DoctorImpossible

Stuff like this, and the fact that Superman is well-known as having a fortress of solitude, is why I like to think that almost nobody can figure out that he even has any secret identity to figure out, let alone figuring it out. I also think, as of recently, that all of the Luthors, as power-mad as they may be, at least never behave transphobic. I think that they all percieve Clark and Superman, even if they know the secret (these are two of the same person), still refuse to ever acknowledge that revelation if a related topic gets brought up.
 
Kal'El is a deadname, as far as they're concerned, so they'll avoid using it, and they always address the person who speaks to them by the name they're giving.
 
You want to be called Clark Kent? Great! Clark Kent, famous for his incredible human interest stories! Clark is an incredible person, and really successful and driven in his chosen field, which isn't any of my own passions (business and tech) so I don't need to compete with him. He has a wiry build with old fashioned farmboy style strength, where you've not had to work out cause you grew up lifting hay for hours every day, unlike my own intentionally fairly large physique designed by exercise to *look* a lot more intimidating for a bonus negotiation tool. 
 
Superman? A powerful alien, who threatens humanity not only by preventing some of my technically illegal but clearly necessary work, but also by being an unchecked vigilante of such incredible and unstoppable power that, if he is ever convinced to rule over us, humanity will need preparations already in place to stop him.
 
The fact that, technically, Lex is friends with Clark and the arch enemy of Superman, while they occupy the same physical form during different times? Irrelevant.
 
Like, I'm sure Lex remembers an incredible HR manager, Sax, came out as enby and started using the name Sax, they/them pronouns. Probably, Lex remembers their deadname and what pronouns they used to use, but it would be beneath him to use that info. The same is true of Clark's deadname and of his Superman alter ego.
 
(Also, I'm less informed on D.I.D. than I am on my fellow trans folk, so I might be missing the mark...) Lex probably sees Superman and Clark as completely different to each other in much the same way as he sees his cousins, Jeff and Dan, who're both part of the same D.I.D. system.

"The Community"
Never intended to become a name, just like the classic name for the Mafia: "La Cosa Nostra" is literally just the phrase "our thing", used to refer obscurely to the crime organisation you're running. In the case of "The Community", it was a case of people involved always providing themselves with plausible deniability and even a veneer of respectability, as they do things on behalf of "The Community".
 
They don't expect you to pay for protection or anything. They simply prefer you to be a generous donor, providing the community with "necessary funding". They don't try to recruit impressionable young mutants or metahumans, to serve as lieutenants of a street gang. No, they simply welcome them to the super-powered community. And if it ends up with them implicated for, or even involved in, some initial crimes, that's just more evidence that the rest of the world is out to get people like us, and only people in The Community really have your back. The super-"heroes"? They're all just sell-outs.

Or any other Star Trek for that matter?

I don't think the specific era is important to whether it is or is not pulp. It being pulp is more about the action adventure, the fact that the heroes never even question their own decision to do the right thing, even when it gets them into danger, the wide exploration of the setting, and so on. 

GM's fiat is handwavium. GM says; handwavium.

To achieve the impossible, you must be willing to try the unbelievable. 

Also, here is my Pulp Images tax.

This thread is making me think of all those silly "grim-dark" iron-age comics about the US government either controlling, or trying to take control of, the superheroes, and I think all the violence, hero on hero conflicts, and "cool" but actually a very boringly unoriginal plots will actually play out.
 
All manner of minor crime-waves rise up as slightly less driven hero supers decide not to bother if the government itself has turned on a hero population. The more potent simply ignore the laws and then a bunch of cops/government agents have to decide if obedience to the law is worth getting killed, beaten, or even just mind-wiped, all for the "crime" of saving people from that hurricane or whatever. Then, with the politically powerful and/or rich heroes, there's a lot of simply law not applying to them anyway. The monarchs of foreign nations, the people who donate trillions to the same cops you'd be trying to get to arrest this person, maybe even God/The Devil/An Anthropic Personification Of An Eternal Concept, are all going to be above and beyond any such jurisdiction.

Chris Evans, too.

