than I could. To summarize Bill's point.

For most superheroes, the human identity is who he is, and the superhero is the secret identity. For only Superman, it is the opposite. Superman is who he is, and Clark Kent is the veil. His cape is the cloak he was wrapped in as a child. those are his clothes. Clark Kent is Superman's critique of the whole human race: Weak, unsure of himself.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Kill Bill answered this question better than I could. To summarize Bill's point.

For most superheroes, the human identity is who he is, and the superhero is the secret identity. For only Superman, it is the opposite. Superman is who he is, and Clark Kent is the veil. His cape is the cloak he was wrapped in as a child. those are his clothes. Clark Kent is Superman's critique of the whole human race: Weak, unsure of himself.

Nope.

 

[Silvercrest]

If you were raised to be someone from before you had any permanent memories, all the way until your late teens upon which you learned that you were adopted, which would you consider yourself to be? The person you are, or the person you never knew you were?

It's pretty much self-explanatory, really.

Pre-Crisis, his super-recall allowed him to remember being on Krypton as a toddler. In that iteration "Kal-El" was his main identity and "Clark Kent" was the disguise ... although I'm not sure where "Superman" fell into the mix.
Post-Crisis, it's as you say. "Clark Kent" was his main identity, "Superman" was his disguise, and "Kal-El" was something he was occasionally called by aliens who were familiar with Krypton.
I'm not too familar with the post-"Flashpoint" iteration, so others will have to fill in.

Though it's interesting that Batman is about the opposite. He thinks of himself as "Batman" first and treats "Bruce Wayne" as the disguise, even though his entire formative period was as "Bruce Wayne".

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Clark Kent is Superman's critique of the whole human race: Weak, unsure of himself.

Clark hasn't been 'weak' for quite some time, has he? The old days when Clark was the bumbling idiot, I always assumed were long gone.

 

[Christopher]

Which is the actual identity, Superman/Kal-El or Clark Kent? Does Superman/Kal-El disguises himself as Clark or does Clark disguise himself as Superman/Kal-El? Which is the real person?

It depends on the era. From 1938 to about 1987, the standard assumption was that Superman was his real identity and Clark was just a disguise he donned for convenience. In the comics, though he didn't initially know his origins, it was gradually retconned that he had a full photographic memory of his infancy on Krypton and full knowledge of his past and heritage, and that he'd been operating as Superboy throughout his adolescence. He kept being given more and more ties to Krypton -- Supergirl, Krypto, the Bottle City of Kandor, the Phantom Zone villains, lots of time travel stories -- and his Kryptonian identity became more important than his human facade. The radio, film, and TV adaptations didn't go that far, but insofar as they addressed the issue at all, they tended to treat Clark as the disguise. Radio Superman Bud Collyer was one of the few Superman actors who really gave Clark and Superman distinct voices, and in a radio storyline where Superman lost his memory, the voice he defaulted to was Superman's rather than Clark's. (Yet somehow, when Lois and Jimmy discovered him working as a record-breaking baseball pitcher, saw him without his glasses, and heard him speaking in Superman's voice, they recognized him... as Clark Kent. But not as Superman. Sometimes the radio show was really, really dumb.)

But when John Byrne rebooted the continuity in 1987, he inverted that. He reasoned that if Kal-El had grown up as Clark, then Clark should be his primary identity. He had Clark grow up not knowing about Krypton or his true origins, and only gradually developing his superpowers as he grew up, so that he had far more ties to his Earthly identity. He had Clark perform heroic feats secretly and in plain clothes, only adopting a costume after he'd been outed -- an approach emulated by Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Smallville, Man of Steel, and even the current Supergirl series to a degree. As Clark explained to Lois in a Lois and Clark episode where she (temporarily) learned his secret: "Superman is what I can do. Clark is who I am." L&C embraced the idea of Superman as a public persona that Clark adopted so he could help people without jeopardizing the everyday life as Clark Kent that he valued so much.

Byrne even flipped the traditional romantic triangle: Instead of Lois longing for Superman's love and feeling contempt for Clark, now Clark was Lois's romantic interest as much as, or more than, Superman. Again, this was the formula Lois and Clark followed, as well as Smallville (obviously) and MoS.

 

[The Old Mixer]

^I think that some mention should be made of the George Reeves version, in which Clark acted like a real person rather than a weakling, which was Byrne's main influence for depicting Clark that way.

To the general question, as some above have indicated, it really varies greatly depending on which version of the character you're talking about. Not only has the comic book continuity been gradually retconned, and outright rebooted several times, over the decades, but every incarnation of the character in other media has taken place in its own world. There is no one, definitive version of Superman. Superman is a mythos, like King Arthur.

 

[JD]

It's amazing that such a simple question can have such a complicated answer.

 

[Nerys Myk]

When a character has been a round for close to 80 years, things get complicated.

 

[HIjol]

I am also of the George Reeves Generation, and my understanding is that Clark Kent is Superman's alter ego, not the other way around. I also liked my Clark more assertive and "normal", and he always seemed to have a sense of duty and honor - no matter if he was Clark or Supe - at that moment. Plus, if we accept that he is from another planet, how can we say he is more comfortable and prefers being a human being?

 

[Nerys Myk]

There is a difference between him being Clark Kent and him being human.

 

[Commander Richard]

Yeah, it depends on the story and era, I know, but I'm on the side that Clark is the real person and when I saw Kill Bill, I shook my head.

 

[LaxScrutiny]

If I was starting from scratch, I would reason that if a Kryptonian could be raised as a human and there would be nothing discernibly different (other than powers) then Kryptonians are human.
To me, the opposite should be true; Kal El should have intrinsic traits and thoughts that shape his personality to be different than a human would be in the same circumstance. When he is "Clark Kent" it is an act.
That doesn't mean that growing up with Ma and Pa Kent as step parents didn't have an effect, but at core, Kal El is not Clark Kent in the sense of what you would see if you were in the newsroom at the Daily Planet. Clark Kent is the disguise, regardless of what Kill Bill implied.
"Superman" is his "professional persona." Like a doctor or a lawyer, he is bound to a code of behaviour. "Superman" is not necessarily who he is.
Kal El is the person, built from all of his experiences, but neither entirely Kryptonian nor Terran.
All that said, I'm fine with a good writer presenting their own take on the situation, I'm not arguing with "canon" and earlier posters made good points.

 

[Showdown]

It's complicated. "Clark Kent" the bumbling reporter is a disguise. "Superman" is also a disguise. "Kal-El" is his birthname and depending on which continuity is in play, it's importance varies. In my opinion, the real person is the Clark Kent who was raised by Jonathan and Martha Kent in Smallville. That's who he was for the first twenty or s years of his life and that influences who he is as Superman.

Although there are a lot of interpretations through the decades, I agree with this the most.
"Clark Kent" is the mild mannered, ordinary person. Christopher Reeves plays him as a lovable, bit clumsy, nice guy.
"Superman" is the superhero, the symbol of hope, and what he becomes when the world needs him.
He is the real him around his parents and the people who know who he really is. I think Bruce Wayne is similar in that respect too, although a lot of incarnations, he sees himself as Batman.

"I am many things to many people." - Darkseid (Superman TAS)