Y'see, this is why I was never on the debating team. I'm nodding my head to all the different perspectives offered here in the comments folder and bouncing back and forth from one side of the fence to the other so fast that I'm almost getting whiplashed...
I got a good chuckle out of the comment about Clark being "shorter" than the original, which I'm sure you intended, CC. I instantly thought of Mayson's comment in CoM.
Although I do see Sheila's point, it didn't bother me that much. And I think it's due to what Vicki said, even though it was just a little niggling thought that wasn't fully formed until she so eloquently posted. The bit about the S.1 demeanor. And, to me at least, his face changed too.
I remember a fic by Kathy Brown where Lois tells Clark that his features were less "defined" - I think was the word - when she sees pictures of him a few years younger. And I think that's what I see during S.1: just over the course of that year, Clark's face physically matured. Does anyone else think that Clark looks a little older, a little more mature at the end of S.1 than at the beginning (and it's not just the hairstyle)?
He is certainly and definitely still recognizable as Clark Kent, but if Utopia has focused a bit more on the Clark living in Metropolis, then the early S.1 Clark would be close, but not a dead ringer.
I loved Vicki's point about how no one, including *the* Clark Kent himself, can live up to Utopia's image of Superman. And I find that incredibly sad, because by blowing up the image of the superhero to be so much larger than life, aren't they also diminishing the man? Am I the only one picturing that Utopia almost views Superman as the "real" persona, and Clark Kent as the secret identity he is hiding behind? Considering how important it was to Clark to live a "normal" life like everyone else, where *he* was the real person, this would be horribly ironic.
Kathy
