Superman Through the Ages! Forum

In another thread, the case is brought up as to whether Superman's stories are richer and better off if he has (comparatively) "high level" powers or (comparatively) "low level" powers. Superman has alternated between the two through his career; he began it "low-level," and then went to "high power," in the forties and fifties and sixties, becoming "low-level" again in the seventies under O'Neil. In other media, Superman is "high-level" in the Christopher Reeve movies, but "low-level" in the animated series and Justice League.

My question is this: how do you prefer your Superman: "low level" power or "high level" powered? Under which end of the spectrum is Superman more "Supermanish?"

My personal view:

Superman is better off "higher" powered.

If Superman is higher powered, it means that Superman is more unique as a character, because his plots will not resemble those of other superheroes: they will not be centered on the straightforward opposition a villain or monster or robot can provide, but would be centered on things like dilemmas and choices.

Higher power levels are more awe-inspiring and easily capture the sense of wonder; they're just plain "cool" because they are by their nature, fantastic. They force you to think about how unlike the real world things are. Read the "Average Day" story where Superman is playing baseball with his supporting cast, and the "bases" are between Macchu Picchu, Mt. Everest, and "home plate" is the Daily Planet building. Superman hoisting an ocean liner above his head is an astonishing sight.

Superman having higher level powers also make certain types of stories possible. For instance, if Superman was unable to go fast enough to break the time barrier and travel back through time, you have just shut the door on time travel stories. Ditto for space travel and space opera type stories, which suddenly are made impossible (or at least harder to explain) than if he can just fly faster than light.

More powers make Superman unique, if his powers cover breadth of ability instead of just depth of ability. The instinct of writers recently have been to *remove* Superpowers (I don't think Superman has used Super-Shouts, Super-Scent or Super-Ventriloquism in decades, for example). This is unfortunate, because characters that fly and are superstrong and tough are a dime a dozen; Superman isn't just "another one" of these characters; he is the starting point, the inspiration for the whole concept. Any power he has, from Super-Hypnotism to Super-Shouting, improves him by making him that much more unique than his imitators.

This brings up a related question: if you could give Superman any NEW superpowers, what would they be?

I'd love to see someone GIVE Superman some more Super-Powers, perhaps: how about the ability to move objects from a distance the way the Phantom Zone criminals did in SUPERMAN II? How about "Spectrum Vision," that allows his eyes to act as miniature spectrascopes that identify any element or the composition of any kind of matter by looking at it? It's arguable with his extended vision powers that he has this power already.

I actually think that S:TAS worked fine, because Superman's inherent goodness and lack of self doubt are intact...if a writer subtly de-powers him so that he has to shrug off missiles as he continues his mission, its OK with me...change his history to a birthing matrix or make him mentally question his motivation, and I lose interest...

While I personally also prefer time travel capability, I do see what DC was aiming for with the drastically restricted time travel of the Post Crisis DCU.  They were trying to avoid the rampant continuity gaffes that unrestricted time travel was prone to produce esp. with lack of editorial control and writers of sometimes less-than-stellar talents.

OTOH, given how Post Crisis continuity ended up being a mess anyway, I don't see how this editorial fiat bought them their objectives anyway.

I say, give him back FTL and time travel power again.

TAS Superman seemed a little like a jerk to me and a bit self riteous, especially in JLA-U. He wasn't exactly the pinnacle of morality he's supposed to be. He was egotistical also.

It depends which powers.

I prefer that my Superman be fast enough to travel through space, invulnerable enough to not be killed by something stupid, and have a really good sense of super-hearing.

But as for the strength, I don't really care. Moving planets is out.

While I do agree that Superman should be portrayed with a High Power Level, I do think that giving him extra powers just for the sake of giving him new powers is kinda silly.  

It's that kind of thinking which gave us "The Cellophane S-Symbol" from Superman II and "Rebuild-the-Great-Wall-of-China" Vision in Superman IV...    Great Rao that was silly..

No, I'd rather see any new Superman powers being derived from his existing super-powers, or logical extrapolations from them..  I can see Super-Spectrum Vision, Super-Sonic Screaming or a Super-Analysis power allowing him to predict an enemy's actions...  But telekinesis?  I don't think so.

...Heck, I'm having doubts about Super-Hypnosis..  Unless we make it an advanced, super-scientific Kryptonian version using sub-sonic subliminal voice messages or something similar..

In terms of raw power levels, though, I've got only one thing to say...

...I'm sick and tired of seeing "rumbles" message board people say DBZ's Goku could kick Superman's butt.  ...Darnit, the Man of Steel should be able to beat an uppity Sayjin...

STAS Superman and JLU Superman are (though unintentionally) seperate characters.  The Justice League animated series has been screwing up Supermans character since day one and is basically a disgrace to STAS because of it.  If they could stop worshipping Batman for 2 little seconds they might be able to get it right. Bruce Timm as much as I love his work has obviously forgotten the show that he worked on.

In STAS he wasn't a jerk at all and the power levels he had worked fine because they would actually show him get back up and take care of business. He could have just the slightest bit of attitude without coming off as a jerk the way he has been since season 2 of JL (wheras in season 1 they just made him totally ineffective on every level from personality to powers.)

That's kind of the way that I saw S:TAS as well, though there were some hints in Batman: Beyond that the Justice League was going to feature more of a modern "Superman gone rogue, government tool" kind of character...

One thing Byrne did get right was the psionic aspect and the implied telekinesis aspects to super-strength and flight, for instance.

Flight certainly implies by its very existence a telekinetic aspect.

The lack of adhering to physical laws when using his strength, such as objects not crumbling under the stress of their own weights, plus the variability of his power levels (one issue being staggered by a gorilla only to take a supernova without effect a couple of issues later), do imply psionics do have something to do with how his powers manifest.

Not everything Byrne did was wrong.  He just tends to spew out more garbage than gems -- and no one has the editorial guts to tell the guy "NO!".

It's very telling that the one thing Byrne supposedly didn't do wrong, he actually stole the idea blatantly from Alan Moore's MIRACLEMAN, where all of the powers the Miracleman Family's miraclebodies were from their mind;s flight as a reflexive self-levitation, invulnerability as a result of a type of biological force field, etc.

I don't know. I miss Superman's invulnerable super-stretchy cape.  :D

One might argue that Superman as a character is based on plagiarism to some extent. I disagree. Superman is not *exactly* like the characters that inspired him: Hercules, Doc Savage, Popeye, Flash Gordon. Yes, Doc Savage had a "Fortress of Solitude" in the arctic first, but Superman's had enough distinctive elements in his (the Interstellar Zoo, Kandor, that giant key) and it served a different role than Doc's, as a retreat and reminder of dead Krypton, unlike Doc's, which was for solitude, meditation and scientific research. Yes, the Marvel Family came before the Superman Family, but while the concept of a superhero family was born with the Marvels, the Superman Family is distinctive enough to stand on its own: there were no equivalents to the Lieutenant Marvels (Fat Marvel, Tall Marvel, and the politically incorrect Hillbilly Marvel), no Uncle Marvel, and Krypto is not quite the same as Hoppy the Marvel Bunny.

All this makes the ruthless, outright conceptual lifting by Byrne of the MIRACLEMAN physics anomalous in Superman's history; the serial numbers aren't even filed off.

And while you are correct, Captain Kal, that some of the feats Superman is capable of (objects not shattering under their own weight when he lifts them, for instance) do violate the laws of physics and require a search for alternative solutions, it doesn't mean the MIRACLEMAN explanation should be the only one. Mark Wolverton in THE SCIENCE OF SUPERMAN offered a counter-explanation: Superman's powers are based on a superconductive at room temperature nervous system (which is also the explanation for his superspeed as well) that can manipulate gravity; this is both the explanation for his flight, and his superstrength, as he decreases the gravity of objects he hoists. My summary is a poor one; my advice is to read the book yourself.

Thanks, Julian, but I have my own copy of Wolverton's book and I've enjoyed it immensely.  I even have another copy on backorder so I could have a reading copy and a pristine one in my collection.

