Ah, Superman! Able to defy gravity, bend steel in his bare hands, shrug off bullets, and… hypnotize people? Yes, strange as it may seem, Superman’s multitude of powers once included super-hypnotism. Even stranger? He was able to enhance his power with his Clark Kent glasses!
Back in the Silver Age, Superman enjoyed a number of offbeat powers – from super plasticity (which allowed him to reshape his face), super-ventriloquism (which allowed him to mimic any voice and “throw” his voice anywhere), and even a super-kiss! However, while many of these powers had a limited shelf life, super-hypnosis kept showing up in many of Clark Kent’s adventures – and eventually became the “official” reason why no one recognized Clark Kent was Superman!
Superman could originally use his power of super-hypnosis simply by looking at a person and concentrating. In certain stories, he also employed a watch, which he swung back and forth in front of his subjects like a stage hypnotist. He even managed to use his power of super-hypnosis on himself on certain occasions, although like many hypnotists, he claimed that his subjects needed to want to be hypnotized in order for this superpower to work.
Other times, however, this didn’t appear to be true. During one of Mr. Mxyzptlk’s schemes, Superman wound up being caught in a warped world where the male and female genders were switched, causing him to contend with a Superwoman and a Wonder Warrior. At one point, he was captured and his super powers were muted by a helmet full of Kryptonite gas. Despite this, Superman was able to use some reflected light off of his helmet to shine a beam into Wonder Warrior’s eyes and hypnotize the male Amazon into a deep sleep.
Interestingly then, it appeared that Superman’s super-hypnotism was more of a learned ability than a Kryptonian super power. However, in other Superman comic books, he learned he had unknowingly been using Kryptonian technology for years to super-hypnotize everyone. In Superman #330, Clark finally starts questioning his use of glasses as a disguise and concludes that it’s the dumbest disguise he’d ever seen. Wondering how his Clark Kent disguise managed to fool people all these years, he starts wondering if an ace reporter like Lois Lane has just been humoring him all these years.
Later, however, Superman discovers the secret to his disguise actually lies in special properties in his glasses. Since the lenses in Clark Kent’s glasses are actually made of the plexiglass window from the rocket ship that brought him to Earth, the lenses actually amplify his super-hypnotic abilities whenever he wears his glasses, causing people to see Clark Kent as a frailer and weaker man than Superman.
Superman found he could even use his Kryptonian lenses to brainwash his foes – as he did when he tackled the Parasite, an enemy who had leached away his superpowers, and hypnotized him into giving him those powers back. Since the Parasite clearly didn’t want to be hypnotized, Clark Kent’s glasses apparently gave Superman the power to mind control anyone he wanted to. (Fortunately, he was too super-ethical to use this power immorally… as far as anyone knows).
Eventually, the mind-controlling glasses and super-hypnosis power were dropped as Superman entered the modern age. Later writers simply explained that people didn’t suspect Clark was Superman because Superman never let on that he had a dual identity. Even Lex Luthor refused to believe Superman would “lower himself” to pretend to be an ordinary mortal, even after a super computer deduced Clark Kent was Superman. Nevertheless, at one time, Clark Kent’s glasses actually did give Superman the power of mind control – and allowed the most stupid disguise in the world to actually fool people for years.