Young Clark Kent

Before the legend, before the icon, there was a teenager named Clark Kent. Someday, he'll master his powers and understand his true calling. For now, he just has to get through adolescence. These are the stories between the boy he thought he was and the man he is destined to become.

Name: Clark Joseph Kent (Earth name), Kal-El (Kryptonian name) Occupation: Student, farm boy Place of birth: Krypton Legal status: U.S. citizen with no criminal record Known Relatives: Jor-El (father; deceased), Lara Lor-Van (mother; deceased), Jonathan Kent (adoptive father), Martha Clark Kent (adoptive mother) Hometown: Smallvile, Kansas

History: Long ago, a planet named Krypton orbited the distant red dwarf star Rao. The Planetary mass closest to its sun, Krypton was once a modest-sized planet, roughly the mass and volume of Earth. Over the eons, plant and animal life evolved on Krypton, and a race of sentient humanoids virtually indistinguishable from Earth humans became the dominant life form. It is only at the cellular level that the real differences between the people of Earth and native Kryptonians could be determined. Evolving under the intense radiation of their red dwarf sun, Kryptonians developed a unique cellular structure that enabled them to absorb energy from their sun. Although they derived most of their nourishment from the consumption of animal and vegetable matter, solar energy supplemented their diets. They were, in effect, living solar batteries.

It was on the planet Krypton that the scientist Jor-El and his wife, Lara Lor-Van were born and died. As a member of the Science Council, Krypton's ruling body, Jor-El discovered the Phantom Zone and many other worlds. He also found out something horrifying: Krypton was in great danger. He predicted that due to internal eruptions, Krypton would soon explode. When he produced his findings, however, he was laughed to scorn. Jor-El was determined to find a way off the planet, and he began to research ways of getting off Krypton.

Jor-El had only one thing to do. He began work on a spacecraft that he hoped could carry his son, Kal-El, through an artificial wormhole to the planet Earth, which he had recently been observing. Jor-El had just enough time to build one small rocket. No sooner than he finished the ship, the time of Krypton's death came. The ground began to shake and Jor-El knew he had to act quickly. Lara and him placed their son, still a toddler, in the ship and targeted it for Earth.

Jor-El ordered them inside while he made the final calculations. There was room in the ship for both Lara and Kal-El. But Lara flatly refused. She told him that their son would have a better chance without her weight. Through his studies, Jor-El also knew that their son would grow strong and powerful on Earth as his cellular structure absorbed the solar radiation of Earth's sun. He told Lara that this would give their son the advantage he would need to survive on Earth. Jor-El then launched the rocked and Lara stepped into his arms. They embraced, watching the ship get smaller and smaller. Then, the world of Krypton exploded after the pressure grew to much for the planet's mantle to contain, transmuting the sum and substance of the dying world into an ore with a radiation that is lethal to Kryptonian physiology.

The tiny spaceship generated a wormhole and traveled through it, covering the fifty light-years that separated Krypton and Earth in a matter of moments. However, hundreds of pieces of Krypton's debris also traveled through the wormhole. The ship crash landed in a wheat field in the rural Kansas town of Smallville as a meteor shower of Krypton's debris rained destruction on the unsuspecting citizens of the town.

While in their farmhouse, Jonathan and Martha Kent heard the ship crash. Intrigued by the chance of being able to find an actual meteorite, the Kents jumped into their truck and drove out to the backfield, where the object had seemed to hit. What they found was a shallow crater and an object that appeared to be a tiny spacecraft. Approaching the craft, Martha thought she saw something moving inside. When Jonathan gingerly reached out to the craft to touch the smooth, egg-like upper section of the craft, it seemed to melt away, revealing a three-year old boy inside. On the ride back to the house, the childless couple discusses what to do with the boy. Martha argued that they should keep him, and Jonathan was hard pressed to think of a reason why they shouldn't. By the time they got home, they had already decided to name him Clark, Martha's maiden name, and raise him as their own son.

As a young child, Clark Kent picked up good values from his loving hard-working parents, learning responsibility in helping with chores around the farm. He also acquired the Kents' love of reading and often derived as much pleasure from sitting under a tree with a book as he did from a fast game of softball. For all intents and purposes, Clark appeared to be just another normal, healthy American boy.

