Superman Through the Ages! Forum

I've been wondering about this for a while and wonder if someone could help me out.

Everyone knows Superman's origin, how a rocketship/spaceship crashlands on Earth and how he's raised by a kind farm couple.  The question is, what prevented the military from tracking the ship as it crashlanded and confiscating the baby inside?  It's an interesting idea, and followed with gusto in Marvel's Supreme Power.  I was just wondering if DC has an official/canon explanation for why this never happened.

I could see it in the 1930s and earlier, as there was no sophisticated radar net or tracking satellites, but for our modern era Superman, there should be a consistant explanation, I just can't seem to find the official one.  A couple of books I've read (Superman: The Never Ending Battle by Stern and Last Sons by Al Grant) provide a brief explanation (a blizzard and meteor shower respectively), but I don't think they're canon.

My guess would be some Kryptonian stealth technology, or that aspect was just inherent in the composition of the pod

It's a good question.

I'm assuming you have read the excellent story "Superman 2001" (1976) by Elliot, Cary, Curt, and Bob. They explore just such a scenario.

But that's an Imaginary story.

As to what really happened, maybe the Kryptonian rocket just came in SO  D A M N E D  FAST that no one could draw a bead on it. It couldn't burn up and the baby couldn't be hurt, so..... And Jor-El's technology may have allowed it to slow down extremely quickly (once at the surface of a planet) so that it didn't wipe out half the countryside with a giant crater.

I've read it now, thanks!  It's a cool story.  It's a good thing that Superbaby is invulnerable, otherwise he would have had a very short career.

All hail president Wiener!

Guessing since there was no space program until the late 1950's, it never really came up during the Golden or Silver Age comics (since Kal-El was depicted landing on Earth before the launch of Sputnik during these eras).

Byrne's Man of Steel revamp was apparently the first depiction to take place during/just after Sputnik's launch (Pa Kent refers to Kal-El as a "Sputnik baby"), given enough time had passed so that Superman would've landed on Earth in the late 1950's by that point. (Yeah, yeah, I know... just throwing this out for some example to draw from :-p ).  The early 2000s had some story where some staff member of Lex Luthor presents evidence of satellites in orbit 30 years ago picking up a sign of Kal-El's spaceship.

Cloaking technology might work (if Jor-El didn't want the military/some such less-than-parental figures picking up Kal-El for adoption)... or just the "no explanation" bit...

For the most part, an explanation was never really necessary, because as Superman is assumed to have arrived on earth "thirty years before" whatever year it currently is, the year of Superman's arrival would have to have been anywhere from the 1930s to the late 1940s and early 1950s, and satellites and other such pieces of radar detection were not as exact as they are today.

All my knowledge of 1950s military radar technology comes from Japanese monster movies and fruity, moralizing B-pictures, but world-wide monitoring seems like an innovation in the later part of the decade of the 1950s. That is to say, the UFOs could come and go with impunity in EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS in 1951, but there was no way Rodan could, even at supersonic speed, avoid radar detection when it was time to make his flick in the middle sixties.

As for the theory that Superman came in too fast he avoided radar detection...the rocket and the baby would survive, but it's unlikely Kansas would. If he did come in too fast to avoid radar detection, there would have had to have been a superscience way to decelerate.

A more likely explanation is that Kryptonian metals are radar-reflective, not because of anything special Jor-El did, but because that's an inherent property. In "The Outlaw Legionnaires," it's learned that Superman and Supergirl's bodies cannot be seen with X-Rays (which was why to perform surgery they needed Ultra Boy's Penetra-Vision) which implies that Kryptonian matter can reflect some kinds of electromagnetism.

Why would the military assume it's a spacecraft of any kind?  Things fall to Earth all the time, after all.

If the ship approached the Earth "looking" like a meteorite, it's doubtful the military would give it a second look.  Only detectable course corrections, a strange slowdown or speed up, a careful insertion into orbit before planetfall, etc would it give it away as a space ship.  It it drops straight in, it's just another piece of space debris, right?  Certainly it wasn't big enough to raise any alarms...it's not like it was big enough to wipe out a town on impact or anything.

I think once a spacecraft gets to the outer atmosphere, there's a period where it can't be tracked at all.  NASA keeps tabs on its shuttles throughout a mission but has a few minutes there on re-entry where it has no idea what's going on (Hence the surprise when Columbia rained down in pieces over the Southeast).  So if we lose track of our own stuff, how can we follow anything else?

Personally I think this a non-issue.  Also, I'm not a watcher of "Smallville," but I gather on that show the ship came to Earth amidst a meteor shower (of kryptonite).  It'd certainly aid a "stealth" entry if the ship was just one of many seemingly natural objects making entry.

That's a good point Nightwing. A lot of space junk comes crashing down every year, as well as meteors etc. If the government could detect everything that enters Earth's atmosphere, it certainly would be a duller world as we'd lose out on all those great UFO sightings  :)

I guess the reason this came to mind is that traditionally the Kryptonian spacecraft looks like a rocket ship, and I thought a fast, missile shaped object coming in for a landing during the height of the Cold War would be something the government would keep an eye out for.

It seems everyone agrees on some sort of stealth technology being key.

Most likely, plus radar back then wasn't as good as what we have now.