And you're right.  Mark does suggest a neural interface directed grav-manipulation power for those feats.  But they still translate functionally into pretty much the same results.  Either via psionic or grav means, he still can manipulate other matter at will.  Ergo, he should be capable of telekinesis or a suitable facsimile of same.

BTW, if you've read Birthright, you might have noticed Waid tipping his hat to Wolverton when he has Luthor extrapolate about Superman's anti-gravity neural interface (or something like that) in his holo-simulation of dissecting the Kryptonian.

I'm almost certain Byrne had priority on the psionic aspect.  He mentioned his POV on Superman's powers many years before while he was still at Marvel.  He even did a trial run of the idea in FF #'s 249 - 250 ("Man and Superman") with Marvel's Gladiator.  While Moore might have done better justice to the psionic aspect, I do believe Byrne was the originator. (I may dislike Byrne's writing intensely, but I do try to be fair and objective.)

But Byrne ripped-off the aura from the Pre Crisis Ultra Boy.  Jo Nah generated an aura when using his super-speed or invulnerability that protected his costume from the relevant power's effects.

I have to admit, I do like the "Telekinetic" option, because it suggests the notion that Superman's Strength and Invulnerability are a matter of Willpower..

...So that there's really no effective limit to his strength: if he needs to life a mountain, he just pushes his willpower and strength until he can.  And if he's blasted by a world-shattering energy cannon, he just needs to find the willpower to endure that blast...

But I do think that such powers should be limited to magnifying human abilities to Extraordinary levels: If he needs to lift something, then he must lift it the old fashionned way, instead of just doing a "Mind-over-Matter" routine.  If he wants to locate something, he needs to look for it with superhuman senses, rather then use ESP.

A bit off-topic but since JulianPerez brought up Byrne's ripping stuff off ...

Byrne ripped-off Lexcorp from Maggin.  Elliot had priority with both his Superman novels and his "The Ghost of Superman Future" story for Lexcorp.  Byrne got paid some kind of creator credit for Lexcorp for the Lois & Clark TV show amongst other things.  When Maggin noticed this gaffe and complained, then publisher Levitz agreed Maggin was right then said he'd fix it.  Nothing ever came of it, Maggin was never paid for it, and Byrne never gave back his money for it.

Once again, proof that Byrne is a Jerk.

All this "psionic" junk and telekenesis is just as improbable in a biological being as an iceberg Superman is carrying holding together is improbable in the world of physics...

No gain, in my mind, swap one whopper for another...

Huh! Well, I'll be danged! I have the issue you're talking about - FF #250, which came out in 1983. And you're right - this idea is present there.

However, this does not prove John Byrne had this idea first. WARRIOR #1, the first appearance of the Alan Moore version of Marvel/Miracleman, came out in 1982, and Alan Moore had printed quotes detailing how he would write Miracleman that were floating around in UK fan magazines as far back as 1981 in the Society of Strip Illustrators Journal, which was how he was approached by Dez Skinn to write MIRACLEMAN in the first place.

(Yes, it took until 1985 for MIRACLEMAN to make it to the United States thanks to Eclipse Comics, but one of the reasons that sales were not as impressive for those comics was, everybody that REALLY wanted the Alan Moore/Alan Davis MIRACLEMAN had already bought the UK WARRIOR issues).

If I might bring up a piece of circumstantial evidence:

Byrne, working by himself, has never created a worthwhile or memorable original character in his entire career.

He has never created a worthwhile or imaginative concept to transplant onto existing characters in his entire career: from the Vision having no emotions to not "really" being the Human Torch, to Namor not really being an honorable, complicated regal monarch with a legitimate grievance against the surface world, but instead having a disease that "makes him crazy" every so often; to Byrne's catastrophic relaunch of Superman whose flaws have already been detailed in depth by many people on this very website. Individuals have spent careers undoing the mistakes Byrne has left behind; saddled with the detritus of Byrne's FF run, the reason Alicia acted as wildly out of character as she did in Byrne's run is because "Byrne's Alicia was a Skrull." Look at Loebs bringing back "classic" Superman elements, or Busiek restoring the Vision's humanity and original origin.

So, in that context, excuse me if I'm in-freakin-credulous of a claim that it was Johnny Byrne that originated a concept instead of ALAN MOORE.

That's sort of like saying, "I'm positive the man who stole my purse wasn't that known, convicted pursesnatcher. It had to have been that elderly church lady." It doesn't mean that the pursesnatcher is innocent and the old church lady is guilty, but come on.

I will give credit to Byrne for one thing: he ripped off MIRACLEMAN before it became fashoinable to do so.

I was not aware Elliot S! Maggin created LexCorp. Seriously, if they don't cough up the bucks, Maggin ought to get an attorney. True, Jack Kirby never got his art back from Shooter, that's in the past; Stan Lee recently won a giant settlement against Marvel for over several million dollars, and that was from a pussycat like Stan who didn't really push very hard.

And it's even more damning proof that Byrne is the exploding syphillis canker that we know he is. He shamelessly robbed the desk and concepts of a writer that was fired to make way for him. A writer, incidentally, that was powerless and marginalized and had no voice to really defend himself.

There's a certain vindicating thrill when you find out that people whose work you despise are also worthless, evil jerkholes as human beings, too.

Not even the Next Men? You know his creator owned book that was so bad and had such low sells that he had to quit his own book without even finishing the storyline and thus leaving the few fans that he did have hanging forever, not even that one?


Anyway ;)

Here is what the devi... John Byrne had to says about this topic from his website:

What's the story behind Superman's indestructible aura invented by JB?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When you revamped Superman and gave him a force-field around his body, did you do that because you wanted to get away from the "indestructible" costume thing? Did you catch much slack for this new "power"?

JB: No, to both. A few months before I started work on Superman, I'd read a book called "The Secret House" (which I highly recommend, though I sadly cannot remember the name of the author.) This book tells all about the strange and amazing things that happen in the world around us, things of which we are mostly oblivious (How they make chocolate cake, for instance. Shudder.) One of the things that was most interesting was the fact that the bioelectric energy of the human body generates a field of energy around all of us, very low wattage and very close to the skin. (This is not Kirillian photography, btw. This is real science.) Apparently, were it not for this field, we would be covered with dust and grime all the time. I extrapolated this for Superman, as a justification for him wearing a skintight (to be inside the field) costume. (4/25/1998)

Yes, it would seem we are in a very different era.  Or maybe it's just that, if you hang around long enough, you outlive your enemies and everyone forgets your past crimes.  Regardless, I am excited about the prospects of some of these cartoonists and writers of yesteryear finally seeing a greater share in the profits generated by their creations.

And ditto on your Byrne critique, Julian. :D

Julian, you're my hero...  You really are...

And let's not forget that he rebooted the Doom Patrol, erasing everything ever done by the previous Doom Patrol in all it's incarnations...

...Thus leaving Beast Boy to become the New Donna Troy, amongst other things..

Ding Ding! Backtrack ahoy!

Never have I seen a bigger load of after-the-fact justification since the last time George Lucas ranted to Entertainment Weekly. Byrne, you stole that idea from Alan Moore and we both know it, now fess up!

This one paragraph encapsulates Byrne perfectly: all in one response it's got plagiarism, egomania, and insane B-Movie science (...so, we're not dirty all the time because photographs show we're made of lightning? Granted, I'm not too familiar with Kirlian Photography, but that's such blatant quackery that it would be rejected by the Middle Ages.) If only it had mysoginy, immaturity, and homophobia and we've have his character down pat.

I haven't been enmeshed in Superman fandom until recently, but was anyone really crying out for a justification as to why Superman's costume is skintight? Thanks for moving heaven and earth to change what we know about Superman in order to answer a question nobody asked, Johnny.

I forgot about the Doom Patrol thing, thanks, lonewolf (and incidentally, welcome to the forums). Then again, Byrne's "writing" career reads like a list of the Clueless Ideas of the Past 25 Years. Byrne tore down the FF and replaced it with nothing. Byrne tore down Superman and replaced it with nothing. And finally, Byrne tore down the Doom Patrol, and not only did he replace it with nothing, he didn't even bother to do the art, either!

