Superman has a wide variety of superpowers, and while many fans tend to focus on his super strength or his ability to fly, Clark Kent’s invulnerability is also a big part of his appeal. Seeing bullets bounce off of the Man of Steel firmly establishes him as one of DC Comics’ most invincible heroes, and his superhuman body has only grown more and more indestructible over time – allowing Superman to withstand blows from gods or shrug off energy blasts that would vaporize most living beings.
Invulnerability, however, has also given Clark some unique problems – mostly dealing with his hair. Like every other part of his body, Superman’s hair is also indestructible, allowing him to smash through buildings without mussing up his famous spit curl hairdo. However, this leads to the inevitable question – how does Superman shave or cut his hair? Surprisingly, the comics have given multiple explanations.
During the Silver Age, it was actually established that Superman’s hair and fingernails do not grow when he’s on Earth. This offered a simple explanation for how Superman manages to keep his invulnerable body so well-groomed (although it does beg the question of how his hair managed to cover his entire head if it hadn’t grown since he arrived to Earth as an infant. Adult Clark’s head is considerably bigger than baby Kal-El’s, so unless his hair is also super stretchy, he should have developed a massive receding hairline as he aged).
Amusingly, to explain why their son never had to get his hair cut, Jonathan and Martha Kent once told the barber that Clark was bald due to an illness and was wearing a wig. The barber keeps Clark’s “secret” – although one wonders if this bit of information ever came around to Lex Luthor.
In one classic Silver Age story, exposure to Red Kryptonite accidentally causes Superman to grow a long beard and fingernails. While this was one of the milder reactions to Red K, it still proved problematic since Clark Kent and Superman couldn’t be seen with an identical hairy appearance (glasses can only protect a secret identity so far after all). Even Superman’s heat vision (or X-ray vision) couldn’t cut this super tough hair – but fortunately, a double dose from Supergirl and Krypto the Super Dog managed to give Clark a much-needed haircut, shave, and manicure.
After the original Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline, John Bryne introduced a new Superman – this one with somewhat scaled-down powers. This Superman was intended to focus on Clark Kent’s human side, which meant showing him having to deal with mundane daily chores like shaving. As a result, Clark’s invulnerable hair finally started to grow, requiring him to come up with some innovative grooming techniques.
Initially, Clark may have been able to shave with a razor just like any other human being. Thanks to his new origin, his superpowers didn’t start to emerge until his body absorbed sufficient amounts of solar radiation from Earth’s yellow sun, meaning he was indistinguishable from a normal human for the early years of his life. Although Clark revealed he was invulnerable enough to withstand being hit by a charging bull as a child, a sharp enough pair of scissors may have been enough to cut his hair.
As Clark’s invulnerability increases, however, he improvises a different shaving routine. Finding a piece of reflective Kryptonian metal from the ship that took him to Earth, he uses it to bounce his heat vision onto his face, burning away all the stubble. Unlike Silver Age Clark, the modern Clark’s hair could be cut by heat vision – in fact he even notes that if he isn’t careful, he could “cut” himself with the lasers from his eyes. Fortunately, since a normal man’s skin adapts to regular encounters with a sharp razor, Clark’s skin also grew more accustomed to his heat vision.
One can only speculate how Clark cuts his hair. While he could use the same technique he does for shaving, the ocular gymnastics he’d have to engage in to cut his hair so perfectly with heat vision are pretty astounding. Another possibility is that Clark found some sharp pieces of Kryptonian metal that he was able to reshape into a pair of “Super Scissors” for haircuts. Another offbeat possibility is that Superman uses red sun lamps in the Fortress of Solitude to temporarily cancel out his invulnerability whenever he needs to cut his hair.
Clark actually did try out different hairdos during this era – notably when he sported a “Super Mullet” after he came back from being beaten to death by Doomsday. While Lois Lane mentioned she liked the look, fans didn’t and Clark cut his hair back to its usual length before his wedding to Lois. Since he had temporarily lost his powers at this time, however, he could have just used regular scissors and clippers.
Superman’s invulnerable hair and shaving habits were also touched on in other Superman media. In Superman IV, Christopher Reeve’s Superman donates a strand of his hair to a museum, just to show it can support a massive weight on its own. While Clark doesn’t disclose how he cut this hair, he likely won’t be donating any more strands considering that Lex Luthor steals that hair to clone an evil “Nuclear Man” to fight the original Superman.
In Superman: The Animated Series, Clark shaves with heat vision like in the comic books. Dean Cain’s Superman also uses a similar method in the live action TV series Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (amusingly, Cain’s Superman splashes some aftershave lotion onto his face, which manages to sting his temporarily-sensitive invulnerable skin). Notably, both of these Supermen use a regular mirror to bounce the heat rays from their eyes onto their faces. Perhaps they could control the temperature of their heat vision better than the comic book Superman?
Interestingly, the question of how Clark Kent shaves was posed by many fans prior to the DCEU’s Man of Steel movie. In the film, Henry Cavill’s Clark Kent spends years traveling the world as a vagabond and doesn’t keep to a daily shaving regimen. As a result, he starts out looking pretty scruffy, with an unkempt beard and mustache. As Clark is invulnerable enough at this point to withstand some pretty severe flames, it can be assumed that his hair can’t be cut by conventional means.
However, when Clark discovers the Kryptonian scout ship in the Arctic and learns about his origins from a holographic Jor-El, the next scene sees him step out onto the snow in his Superman suit, fully shaved and well groomed. Perhaps Clark gave himself a quick heat vision trim between scenes – or perhaps the scout ship was capable of replicating some Kryptonian barber tools. As it could create sculptures out of metal and apparently sew Clark’s invulnerable costume, this actually seems likely. Frankly, considering Jor-El had the foresight to supply his son with the means to build everything from a faster-than-light space ship to a Fortress of Solitude, it seems bizarre he didn’t think of packing him a shaving kit...