Superman Through the Ages! Forum

I read an unofficial biography on superman's powers where it is suggested that his invulnerability works something like this:

His cells collects solar energy which creates a protective aura arround his body, like a force field. This explains the good condition of his costume. However, they want to simeltaneously pass this off as the source of his indestructibility.

Superman protected by a solar force field/aura????????????

Needless to say that I disagree with this silly theory. It has always been my understanding that superman's actual physical body is indestructible. This includes his internal organs: bone, tissue, lungs, heart, the whole shebang right down to his individual cells.

I figured it to be a combination of his cells's ability to absorb solar energy as well as his super dense molecular structure. That is, his Kryptonian cells's ability to absorb almost infinite amounts of yellow sun radiation combined with it's natural dense structure resulted in his cells binding together so strongly that they cannot be disrupted at a physical level as long as they keep on being radiated.

I also never liked the idea that his cells could store the energy for only up to three days (read that somewhere in some issue long ago). It seems to me that his cells should be able to retain this energy for much longer since they are such effective "solar batteries". For 6 months maybe?

Your comments on this will be interesting.

The John Byrne retcon came up with the suggestion that Superman's invulnerability was a result of this aura of solar energy; this was also given as the reason for his costume never getting torn or dirty (in this version, his costume was just made out of ordinary material, not Kryptonian blankets), but this of course didn't extend to the cape, so we got image after image of Superman standing around with a tattered red beach towel on his back.

Personally, I think this is a rather silly idea too. I mean, how would it work? As far as I know, solar energy gatherers aren't indestructible. I prefer the explanation that Krypton was a far bigger planet than Earth, so a Kryptonian would have far denser tissue. (The science is still a bit wonky, but hey.) It diminishes the character to explain his invulnerability with "an aura". Superman's just really tough. Also, I can't help feeling that Byrne stole the idea from Alan Moore's take on Miracleman and his "tinkerbell effect".

Another few notes on this:

Considering my first comment it should therefore stand to reason that Superman could only be hurt by the following:
1. Kryptonite
2. Supernatural attack
3. Red sun radiation (although this was never one I could quite wrap my  mind around)

I'm not saying that he cannot be stunned or concussed. If a H-bomb gets dropped on his head without him expecting it, I'm sure he might feel a little off balance. What I am saying is that no physical assault could (or should be able to) destroy his body, whatever the source of the attack. Whether it be conventional weaponry, interstellar weaponry or any other physical energy source.

Maybe its just me, but I have always thought that his almost complete invulnerability was one of his most distinctive features, setting him far aside from any other super being.

His invulnerability did have some problems with gravity based weaponry and then there is the uncertantity of being hit by a lightning bolt(sometimes he is and sometimes he isn't).

I never thought that much about old Redbeard's take on invulnerability (it doesn't do to give his ideas close inspection), so until you mentioned "internal organs," I didn't realize a serious flaw in the whole idea.

To wit: there are any number of classic Superman tales that have him swallowing poisons, explosives, flames, noxious fumes or just plain old rocks with no adverse effects.  But how would any of this be possible if the secret to invulnerability is a force field?  I thought JB put forth that there was an aura around Supes, about an inch deep, that protected him and his costume (except for the cape, which ripped every issue).  But logically wouldn't anything he ingested have to penetrate that force field?  That is to say, an exploding grenade hitting his chest would have no effect, but an exploding grenade in his stomach would be inside the force-field, and thus fatal.  

Or am I missing something?

The force field would have to cover individual cells, or even molecules, rather than his body as a whole.

The force field idea precedes Byrne, by the way. There was a couple-page insert during the Schwartz era (which may have been reprinted from earlier times) where Supey summarizes and demonstrates his powers to the readers; in this, if I remember right, he states that the yellow sun creates a force field around his atoms, making him invulnerable.

Gary, as you note, this isn't quite the same thing as the 1986 reboot idea.  A force-field around individual atoms isn't the same as a force-field around an entire body.

chris6909, read this (http://superman.nu/a/Encyclopaedia/photonucleic.php) for a somewhat better explanation of Superman' s invulnerability.

:s:

There is one issue of Jim Shooter and Curt Swan's LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES that showed that Superman was invulnerable down to the individual cell. For instance, in order to perform brain surgery on the Super-Cousins, Shrinking Violet carried a piece of Kryptonite directly to the brain cells that controlled Superman's memory of Legion secrets (!).

When Violet planted the Kryptonite, she was attacked by Superboy's white blood cells, which were as invulnerable as Superboy himself.

This does raise a disturbing question by itself, though: apparently the Legionnaires keep some small amounts of Kryptonite on hand. Hmmm...?

I remember that: Shrinking Violet had to escape through Superboy's tear ducts (look, they had to find an acceptable orifice), so he thought about Jor-El and Lara to make himself cry. I was about eight when I first read this, and thought it was the most moving passage in Western literature.

That story does seem to establish that Superman is invulnerable, and indeed super, right down to the last molecule. Hey, if Ray Palmer wanted to investigate, he'd probably find out that Superman is super right down to his atomic structure. His body is probably dense enough that his atoms are so close together that even Dr. Palmer couldn't slip between them. Superman is completely solid!

