@Moon_Doggie said:

WARNING: SPOILERS

After they leave the extortion payment package on top of the tree stump in the park, Clark Kent watches the stump with the rest of the group. But after the deadline passes, they go over to the nearby stump and discover that the package is gone, grabbed from inside the hollow stump and pulled down into some sort of escape tunnel.

When someone says it's too bad Superman hadn't been there to see through the stump and realize it is hollow, Clark says that wouldn't have helped, because the stump is lined with sheet lead, which Clark apparently noticed upon closer inspection.

But if that's true, then Clark should have detected the lead as soon as he first saw the stump, thus becoming immediately suspicious.

I can think of at least two reasons why Clark either didn't initially see the lead or, if he did see it, said nothing. Based on what I've seen in some other episodes, Superman's x-ray vision isn't always on. He has to concentrate a bit to use it. This makes sense, otherwise the whole world would always appear to him as an x-ray, which would get really confusing for him. So maybe he just didn't notice the lead lining in the stump at first.

Secondly, even if Clark had noticed the lead early on and from some distance away, he couldn't very well say so, because then people would know he's actually Superman. So maybe he did try using his x-ray vision right after he arrived, and did in fact see the lead earlier than he mentioned it, but just couldn't say anything until he got close enough for everyone to see the lead lining inside the stump.

So maybe there's no inconsistency here at all.