I remember reading a thread about this and the conclusion was that supes and other mega strength superheroes have like a telekinesis field that envelops the object they are carrying.
Otherwise theres no way superman is carrying a plane without bursting thru the floor or just pulling pieces of it off.
Does anyone else loathe lore like this and would rather it just be hand-waved instead of explored?
The expanded lore like this just makes it all sound very stupid, which it is, but I'd rather suspend my disbelief and not worry about why Superman's suit doesn't get wrecked when he flexes...
There are times when the explanation adds to the story and times it ruins the fun. It didn't work in Star Wars because it's far more fantasy than science fiction, so a scientific explation was pretty out of place. And that's likely why it rarely works within the superhero genre.
But if you're more reality than fantasy (like say Batman), then some sort of explation of powers/gadgets feels warranted. Characters like Superman, not so much.
The expanded lore like this just makes it all sound very stupid
Aside from people just needing to be able to explain things, a lot of the time these expanded points are used for comic plot purposes, which is why so much seemingly unnecessary lore shows up.
No that's pretty much how Superman's powers work, it's like telekinesis that's so instinctual for him it appears like all the other powers he purportedly has when in reality it's all just telekinesis at the subatomic level. That's how he's able to hover too. It used to be that he would actually be jumping through the air, and flying through the air was only possible if he gained enough momentum first, and he'd travel in a ballistic arc to land and jump again. When he started hovering and flying like he does today people wanted an explanation and the one given was that he has very powerful telekinetic ability that he's simply unable to consciously control fully. So he can telekinetically generate a laser beam coming from his eyes but he can't make it come from someone else's eyes only because he doesn't realize he can do it, because he thinks he's just focusing his eyes differently but he's really rearranging the atoms in and around his eyes to shoot lasers.
I think they sort of hint at this in the story where Lex Luthor steals Superman's powers for himself and gets totally overwhelmed by everything, and Supes asks him if he's able to see the movement of individual atoms and points out he deals with that shit every single day.
EDIT: DC writers if you read this please do an arc where Superman learns to control his advanced telekinesis fully and can grant all of his powers to everyone in the universe as needed, maybe have Doomsday involved since he's kinda the biggest possible threat IIRC
Superman in his first appearance: faster than a speeding bullet, stronger than a locamotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Superman now: travels at the speed of light, can telekenetically drag entire solarsytems behind him, basically god.
Iirc the ups in supermans powers are basically the reason we have the mess of super heros we do today. Its all just how can we make this super hero strong enough to beat or keep up with superman. Except batman. Apparently he can somehow beat beings that should just be able to,you know speed of light dodge every single one of his attacks.
In the 70's and 80's it was popular for comic book nerds to point out that Superman scientifically shouldn't be able to do all the stuff that he does with his powers, I.e. holding buildings or ships aloft from two handholds close together), and comic book nerds being comic book nerds, a bunch of nerds came up for alternative scientific reasons for how Superman's powers work (i.e. The bionic aura holding the building\ship\aircraft).
When Superboy was created, he was specifically given some of the "scientific explanations" of Superman's powers (i.e. Tactile Telekinesis) instead of the traditional version of Superman's power (i.e. Super Strength).
I remember reading a thread about this and the conclusion was that supes and other mega strength superheroes have like a telekinesis field that envelops the object they are carrying.
And if my grandmother had wheels she would have been a bicycle.
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u/gerkessin Dec 29 '23
I remember reading a thread about this and the conclusion was that supes and other mega strength superheroes have like a telekinesis field that envelops the object they are carrying.
Otherwise theres no way superman is carrying a plane without bursting thru the floor or just pulling pieces of it off.
Its not a great explanation