I'll add that you make an incredible turn of phrase, Julian.  I couldn't have said it better myself.

Just a reminder, folks, since we're on the Doom Patrol that Unca Johnny violated his own continuity with his stupid reboot of the team recently.  His own original Byrned Superman stories included the Post Crisis Doom Patrol esp. one with Robotman duking it out with Byrned Metallo.  Now, he'd have us pretend the Doom Patrol mysteriously just appeared in the present.

But Byrne can't even maintain continuity in an issue of his own books.  It's obviously too much to ask for him to remember what crap he spewed out 17 years ago in the run that was supposed to fix Superman continuity.

Actually, the aura predates Moore back to the Silver Age Ultra Boy in the 1960s as I mentioned earlier on this thread.

Possibly, George Papp or Jerry Siegel himself came up with the aura for Ultra Boy as to why his costume remained intact when using super-speed or invulnerability.  (Jo was a Siegel creation, BTW.)

I'll see what I can find out but I know the aura way preceded both Moore and Byrne or any other contemporary writer.

Hmmm, I can believe this.

Didn't the Silver Age Flash also have something to this effect - an antifriction aura that protected him from being damaged by heat when he was moving at superspeed?

I stand corrected.  It was noted S.F. writer Edmond Hamilton that invented the aura for Ultra Boy, Jan. 1964.

http://members.shaw.ca/silver-age_chronology/legion/ad316.htm

Also see the entry:
http://members.shaw.ca/legion_roll_call/legionnaires/ultra_boy/

Look at the bottom of the powers section for the AD 316 reference above re: the aura.

Again, neither Moore nor Byrne had priority on the aura.  Hamilton gets kudos for this one.

Both Barry-Flash and Wally-Flash had auras to protect them from the friction of super-speed.

Later, Post Crisis, this was extended to include any and all Speed Force empowered speedsters.  So, Jay-Flash, Johnny Quick, Impulse/Kid Flash, Max Mercury, etc. all have super-speed auras.

It just made sense.

The super-speed aura may predate Hamilton, now that you mention it.  But the invulnerability aura definitely was his and made perfect sense why our momentarily-invulnerable Ultra Boy's costume was also standing up to abuse.

"The Case of the Real-Gone Flash" (The Flash #128, May 1962) by John Broome was the introduction of Barry Allen's super-speed aura.  The Flash was involved in a small outer space adventure where his newly introduced aura provided some protection from space conditions.  In its first inception, it not only protected him from super-speed friction but also the effects of outer space.

In terms of power-linked auras providing protection, Broome could be arguably the originator of the concept in the books.

In the same vein, Hamilton appears to have derived his Ultra Boy aura work from Broome's Flash aura.  The chief difference was an aura specifically designed to confer generic invulnerability protection on Jo Nah's clothing as opposed to it being incidental and limited to friction.

By no stretch of the imagination could John Byrne be credited with originating an invulnerability aura for Superman.  Ultra Boy had it first by 22 years in the same form that Byrned Superman manifested it.  The Flash had it first by 24 years if we take the very first version of a protective power aura into account.

Excellent comics scholarship!  Way to dig, guys!

Can't compete with that scholarship!! I will say however I liked Byrne's Superman in many ways and the more resonable power level was one of them. Silver age Supes super feats are sooo out there that they cease to be impressive. Tas Supes is more my power level cup of tea. JLU Supes personality worked for me also/ If present comics were as good I'd buy Modern Superman regularly. My favorite is still earth two Supes from  Roy Thomas all star squadron stuff.

I loved all star squadron as a kid, I could just buy one book and get to read about 800,000,000,000,000 characters.

DC Really needs to collect that series as TPB, heck I'll buy them :)

I prefer Higher power as well..

So that Supes wouldn't be stuck battling Giant Robots I mean COME ON he's supposed to be above those, he's in the planet level strength..

Marvel fans complain because supes is "too powerful"

but the funny thing is whenever a Superman vs "insert marvel character with great strength" argument comes up.. they all say that marvel character (Hulk, Thor, Juggernaught, Drax, even Sentry) are way above supes BUT they don't complain about those aforementioned being "too powerful"

If that's the case..

LET'S GIVE EM' SOMETHING TO WHINE ABOUT!!!! :D :D

Make supes uber powerful!!!

But truth be told The only REASONABLE challenges to supes would be Zod and Luthor..

I can think of ways supes can beat Metallo, Bizzaro, Titano, Parasite , plus three giant robots, within a few seconds in almost EVERY situation..

The Key factors for being a superman threat

1. World threat
2. Has Super strength
3. Has Super speed
4. CAN fly

it doesn't matter how many Kruptonite or Magic any rogue has at their disposal, if they lack even one of the following they aren't considered a superman threat.

Random stuff:

- Yes, I prefer higher-powered.  Superman should not be a wimp.  He shouldn't need a breathing mask to survive in space.  Electric manhole covers should not incapacitate him.  Mind control shouldn't generally work.  
For really high-powered stuff (e.g. igniting distant stars with heat vision), I like the post-Crisis idea of throwing himself into the heart of the sun to supercharge his powers, with some variable temporary side-effects (losing control, weaker afterwards, a super-tan, etc.).  Make it a big deal and not something you'll see in every issue.

- I like new powers and weaknesses being extensions or rationalizations of his current powers.  If he can generate heat (infrared and microwave -- it's been written both ways), visible light (what makes those beams red), and X-rays, can he emit other bands within the EM spectrum with practice?  Is his freeze breath about him being able to emit something through his lungs that stop time and subatomic motion, with the freezing being a side effect?  His invulnerability could be like an immune response, so lots of things hit him harder the first time than successive times.  Thus, writers could attack him with some sort of unusual radiation and it'd do something bad to him for one storyline, but not over successive oens.  

- I'd like to see him have lesser powers under hours of the light of a red sun, back down to the "leap 1/8th of a mile" 1940s era, but not have them  gone altogether because someone shines a flashlight of red sun on him and instantly he crumbles into wimpoid man.  

- Timm admits that he got Superman wrong for the 1st season of S:TAS and JL, and did worse by trying to overcompensate in the 2nd season of JL.  He admits that Batman is his favorite character to write for, and B:TAS is simply awesome in my book.  

- I never much cared for excessive time travel.  Superboy didn't need to be in the LSH, and I never quite understood why he just didn't go off and live in the 30th century or whatever century he wanted.  It'd have been cooler to have Superboy be a descendant, with the notion that somewhere along the way, some Kryptonian or other in the past gets to procreating, and have that be "in continuity".  If Brainiac could do it...

- I like the idea that Supes can extend some sort of "bio-aura" to whatever solid his flesh touches, and within said bio-aura, he can perform things that defy the laws of physics, and said things are somewhat invulnerable and whatnot.  Call it TK or gravity control if you prefer, but I'd like it to be more than that.  If you touch Superman, he can fly you into outer space and you can survive the trip.  It'd make for some great art.

HAH.. for me the sun SHOULD NOT even be a "recharger".. supes shouldn't be a living Battery..

The Yellow sun should simply be the "switch on" to his powers which remains on when out of a yellow sun contact.. and that the red sun is a "switch off"

The part that always bothered me, well before the post-Crisis era, was where gravity fit in.  When the plot or quip called for it, Krypton would be depicted as having insane amounts of gravity relative to Earth.  So why would his strength vanish totally when some Earthman shined a red sun flashlight at him?  The sun has nada to do with intense gravity, and giving Superman some level of Doc Savage-y powers (and being able to tell Doc Savage-y "Superman under a red sun" tales) due to the gravity difference between Krypton and Earth makes sense to me, with the energizing rays of the yellow sun making the rest of the difference.  

