how come he's still super at night time?

12/15/2005 9:47:07 PM

batteries dur

12/15/2005 9:48:37 PM

So if humans are powered by food, how come they still work when they're not eating?!?

12/15/2005 9:48:46 PM

I have an IV. I'm always fed

12/15/2005 9:50:19 PM

this is probably obvious to comic book nerds, but do kryptonians have their powers, or any kind of powers, on krypton? or is it just our yellow sun that fuels them

12/15/2005 9:50:36 PM

Nope. The red sun of krypton is teh weak sauce.

I think.

12/15/2005 9:51:40 PM

They're like normal humans on their planet.

12/15/2005 9:51:47 PM

Quote :

"So if humans are powered by food, how come they still work when they're not eating?!?"

food doesn't make us super...

12/15/2005 9:53:30 PM

Speak for yourself

12/15/2005 9:55:56 PM

The analogy is apt.

12/15/2005 9:56:19 PM

so superman's super powers can be attributed to skin cancer?

12/15/2005 9:57:59 PM

And I thought he can fly b/c Earth has low gravity compared to Krypton.

But wtf, when humans go to low gravity places like the Moon, we can jum high but we can't fly.

How does Superman do it?

12/15/2005 10:03:06 PM

he's just super, man

12/15/2005 10:24:13 PM

He's a dick.

12/15/2005 10:47:18 PM

12/15/2005 10:50:44 PM

so you're fine with the scientific possibilities of superman being charged by the sun, but you don't understand how he can hang onto the power at night

[Edited on December 15, 2005 at 10:58 PM. Reason : ps, the moon reflects the sun]

12/15/2005 10:57:43 PM

I always wondered this: If Kryptonians knew that they had remarkeable powers when exposed to a yellow sun, and they definitely had the technology for interstellar space travel, WHY THE FUCK DID THEY STAY ON KRYPTON???? Why didn't they just be like "Screw being mortal, I'm gonna go fly around and shoot lasers from my eyes!" Also it must have been strange for the first Kryptonian to be exposed to a yellow sun. He was probably out in space doing his thing in a space suit and boom he got some sunlight and suddenly he doesn't need his space suit anymore.

btw if I were Superman I would be a dick too. I would have gone to the moon in 1969 and landed on it 10 seconds before Neil Armstrong did just to piss everyone off. Then I would do it again whenever the humans went to Mars.

[Edited on December 15, 2005 at 11:00 PM. Reason : ]

12/15/2005 10:59:36 PM

Quote :

"so you're fine with the scientific possibilities of superman being charged by the sun, but you don't understand how he can hang onto the power at night"

vampires are fine without the sun

werewolves aren't werewolves unless the moon's out

12/15/2005 11:09:19 PM

Quote :

"If Kryptonians knew that they had remarkeable powers"

i don't know if they necessarily knew, at least not all of them. in superman 2, when the 3 bad guys landed, that bitch was all surprised she could fry shit with her eyes, then zod said something like "we all can my dear," so maybe only the higher ups knew

12/15/2005 11:36:06 PM

^^again, fictional characters

but even without that concept; is superman a vampire or a werewolf?

12/16/2005 12:35:25 AM

Well I guess maybe the brightest minds of Krypton knew, that would be feasable. Lara was telling Jor-El that he would be able to defy Earth's gravity and his body would be extremely dense and everything as she placed him in the spaceship.

12/16/2005 7:23:51 AM

Quote :

"So if humans are powered by food, how come they still work when they're not eating"

this is exactly the point i was going to make. the sun gives him energy, which is stored, or something. he doesn't have to be in sunlight to have powers. he's not bird man

Quote :

"I always wondered this: If Kryptonians knew that they had remarkeable powers when exposed to a yellow sun, and they definitely had the technology for interstellar space travel, WHY THE FUCK DID THEY STAY ON KRYPTON???? Why didn't they just be like "Screw being mortal, I'm gonna go fly around and shoot lasers from my eyes!""

my guess, not being very knowledgeable in this at all, is that most of them were pretty honorable, rational people (or kryptonians). they weren't looking for glory like that. there were a few baddies, but they got locked up in those mirror things

Quote :

"He's an alien for Christssake. His Kryptonian biological makeup is enhanced by Earth's yellow sun. If Lois gets a tan the kid could kick right through her stomach. Only someone like Wonderwoman has a strong enough uterus to carry his kid. The only way he could bang regular chicks is with a Kryptonite condom, but that would kill him."