As for why the LSH had kryptonite to hand... Maybe they stockpiled it when they sent Ultraboy to spy on Clark, knowing that it was likely to cheese him off?

They kept it just in case one of those villainous Kryptonians made it to the future.

As long as we're on the subject of invulnerability and kryptonite, I was wondering...

It seems to me everything and everyone from Krypton is invulnerable except for Kryptonite, which over the years has been pulverized, liquified, atomized into a sprayable gas, cut into jewelry and bullets and all sorts of other things by various Earth-dwellers.

Why is it, then, that Kryptonite doesn't possess the same properties of super-toughness that everything else from Krypton does?

I believe that whatever made it turn into Kryptonite, changed it's properties so much that it lost its invulnerability. Kryptonite didn't exist on Krypton, it was just rock that was changed into Kryptonite when Krypton exploded and thus changing its properties into deadly Kryptonite, this process also no longer made it invulnerable.

point to pomder, would a human be able to eat food or drink water that came from Krypton? if so how would they chew, swallow and digest it?

They couldn't unless they took with them to a planet with a non yellow sun.

Personally I think you'd be nuts to eat or drink things from another planet.

I remember watching Star Trek and every time Kirk accepted a drink from some alien he never met on a planet he just found, I thought, "shouldn't Spock scan that with the tricorder before you ingest it?"  But no, with Kirk it was always, "Hi, nice to meet you, bottoms up!"

The same philosophy applied to all the females he met, too.  :lol:

How else would they have made Mon-El's anti-lead serum?

The force "field-around-each-cell-theory" doesn't quite sell it for me.

It makes more sense that his individual cells bind together so strongly that they cannot be disrupted or dispursed.

But hey, that's just me.

You mean science?
Yes I like the dense body theory myself.

I don't mind the bio-aura theory (which I'm pretty sure Moore came up with first). How Superman gains his powers--whether from the Sun, genetic engineering, evolution, or whatever--isn't that important to me in the long run. It should be addressed and explained, but not dwelled on too much.

Remember the scene in 'Superman The Movie' where Jor-El talks about the advantages of sending baby Kal-El to earth. He, Jor-El, spesifically mentions the yellow sun and the Kryptonian's dense molecular structure as the reasons why he will become super powered and virtually invulnerable. I believe this premise has always been the fundemental explanation for his powers througout most of the Superman stories. It seems logical then that his invincibility is a direct result of his dense physiology enhanced by yellow sun radiation. Therefore the theory of a molecular structure that binds as to make it impossible to disrupt or destroy seems the most plausible explanation.

This might seem like cleaving hairs to some, but I believe a less plausible explanation makes Superman seem less super. It almost as if it brings him down a notch - and that won't do, fellas!

Greetings to all!

Superman's powers should never be definitively explained & quantified.  Any official explanations should be presented as theories or hypotheses.  With Superman's powers we are dealing with things that would be beyond the understanding of most humans.  Luthor being one of the very few exceptions.  Same goes for his "power sources" & vulnerabilities.

Ooooh, good point!

It was established in LSH stories that Mon-El's anti-lead serum had, as one of its principal ingredients, powdered Kryptonite. This would explain why they would keep that sort of stuff around.

Kryptonite, for one thing, seems to be much more common in the 30th Century than it is in the 20th. For one thing, in the first appearance of Shadow Lass (at least chronologically, anyway) the warlords on Talok were shown to have stockpiled Kryptonite, presumably because they anticipated the involvement of Superboy. Showing that if you're a self-respecting would-be dictator, it's logical to have an anti-Superboy defense.

Only a few issues prior, the entire EARTH was covered with a shower of K-dust. The ENTIRE EARTH. I mean, that's a lot of Kryptonite.

LSH enemies used Kryptonite a lot more than Superman's foes in the regular comic did; for instance, witness the laser beams equipped to fire Green Kryptonite that were used in the citadel of the Dark Man/Tharok, or the Emerald Empress's Kryptonite handfuls.

There can be several explanations for this:

1) As Superboy's existence, secret identity, and weaknesses are "history," his enemies in that era would know about them more commonly than his foes in the 20th;

2) Because of the higher technological level of the 30th Century, it may be easier to create "artificial Kryptonite;"

3) Kryptonite that went to other worlds can be found and used in an era where space travel is commonplace.


One of the more interesting (though less consistently handled) weaknesses that Superman has is magic.

There was a very cool explanation for why Superman was vulnerable to magic, which was that the use of sorcery and magic is incredibly rare among Kryptonians, and since none of Superman's ancestors were magicians, he has a genetic vulnerability to magical effects, just like those with a genetic problem with albinism are vulnerable to sunburn and skin cancer.

As most earth people have a greater history with magic in their ancestry, almost no Earth people show a similar vulnerability.

(The implications of this are neat to think about: if you're Irish-American, maybe the reason you're not vulnerable to magic the way Superman is, is because you've got a Leprechaun in your family tree 20 generations back or thereabouts!)