I don't think of Superman as so much a "solar battery", but "some other kind of battery (extradimensional?) where particular wavelengths of solar radiation are a catalyst".  The sun reacts with his "bio-aura" or whatever to  flood Superman with energy from some unknown source.  He has to be a battery (or open vortex of extradimensional power) of some flavor, inasmuch as he is still "super" when it is dark out, or when he's halfway between our solar system and another and there's only ambient starlight fueling him (which would be the same ambient starlight he might have on Krypton, so why not powers on Krypton :) ).  His vulnerability to "magic" could be explained as magic interfering with Supes' "portal" to whatever that extradimensional power source is.  It could be even Fifth Dimensional which explains Mxy's interest in Supes.  

On that note, a high G makes Krypton make a lot more sense in some ways.  It could explain why sending a rocket to earth was a big deal (the escape velocity is staggering), why Krypton had limited direct contact with other races (they'd be smooshed), why Jor-El thought sending Kal-El to Earth would be a good idea (the gravity difference alone would make his son a "super" man, though he might not have had any idea of the effects of a yellow sun on a Kryptonian), etc.

I have to admit, one of the things I like about the Pre-Crisis Superman stories is how often the villains use some fancy new super-weapon to try and kill Superman, and just when they think it's going to work...

...He just smiles and shrugs it off, and proceeds with the butt-whooping.

I like it.  It was Superman's thing: just when the villain thinks he's won, Superman just knocks him down a peg.  

...But nowadays, sadly, Superman rarely gets such great moments.  All too often, he's actually matched in terms of power, if not surpassed.

I want more of those classic "Think you've won?  Think again" moments..

Not sure if this has been referred to here but there is an excellent article on the "photonucleic effect" that gives Superman his powers on this very site:

http://superman.nu/a/Encyclopaedia/photonucleic.php

Yeah, seen it before.  There's some big problems with that theory:

- In the pre-Crisis universe, there were a ton of alien races that lived under a red sun besides Kryptonians and Daxamites, many with space travel capability, plus another ton who knew enough about Superman physiology to shine a red sun flashlight at him.  If such an effect had existed in any general way, it'd have been generally exploited.

- There's still the pesky "gravity" thing.  The theory is fine to explain why Superman can resist atomic bombs and ignite stars with a gaze.  But, there's no good reason that Superman wouldn't still be a little "super" on Earth solely due to the low-G conditions, never mind whatever impact the photonucleic effect would have on him.

A couple of quick comments (atypical for me re: 'quick', I know) ...

The photonucleic effect, though written by Maggin, was not published by DC so it's not in canon.  It has less weight, IMHO, than the movies and TV shows.

The solar aspect was originally brought in the year after Kara appeared in the books.  It was a way to rationalize why she was still super on Earth even though that asteroid-sized chunk of Argo City couldn't possibly have the full super-gravity Krypton was supposed to have.

The first DC Who's Who edition's Krypton entry suggested that Kryptonians automatically adapted to any gravity under red sun radiation.  That would retroactively explain how they always moved 'normally' on Krypton, Daxam, Earth, the Moon, etc. when under red sun rays.  Their bodies just made the red sun automatic grav adaptation.  I don't like that one and it appears nowhere else in actual canon.

A couple of Pre Crisis tales do show Superman retaining some physical super-powers when under red solar influence but Earth grav conditions.

When I get back home, I'll post all the references to grav vs solar powers that indicate Kal did still have some powers due to purely grav influences.  The most glaring that comes to mind was Action Comics #500 when Luthor's red sun lamp neutralized the solar aspect but Superman was still fighting with his vestigial grav super-strength (switching off the lamp let Superman knock Luthor out with the slightest flick of his finger when the armed Luthor couldn't be taken down with full punches of grav strength indicating the ratio of grav to solar strength is on the order of 1:20 million).

I've been tossing around the idea of Superman not getting his powers from a yellow sun in my head. This would mean that the Kryptonians would have had the same powers as Superman on their own planet, they'd get their powers through years of genetic engineering. "How would that work," you may ask, "wouldn't they just fly away when Krypton was going to explode?" No, they wouldn't fly away because they wouldn't be able to leave their planet. That's right, I'm proposing that the Kryptonians be genetically bonded with their planet. This would be different from the post-Crisis version in that the Kryptonians wouldn't know why they're stuck on their planet. The Raoists would put forth the theory that Rao (the sun itself) was displeased by Krypton and made them unable to leave their home. A more rational theory would be that the Daxamites who seeded the planet put a flaw in the genetic structures of the first Kryptonians (they didn't want them leaving).

Does this mean that Superman will be the last of his race? No, it doesn't. You could still have Kara (with Power Girl's origin) and Kandor (if you wanted it). The Phantom Zone criminals might get the shaft here, though.

There's another story from about the same time where Vandal Savage changed history, or created an alternate timeline, or something like that to make himself dictator of Earth. Superman was hoodwinked into supporting him, while Jimmy Olsen was a rebel. So Jimmy attacked Supes inside a robot-vehicle that carried its own red sun lamp. I think Supey said something like "Red suns don't neutralize all of my powers! And all I need is half my super-strength to deal with you!"

I think this (http://www.comics.org/details.lasso?id=35003) is the comic.

Right you are, Gary.  That was indeed one of the stories I was going to reference.

And Jimmy retorted, "What good are muscles when we've weakened your invulnerability?" [*KLONG* as 50-ton battle-robot stomps Superman into the ground.]

A DCCP story with the Metal Men has I.Q. mucking with the Sun so Superman's solar-based powers stopped working but his purely muscular ones like flight, strength, speed, some degree of invulnerability still worked.

In the original Superman series (now Adventures of Superman), the Parasite tricked him into thinking his powers were growing out of control when he really stole Superman's holding back reflex.  Superman coated his body with a yellow sun screening lotion that only allowed red sun rays to hit his body to weaken himself back to normal range.  That suggests even under pure red solar radiation, Superman would have his normal power levels from grav alone.

A team-up with the E-2 Superman: The E-2 Luthor attacked E-1 Superman with grav cables that duplicated the gravity of Krypton to trap Superman.  He mused that the cables cut his powers by about half.

I'll give the exact issues, dates, and writers when I get to my books later tonight.

That's an interesting take, NotSuper.

But that would imply that their natural invulnerability was somewhere below Krypton-shattering levels or else a mere planetary explosion wouldn't kill them.

One of the chief reasons Kryptonians were changed from having native powers was not only being able to fly away to escape the explosion, but they would be invulnerable to it in the first place.

Of course, the energies to destroy a giant world like Krypton would be far greater than those needed to destroy a more modest planet like Earth, so maybe that's an out here.

I guess depending on the genetic bonding to the planet, that could be another out as well.  If the destroyed planet ceased to have the characteristics their bodies were genetically keyed to, then they'd all die in space despite being otherwise invulnerable.

I'm kind of doubtful that a magic bullet explanation will ever work, it was completely conceivable that beings that "no less than a bursting shell could penetrate their skin" would have perished in a planetary explosion...these natural evolutions are inevitable, and show that continuity is always in flux...as for me, they are just interesting...

However the "true" nature of Superman's powers are resolved (and our best scientific minds should continue to work on it), my feelings, in rambling form, about the "on-topic" subject of this thread are this:

Whether from habit, nostalgia or wishful thinking, I think that the higher powered Superman (ie, pre-Crisis) is better.  Ridiculous niggling details, like the need for an air-supply in outer space --which says to me, "we don't know exactly how all his flying/vision powers work, but he must need oxygen!" --are aesthetically retarded and do a dishonour to the concept/character.  That sort of thing is the triumph of the fan/nerd over storytelling.

In the context of Superman's relation to other Earth heroes, it seems to me that aside from being the most "morally" powerful, he should also be the most physically powerful (vs various relative Johny-come-latelys as Green Lantern --I'll make an exception for the Spectre, in a sense the magical counterpart of Superman and another Siegel creation to boot).  Superman should be a scientific genius as well for the same reasons (and maybe because of hereditity).

I prefer these stories, plain and simple --I also like to read some of them and laugh at the silliness of the physics (and I flunked physics) or the occasional plot gaffe.  At the same time I am often emotionally affected and entertained by these same aspects, especially when done well.