[Edited on December 16, 2005 at 7:46 AM. Reason : .]

[Edited on December 16, 2005 at 7:47 AM. Reason : .]

12/16/2005 7:44:51 AM

OK, Superman can grow facial hair right?

Remember in Superman 3 when he was bad Superman and had the five o'clock shadow? Then remember in Superman 4 when his hair was holding up 1000 pounds or something?

SO the question remains: How does he shave? What cuts his hair? This perplexes me.

12/16/2005 8:14:42 AM

Another thing I was curious about is that the Kryptonians were pretty far along in terms of technology. I would think that they would have branched out and had colonies on other planets (at least one of them having a yellow sun). This would make one think that Superman wouldn't be the only Kryptonian left in the universe.

Also I wonder what Superman's effective "range" would be. Like how far away from the sun would he have to fly before it stopped giving him power?

^In Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, I think he used some kind of laser thing that had a very small piece of kryptonite in it.

[Edited on December 16, 2005 at 8:18 AM. Reason : ]

12/16/2005 8:16:56 AM

He uses his laser vision and a piece of glass according to the comics....and oh yeah, originally all of his powers were explaining logically.

He could jump super high and run fast (he originally couldnt fly) because of the gravity differences between krypton and earth.

the x-ray vision thing was just seeing stuff in a diff spectrum

12/16/2005 8:22:12 AM

Yea there is the comic book interpretation of why and how he has the powers that he has. Then there is the movie explanation, the Lois and Clark TV show explanation, and even the animated TV show explanation.

The biggest thing I can remember is how bogus it was that in Superman 2, the villains could pick up people with their finger and use translocation to move.

Oh yea to make things even weirder, Supergirl supposedly had mind powers and psychokinetic abilities because she was on a space colony with other people and they received a different set of radiation or something when Krypton blew up.

12/16/2005 9:53:22 AM

when they say he gets his powers from the sun, it refers to the relative proximity of the sun to earth. the sun doesn't have to be shining on him to get super powers

12/16/2005 10:27:28 AM

Yeah but didn't the dude from Superman ¿IV? lose his powers when he wasn't in the...

Nevermind two different kinds of beings.

What about in Superman II where he loses his powers because he exposes himself to a red sun crystal (or something)? He was still exposed to the yellow sun 24/7 but that flash of red light killed his powers.

12/16/2005 10:32:37 AM

yeah i don't know if they explained that any further than just saying it would make him a normal person. i guess it nullified the sun's effect somehow. like us putting on sunscreen

12/16/2005 10:35:56 AM

Superman not powered by the sun. You're thinking of Birdman.

12/16/2005 10:37:12 AM

Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law

12/16/2005 10:40:51 AM

^^What are you talking about? Do you know anything about Superman? He gets his powers from a yellow sun. Under a red sun he is like a normal person.

12/16/2005 10:45:39 AM

Quote :

"I always wondered this: If Kryptonians knew that they had remarkeable powers when exposed to a yellow sun, and they definitely had the technology for interstellar space travel, WHY THE FUCK DID THEY STAY ON KRYPTON???? Why didn't they just be like "Screw being mortal, I'm gonna go fly around and shoot lasers from my eyes!"

I believe it's been explained in the comics as a genetic dependence on the planet by all Kryptonians. Jor El used the powers of science to make Superman the first Kryptonian who could live for an extended amount of time off Krypton. I dunno if it's been retconned since then though.

