Superman's powers and how they work
Jesse Smith
As a kid in the 70's, I had a poster of Superman and on the back it had
a radical explanation for Superman's powers. Essentially, all of his
abilities were based on some type of mental power. His strength was
really TeleKenesis that required a touch to generate it. His heat
vision was just molecules that had been hyperstimulated by TK. The rest
somehow tied in to this theme.
Byrne did a little of this when he was writing. I remember Superman
picking up a complex to lift it into orbit. It was so heavy that he
could barely lift it, but when he started flying it turned almost
weightless in his hands.
I liked these explanations for his powers, and would like to see DC
adopted them as canon.
Bruce L Precourt
In article <1997121221...@frakyts202.mis.net> jsm...@mis.net (Jesse Smith) writes:
>As a kid in the 70's, I had a poster of Superman and on the back it had
>a radical explanation for Superman's powers. Essentially, all of his
>abilities were based on some type of mental power. His strength was
>really TeleKenesis that required a touch to generate it. His heat
>vision was just molecules that had been hyperstimulated by TK. The rest
>somehow tied in to this theme.
>
>adopted them as canon.
Yes! I was reminded of this as well. It was a very cool article. It
was in a magazine called "Fantastic Films", a kind of Starlog-clone
from the late 70s. In fact I know I've got that issue packed away
somewhere.
I remember how the writer presented some of the real scientific
difficulties with Superman's powers, such as:
-why, when Superman catches some massive object falling from the sky,
aren't his feet driven into the ground? (Note that Alan Moore brought
up this in Miracleman, but that was some years later)
-why (considering Newton's law of action & reaction) isn't the Daily
Planet building destroyed when Superman launches out a window at
rocket-speed?
. . . and other similar issues. All of these, as you said, can be
explained by assuming that _all_ his powers are a form of psycho-kinesis.
Even the vulnerability to Kryptonite had a pseudo-scientific explanation:
the radiation would trigger a massive psychic trauma, causing a
debilitating effect on his body. In effect, the K-radiation forced
his subconcious mind to become acutely aware of the horror and terror of
the death of Krypton, the loss of his parents, and so on.
Now I've got to find that magazine and reread the whole thing.
Yuhui
On Fri, 12 Dec 1997 21:51:14 -0400, jsm...@mis.net (Jesse Smith)
wrote:
>As a kid in the 70's, I had a poster of Superman and on the back it had
>a radical explanation for Superman's powers. Essentially, all of his
>abilities were based on some type of mental power. His strength was
>really TeleKenesis that required a touch to generate it. His heat
>vision was just molecules that had been hyperstimulated by TK. The rest
>somehow tied in to this theme.
[snip]
But nowadays, DC would like us to think that Superman is powered by
our yellow sun that gives him his powers, like strength, heat vision,
etc. In his battle with Doomsday before he died, he poured on his
heat vision on Doomsday and that sapped his energy reserves. So his
powers are not telekinetic, but solar-based. In fact, it was later
explained that his death was not really death per se but a massive
lack of energy in his body after he had expended it on fighting
Doomsday. He needed to recharge under a yellow sun, which the
Eradicator did in the Fortress.
TTFN
-----*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----*----
Yuhui ICQ# 1300806 yu...@post1.com
http://www.cyberway.com.sg/~yuhui
Jon Clark
>But nowadays, DC would like us to think that Superman is powered by
>our yellow sun that gives him his powers, like strength, heat vision,
>etc. In his battle with Doomsday before he died, he poured on his
>heat vision on Doomsday and that sapped his energy reserves. So his
>powers are not telekinetic, but solar-based.
But are the two mutually exclusive. Couldn't his powers be psioic but fueled
by solar energy?
> In fact, it was later
>explained that his death was not really death per se but a massive
>lack of energy in his body after he had expended it on fighting
>Doomsday. He needed to recharge under a yellow sun, which the
>Eradicator did in the Fortress.
