Superman Through the Ages! Forum

Reading thru the Supernam Showcase last night I came across the story of Titano the Ape with green k vision (Superman No. 127).  After sending Titano into the past Superman uses his telescopic vision to check on him. Are there any other stories where Superman used his super vision powers this way? Just think if had used it to look back in on Lex when he made the anditote to K poisioning? or Watched how Brainac build his shrink ray? just a point to pnder.

Welcome to the site!

You should read this: http://superman.nu/wiki/index.php/Superman#X-Ray_Vision_and_the_Other_Optical_Powers

for a list of uses that Superman used his optical powers for.

If he had "time vision" why would he need tofly faster than light & catch up with light images from the past in outer space to see how things in the past happened?

Recall reading that in future reprints of that Titano story they changed the line to something about Superman using his "super-imagination" to "imagine" what Titano was doing way back in the Mesozoic (since they realized/decided he couldn't use his super-vision to cross the time-barrier like that).

The "time-vision" bit was seen in the late 1990's "The Kingdom" miniseries (various future Supermen are using it to pierce the time barrier to examine some specific event...).

There was a point in and around the 1950s-1960s when writers used Superman's sensory abilities to do just about whatever the writer wanted them to do.

In one SUPERBOY story, SUPERBOY #22 (1952) Superboy actually used his X-Ray Vision to cause plant growth (!).

In another thread about the Gardner Fox era Justice League, I talked about how the writers had Superman use his Telescopic Vision to see into other dimensions (!) back in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #12 (1962).

Generally, the reasons writers took little shortcuts and fudged what Superman's telescopic vision could in fact do, was because the way that Telescopic Vision has historically been used in Superman comics has been to provide Superman with a piece of information that allows the next part of the story to happen. An example of this is during the "Outlaw Legionnares" by Curt Swan and Jimmy Shooter, where Superman used his Telescope and X-Ray Vision to discover that the Legionnaires were outlawed - which was necessary a piece of information for the LEGION to form their strategy...

Also, it is possible to fudge Superman's telescopic vision more than other powers, because he usually only uses it in one panel or so so nobody really thinks about it as much. "Great Krypton! My telescopic vision tells me a UFO just landed in the Grand Canyon!" Okay, great, on to the next scene.

I never read THE KINGDOM, however, if they were in the timestream when they used their "time vision," this isn't a separate power, but merely how time travel functions.

Pre-Crisis, the reason the Legion of Super-Heroes' Metropolis needed a "Time Beacon" such as the one that was present on the Metropolis Institute of Time, was to act like a "lighthouse" for Time-Travellers to prevent them from getting lost in the time stream. Without a Time Beacon, it is assumed that only beings with powerful personal senses, like Superboy, dare attempt to cross the time barrier on their own.

Actually, in "The Kingdom", the various Supermen were dead entities killed at various points in time by Gog (the story's villain), and had been gathered together by Deadman in some sort of void... from there is where the SUpermen were using their super-vision to pierce the time barrier (to a specific event).

Re: time-travel: In JLA (first series) #11 ("One Hour to Doomsday"), we see Superman, while carrying the rest of the League in a bubble while travelling through time, using his super-vision while in transit to see which year to stop off at (they were after the Lord of Time).