12/16/2005 1:42:49 PM

so is there somewhere i can find out what the environment was like on krypton? like what they breathed and the gravity and stuff

12/16/2005 1:45:57 PM

http://www.google.com ?

12/16/2005 1:50:06 PM

what is this http you speak of

actually this should answer anyone's question about the science behind superman
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/hottopics/superheroes/superman.shtml

[Edited on December 16, 2005 at 1:54 PM. Reason : .]

12/16/2005 1:52:47 PM

the harsh environment of krypton is how doomsay got made

they just kept genetically engineering babies and tossing them out into the wild, collecting the scraps to make more babies from until one survived

12/16/2005 1:54:51 PM

Quote :

"Since lifting an object on Earth would take ten times less effort than on Krypton, Superman could lift a car as easily as we lift a wheelbarrow"

Umm so is it saying that when Superman lifts a car its like us lifting a wheelbarrow? That does not seem like the superman I remember from the comics who could bring a train to a full stop. Seems like the ratio would be much more in his advantage.

12/16/2005 2:25:29 PM

Quote :

"SO the question remains: How does he shave? What cuts his hair? This perplexes me."

the only one i know of is the lois and clark exp.

where he uses a mirror to reflect the weak laser that he emits from his eyes to burn off the hair.

12/16/2005 2:39:54 PM

ok now i think everyone is analyzing this WAY more than the creator/author of the character ever originally intended. afterall guys, its just a comic book character

12/16/2005 2:43:15 PM

So I looked it up, and up until a year or two ago, post-crisis origins of superman said that the Eradicator was originally created to alter the DNA of all Kryptonians to prevent them from leaving Krypton. It may have just been retconned, the articled doesn't really say.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krypton_(planet)

12/16/2005 2:52:31 PM

Hmmm it probably was just a well kept secret on krypton that they would have super powers when exposed to a yellow sun. It would be interesting to know what exactly it is about the yellow sun that gives them the powers.

I don't see how the size of Krypton would affect his strength all that much. I'm sure the evolution of Kryptonians would cause his body to be naturally stronger but being away from the regular gravity of Krypton for an extended period of time. For example, when astronauts go into space and remain in a zero-g surrounding, their bones lose mass and they are considerably weaker when they return. I actually saw a special on the National Geographic channel a few weeks ago about space exploration and it said that after just a few years in space, you could easily have your spine snapped if someone patted you on the back. Now if Superman was raised on Earth all his life, I think he would just be accustomed to Earth's gravitational pull.

[Edited on December 16, 2005 at 4:47 PM. Reason : ]

12/16/2005 4:42:59 PM

i can't remember where it was explained, but i believe in comic books, he generates some sort of field within close proximity to his living tissue. thats why generally anytime something manages to tear his suit, it usually makes him bleed too. This would also explain the whole levitation thing, and why his cape is nearly always the only thing to get fucked up. the shaving thing i'm not sure about.

you also have to remember that the movies and "lois and clark" are not canon. also, in the comics, supergirl was not from krypton. she was made of protoplasm or some shit and could reform to any shape she wanted. she hung around lex luthor junior (the real luthor in a cloned body), and she was the basis from which he was trying to engineer a new body for himself since his kryptonite ring had given him something akin to cancer. i'm refering to the supergirl from the 90s, i'm sure there was probably more than one version as with superboy.

From wikipedia:
Due to a somewhat disjointed continuity, several variations of Supergirl have appeared in comic books. However, in her most well-known incarnation, Supergirl is Kara Zor-El, Superman’s Kryptonian cousin, also sent to Earth when Krypton was destroyed. Also like her cousin, Supergirl can fly and possesses superhuman strength and endurance, and has a civilian identity kept to allow her to live amongt humans (that of Linda Lee). In the mid-1980s, after the Crisis on Infinite Earths, in which Kara Zor-El died, the character started a 20-year stint where she went through several incarnations unrelated to Kara Zor-El, and characterized by having something to do with more complex science fiction. The most famous of these versions were Matrix (also known as Linda Danvers or the Earth Angel Of Fire) and Cir-El. The Kara Zor-El incarnation has returned in recent years, although not using the alias of Linda Lee.