No- the Action comics issue with Dr Occult sated that Clark was dead- totally,
unequivocally, undeniably dead. When Clark tries giving him the "I was only in
an energy deprived coma" explantation- Dr Occult tells him that wasn't the
case.
John Dull
jsm...@mis.net (Jesse Smith) writes: > As a kid in the 70's, I had a poster of Superman and on the back it had
> a radical explanation for Superman's powers. Essentially, all of his
> abilities were based on some type of mental power. His strength was
> really TeleKenesis that required a touch to generate it. His heat
> vision was just molecules that had been hyperstimulated by TK. The rest
> somehow tied in to this theme.
>
> picking up a complex to lift it into orbit. It was so heavy that he
> could barely lift it, but when he started flying it turned almost
> weightless in his hands.
>
> adopted them as canon.
But it would be impossible to do this. Too much emphasis has been put on
solar energy and to a lesser extent Kryptonian physiology, as mechanics
for Supes powers. Personally, I think it's a combination of all three,
and sometimes they work together (in the case of invulnerbility or
heightened senses/speed/reflexes) to generate these powers.
QUESTION: When Clark doesn't have his powers, he can become sick. So
what aspect of his powers keeps him from getting sick?
Josh
BATMAN2000
>er a yellow sun, which the
>Eradicator did in the Fortress.
>
>
>-----*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----*----
>Yuhui ICQ# 1300806 yu...@post1.com
> http://www.cyberway.com.sg/~yuhui
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
On the contrary ... the Eradicator himself confirms that Superman did , in
fact, die ... however given a set of unlikely and special circumstances
Superman was able to be revived. Possibly he died from the reasons you have
given but he was dead. How else do you explain the events in "the adventures of
Superman #500"???
A.A. Brown
Batma...@aol.com
http://members.aol.com/BATMAN2000/index.html
BATMAN2000
sorry I didn't mean to have a quote in my last message
Jesse Smith
If they decieded to go the mental power route, they could say that his
TK abilities required a yellow sun to operate. This would meat he has
the abilities all the time, but he can only use them if a yellow sun is
giving him the "gas" to power them.
Yuhui <yu...@post1.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 12 Dec 1997 21:51:14 -0400, jsm...@mis.net (Jesse Smith)
> wrote:
>
> >As a kid in the 70's, I had a poster of Superman and on the back it had
> >a radical explanation for Superman's powers. Essentially, all of his
> >abilities were based on some type of mental power. His strength was
> >really TeleKenesis that required a touch to generate it. His heat
> >vision was just molecules that had been hyperstimulated by TK. The rest
> >somehow tied in to this theme.
> [snip]
>
> But nowadays, DC would like us to think that Superman is powered by
> our yellow sun that gives him his powers, like strength, heat vision,
> etc. In his battle with Doomsday before he died, he poured on his
> heat vision on Doomsday and that sapped his energy reserves. So his
> powers are not telekinetic, but solar-based. In fact, it was later
> explained that his death was not really death per se but a massive
> lack of energy in his body after he had expended it on fighting
> Doomsday. He needed to recharge under a yellow sun, which the
Jesse Smith
No, it wouldn't be impossible. It would just require a "revelation"
about his powers. If nothing else, maybe zero hour changed the way they
worked. There are millions of possibilities.
John Dull <d...@bright.net> wrote:
> jsm...@mis.net (Jesse Smith) writes: > As a kid in the 70's, I had a
> poster of Superman and on the back it had > a radical explanation for
> Superman's powers. Essentially, all of his > abilities were based on some
> type of mental power. His strength was > really TeleKenesis that required
> a touch to generate it. His heat > vision was just molecules that had
> been hyperstimulated by TK. The rest > somehow tied in to this theme. > >
Kelly in B
Bacteria and Viri work by invading living cells and changing them, his
invulnerability stops them the same as everything else.
Bob Bakh
>>How else do you explain the events in "the adventures of Superman #500"???
A chemical induced nightmare of an old man on the brink of death in an
unfamiliar environment such as a hospital ICU.....