I more or less assumed that the ship was built to not be detected. To me this would make sense if you take into account that in many versions of the story the rocket was a prototype for (or in STAS part of the actual means) to save Kryptons people. It would make sense that they might want to come in undetected and sort of get the lay of the land before dropping the "Hi we're from another planet" bomb on what to them would have been a very primitive world.

I liked in STAS that ship had something missing from other versions. Landing gear!

The canon I've always subscribed to was Jor-El was caught so by surprise how quickly Krypton's doom was upon them, that all he could manage was the prototype and just enough time to rig it to withstand the journeys of space yet make for a safe touchdown.  I suppose if he realized that both Kal and the rocket would be invunerable by the time it hit Earth's atmosphere, then mainly there'd be a breaking system to keep Kansas from being obliterated - hence no landing gear required.

The Crystal ship from the movie would likely have appeared as a meteor, the Byrne's matrix was very small, but was quite angled (the star drive and the actual matrix itself), then the blue and red rocket - that should have appeared like a missile, because it was.  However, it's not hard to realize that some forsightful writer would have considered Jor-El made it stealth capable.  Considering the final canon for the rocket pre-crisis was Jor-El intended Einstein to get Kal, having the foresight and obvious time to contact Einstein, Jor would have made it invisible to detection devices so only Albert could retrieve Kal.  and of course, Smallville has it covered with the meteor shower, although I have a hard time understanding how Jor wouldn't have caught that he was sending his child into a virtual deathtrap with all the kryptonite in the vicinity.

I didn't see where it was addressed in Birthright.  I however, can't help but think the way it was addressed in Supreme Power was an approximation of what would really occur.  Speaking of gov't individuals becoming rather "security conscious" - Secret Identity was rather brilliant regarding that.  However, that Superman would have come to Earth via transporter than a rocket (as the apparent genesis of this story was Superboy Prime from recent Infinity Crisis fame).  There were also a few Elseworlds that appeared long before Supreme Power that alluded to the way Clark would have been handled by the gov't, as well as the recent Son of Zod storyline.  Let us also not forget Red Son.

Here's another thought.

It's been well documented that spaceflight was outlawed on Krypton (thanks to Jax-Ur's crimes) and Jor-El was specifically forbidden to proceed with construction of an escape rocket.

Therefore, it's reasonable to assume he would have incorporated stealth capabilities into his prototypes, to sneak any test launches and orbits past the Science Council.

And if it could fool Kryptonian sensors, ain't no way any chuckleheads on Earth are going to spot it.

I just like how Byrne's version of the rocket manages to land with its rocket section touching the ground (i.e., the upright launch position), rather than it being on its side as any rocket that crash-lands would normally if not always do. Of course, that was back in 1986's Man Of Steel mini-series.

you got that right!

i hope that guy faffing about with the lazer got fired.. why? oh only for shooting a BABY IN THE FACE! i dont care if it was a suprise!!

ahh... its things like these that are missing from modern comics...

you know... violence against minors

The blizzard has been canoncial since the 1986 reboot. To the best of my knowledge it's still canonical. It was one of Byrne's better ideas (I never had any problem with throwing out the whole orphanage bit; it's archaic).

I think this is one of the things were Kal-El being adopted formally by the Kents was more straightforward than the blizzard bit, which I have various problems with:

- A multi-month-long relentless blizzard?

- Apparently Smallville, unlike most rural communities in the midwest used to dealing with lots of snowfall, doesn't have any snowplows or experience at dealing with emergency snowstorms.

- Also apparently, the National Guard (or US govt.) didn't investigate this odd weather phenomenon and/or send help to the snowed-in people of Smallville.

- Would think the Kents would've called for help/to see if their neighbors were OK/etc. at *some* point (unless the phone lines were down)... or checked up on TV/radio to see why the heck such a snowstorm was happening.

- Still don't feel the Kents could pass off Kal-El as a newborn---even if he was just "born" when he landed on Earth, that's still 9 months of pregnancy to account for somewhere, which can't fit in (even with the multi-month-long blizzard that doesn't apparently elict concern from the National Weather Service/National Guard/etc.)... esp. since babies grow pretty fast. Would think there'd thus still be questions (even ignoring that Clark doesn't look anything like Jonathan *or* Martha)...

The adoption approach made more sense to me than the above---far as the Langs/Chief Parker/etc. would be concerned, the Kents found an abandoned infant, took him to the authorities who could look for the infant's parents, said infant was offered for adoption by the Kents (once his parents couldn't be found), and the Kents took lil' Clark home. If one feels an orphanage is archaic (which I suppose it might be---assuming Kal-El landed on Earth in the mid-70s by this point in time), substitute "Smallville County Child Services" or whatever in its place. Seems more straightforward to me (and not asking us to accept some stupid-sounding snowstorm/Smallville having incompetent blizzard-handling skills/some improbable pregnancy...).

See, this is the exact problem I had with it too.  Kents are honest, salt-of-the-earth-type folks.  Why lie?  Sure, omit the truth about the ship and all, but they'd do the right thing and turn him over to the police or appropriate community service organization.  You know, for as apparently well thought up as the blizzard story goes, how do you think Martha would have handled the pregnancy lie when she took her regular gynocologist visit?  Spooky...