Superman Through the Ages! Forum

in the original TV series it shows Superman getting shot 6 times in the chest without flinching...but when the gun is thrown at him he ducks. Why??
This is not a joke or a trick question so if you could please indulge me.

I am looking for logical answers or plausible arguments to this question.  If you have an inteligent theory on this please send it to  nunya35@excite.com

Thankyou

P.S.  I realize this is an old question but I have yet to get an INTELIGENT theory on this.  Most people just laugh but if you think about it....the man of steel is supposed to be invunerable ...why would the producers show him ducking?!

In real life, because if he didn't the actor might get hurt.

Storyline wise, having gun thrown at him might be taken as an insult.
Just like you would duck from a water balloon, despite the fact it not going to hurt you.

If Superman grabs the gun, he gets fingerprints on it.  Even if he just lets it hit him, he might smear the villain's fingerprints that are on the gun.  If he swats the gun away, the gun might go off and hurt someone.  Best thing to do is just duck.

Nice try, Uncle Mxy, but what's the difference between the gun fingerprints being smeared by hitting Superman vs hitting anything else including the ground?  Real police easily handle guns without destroying evidence.  Surely the Man of Steel could be at least as capable?

I chalk this one up to the real world production having a gaffe in portraying such an encounter.  We had a similar one in Superman II when Jack O'Halloran, playing Non, stumbled and nearly lost his balance when trashing the Daily Planet newsroom.

Well of course we all know the real reason why George ducks (the job didn't pay enough to get hit in the head with a shootin' iron!).  But the real question is, why would a scriptwriter, or a director, call for this action?  Surely they'd realize that George could only do one thing...get out of the way.  It would have made more sense to say, "Okay, Mr. Weldon, you empty your gun into Superman, and when you see it has no effect, you toss the gun aside and run for it."  This could have made for some funny moments (anyone who's seen Red Buttons shoot at Wonder Woman in the pilot film knows what I mean).

There's always the possibility, of course, that the action was not in the script and the actor ad-libbed it.  In which case I dearly hope George ad-libbed a bona-fide sock in the jaw!

I have to confess, though, that I don't remember seeing this happen at all.  I know it's something stand-up comics refer to all the time, but I really can't remember this scene.  Maybe I'll see it when I get the DVDs.  Whenever I do try to imagine it, I sort of picture George ducking UNDER the gun, which could just as easily be interpreted as a lunge for the bad guy that simply *looks* like he's ducking.

I rember it from the TV show (as a kid) and I even belive he did it in the Fleischer Studios cartoon!

A capable Superman would not make for very good TV.  "See the red and blue blur?  That was Superman!"  There's more likely to be finger print oils absorbed by his clothing, or generated by his hands, than if he just leaves the guns alone and ducks.  


He was still having trouble adjusting to Earth's lower gravity and the powers he has under it.  Obviously, he was struggling with heat vision for a bit there, so this isn't too much of a stretch.  :)

Some years ago, a friend of mine brought up this very incident.

He concluded that Superman was indeed vulnerable to handguns.

Not bullets fired FROM handguns -- handguns THEMSELVES.   :wink:

I know this scene happened at least TWICE in the TV show.  

Once, in Public Enemy No. 1, and once in another black-and-white episode.  

I know it came on again last year when TV Land ran a few episodes of Superman, Batman, and Shazam on Friday nights.  Can anyone else remember the second episode?  

Thanks!

Loeb and McGuinness did a spin on this in one of their early issues where Superman was shot at with machine guns (and caught the bullets as they bounced off him). After the crooks wasted their ammo, they threw their guns at his face...and he stepped out of the way, scowling. The impression a lot of readers got from that was "Do you really think that's going to hurt me after shooting me failed?"

So I'm going to have to side with the insult theory.

Just saw George do it again last week in "The Mind Machine."

I'm loving these DVDs! :)

There is a later ep in S1 where Geo lets the thrown gun bounce off - of course Ive forgotten which one now

"Czar of the Underworld." In that one, though, the gun was thrown at his chest. In "The Mind Machine," the gun was thrown in the stunt man's face, hence the ducking out of the way.

And man, was it obvious they used a stunt man in that sequence....