On the other hand, maybe I would enjoy a quality Superman, written and managed with Silver-Age care, who only had Golden Age powers.  Or some combination of the two.  Certainly there have been gaffes and continuity errors (ie, can Superman consistently beat up Luthor or Muhammed Ali under red sun conditions or not?), but no reason to scrap the whole concept.  As for the most super-feats (involving solar bodies, extra-dimensional or temporal travel, etc), they were probably over-used gimmicks but usually in the service of excellent or entertaining stories (I wouldn't erase those Legion stories for anything).

I realize that even fans of the more recent cartoon series are upset by the power levels of Superman.  It seems to me that the host of writers and producers of those shows are striving for some kind of balance that the comic book creators have largely abandoned.

Anyway, the solution for the sticklers seems obvious: bring back Earth-2 Superman.
 :D

Yeah, did that bother anybody else? While I do agree with the belief that Superman can work at lower power levels, and overall the Superman: TAS people understood Superman well, when I saw Superman's Super-Spacesuit, I felt like shouting "bullsh..!" at the very top of my lungs.



There is a difference between the mentality of a fan and the mentality of a professional writer. A fan would wonder if there is any ..... in the Phantom Zone and argue about this with his buddies over Mountain Dew. A professional would be expected to realize that such an unsavory detail would detract rather than add to the tone the Super-World creates and not touch upon it.

And while the best writers are ones that combine knowledge and respect for history with good old fashoined storytelling chops (namely, Steve Englehart and Kurt Busiek, arguably two of the five greatest comics writers ever), there are some writers that are consummate fans, yet do not have the ability to create interesting stories, characterize, or create imaginative concepts. An example of this is obviously Mark Gruenwald, who should have been a continuity cop instead of a writer (that said, I did appreciate his use in his CAPTAIN AMERICA run of N'Kantu the Living Mummy - you GO, Mark!) and ditto for the uninspired but detail-obssessed Roy Thomas, Mark Waid, and Paul Levitz.

Interesting how I can't think of a single writer who is a great storyteller, but is outright ignorant (or willfully in denial) of comics' history and shared universe. NOT ONE. Apparently, knowing and understanding what you're writing is a part of good writing (imagine that).



Superman HAS to be Super-Smart, obviously.

As for Superman being the most moral - hey, those old Silver Age guys also had personalities centered on "protecting and serving," with strongly rooted ethos. Detractors of the Silver Age say that all of them had the exact same personality, but this is untrue; like King Arthur's Knights they shared a worldview.

LOL, maybe that or let him evolve...but then the day of comics as I understand them are over IMO, I'm not super HAPPY about it, but, I kind of think they are...

The weird thing about watching S:TAS was not really knowing what Superman straining or grunting actually meant...could he have been killed, knocked out?  For how long?

The genetic bonding is one reason they'd die, but not the main reason. The radiation coming from the planet (which creates green kryptonite) would completely annihilate them. I have a similar version of this idea where the the increased gravity of Krypton keeps the Kryptonians from using their full powers (they're as strong as the Golden Age Superman).

This is only one of my ideas, though. I've always playing scenarios for how Krypton explodes and how Superman gains his powers in my head. It's almost like a hobby of mine.

OK, guys, here's those references I promised earlier.

Superman (1st series) #321 - 322, Mar. - Apr. 1978, written by Martin Pasko:
The Parasite tricks Superman into thinking he's growing more powerful and out of control (he really stole Superman's holding back reflex).  As Superman grew ever more powerful and unable to control himself, he finally decided to coat his body with a chemical lotion that blocked yellow solar rays and only allowed red ones to strike his body to reduce his powers to normal levels.  It seems without his holding back reflex, our Man of Steel would have normal level super-powers under red sun conditions.

DC Comics Presents #4, Dec. 1978, written by Len Wein:
Ira Quimby's tampering with the sun to boost his own sun-triggered super-intellect also impaired the powers of Superman and the Metal Men.  Superman's non-muscular powers like heat vision and super-senses were nullified and the MM's responsometers were malfunctioning due to the magnetic interference from the increased  sunspot activity (sunspots being redder than the normal sun surface so that would explain Superman's loss).  It must be further noted that despite I.Q.'s heightened super-intelligence and spending days calculating on his blackboard his sun scheme, it only took a glance from our partially-depowered Superman to note Ira's mistake and correct it ("You idiot!  Didn't you bother to triple-check these figures?" "Wh-what are you saying?" "I'm saying you misplaced a decimal point, genius!  According to the proper figures, the sun will soon return to normal, unaided!  Your Chemo-beam will only serve to trigger the nova you hoped to avoid!").  Even non-sun-powered, he manages to outrace the lightspeed Chemo-beam to block it with his body (albeit, he had to strain to beat lightspeed with his powers not solar-energized at that point).

Action Comics #500, Oct. 1979, written by Martin Pasko:
"The Life Story of Superman" shows how both gravity and solar differences both lead to Kryptonian super-powers on Earth.  This was further exemplified in open combat between Luthor and a red sun lamp weakened Superman.  It took an artificial grav field duplicating Krypton's to completely remove all Superman's powers.  See my last post on this earlier on this thread.

Action Comics #515, Jan. 1981, written by Marv Wolfman:
"Agghhh!  Red-sun radiation -- weakening me!"
"How you found out about my weakness I don't know -- But it won't matter, Olsen -- Red sun radiation doesn't eliminate all my power!  And all I need is half my super-strength to destroy a fool like you!"

DC Comics Presents Annual #1, 1982, written by Marv Wolfman:
"These gravity cables are exerting the same gravity force as Krypton ... robbing me of about half my powers!"

I can't find the exact reference right now, but Superboy once wore a yellow version of his blue costume made from spare super-cloth material from making his traditional costume.  He found the yellow material virtually eliminated his solar-based powers so he was left with basically super-strength, super-speed, flight, and weakened invulnerability (his hand stung a bit from handling extremely corrosive acid but wasn't damaged).

Another Action Comics story I can't find the exact reference for just now had a freak alloy form under the Earth that was draining solar rays of all their energy, thus robbing Superman of his power source.  While he still had full command of all his powers, he no longer had the stamina to use any of them.  Only constant super-eating could replace the millions of calories his super-powers burn up every second.

Thanks for the references... 8)

I'm glad I stopped reading comics in the early 70s, it gets convoluted unnecessarily in my mind, to me, ALMOST as big a sin as forgetting the mythos is taking it WAY too seriously...one overinvolved explanation opens larger and larger questions...lets face it, if Krypton was huge and had high gravity there would be zero chance of a biped hominid ever evolving or having a chance to survive if transplanted...

Yes, really!

Actually, only Jerry original origin makes any type of sense.

http://superman.nu/tales2/explanation.php

Once Superman started to fly, we went into fantasy land, of myth and magic and logic went out the window :)

So do what I do, try not to think too much about it and just enjoy. Save logic and science for real life.

Ya know, that is actually the way its best left for me...seriously...

Life forms as "batteries", with "auras", as genetically "bound" to a planet (other than being a part of the struggle of evolution)...WAY too much for me (just my opinion)...its pseudo science heaped on more pseudo science...again, this is what I feel, no disrespect intended here...

Why couldn't the Bronze Age have focused on a real transfer of generations (real super sons, etc.), new team ups, or truly original enemies (essentially two dimensional energy beings from a real planet with high gravity for example)?  Heaping more science fiction or overwrought solemnity just made it inwardly focused, and add on to that the fake "hip language"...

I will at least offer this as a possibility...people want to blame the Crisis, blame Byrne, blame the economics of the time...but the seeds were already there...in the Bronze Age...just to be controversial... 8)

Maybe Mr. Gruenwald would be a good assistant editor but the best solution is to have strong editors --as in the Silver Age.  TV shows have bibles for freelance writers, saving writers the task of watching every episode of a series in order to write one.

I feel differently myself. I'd like to see Superman have more of a sci-fi element added to him. That's one of the reasons I'm excited about All-Star Superman.