In 1984, Helen Slater starred as Supergirl in an unsuccessful eponymous film, which was part of the Superman film franchise. A version of Supergirl, based on Kara Zor-El, named Kara In-Ze (In-Ze being Kara Zor-El's mother's maiden name in the comics), and using the alias of Kara Kent has appeared in recent animated shows such as Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League Unlimited.

now back to the original question

Superman's Powers:
Clark Kent's Kryptonian body acts as a solar battery absorbing solar energy which can then be used as various remarkable powers. If Earth had a red sun like Krypton's, Clark would not have these powers. Using his powers causes Clark to use up his stored yellow sun energy. He can lose his powers if he expends a lot of energy quickly (e.g. during his battle with the monster Doomsday) or if he spends too much time away from a yellow sun while in outer space. When low on solar energy, Clark can 'recharge' if exposed to a source of yellow sun energy. The rate at which he 'recharges' can vary. When he has absorbed excess solar energy, his power levels have been above normal until the excess power is burned up.

Superman's superpowers include:

* Strength - although varying depending on his energy levels, Clark is among the strongest superheroes on Earth, capable of lifting a plane.

* Flight - able to defy gravity, possibly through sheer force of will.

* Invulnerability - years of exposure to yellow solar energy have caused Clark's Kryptonian body to become almost indestructible. His natural bio-electric aura also has limited force field properties protecting items near his skin e.g. his costume. His cape is not protected by his aura.

Clark can survive in outer space as long as he has a breathing apparatus, and doesn't lose too much solar energy. Without an air supply, Superman can last between an hour and ninety minutes in space, after taking a deep breath. Using his powers of flight and super-speed Clark can travel inter-planetary distances by himself. Interstellar distances require assistance e.g. a spaceship, teleportation belt.

* Super-speed - capable of superhuman speed, Clark can fly from Metropolis to have dinner with Lois Lane in Paris, France, or in a few minutes fly to the Moon.

* Super-breath - Clark's invulnerability and strength exist internally too, affecting his skeleton and internal organs. After inhaling deeply he can expel the air in a gale-force wind.

* Super-hearing - Capable of blocking out and discerning a single known voice within a city.

* Vision - Clark can detect electromagnetic energy in more than the normal visible spectrum:
o X-Ray vision - lead appears opaque
o IR vision
o Microscopic
o Telescopic
* Heat Vision - additionally, Clark can release solar energy in the form of Heat Vision as a weapon

[Edited on December 16, 2005 at 6:07 PM. Reason : more]

12/16/2005 5:43:33 PM

good gravy

what year are we talking about?

superman 1938 jumps high cause he's an alien grasshopper

12/17/2005 12:22:46 AM

So what if the other kryptonians knew if they had special powers on a different planet...theres certain parts of Africa you could go to with an M-16, loads of ammo, an a couple of other supplies and make those people serve you....but why bother?

12/17/2005 12:37:26 AM

I'm not talking about domination of other species, I'm talking about expansion of the species. For example, if we currently had the technology to travel to other planets without worrying about how long it would take to get them there, cost, fuel, etc. do you think we would just stay on Earth? And that is when we don't have super powers on other planets. If we knew that we did have the powers, it would make it that much easier, cause once you get within a certain range of the sun you could just ditch the spacecraft and fly to the planet at super speed.

[Edited on December 17, 2005 at 2:15 PM. Reason : ]

12/17/2005 2:14:56 PM

Superman as a solar battery is actually just a myth. He derives his energy from the blood of baby puppies and the tears of hookers.

12/17/2005 2:39:55 PM

SUPERMAN LOGIC...what has the world come to.

12/17/2005 8:27:04 PM

Plenty of fictions have a set of modified rules and work within them. This is nothing new.

12/17/2005 8:47:20 PM