Superman Through the Ages! Forum

Anyone read this new book?  Comments?

http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2005/09/28/65328

The link is to an article by the physics prof who wrote the Physics of Superheroes.  Contains lots of Superman physics (some of it was exerpted in last month's Wired magazine).

Haha I like that.

It does sound interesting, and it confirms what most of us thought: Spidey killed Gwen.

Well...it's not cannon. :)

Besides Spidey's web is really elastic, it wouldn't just have stopped Gwen cold.  :P

It really depends on how stretchy Spidey's web is as it's fired, which has varied dramatically when drama was called for.  What further muddies matters is that Peter had a cold right as this was going on, making note that his reflexes were a little off.  There's plenty of wiggle room.  

Gwen Stacy's "<snap>" is the same thing as the "jounced the limb" moment from Knowles' "A Separate Peace".  I got an A on a high school paper that mentioned this (even thought I got an "obscure reference?" note in red from my teacher for mentioning Spidey as an example :) ).

As applied to Superman, what amuses me is that folks reject Byrne's pseudo physics pertaining to Superman's bio-aura, even though it goes a long way toward explaining how he can semi-realistically lift battleships -and- keeps the garment industry alive replacing tattered capes.

Superman would need a variant of the aura to explain how he stopped Lois from going splat on the sidewalk in BR after Lex tossed her out the window.  Being stopped that abruptly by the sidewalk or Superman at that point would be fatal, if some other mechanism wasn't at work.

But Luthor does speculate that Superman has Wolverton's anti-gravity neural network so maybe that's what was working here.

The scene everyone knows is Superman and Lois flying together in Superman I, with Lois being held totally improbably.  Of course, I suspect many of us don't pay too much attention to that moment because we're finding the mute button to turn off Margot Kidder's internal monologue.

For the record, Gresh & Weinberg chose an impossible 1000 Gs for Krypton's gravity that would be impossible to create a normal matter planet from.

The fact that actual scientific speculation coupled with BR canon tells the gravity is a more realistic 35 Gs or so -- which is possible for a normal matter planet with a brown dwarf mass, 0.253 of the sun's radius -- which gives a realistic density of only 1.27 x Earth's.

As I said elsewhere, their objective was to say it wasn't possible and even went so far as to fudge things a bit to ensure they reached their preconceived conclusion.

The realistic figure makes Action Comics #1 levels achievable.  Current thought and research on genetic muscular enchancements and materials strength limits can push these limits higher, perhaps to the mountain or asteroid moving levels of the early Byrned Superman.

Esoteric, theoretical physics allows the possibility of the uber-levels of the Pre Crisis model.

But those same words sung to that melody is a great song.  I like to sing it myself, albeit with the gender stuff changed suitably since I'm a straight guy. :D

BTW, does anyone recall who sang that on the released single?

I recently came across a version on line sung by Shirley Bassey.

I think I remember seeing Carole Bayer Singer (is that right? The lyricist) singing it once.  And if memory serves, Connie Selleca (!!) sang it on a talk show soon after the film came out.

I just looked it up.

Maureen McGovern sang "Can You Read My Mind".  It's a wonderful love song if sung properly instead of having to endure Margot Kidder's hokey narrative.

Thanks for the other singers, Nightwing, but I think the original singer was still McGovern.

Probably the lyricist, a famous 'musicals' guy named Leslie Bricusse, first sang it.  But beyond that it gets murky.  Originally, "Can You Read My Mind" was a pop track -- not too surprising since it had lyrics and all -- and the instrumental version of that can be found on Rhino's Superman soundtrack and (I think) the Superman Special Edition DVD as well.  Toni "The Captain And" Tenille definteily had recorded the "Can You Read My Mind" lyrics to the pop soundtrack, and it's rumored that Karen Carpenter also did a demo (though Toni is the one Bricusse raved about).  But Rhino wasn't able to find copies.  Late in the game, Donner decided to have Kidder try to sing it, then quickly go on to do the "spoken word" bit.  Her spoken word didn't work with the pop music, so it was re-recorded John Williams-style.  Maureen McGovern (and undoubtely a ton of others) covered it after Kidder did.