Eric Mahr
Superman's powers work as follows:
He is like a super charged solar cell. this accounts for heat vision, hearing,
strength, invulnerability etc.
HE also is psionic based this accounts for flight, more xray vision, hearing
and the strength to carry things while flying. As byrne noted, Superman has an
easier time carrying things while flying.
Eric
Yuhui wrote:
> On Fri, 12 Dec 1997 21:51:14 -0400, jsm...@mis.net (Jesse Smith)
> wrote:
>
> >As a kid in the 70's, I had a poster of Superman and on the back it had
> >a radical explanation for Superman's powers. Essentially, all of his
> >abilities were based on some type of mental power. His strength was
> >really TeleKenesis that required a touch to generate it. His heat
> >vision was just molecules that had been hyperstimulated by TK. The rest
> >somehow tied in to this theme.
Jeff Rosenbaum
The original concept for Superman's powers seems to have
been the notion, decades before it happened, of what a human could
do on the moon, a lower-gravity environment. Superman did not have
the power of flight originally: he was billed as being able to
leap an eighth of a mile. All his muscle-related powers, strength,
speed, leaping ability - were related to the fact that he came
from a heavy-gravity planet.
The addition of super-senses like x-ray eyes, super hearing
and the like became attributed to Earth's Yellow sun, a s opposed
to Krypton's red sun, presumably an older and less energetic star.
This actually led to what I call Superman's semantic powers: just
slap a "super" in front of any attribute a human has or even might
have! Superman sudedenly had super-breath, super-huypnotism, a
super brain, etc, and his eyes could act like a telescope, a
microscope, generate heat (they used to say the friction of his
x-ray vision could generate heat). The classic semantic power is,
of course, invulnerability. It didn't matter what new and different
weapon you might come up with: he's invulnerable - it says so on
the label.
Of course, he became way too powerful for anyone to be
a threat to him. By the late fifties he had gone from "nothing
short of an exploding shell could penetrate his skin" to flying
through the sun just to clean his uniform. In one issue I
remember, he built a whole solar system, then lit it with a
giant match he made! One wonders what he struck it against.
So in came Kryptonite, I'm not sure just when. Now we
had the opposite problem: ANYONE could beat him with a small rock
of the stuff. Over and over, stories involved getting some lead
to block the rays. Repetition of the theme begat red Kryptonite
(which affected Superman unpredictably, meaning in any way the writer
can think of: loss of power, transforming his head into a giant
ant's head, making him a woman, splitting him into two or more,
making him stupid, turning him into a plant, a robot, a merman,
ANYTHING), and magic, being unbound by the laws of science, was
evidently also unbound by semantics.
And since Superman was too powerful for human opposition,
the Phantom Zone supplied equally-powerfull Kryptonian bad guys to
fight. As did other planets, occaisonally. Somehow, other planets
almost always gave their inhabitants the very same powers Superman
had when on Earth, as did magic potions or any other source of
"super-powers".
In the seventies, DC decided to eliminate kryptonite
completely, and at the same time cut Superman's powers down. In
the first few issues of these comics, Supes struggled to rein in
a herd of cattle, and a nuke could knock him cold and out of the
sky, and he needed an air supply to survive in space.
Reed Richards, in a Fantastic Four battle against a
foe presented as a thinly-veiled Superman-type being (they couldn't
actually cross-over back then, or even mention the name of a
character in another comic company's stable, or even the company's
name!), first theorized that this invulnerability must come from
a thin force-field generated by the being's body. He also made the
intelligent observation that Superman couldn't possibly grab the
edge of a skyscraper and pick it up; he'd just be left standing next
to it holding a couple of handfuls of brick or masonry. He must
be extending his own flying ability to whatever he's touching, and
"flying" the building. Tactile Telekinesis, like Superboy today,
the same power that let Christopher Reeves' Superman fly with Lois
Lane by just touching her hand.