This thread is making me think of all those silly "grim-dark" iron-age comics about the US government either controlling, or trying to take control of, the superheroes, and I think all the violence, hero on hero conflicts, and "cool" but actually a very boringly unoriginal plots will actually play out.
 
All manner of minor crime-waves rise up as slightly less driven hero supers decide not to bother if the government itself has turned on a hero population. The more potent simply ignore the laws and then a bunch of cops/government agents have to decide if obedience to the law is worth getting killed, beaten, or even just mind-wiped, all for the "crime" of saving people from that hurricane or whatever. Then, with the politically powerful and/or rich heroes, there's a lot of simply law not applying to them anyway. The monarchs of foreign nations, the people who donate trillions to the same cops you'd be trying to get to arrest this person, maybe even God/The Devil/An Anthropic Personification Of An Eternal Concept, are all going to be above and beyond any such jurisdiction.

Chris Evans, too.

Suspicion of the US government is as old as the republic itself, so there's a certain tradition here. But yeah, the 56th time the threat ultimately turns out to be a Sinister Government Agency, whether rogue or sanctioned at the highest levels, that apparently never has to worry about its budget, oversight, public opinion or legal consequence of exposure, well, my eyes roll at the triteness of it all.
 
The Iron Age didn't invent the trope, either, but writers of that time sure leaned into it.
 
Dean Shomshak

OTOH you can look at the People's Republic of China in the Champions Universe, which requires all citizens with significant superhuman power to serve the government, willingly or not, on pain of imprisonment or even death. Even if their actions are traditionally heroic, they face the same penalties for unsanctioned super activities. For supers who try to defy Chinese law, the government has the 50+ members of the Tiger Squad, world's largest hero team, to enforce it.

The pseudoscience is strong with many of these.  .  .

And comic book science as well.

To be fair, pseudo is the name of the game in pulp science, surely?

To be fair, pseudo is the name of the game in pulp science, surely?

I could see running this without people noticing that it is just Die Hard, since you'd be having a whole team of PCs. You'd just need to avoid being *too* obvious... OR Lean into the obvious "this is you guys playing Die Hard", and let them have at it.

That's one of the things that makes MCU Iron Man one of the best superheroes on screen. So many films seem to have their hero not actually change or grow from one film to another, reverting back to their old habits of bad behaviour and such, just so that the sequels can repeat a similar moral again. The Iron Man suits, and Tony's initial relative personality flaws/mental health issues, allow for a constant self-improvement and power-up in every film. Shows his extreme self-awareness and self-reflection, mirrored by his increasingly advanced technology and refined skills as a superhero.

To be fair, pseudo is the name of the game in pulp science, surely?

I could see running this without people noticing that it is just Die Hard, since you'd be having a whole team of PCs. You'd just need to avoid being *too* obvious... OR Lean into the obvious "this is you guys playing Die Hard", and let them have at it.

That's one of the things that makes MCU Iron Man one of the best superheroes on screen. So many films seem to have their hero not actually change or grow from one film to another, reverting back to their old habits of bad behaviour and such, just so that the sequels can repeat a similar moral again. The Iron Man suits, and Tony's initial relative personality flaws/mental health issues, allow for a constant self-improvement and power-up in every film. Shows his extreme self-awareness and self-reflection, mirrored by his increasingly advanced technology and refined skills as a superhero.

To be fair, pseudo is the name of the game in pulp science, surely?

That's one of the things that makes MCU Iron Man one of the best superheroes on screen. So many films seem to have their hero not actually change or grow from one film to another, reverting back to their old habits of bad behaviour and such, just so that the sequels can repeat a similar moral again. The Iron Man suits, and Tony's initial relative personality flaws/mental health issues, allow for a constant self-improvement and power-up in every film. Shows his extreme self-awareness and self-reflection, mirrored by his increasingly advanced technology and refined skills as a superhero.

I could see running this without people noticing that it is just Die Hard, since you'd be having a whole team of PCs. You'd just need to avoid being *too* obvious... OR Lean into the obvious "this is you guys playing Die Hard", and let them have at it.