Superman Through the Ages! Forum

Trivia question: why would the Silver Age Superman have to be VERY careful of what routes he takes when he's flying from star to star or galaxy to galaxy?

Answer: Because the vast majority of suns are red dwarf stars. If he was careless in which routes he took, and got too close to a red sun, his trip would end, and instead, a powerless Superman would suffocate and/or explode in airless space. He probably planned specifically to go through routes where there was a preponderance of yellow stars on his route, which would take careful planning.

I still think a great untold Superboy story would have been when Superboy first discovered he could go faster than light, and got in trouble---both losing his bearings and perhaps, losing his powers, by straying too close to a red sun....

And then we could have Tomar-Re, who was the Green Lantern in that sector of space, rescued a marooned Kryptonian youth....

Boy, that would have made a good story!---Al

It's kind of scary, actually, to think that Superboy could have ended up powerless in the vacuum of space or that he could have lost his powers while traveling faster than the speed of light and just burned up or something, assuming that either would happen while traveling that fast.

Not an untold story, folks--- in 1981's "New Adventures of Superboy" #20 and #21, a two-part backup story flashes back to when Superboy was 10 years old, where it's shown that while travelling faster-than-light through space on his own (guessing for the first time or one of very few times since becoming Superboy), he winds up near a red sun for the first time since leaving Krypton, and is forced to land on a planet with sentient giant slug-like creatures. Superboy does eventually get back home of course (*without* the help of Tomar-Re :-) ) and learns that he'll lose his powers under a red sun.

In the story, he immediately gets cold (losing his invulnerability) when near the red sun-orbiting planet, but manages to land on the planet before he winds up completely powerless (though is forced to use his cape like a parachute/splash into a lake)...

Huh. My bad. There were a few issues of NEW ADVENTURES I didn't pick up---obviously I missed those, because that doesn't ring a bell at all. Thanks!---Al

This reminds me of a recent Legion Of Super Heroes cartoon, where Superboy loses his powers in the face of a red sun (Timber Wolf's home planet), but he hasn't obviously made the connection between "red sun" and "power loss".  It was at the "some places, he just loses powers", without exposition but with a big red sun in the background so it was clear to a Superman fan. 

At FTL, what does "light" look and act like?  Maybe he'll still be "super" as long as he stays at FTL, only becoming vulnerable if he slows down.  (Yeah, I know it doesn't make a lot of sense, but it sounds like Silver Age physics to me.)  So, he can breeze by red suns as long as he maintains FTL, which might not be something he could do perpetually or in a populated planet's atmosphere.  Hmmm... 

As far as plotting interstellar courses, I would think that the empty space in the galaxy would be a whole lot larger than the areas where a red (or blue or green) sun would dominate.  So he'd be ok some collosally large % of the time.  Of course, it'd help to get some idea of the "range" of the power loss in the face of the red sun really is.  Does he have to be within a light-hour of the red sun for its effects to take hold, or is its range closer or farther away than that? 

I remember glancing at that New Adventures of Superboy story in a quarter bin about 20 years ago.  I think they were running a series called "First Times" or something like that.  No doubt lots of good ideas along those lines that have never been explored.  But I don't know which is the neater thing about that "comes out of warp under a red sun" story: Is it that, against astronomically long odds, he came out just close enough to a planet to glide(?) there, or that the story taught us that a human could fall out of planetary orbit and land safely on said planet using only the braking action of a cape?  NASA obviously must be trying to do this stuff the hard way.   

Forget all that... is that THE Al Schroeder whose letters I read in the lettercols back when DC was good?

Yes, it is him! I was as surprised as you were: http://superman.nu/smf/index.php?topic=2021.0

Wouldn't he still have some of his powers? I thought that only the sensory powers were attributed to the yellow sun and the rest were attributed to gravity?

Because there is the example of him fighting Kil-Lor on one of Krypton's moons and both had powers. As well as a Bronze Age tale of Vandal Savage (IIRC) using the old red flashlight gag and it only cut out a portion of his powers.

Yeah, but most stories show him losing his powers completely under a red sun, so I suppose that's canonical. By the Bronze Age, the gravity thing had pretty much been done away with, if memory serves, and even before that, Superman was usually powerless under a red sun: http://superman.nu/tales3/showdown/

Yeah, think it was called "Strange Adventures for the first time", a series of backup stories showing Superboy's first experiences at certain things---stories included IIRC were: why Superboy put a secret cape pouch in his costume; the origin of his signal-lamp (in a tale with yet another JFK appearance); and the "Superboy meets JFK" story (which also served to explain why he can't be in two places at once when travelling to another time-era when he's alive).

Re: that entering the planet's atmosphere bit: my guess is he had enough of his invulnerability left to pull the stunt off, with the invulnerability vanishing entirely by the time he 's re-entered the atmosphere/splashed down.

The last reference to gravity at least appearing to be the source of his flight abilities (depends on your interpretation - he's loosing his ability to pull away from a black hole due to the gravity of it approximating Krypton's) that I know of in the Bronze Age, is the Bronze Age revamp issue (Action 544 or so?) of Luthor and Brainiac (Battlesuit Luthor, Skeletor Brainiac). 

Yes. First letter every published had to do with Power Girl's first appearance, BTW...and I met my wife because she spotted my letters in Superman lettercolumns.---Al

And about the gravity thing---I think there was a growing realization that if Krypton's gravity was THAT huge, it would be highly unlikely that Krypton's atmosphere would be breathable by humans. Nevertheless, Jim Shooter put the Legion's Superboy on a huge high-grav plate that eliminated his super-strength.

