The funny thing is that Superman doesn’t even really need to be jacked. No, his super strength doesn’t come from muscle mass, it comes from the radiation of Earth’s yellow sun combined with his Kryptonian DNA. And while it’s true that every single comic book hero drawn during a certain time period looks like a sentient Dorito because Hollywood’s beauty standard for men is … bad, the only legitimate reason for Supes to be built like a truck is because Clark Kent grew up on a farm. You don’t throw hay bales and eat home-cooked meals every day and stay skinny, you know?
Of course, that kind of logic runs into a problem — Clark would need to have gone through a period where physical exertion was difficult. Muscle mass isn’t accrued without challenge and the last son of Krypton started operating like some supersized solar battery the second he entered Earth’s atmosphere. But most depictions of Clark, like the CW’s “Smallville” and Max’s “My Adventures With Superman,” show his powers developing around his later teen years, which means that any activity during his prepubescent years would have had the chance to affect him physically.
All that is to say that if you admire Superman’s Mr. Universe shtick, don’t thank Krypton — thank Ma and Pa Kent.
