Man of Steel Not Fit for Print

Clark Kent makes a major life change in new 'Superman'

USA Today

The Daily Planet has a new job opening.

In Superman issue 13, the Man of Steel's alter ego, mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent, quits the Metropolis newspaper that has been his employer since the DC Comics superhero's earliest days in 1940.

With Daily Planet editor in chief Perry White getting on his case for not enough scoops on the Superman beat and his boss' boss Morgan Edge also giving him a hard time, leads to a Jerry Maguire-type moment where he quits in front of the whole staff and rails on how journalism has given way to entertainment — in a not-so-mild-mannered fashion. (The Daily Planet has also been moving more toward the real world, too, with the newspaper becoming part of the multimedia corporation Galaxy Broadcasting.)

"This is really what happens when a 27-year-old guy is behind a desk and he has to take instruction from a larger conglomerate with concerns that aren't really his own," Superman writer Scott Lobdell explains.

You know newspapers are officially dead when even Superman can't save them. Lobdell also said that Clark Kent "is more likely to start the next Huffington Post or the next Drudge Report than he is to go find someone else to get assignments or draw a paycheck from."

The Drudge Report might be a stretch. I can't see some Krypton born to an alien father questioning Obama about his birth certificate.

I bet Superman would have a pretty interesting social media presence. All his tweets would be about how lame Aquaman is or how he's always trying to fly by Wonder Woman's invisible plane while she changes clothes.

Thanks to Superman for throwing the last bit of dirt of the grave of the newspaper industry. The Internet was its kryptonite.