Superman's powers can be explained in a believable manner, you just need a good writer to do it. As someone who would eventually like to write Superman, it's something that I'm constantly thinking about.

Thanks gawd... :D   What a drab place if everyone agrees...

BUT...c'mon, a scientific explanation?   8)

Are you serious? Sorry, but you really need to read up and study science, but the truth is you would have equal chance of explaining the Tooth Fairy than you would Superman.

You should all read this:

http://www.firstscience.com/site/articles/superman.asp

If you have, then read it again.

Have you ever heard the saying that any sufficiently advanced science would be indistinguishable with magic? It's very true in the case of Superman. There's really no difference from trying to come up with scientific explanations for spernatural beings, yet people try to do that all the time.

As I've said previously, I think there should be a significant sci-fi element to Superman. It's something I personality enjoy thinking and reading about. And yes, I have read the different opinions on how Superman's abilities would (or wouldn't) work. I make it a point to constantly read about them, in fact. I haven't yet read The Science of Superman book, but the fact that much of its data has been supplied by real scientists interests me very much.

I've actually read the full The Science of Super-Heroes book not just that excerpted link.  Gresh and Weinberg made some serious errors in comics canon as well as science themselves in that book.  With the exception of their Batman essay, they basically set out to prove none of the super-heroes could work.

I'm a lot better at science than Gresh & Weinberg and I certainly have the canon facts more completely and accurately.  I'll pick their link apart later on in this thread. :D

The Science of Superman by Mark Wolverton had a very different perspective.  Taking the books as empirical fact, how do we explain them in the context of known or speculative science?  He succeeded fairly well though he had his own errors and problems.

Some fans like this kind of thing. I'm with NotSuper on this.

It adds value to the books esp. in the spirit of the Silver Age.  Writers like Broome and Hamilton liked to consider the implications of super-powers, such as Flash being resistant to the effects of super-speed, then extrapolating from there and incorporating those into actual story elements.  Heck, even in the Golden Age, bright writers extrapolated from the power of X-ray vision that Superman could use it for affecting things from which eventually grew the canon power of Heat Vision.

Do not downplay the importance of scientific extrapolation in the books.

OTOH, if it's done badly and doesn't add value to the stories, then it fails.  But that goes for any fictional effort, scientific or not.

This is actually one of my favorite hobbies as CK can attest. I totally am with you guys as to the importance of the Sci in SciFi.

Ditto!  I wasn't aware of any "red sun doesn't weaken him completely" pre-Crisis stories.  I love the ones where his powers were by only half.  "Great Krypton!  I can only juggle a half-dozen planets at once!"  I'm surprised that got past Schwartz.  


They'd definitely have to be modified for the environment before being plopped on the planet, and things would get really complex if humanoid aesthetics were a priority.  Of course, without a solid frame of reference, a young kid isn't likely to "get" a story involving some inhuman alien, and that's nontrivial in a comic book context.  

As for the "science" of Superman and speculative fiction in general, it's helpful to have a firm sense of what the rules are and to solve problems within the context of said rules.  Ideally, the rules should make for good and diverse kinds of story telling, especially for a world you're expecting the reader to live in for awhile.  Even with comics that aren't really about speculative fiction, the humor is often against a backdrop of consistency and archetype.

Ok, enough ranting for one post.  :)  Thanks again for those references.

I think I essentially agree with you, my point is that a limited science fiction is going to be necessary, along with its problems, its just that more and more getting stacked (auras, solar batteries, etc) on makes it a little crazy for me...it takes suspension of the rational and makes it even more silly...

The more science you consider and place into a story the faker and sillier everything appears.

Indeed. Adding science to a story (when it's done well) can be incredibly rewarding. It's something that I'd like to see done more in the current books.


Again, I agree. Superman is essentially a science fiction character, even when the explanations for his powers didn't make much sense. Legendary science fiction writers like John W. Campbell would sometimes use faulty science in their stories as well. Personally, I'd like to write a Superman story which brought back the "Man of Tomorrow" elements that the character is currently missing.

Superman's powers should make sense in the context of his universe by using real or speculative science. In my view, fantasy is the domain of Captain Marvel and science fiction SHOULD be the domain of Superman.

NotSuper, it's telling that The Science of Superman has been through two printings so far (hardcover and paperback) that a market exists for this kind of thing.  It's even more telling that, at least in my city, that the darn thing sold out so quickly after each printing.  It's impossible to find it in any bookstores in my city even soon after a publishing.  That tells us a lot of people out there are of like minds with NotSuper, RedSunofKrypton, and myself than are not. :)

As I said earlier, along the lines of what MatterEaterLad was saying, if it adds value to the stories, sure, go ahead, explore the whys and wherefores of the science or pseudoscience of Superman.  But if it fails or becomes far too introspective so it obstructs rather than moves the story along, then it's failed.  But like I said before, that applies to any fictional element if handled badly, so it's not a specific failing of the scientific approach.

Another example of how it was handled brilliantly was how Siegel had Superman move so fast that he could pass through a pane of glass without disturbing its molecular structure, which preceded Barry/Flash vibrating through walls.  In both cases, brilliant writing extrapolated from the known powers to seek out the implications of what they could also accomplish.  No need to invent a new power to seem like a deus ex machina when a logical way to accomplish the task can be used (with a tip of the hat here to JulianPerez's RPG thread speculations).

For a related example, some role-playing games get caught up in such an elaborate, overcomplicated set of rules that players often find themselves more rule-playing rather than role-playing.  The same thing applies to science and comics/S.F.

I think I'm in the middle, I do love the Science of Superman, even when I do think that it gets overwrought... 8)

What I object to is when people try to apply real life science to Superman or use it to figure out what Superman should or should not be able to do. Our common knowledge of science today is a lot better than the science of the 50's and 60's. We now know that there is no difference between the light of a Red star and a Yellow one. We know that Human or even humanoid looking alien are next to impossible. Traveling faster than light can not be done. You wouldn't be able to move planets without killing everyone. The list goes on and on, I say that if we were to remove these things then Superman wouldn't be nearly as fun. The wacky and zany use of "science" is what made all those old Superman tales so much fun. Apply legit science to these stories and they all fall apart.

Every fantasy world has its own set of rules, once these rules are established, as long as the stories stick to them, people will play along.

So in the Superman fantasy world, he can fly, go faster than light, travel through time, red, yellow, and green suns are different, aliens can look like humans, etc.

I like these things, I wouldn't want to do away with them just because it doesn't fit actual logic and science. It's a comic book, anything can happen in a comic, that is the beauty of a comic, why ruin that?

You've essentially summarized my feelings on this particular issue here.

The important thing about science in science fiction - Superman and everywhere else - is not so much about being sticklers for plausible, real world physics, but consistency with well defined rules. One example I like to use of this is Star Trek's Transporter device, which is not possible at least by how we understand physics today; thanks to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, the very act of monitoring a particle (as would be required to to reassemble their atoms elsewhere) is not possible because the very act of observation shifts atoms' position. However, the Star Trek people are able to make us believe their teleporter works because it operates by rules they are consistent with and never violate: they cannot beam through forceshields, and as it is a drain on power, it can only be used at full energy, and so forth... Logically, there would be a backup in case such an all-important technology does not operate, so the Enterprise has shuttlecrafts - a credit to how well the writers of the show really thought all this through.

That said, this is no excuse for sloppy science. One writer of my acquaintance once called it the "Core of Mars is Made of Ice" slacking: in TOTAL RECALL, the fascinating premise of the movie, the idea that Mars might be made liveable by melting the poles, was totally sabotaged by an absurd declaration by Ahhh-nold: that the core of Mars is made of ice, which totally compromised any belief in the idea because it showed that the writer had really not done his homework.

Superman is a product of 1930s Futurism. I've argued on other occasions that Superman is by his nature a "period" character no matter what era his stories are set in. But more relevant to this discussion, I would say you can't remove Superman's science fiction angle.