Larry Niven speculated that Krypton was really a black dwarf star, hence the extremely high gravity. But Jimmy and others have survived on Krypton before remembering to don anti-gravity belts or shoes, for a few minutes anyway, and if the gravity was THAT strong, he would have been turned into paste almost immediately.
 
Here's MY rationalization.  I think Krypton is definitely a "superterrestrial" world, with anywhere from three to ten times the gravity of Earth.  So a Kryptonian on Earth would definitely be stronger than an earthling. However, that would give him strength and leaping ability in say, Spider-Man's range. But the yellow rays in turn act as an amplifier, upping their strength to Silver Age ridiculous levels. So....

If the gravity matches Krypton, no extra chemical is produced. But if a Kryptonian is in a low-gravity (to them) enviorment, their body produces an extra chemical, perhaps to compensate for inner ear balance, loss of bone mass, and other bad side effects we see in humans in low-gravity enviorments.  That chemical---like a lot of Kryptonian biology---reacts oddly to yellow sun radiation. (I've always speculated that it is the neutrinoes that react differently, since the "ultra solar rays" seem to go right through the Earth---Superman isn't powerless during the night.  Research is needed to see if there is anything different about the neutrinoes produced by red stars as opposed to yellow stars.) It acts then to "amplify" the muscles and give Superman his amazing strength-levels.
 
So if Superman is put under regular Krypton gravity, his strength fades, because that chemical is no longer produced, so the yellow sunlight can't amplify it.
---Al

It was always my understanding that Superman recieved his powers from Ultrasolar Radiation such as that delivered by orange to blue suns. So that in outer space the constant presense of ultrasolar radiation would mean that he would never lose his powers until he landed on a red sun planet whose atmosphere filtered out ultrasolar radiation. It workes even better if the red sun planet has high gravity.  ;D

Check out the folks currently doing research into "how life could work under a red dwarf":

http://astronomy.villanova.edu/livingwithareddwarf/index.htm

Basically, they start with the premise of "how close do you have to be so that you actually have liquid water", not solid or gaseous water, on the theory that water is needed for life (and would certainly be needed for life as Superman knows it).  Then, then analyse what the solar radiation would be like for planets within that area.  They don't have everything on their web site...  it's brand new research.

I believe in one of the stories where Superman races Flash, that Superman had to be careful with his route?

Jimmy

if you're traveling at light speed wouldnt all light shift into the red spectrum??? so  no matter what sun he is going by in space it would turn red??? (or maybe I have no clue what I am talking about. I am not a scientist!!! leave me alone!!!!!)

the thing I liked about post crisis was that Supes would still retain his super powers even away from a yellow sun though he would eventually lose them. (like he was a solar battery)
I liked it because now supes could travel through space without droping dead if he accidently flys past a red sun.
but then post-crisis superman stop traveling the universe, so it ended up not making a difference.

>if you're traveling at light speed wouldnt all light shift into the red spectrum??? so  no >matter what sun he is going by in space it would turn red??? (or maybe I have no clue
Good point. In fact, if you are approaching a light source then it is blue-shifted, but when receding from one it becomes red-shifted.

I fiorget if it has been discussed, but has it been mentioned whether Superman becomes more Super on a planet with, say, a blue sun?

well in the last issue of Action supes is said to gain new powers under a blue sun.

I guess he would become more powerful under a white or blue sun. but what about a purple?? or checkered.

In one of the Superman-Flash races, there was an orange sun (where I think he grew weaker) and a sun that alternated between yellow and red for some reason, designed to mess with Superman. 

In the first Maggin novel, a blue sun reduced his powers. 

If Superman was flying faster than the speed of light, would his momentum from travelling that fast not carry him clear of the influence of the red sun's rays? Or would the physics of travelling in space mean that he would not have momentum?

JRJ123 asked: If Superman was flying faster than the speed of light, would his momentum from traveling that fast not carry him clear of the influence of the red sun's rays? Or would the physics of traveling in space mean that he would not have momentum?


According to Newton’s 1st law of motion: Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it. Or to state it differently an object at rest will stay at rest and an object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside source.

So basically if Superman is traveling at any speed in space without a force of gravity from some planet, star, moon, or other object to slow him down he will continue at that speed regardless of his personal power level and would eventually move beyond the effects of the red sun, he might be dead without his powers by the time that happens but he would continue to move.

Thanks for clearing that up, and let's hope that never happens!

In a recent Brave & Bold, Supergirl is 3x as powerful because she's in a trinary solar system. 

>>well in the last issue of Action supes is said to gain new powers under a blue >>sun

>In a recent Brave & Bold, Supergirl is 3x as powerful because she's in a trinary >solar system.
Was going to suggest if Superman had ever encountered a "black sun", though (on a more scientific basis) has Superman even dared to go near a black hole? 

How close does Superman have to be to a red son for it to have an effect on him???
or how far away from a yellow sun can supes be and still get powered from it???

It seems to me (and I am no expert) that Superman gets all his powers "turned on" as soon as he is near a yellow sun and his powers will "stay on" forever unless he gets "near" a red sun. (by near I mean with in the that sun's solar system. which isn't that "near" at all really)

Yeah, that's one of the things that never got explained too well. One story from the middle 1960s had the Galactic Thief Masters projecting a yellow sun onto a red sun, when they turned the projector off, Supes dropped like a rock onto a planet.

Comics science is a twisty road leading nowhere, not that it isn't fun... ;D