3 Questions About Superman I Probably Should Know The Answers To But I Don't
And yes, I could probably get answers to these by actually picking up a recent damn Superman comic, but that's not something I'm prepared to do just yet.
1) So, I get the whole super strength/invulnerability/freeze breath thing being due to the difference in Earth/the Sun and Krypton/Krypton's Sun, but what's the official junk science explanation for why he can fly?
2) Does his cape serve some sort of functional purpose, or does he rock the Red Riding Hood fo' da ladeez?
3) Is there a SuperKid yet? Somewhere? In one of the Multiverse thingys? Bueller? Bueller?
Labels: Dumb Questions, Superman
8 Comments:
He can fly, because he's super...See? So easy!
Silver Age junk science: it's a combination of Earth's yellow sun and lower gravity.
John Byrne '80s junk science: it's a form of limited telekinesis. Also, his ability to pick up big heavy objects and not have them fall apart is part of this telekinesis too. It all goes back to his solar-battery cells.
The cape just looks cool. In the old days Jor-El wore a cape on Krypton. Byrne had Ma Kent design the costume, and she liked capes. The cape also had a hidden pocket for Clark's clothes (in the old days, they were shrunk into little squares like Barry Allen's costume).
Super-offspring: Grant Morrison says yes, someday; all the Supermen down to DC One Million are descendants of the original Kal-El. Byrne's Generations and Howard Chaykin's Son Of Superman (duh) both featured Super-offspring. The Kingdom Come Supes and Wonder Woman had a child, Jonathan, who in The Kingdom turned out a lot like the Phantom Stranger.
And of course, Super-kids played big parts in many wacky Silver Age imaginary stories.
For the flying, I always thought of it as movement in the fourth dimension, the space dimension that is curved by gravity. For whatever reason his aura lets him move in that dimension.
I believe that 'Science of Superman' book from a number of years back by Mark Wolverton, had the same idea.
3.) Well, according to "The Kingdom," there's always Jonathan Kent...
Superman also had a couple of daughters in... what was it called... Superman: Secret Identity?
The cape block bullets yes?
It strikes me as super helpful for saving entire crowds at the same time - bull-fighter style!
Superman doesn't really fly. He's just so strong that me simply moves the entire universe around him. He's actually always stationary; it's the rest of the cosmos that he's sliding up and down. Yep, I'm ripping off Futurama.
The cape serves one non-utilitarian function (decorative) and one utilitarian function (wrap people in for the flight to freezing cold Fortress of Solitude), or at least it did before Byrne said it wasn't really made of blankets from Krypton.
Jeff Wetherington
The Comic Guide at Athena Guides
http://comics.athenaguides.com/
Post a Comment
<< Home