One concern of mine is that a lot of writers have read nothing but comic books - not science texts, not science fiction, nothing, and so they have no experience in other things, which means they have nothing new to add. Look for instance, how well Kurt Busiek's knowledge of science fiction aided him in worldbuilding and grounding a society, as he did in his recent JLA arc, or how Alan Moore's knowledge of science introduced so many wonderful concepts in Supreme or Tom Strong.

Many people have told me the difference between Batman and Superman is that Superman's stories are light in tone, whereas Batman's are darker in tone. With respect to these fans, I don't agree with this. Batman was inspired by Zorro as well as the Shadow, and Bats does an awful lot of swashbuckling. Batman's world is more stylized than truly dark, with giant typewriters and zeppelins, and gangsters in fedoras and pinstripe zoot suits. Batman's stories are escapist, like Tarzan's or the Lone Ranger's, and so by their very nature, they cannot be truly nihilistic. They are action stories with the underworld background to give it "color." The "dead of night" aspect of Batman's character gives him color just like Green Lantern's space opera angle gives that hero color. But Batman is not a noir hero any more than Green Lantern is a space opera hero.

Batman's stories could stand to be lighter in tone (Len Wein's Bat stories for instance, were wonderful, and Steve Englehart himself was much more playful than scary) and at the same time, Superman could stand to be darker, too. I mean "darker" in the sense of introducing intriguing science fiction concepts instead of tarnishing Superman's innate, immutable incorruptibility. Superman is science fiction, and science fiction gave us 1984 as well as SKYLARK OF SPACE; science fiction has creepy and weird ideas in its escapist stories.



If a game is simple (like DC HEROES or PRINCE VALIANT), that's a strength. It should be noted that usually, "rules-light" games are based on a pair of simple ideas, and the games pass or fail depending on how well thought out these two or three ideas are. DC HEROES's comparison system and the concept of "APs" worked, whereas the White Wolf storyteller system failed, as its basic concept (the idea of dice pools) yielded wildly implausible and irregular results. On the other hand, there is something to be said for games with an extraordinary amount of detail. ROLEMASTER had a lot - a LOT - of rules, but it was consistent with all of them and they all fit together and balanced out. The trick is to make all the rules gel together instead of just tagging on new ones (which unfortunately, was what Palladium's approach was).

Well...

The Spectre's origin is creepy and satisfying, its mystical and religious, science is out the window as with many of the time's contemporary heroes -- and I have little use for that, but I like the Spectre's origin...

I laugh at Johnny Thunder or the original Green Lantern's "Goitrude", and I needed no science...

And why should Superman be the poster child for believable science fiction when he inhabited a universe where that wasn't so?

Speaking as someone whose name and work appears in an old Palladium book or two, one big problem was that the rules were extended to try and encompass different worlds than were initially envisioned.  Palladium's development is similar to how Superman's universe has evolved over the years - an ever-growing number of elements added to tell more types of stories, with the result being that things get unwieldy and clunky in spots.  Retconning an RPG is considerably harder than retconning a comic.  :)

Rolemaster (aka Chartmaster) had so many rules that, at the end of later supplements, there were _pages_ of rules checklists in small print so GMs could specify what rules were and weren't in force for the players (who I can only assumehad secret aspirations to become lawyers to put up with such rules complexities) to keep track of.  Imagine writers having to fill out hundred+ page checklists of just which Superman rules are/aren't in force, for every story arc.  Moohaha...

I haven't read the book myself yet, but it does seem like it'd be a fascinating read. Do you happen to know how much it costs and if it can be bought in a comic shop? Also, do you know how long the book is in terms of pages?

Anyway, there certainly is a market for sci-fi Superman stories. One of the reasons I'm looking forward to Morrison's All-Star Superman is because he describes it as both "big" and "science fiction." He's the kind of guy who knows what fans want: big, exciting stories that respect the intelligence of the reader. Heck, the first issue has Superman rescuing astronaunts from the sun! It doesn't really get any bigger than that.

As a reader, I like to learn about alien civilizations and futuristic worlds. With Superman stories you can read about places like that and more, with very few restictions. I guess that's one of the reasons I've always liked the character. But as much as his powers and feats entertain me, I also like reading about exactly how he got his powers and how they work. A good writer can explain these things in such a way that it makes you appreciate a good story even more. The people who shaped Superman's mythos understood this and always tried to offer up explanations for Superman's powers, even though they could've just ignored things like that. Not all of these explanations made sense (though some did), there was still an effort by them to explain things.

As for RPGs, I prefer ones with relatively simple but consistent rules which place a great emphasis on actually playing your character.

I've got my copy right here, I got it off Amazon.com for 29 bucks Canadian, it's cheaper now, especially in paperback. It's 256 pages. I don't think you could get it from a comic shop.

I enjoyed the high-end super-stunts Superman did in my youth.  I think Superman should be able to do such things in theory, but perhaps with some limits.  
Some examples:  
Moving an inhabited planet is impossible.  Moving an uninhabited planet would normally be beyond him because something would have to hold the planet together.  Perhaps he could do it if something strengthened his field (psionic? antigravity?) that helps him hold buildings together, but it shouldn't be routine.

Time travel is possible but so dangerous that he only does it in an emergency; trips to the 30th century are NOT like going across town.

Travel to other dimensions without a road map could send Superman into a red star, a planet of green K, or a magic-based universe.

He should have plenty of power for FTL without a dorky air mask, but intergalactic travel should take a long time even for him.

Last but not least, as powerful as Superman is, there should be villians who can match or exceed his might.  Pre-Crisis Mongul was stronger than Superman, so if SM managed to beat that brute, it meant something.

Maybe I'm being dense, but what's the distinction between an "inhabited planet" and "uninhabited planet"?  


Anyone who's supposed to be stronger than Superman should either:

- be some sort of memorable recurring villain
- leave in such a way where they won't return

No "minor" players should be stronger than Superman.  Anyone with that much power shouldn't be marginalized over the long term.

I think he means that moving an inhabited planet should be impossible because if you did you kill everything on it, if you moved it conventionally that is, without forcefields etc.

NotSuper, another option for you to get The Science of Superman is to try borrowing it from your public library.  My own local library system has half a dozen copies that can be reserved and borrowed.

Photocopying and/or scanning them of course violates copyright. ;)

People, Gresh & Weinberg didn't get everything wrong.  One thing they got right was how to do comics/SF science.  The key isn't 'consistent rules', as someone else put it, but being plausible within what's known to be true or to somehow be outside that known.  The trick is to stay as close to the bounds of the known to be credible while on the edge enough so as to avoid being outright disprovable.  A consistent story with a purple-polka-dotted sky for our current Earth can be written but it doesn't pass muster since it fails for the disprovability aspect.

For instance, using a known thing like gamma rays to explain the Hulk is just asking for trouble since it can eventually be proven or disproven that such a thing is possible.  Claiming 'spider-powers' for Peter Parker when spiders don't even have those powers isn't just bad comics/SF science, it plain gets the essential facts wrong.

But the original concept behind Kryptonian sun-based powers was 'ultra solar rays' that passed through the Earth day and night.  They were a kind of mysterious energy that real world science hadn't detected in the same sense that fish don't realize they're in water or we took thousands of years to realize air occupied supposed empty space around us.  Later writers goofed when they equated  the solar aspect with actual light energies, though it must be noted that red sunlight can be and is different from yellow sunlight.  Aside from the difference in sheer energy, red dwarf sunlight is missing carbon-cycle hydrogen fusion, red giant sunlight includes fusion reactions from helium up to silicon, red dwarf sunlight may contain complex molecules since the temperatures are cool enough for molecules to exist.  While the energy from yellow sunlight isn't anywhere near able to power even a mobile plant, fer goshsakes, it certainly can be a catalyst in the same sense that the presence of oxygen combines with the glucose (the real source of energy, not oxygen) in our cells to fuel our activities.