There's more to this re-writing of Superman's powers
and their source, but for now the combination of heavy-gravity
upbringing and Yellow-sun powers seems to be the working model
for pre-Big Blue Superpowers, with a de-emphasis on the former.
Which brings me to this question: When Big Blue "reverts"
to his Clark Kent form, why in the world would he be powerless?
He can't revert to a normal human, since he never was one. Why
doesn't he revert to a normal Kryptonian, with all the attributes
of a Kryptonian under a yellow sun and on a light-gravity planet?
And if somehow the latter are "damped" now and his body can't do
with yellow solar rays what it once did, what about the gravity-
based powers? Did DC abandon them in the Crises or some such? He
may be robbed of his powers psych-sematically, but that doesn't
explain how he's been beat up as Kent since then. But isn't he
still an alien, with alien DNA? Or is he a solid energy form; and
if so, why such a vulnerable one?
Or is he the real Kal-El at all?
Kelly in B
Here is what I picked up so far:
1) Powers fuled by Solar power, not just yellow energy because if you remember
that is how his powers got changed now - by absorbing other powersources
2) Invulerability, flight, strength can all be explained via a bio-electric
field that even us normal people are surrounded by (we still don't know what it
does in the real world)
3) Super sight - x ray, micro, tele ect. all come from the fact that he can
absorb energy and has somehow developed a way to translate that into sensory
data - the same way an x-ray machine recieves data through objects from packets
of energy passing through objects only blocked by some densities and molecular
strucures, since he can recieve energy from a far wider variety of sources he
could gather that data to simulate the other abilities (possibly meaning there
are others out there that he just hasn't bothered to find)
4) Super breath and Heat Vision - heat vision is easy he just has a way to
release some of the stored energy as heat from his eyes, same as we can change
sugar and O2 into force (ie. movement) and for the Super breath he expells a
small portion of air at such a high rate of speed that it causes the air near
it to flow into the near total vacume made by it's passing creating possibly
giant wind flows
5) Cold breath - hardest to explain the only two ways I could imagine it works
is to thing that he just absorbs all the energy from the air he takes into his
lungs and expels it super cold (since heat is after all just energy)
The only real problem I have is not with the Powers but is with the character -
my favorite stories are the ones where he can't just solve a problem by
punching it out such as the story a while back about the couple living next
door to Clark becoming abusive - when he breaks through the window to stop the
wife beater she threatens to call the cops on him... If you want a better story
you don't need to change his costume/powers/name/address/phone/social security/
or anything else just write something that deals with the character and show us
more of who he is, because after all who he is has kept him, and us going for
50 years so far ...
Spotcleaner Blue
Jeff Rosenbaum wrote:
> Which brings me to this question: When Big Blue "reverts"
> to his Clark Kent form, why in the world would he be powerless?
> He can't revert to a normal human, since he never was one. Why
> doesn't he revert to a normal Kryptonian, with all the attributes
> of a Kryptonian under a yellow sun and on a light-gravity planet?
> And if somehow the latter are "damped" now and his body can't do
> with yellow solar rays what it once did, what about the gravity-
> based powers? Did DC abandon them in the Crises or some such? He
> may be robbed of his powers psych-sematically, but that doesn't
> explain how he's been beat up as Kent since then. But isn't he
> still an alien, with alien DNA? Or is he a solid energy form; and
> if so, why such a vulnerable one?
>
> Or is he the real Kal-El at all?
The reason the "NEW" SuperMEN (RED AND BLUE) are human when
they are Clark Kent, is because he tries to be Clark Kent, normal human.
This leads me to beleive that if he tries to be Kal-El, Kryptonian, he
will once again be the "good old Superman"
Alan Meisler
> Jeff Rosenbaum wrote:
>
> > Which brings me to this question: When Big Blue "reverts"
> > to his Clark Kent form, why in the world would he be powerless?
> > He can't revert to a normal human, since he never was one. Why
This really depends on how they end up explaining the whole Superman Blue
phenomenon.
