Have you ever wondered what Clark Kent’s resume looks like? Yes, he’s Superman and a Daily Planet reporter, but it turns out that the Man of Steel has sampled a few other careers over the years. Clark Kent has been everything from a college football player to a firefighter to a DJ. Why didn’t any of these jobs work out? Well, it wasn’t just because reporting was his first love. Let’s take a look at eight of Superman’s forgotten careers…
 

Football Player

1938’s Action Comics #4 contains a creepy scene where a college football player named Tommy Burke runs into Superman, who has disguised himself to look exactly like Burke. Superman then injects Burke with a hypodermic needle, and when the football player wakes up, he tells him that the drug will leave him immobile.

Golden Age Superman had a surprising amount in common with Dexter Morgan.

Anyway, this whole thing was so Superman could take Burke’s place on the football team in order to smoke out some illegal dealings from the rival team. He probably could’ve let Burke in on the plan, or done it without drugging him, but Golden Age Superman was always a bit extra.
 

Toy Tester

1947’s Adventure Comics #116 features a story set during Clark’s boyhood career as Superboy. The Boy of Steel needs money to buy his teacher a present and has heard that Moore’s Toughwear Toys needs someone to test the toys for durability. And so, Superboy injects the toymaker with a needle and…just kidding, that would be really messed up. Could you imagine?

Instead, Superboy offers to test the toys. “It would take a kid a year to put the normal wear and tear on a toy, but I can do it in moments,” he says.

The Boy of Steel spends the rest of the story using the toys to help him catch crooks. He bops criminals with a toy punching bag, chases them with a scooter and patrols the streets of Smallville with a pogo stick. Superboy is paid $3 for his services, which would be worth roughly $44 today. The toymaker offers him $200, but Superboy refuses, since he only needs enough money to buy his teacher a present.
 

General Store Worker

The Kent General Store is a forgotten piece of Superman lore. When people talk about Superman’s childhood in Smallville, they mention the Kents being farmers. However, during Clark’s teenage years, Jonathan and Martha Kent sold the farm and opened the Kent General Store in downtown Smallville.

The store was first introduced in 1950’s Superboy #6, and Clark worked part time there. The Kent General Store wasn’t included in Post-Crisis continuity or any major adaptations of Clark’s origin, which is why so few people remember it today. It just goes to show that even in the 1950s, operating a small business was brutal.
 

Ice Cream Man

In 1950’s Adventure Comics #152, a teenage Clark Kent traveled to Metropolis during spring break in order to try out a few different jobs. Clark’s goal was to find a job that would help his superhero career—like being an ice cream man, apparently. Clark reasoned that pushing the ice cream cart through town would allow him to patrol various neighborhoods.

Unfortunately, a fire breaks out nearby and Superboy flies in to save the day. And for some reason, he takes the ice cream cart with him. Unsurprisingly, his entire inventory melts, and Superboy quickly decides being an ice cream man isn’t the career for him.

I mean, if you have literal freeze breath and you still can’t keep ice cream from melting, it’s clearly a bad fit.
 

Firefighter

Speaking of fires, Superman loves saving people and he’s fireproof, so working as a firefighter makes a lot of sense for him. Is it any wonder it’s the one career on this list he’s tried out twice?

In 1959’s Superman #129, Clark spends a week as a firefighter for a Daily Planet feature. Unfortunately, he spends most of his limited time on the job trying to hide his secret from the other firefighters. Also, the fire chief doesn’t like Clark and continually tries to send him on dangerous assignments in order to scare him into quitting. That…seems unethical.

In 2012’s Action Comics #11-12, Superman adopts the identity of Johnny Clark after faking Clark Kent’s death. Johnny then joins the Metropolis Fire Department, where Clark’s super strength allows him to save many lives. Missing his old life as Clark Kent, however, Superman eventually fakes Johnny Clark’s death (his solution to everything) and “resurrects” Clark Kent.
 

Radio DJ

In Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #20, Superman and Lois are going through a bit of a rough patch, so Superman does what any boyfriend in that situation would do—he uses his superpowers to rewrite reality so he can escape the relationship.

What can I say, Superman and Lois’s relationship was WEIRD back then.

Anyway, Superman uses his powers to travel back in time, and instead of taking a job at the Daily Planet, he becomes a DJ at local radio station WMET. Calling himself “the Sultan of Song,” Clark hosts a midnight-to-dawn radio show…and it’s popular! His secretary notes at one point that he’s started getting fan mail. Still, after a series of hijinks, Clark decides to restore the timeline and return to his job at the Daily Planet. Still, considering his popularity, one has to wonder if among all of his other secrets, Clark Kent also has a far better vinyl collection than anyone gives him credit for.
 

Television News Reporter

In 1970’s Superman #233, Daily Planet owner Morgan Edge informs Clark that he’s now WBGS-TV’s newest on-location reporter. It seems arbitrary to have an experienced print journalist suddenly become a TV reporter, but Edge was always a weird one. (Also, he was an evil clone secretly working for Darkseid. And no, this wasn’t part of his evil plan. Making Clark an anchorman was just random.)

Being on camera complicates Clark’s life, making it harder for him to slip away and change to Superman. However, Clark finds a solution—wait until the commercial breaks. Interestingly, this wasn’t something that was reversed by the end of the issue. Clark remained one of WBGS-TV’s news reporters until Crisis on Infinite Earths rebooted Superman continuity in 1986, making this the longest of all Clark’s forgotten careers by far.
 

Novelist

In the early ‘90s, Clark tried his hand at being a novelist. He published “The Janus Directive” and “Under a Yellow Sun,” two fiction novels that became bestsellers. The 1994 graphic novel, Superman: Under a Yellow Sun, detailed Clark’s writer’s block as he tried to come up with his second book.

If you want to see what Clark’s prose was like, extensive excerpts from his novel can be found in the Superman: Under a Yellow Sun graphic novel. However, despite their initial popularity, in 1994’s Superman #49, Clark was dismayed to find his books on the clearance table.
 

All in all, Superman has had some interesting side hustles, but he works best as a journalist. After all, ice cream men are hardly champions of the oppressed, unless the oppressed are sugar-craving children. Being a novelist came with the challenges of writer’s block, being a firefighter meant his boss was trying to kill him, and being a college football player…well, the less said about that, the better.

Maybe there are some things Superman should leave off his resume after all.
 

Joshua Lapin-Bertone writes about TV, movies and comics for DC.com, is a regular contributor to the Couch Club and writes our monthly Batman column, "Gotham Gazette." Follow him on Bluesky at @joshualapinbertone and on X at @TBUJosh.

NOTE: The views and opinions expressed in this feature are solely those of Joshua Lapin-Bertone and do not necessarily reflect those of DC or Warner Bros. Discovery, nor should they be read as confirmation or denial of future DC plans.