Yeah, and transporter technology is theoretically possible even considering Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.  It's now more a matter of technological and engineering advances as opposed to any theoretical objections to accurately, precisely transmitting quantum information from one location to another.

http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/quantuminfo/teleportation/

http://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/altvw62.html

For someone who made the sweeping statement that Superman couldn't accelerate to relatavistic velocities in short distances and timeframes, perhaps it would be better to temper such statements with an element of doubt or 'IMHO'.

You see, really gifted writers like Asimov or London or Crichton make it a point to know more about the real world and science and incorporate that understanding into their stories.  Where they've bent the rules like with warp drive, they skate on the outer fringes where their technobabble just might be plausible and not directly disprovable.  Jules Verne surely had this right for his era and he was quite prophetic in many regards about what actually transpired in real world science.  It is an odd coincidence that real world scientists are now coming up with plausible ways for multiverses and warp drive to exist that eerily are close to their SF cousins.

The better and best writers are actually better educated by law, science, etc. and generally about the real world than the pathetic wannabes who think writing is an easy out from getting a proper education.  Good writers know more about real world science and the world in general.  Writing is not about just making stuff up.  What was the expression? "10% inspiration and 90% perspiration?"

As I said on another thread, the Dalai Lama has an appropriate quote about this: "Know what the rules are so you know how to break them properly."  Asimov and his compatriots surely have this down cold.

EDIT: An interesting fact is I calculated and posted on other forums many years ago based on real world energy efficiencies and gravitational adaptability experiments in centrifuge experiments that Krypton's gravity was probably around 35 Gs or ours is about 0.0286 of Krypton's.  Waid's Birthright #1 states Earth gravity is 0.03 of Krypton's which is my figure rounded to two decimal places.  My reciprocal gives us 35 and Waid's gives us over 33.  That's pretty darn close.  Either Waid duplicated my reasoning to come up with a similar figure (or rounded it to two places), or he saw my posts and liked what he saw.  Action Comics #1 levels are more plausible than world-moving levels.  Waid even tips his hat to Wolverton re: an anti-grav neural network to explain flying in BR.  That mass-energy conversion in Superman's digestive tract was first mentioned in a speculative post I made several months earlier on Alvaro's about then-existing canon implying Superman could mass-energy convert in his metabolism.

While I agree with what it is you're saying, CaptainKal - namely, that a writer doing their homework amplifies the entertainment value of a work of fiction, science fiction or otherwise - and further, your belief that writing is hard and requires effort and that not everybody should "try this at home" is an accurate one I agree with, all the same, there are considerations to be taken into account aesthetically apart from just raw, grounded plausibility which can make a work of science fiction pass or fail. In other words, the factors that determine the worth of a story are more complicated criteria than just "could it happen?"

WAR OF THE WORLDS featured Martians hurled out of giant cannons to earth. This is an idea that the 20th Century hasn't been kind to. The value of WAR OF THE WORLDS is not diminished as a powerful, throat-grabbing scary story of alien invasion, however, by the fact that we mighty men of the year 2005 with our 20/20 hindsight say that Wells got these details all wrong. The book works, though, because it pushes the right scary buttons, created spooky imagery of Martians heat-raying Big Ben, and is legitimately imaginative: the Martian kelp choking the Thames river, for instance.

E.E. Smith's LENSMAN described the Milky Way as a "bar galaxy," was littered with references to the "Ether," had an inhabited earthlike Mars, and featured a drive system that even in the 1930s must have been downright insane and has to be really seen to be believed. E.E. Smith was proud of his PhD, but one thing you will seldom find on most of the ABOUT THE AUTHOR sections is that Smith's degree was in chemistry specializing in donut mixes. See, he wanted us to think it's in something sexy like particle physics. The value - or worthlessness - of LENSMAN is determined by how it works or fails as an adventure melodrama, if it is imaginative, if it has a compelling mystery, if the villains are engaging, if the battle scenes delight and are grandiose enough, if it does something that surprises and is innovative.

The problem with the perspective that stories have to be judged based on their plausibility factor is that it sets a standard that doesn't waiver, whereas stories and fiction in general have to be judged based on what it is that they are trying to do and what they are attempting to accomplish, and how successful they were in getting this done; there are so many different kinds of stories that have different priorities that a single standard everywhere fails. Returning to the example of the LENSMAN series, the characters were not well developed and poorly characterized, however, this is not a minus to the extent it would be with a character-centered story like DEATH OF A SALESMAN, because Smith was writing space opera, and this is a type of story where the conflict does not emerge from the characters' inner lives. In children's stories, like C.S. Lewis's Narnia, it is perfectly acceptable for characters to have basic personalities that can be described in one word like "gruff" or "wise." Their lack of three-dimensionality here cannot be penalized because what they are attempting to do is tell a simplified story with simplified, streamlined characters.

Since you brought him up, Michael Crichton is an example of a writer that possesses immaculate, intense research but who fails in other, much more fundamental ways. CONGO featured stellar research on primate psychology and communication and a Reference sheet that was three pages long in tiny 8-point type, but no matter how many papers on gorilla communication Chrichton may have read, it doesn't change the fact that he based his entire story structure for that book on one coincidence after another (the greatest solar flare in history happened within a few days as the greatest volcanic eruption in East African history? C'mon) and on the fact that after reading that book cover to cover, I can't come up with one adjective to describe our primatologist hero's personality.

Some science fiction novels, particularly recently, have gone out of their way to use antiquated or Newtonian physics in their stories, detailing individuals breathing in space because of the Ether, and ships that fly using the music of the spheres. Should these novels be penalized for their unique creative decision? No; if the writers do their research and place a degree of thought into their alternate cosmology we the reader can believe in it, provided they are consistent with the new way the universe works and think things through. The exoticism of such a cosmos might even give the story greater novelty and entertainment value than one with a vanilla paradigm.

You are right, however, that sloppy science and bad research are not to be tolerated. It is a drawback NOT because Western science and reason being accurately represented is a value in and of itself, but because it draws one out of the reality of the story. All fiction is based on the suspension of disbelief in order for us to care about what is going on, and nonsense declarations like "the Core of Mars is made of ice" shatters the ability of a work to keep the illusion up by making us wince and say "hey, that's BS!"

The planet is moving all the time, though -- rotating, revolving, etc.  

It'd be interesting to show Superman moving the Earth by means that go beyond "pushing on it".  As an example, Superman could grab the biggest asteroid he could push without breaking it up, and loop it near the Earth repeatedly to cause a gravitational sling-shot effect.

To further expand on what I said, moving a planet would kill everthing on it if you did something like moving it away from its main source of light and heat. :wink:

Point taken.  I tend to think that if the goal is to have the Earth dodge some asteroid or something, you move it a little forward or backward within its revolution, not significantly closer to or further from the Sun.  My favorite amusing treatment of this is where the Superfriends Green Lantern moved the Earth:  http://www.seanbaby.com/superfriends/greenlc.htm

I'm not saying that extensive research automatically leads to great writing.  But it certainly helps.  And on any list of great authors, the researchers will tend to top the list and the screw-ups will place high but not as high.

Busiek is at least educated in the ways of philosophy, religion, and myth, as is Simonson.

Even the much-vaunted Elliot S! Maggin is clearly a highly educated man in the Renaissance sense if one reads his novels and his interviews.  He clearly has spent much time learning about law, philosophy, religion, science, and just about anything else that might show up in his fiction.  He even took the trouble to give excrutiating detail to the plausibility of the dual gravity/sun bases for Kryptonian super-powers in Last Son of Krypton.  IOW, the generally accepted 'god' of Superman writers in this forum is a case in point for the educated writer.

In SCIENCE OF SUPERMAN, Wolverton mentions that there may be limits to Superman's powers, simply because it's very hard to imagine a human sized being wielding that kind of force. He mentions, though, that it may be possible for Superman to use some sort of device to make his work easier. Most people cannot, for instance, pick up a car, but nearly anyone can with a jack.

My question is this: what sort of "jack" would Superman use to push the earth around?



No arguments here. When it comes to writing, you get what you put in.

A 100km asteroid looped many times would be sufficient:
http://es.ucsc.edu/~kory//abstracts.html