I have a pet theory (who doesn't :) that says that Superman was never
"changed" into an energy creature. Instead, Superman's normal body has
been trapped in the interdimensional space between "the real world" and
Kandor. Something about this dimensional space has allowed Superman's
energy field (which is an unconscious projection and, based on the
theories propounded in this news thread, is the basis of his powers) to
separate from his physical body and escape back to Earth.
In essence, the Superman flying around in the current comics is actually a
reverse astral projection of the real Superman. (Instead of a physical
body in the real world sending an energy projection into the astral plane,
he has sent the energy projection into the real world.) Since this is
being done on the subconscious level, Superman does not realize what is
happening. (He thinks normally.)
The current manifestation of his powers are the result of the lack of a
physical body (with muscles, eyes, etc) to channel the energy through.
What we are now seeing is the raw application of Superman's super powers.
(Although probably amplified by extra energy from the interdimensional
space.)
As for why Clark is "normal", I think we can borrow a page from Alan Moore's
interpretation of Swamp Thing. (Swamp Thing was never Alec Holland changed
into a plant, but rather a plant that thought it was Alec Holland and
therefore built the body it thought it should have.) Energy and matter are
interconvertable, and Superman is plugged into the energy of the
interdimensional space. When he "reverts" to Clark, he is actually
creating a new body from energy. Since he thinks of Clark as essentially
human (remember, the powers didn't manifest until relatively late in
childhood--and he grew up thinking he was human) then the body that he
creates (subconsciously) is human. Of course, he could test this out by
actively trying to "create" a superhuman/Kryptonian body.
On the other hand, if he has enough control to actually make a human body,
then he probably could make it so the genes matched and he would be
physiologically capable of producing a human offspring. (It is extremely
unlikely that a kryptonian and a human would have sufficiently similar DNA
to produce viable off-spring without serious medical intervention a la
Spock.)
My guess is that Superman is going to closely examine the suit given to
him by Lex Luthor and find that what it really does is boost the astral
link to his real self. (The link was weak, which was why he couldn't
maintain his form. Kind of like cutting the silver cord in D&D astral
projection.) He will discover this link and use it to find, and
subsequently release and join with, his physical body to produce the
original-style Superman.
Just a thought or two.....
Alan
MRah3
> Reed Richards, in a Fantastic Four battle against a
>foe presented as a thinly-veiled Superman-type being (they couldn't
>actually cross-over back then, or even mention the name of a
>character in another comic company's stable, or even the company's
>name!), first theorized that this invulnerability must come from
>a thin force-field generated by the being's body. He also made the
>intelligent observation that Superman couldn't possibly grab the
>edge of a skyscraper and pick it up; he'd just be left standing next
>to it holding a couple of handfuls of brick or masonry. He must
>be extending his own flying ability to whatever he's touching, and
>"flying" the building. Tactile Telekinesis, like Superboy today,
>the same power that let Christopher Reeves' Superman fly with Lois
>Lane by just touching her hand.
>
>
Would I be correct in guessing that the character in question is Gladiator?
Which issue did this happen in?
Hervoyel1
I really like Alan's pet theory. Do I think that it's nearly that involved in
the story or that the guys at DC have done this good a job planning this event?
Not really. It's a shame though. I like this concept of the whole event better
than anything I have heard up until now.
Hervoyel1
John Dull
Hasn't the comics ever explained how Superman's powers work? Wan't their
a time when Prof. Hamilton examined Superman and figured out how his
powers worked? Or am I mismembering?
Josh
MRah3
>Hasn't the comics ever explained how Superman's powers work? Wan't their
>a time when Prof. Hamilton examined Superman and figured out how his
>powers worked? Or am I mismembering?
Ham's examined Superman on a number of occasions, but so far as _I_ can recall
(and I admit to being somewhat less than a final authority), he hasn't ever
given a real explanation.
Bob Bakh
In the novel the Death of superman, there is a great explanation of how he
gains his powers from the sun if I recall correctly, but it has been a long
time since I read it.
This is the novel mind you, not the comic series
Bob