But he was not normal. Just as his genetic father, Jor-El, had calculated, Clark's Kryptonian cells began storing and processing the radiation of Earth's sun. As he grew older, Clark became increasingly stronger and more powerful. The first noticeable consequence of his power came when Clark was 8 years old. Taking a short cut across a pasture, he was trampled by an angry bull, but he sustained no injuries. A few months later, Martha Kent was astounded to see her son casually lift the back end of their pick-up truck to retrieve a ball that had rolled out of reach.

As he entered puberty, Clark discovered that he could see farther and in increasingly greater detail than any of his friends and that he could see through solid objects if he concentrated and he also developed the ability to emit heat from his eyes. At the age of 13 Clark began wearing eyeglasses to help control his vision powers, so he didn't accidentally look somewhere he shouldn't or set something on fire.

Aware that their son is possessed of awesome powers far beyond those of mortal men, Jonathan and Martha have raised Clark in virtual isolation, prohibiting him from participating in contact sports. As a result, Clark has the reputation of a gawky nerd, and is extremely self-conscious and full of trepidation about his place in the world. Because of his otherworldly origins, Clark often feels truly alone in the world, like an outsider looking in. Even his best friends Chloe Sullivan - the intrepid investigative reporter for the Smallville High Torch - and straight-talking Pete Ross have long been in the dark about Clark's powers.

Also, Clark struggles with his feelings for the beautiful girl next door, Lana Lang; the girl he worships from afar. Although she feels a strange kinship to Clark, Lana doesn't know much about him, especially that he blames himself for her parents' tragic death in the meteor shower so many years ago. A true beauty and one of the most popular girls in school, Lana dates Smallville's resident heartthrob and high school quarterback, all-around golden boy Whitney Fordman. Clark's yearning to talk to Lana is complicated by the meteor rock that she wears around her neck. Whenever he gets near her, the green stone causes him to become literally weak in the knees.

Clark has also forged a remarkable new friendship with Lex Luthor. Inexplicably bald from exposure to the meteor shower when he was a child, Lex returned to Smallville after college to help turn around the family company's struggling fertilizer plant. After Clark saved Lex's life in a death-defying rescue, the two became friends. Clark looks up to Lex as the big brother he never had, and Lex is surprised that this small-town boy is someone he can actually trust. But the friendship causes tension in the close-knit Kent family, as Jonathan fears Lex may take after his ruthless tycoon father, Lionel Luthor.

Meanwhile, the intervening years since the meteor shower have left Smallville's inhabitants with scars and secrets; some even with unusual traits inherited as a direct result of exposure to the meteor rocks. From the ashes of the tragedy, Clark Kent has grown into an awkward teen. While adolescence always brings its challenges, Clark's transition from boyhood to adulthood is particularly difficult. He must struggle to come to grips with his emerging superpowers, and the effects of the meteor rocks, while battling the strange things that have plagued the idyllic Midwest hamlet that is Smallville since the meteor shower.

Height: 6'1" Weight: 175 Hair: Black Eyes: Blue

Powers: The cellular structure of a Kryptonian is similar to that of humans. However, a certain chemical makeup in the ribosomes (organelles responsible for protein synthesis) is capable of absorbing solar energy and storing it. Once the ribosomes achieve saturation levels of this radiation, they begin to re-radiate the energy in the form of a bioelectric forcefield. Each individual cell within the field's radius becomes reinforced in such a way that the cells are not only protected from external harm, but internal forces as well. It is this last which is key to Clark's great powers. Since the individual cells are wholly invulnerable, they are capable of operating at levels of efficiency that would destroy normal humanoid cells. These "super-cells" lend an enhancing effect to all bodily systems...muscular, metabolic, nervous, and so forth. The continual absorption of solar energy provides a constant power source for these enhanced systems. Thus, Clark Kent is capable of incredible feats.

