CULTURE: Clark Kent Gets Hot!

It's hot to be a nerd, especially now that Clark Kent is enjoying a hipster makeover complete with hoodie and skinny jeans. The apparently angst-ridden (also hot) Kent makes his debut in the new graphic novel Superman: Earth One. Clark is younger, sexier and broodier—a hero for the "twilight age," says DC Comics. He's also dumped his glasses. "We always knew that we wanted to do a real, contemporary interpretation of Superman," explains Dan DiDio, executive editor of DC Comics. "I wanted to focus on the 'man' in Superman rather than the 'super.'"

As for Clark's hoodie, it's a "bit of foreshadowing to the cape," DiDio adds, and his new bod evokes an entirely new personality. "Brooding young men need a starved, lanky look," says DiDio. Will this generation of super hero fans bite? Or will messing with the nostalgia factor of our oldest superhero be Superman's kryptonite? Fiddling with Superman, the Independent warns (as if a Brit paper can begin to get our American immigrant from Krypton), is "risky business."