Naturally, the basic forcefield effect renders him invulnerable to large amounts of damage. Unlike a human, Clark's body has more than simple cohesion and adhesion holding his tissues together. The bioelectric forcefield has a set tolerance for how much stress occurs before it reacts energetically in opposition to the external force. The tolerance for how much stress occurs before Clark's tissues counteract it varies according to tissue type. His bones allow virtually no compressional or tensional strain (deformation in shape) and his fleshy tissues remain supple under soft pressure, but under stress react to restrict any further deformation in shape. Since the strength of Clark's cellular forcefields greatly exceeds the cohesive force of any substance, no ordinary object can puncture his skin.

Clark's cells provoke one another into releasing their respective energy when one begins to threaten the integrity of the other. Because of a certain degree of constant pressure, there is a continuously emitted radiance of the bioelectric field reaching slightly beyond his body, a sort of aura that protects items near his skin. The aura also protects Clark's teeth, however his hair and nails are only partially protected due to certain cellular properties they possess. They are invulnerable to fire, however they can still be cut.

Due to the highly charged nature of his solar storage systems, his immune system deals with most normal poisons and diseases quickly and with no ill effect. With the exception of Kryptonian meteorite emissions, radiation and similar harmful energies are similarly neutralized.

His physical strength is greatly magnified by the combination of his more-efficient muscular system and the enhancement of his skeletal system's structural integrity, but is primarily augmented by the sheer force of his solar forcefield. When Clark appears to be lifting a weight, he is actually holding and pushing it with the bioelectric field. His energy stores push not from himself, but from the shielding that surrounds him. So the shielding is controlled on the highest level and simulates strength. However, continual exertion will deplete his solar energy, and greatly exceeding his normal lift will drain him more rapidly.

Similarly, Clark's enhanced metabolic rate, muscular speed, and nervous system grant him incredible speed. His Kryptonian structure and the solar energy paths that course along his neurophysical structure allow him to react at many times normal human speed. He can move faster than the human eye can perceive if necessary, but this requires extra effort. His reflexes are quick enough to allow him to dodge incoming automatic laser fire. Clark's perceptions are similarly rapid, allowing him to see individual bullets fired from high-speed automatic weaponry in flight and outrace them easily. Moving at extreme speeds for extended periods of time rapidly drains his solar reserves.

The enhanced structure of Clark's sensory organs combined with the increased capacity of his nervous system provides for the greatly enhanced senses. His range of hearing extends from the subsonic through to the point where signal modulation in broadcast communications can be sensed and demodulated into "sounds" if he concentrates. His visual reception range covers the entirety of the electromagnetic spectrum. The difference between human and Clark's vision is that Clark has the capability to see a much wider band of the electromagnetic spectrum; while humans only sense a very narrow band of the spectrum we call visible light. Clark can change the spectrum he perceives at any given time, by changing the chemical receptors in the rods and cones of his retinas. He can adjust his photovoltaic detection as an act of will to sense longer wavelengths down to the infrared, and higher energy light, up to X-ray and gamma radiation.

Kryptonian muscle tissue when super-charged with solar-energy, can generate a powerful gravitational field. Clark can use the gravitational fields generated by the muscles in his eyes to produce a gravity lens, allowing him to focus far beyond the range of the human eye. Combined with Clark's sensitivity to light, he can magnify an image a virtually countless number of times. Clark can see through solids objects by using a combination of these telescopic and microscopic visual abilities to see through the atomic structure of an object and focus past it, as a camera focuses beyond the dust on a lens. Certain dense materials, notably lead, obstruct this ability.

Clark has the ability to expel stored (solar/electromagnetic) internal energy in the form of focused beams of radiation from his eyes. He emits light along various frequencies in high energy bursts that flash-melts materials in seconds, weaken structural integrity over a smaller area, such as melting the barrel of a gun but leaving the handle untouched. Clark can control his heat vision and direct it wherever he wants to. He directs it with his eyes. In actuality, Clark could not emit the beams directly from his eyes. The energy is actually built up on the surface of the bio-energetic field surrounding his body and emitted from there. This allows his body to be protected from the energy and absorb stray electromagnetic energy back into his body. Clark's energy reclamation aura is so efficient that any radiation, even those emitted from him, once in the environment are able to be reabsorbed. The heat beams are psionically controlled and that control is reflexive, so he can shut it off without accidentally damaging anything that he does not want to. He can emit the radiation visibly or invisibly at lower settings. His energy has a high visibility profile if emitted at higher levels.