Superman/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

*** Actually they have more to lose by using guns. Discharging a firearm during a felony automatically gets you bonus jail time. Quite a lot of it, actually; as in 25-to-life instead of 5-to-10. It doesn't matter if the person you're shooting at is bulletproof. Sure, the mass murderer who's going to get the chair anyway might as well try it, but your average bank robber would be better of surrendering. Or, you know, moving to a new city.

**** And how many armed and dangerous criminals hold back from shooting at the cops because firing a gun would mean extra time behind bars? If the crooks are already committing armed robbery, it's a pretty safe bet that discharging a firearm is an acceptable course of action in their minds.

*** Not necessarily. The ''threat'' of the gun is why most criminals bring it, not that they actually think they're going to ''use'' it.

**** And yet people, especially cops, ''do'' get shot by criminals every day. Only the most suicidally reckless person would ever act on the assumption that a criminal with a gun drawn on him is bluffing, especially in a comic-book setting where mooks firing guns at cops is part and parcel of any crime.

**** This is COMIC BOOK WORLD. Crooks are bad guys. It is ''that simple''. Superman is usually dealing with crooks who have ''already shot at the police and guards they were trying to flee'', only to then run into him. Why would they hesitate for a second to shoot at the probably-invulnerable guy for any legal reason when they've ''already shot at the people who are most definitely not invulnerable''? It's like you're so bent on winning some totally irrelevant side point that you're not even thinking about how it actually applies to this discussion.

*** Hm, let me check the original Headscratcher post...Nope, nowhere does it say that it's talking about only (or even usually) those criminals that have already shot at someone. Only Superman is mentioned as a past, present, or future target. It just says "criminals" as a general term, so you're apparently assuming that he's talking about exactly and only the criminals you have in mind. And you're making assumptions as to the types of crooks Superman is "usually" up against.<br />In point of fact, we ''have'' seen criminals shoot at Superman who have not, up to then, shot at cops or anyone else, in the comic books, in the movies, in the TV shows, in the cartoons, and in any video games. Superman gets to a bank robbery before the cops? They shoot. Superman comes upon a random mugger, who up to then had been only threatening with the gun? He shoots Superman.<br />Shooting at Superman is the default response of crooks in superhero comics, yes, as a device to demonstrate his invulnerability. The point of the original question is to ask ''why they do that'' when they have to know it's not going to work. The fact they'd ''also'' get more jail time for an obviously futile action does, in fact, factor into why it's a Headscratcher, since it's yet another good reason to ''not'' shoot Superman, so yes, I am thinking about how it applies to the discussion.

*** For the most part the status quo tends to be [[Like Reality Unless Noted]], so you'd need a closer look at the DCU's legal system before we can make those kinds of assumptions.<br />And all of those "maybes" are, indeed valid points, and would indeed be good motivation to shoot at Superman. You should've just said those to begin with and we could've avoided this wall of text.<br />And no, them shooting Superman doesn't at all invalidate my, or the other tropers' points for why it's a bad idea, because the whole point was to ask why they would do those ''despite'' those factors. Nobody is arguing that it doesn't happen, they were asking ''for what reason'' it happens in story--so "IT'S A COMIC BOOK!" is not a suitable response--given the obvious and numerous reasons ''not to'' do it. That's the whole point of Headscratchers, to ask ''why'' things happen in fiction despite readily apparent reasons they should not.

*** I added a brief counterpoint to your argument, not the attack on your rights that you seem to have interpreted. It's a ''discussion''. If I see an answer I think is inaccurate or wrong in some way, I'm going to say something about it, simple as that--just because it's "an answer" doesn't mean it's automatically right, or that there aren't counterpoints to that answer. There was no intention to "tear down" anything, or have a "battle"--I made a small contribution to the discussion, and ''left''. Hell, I wouldn't have come back to this discussion right now if you hadn't PM'd me about this perceived slight.

** Force of habit? When you're an armed criminal, a good way of ensuring compliance from the people around you is to point a gun at them; unarmed civilians will do anything you tell them to, and even armed members of the police may slow down what they're doing in order to prevent innocent casualties. It's just an automatic instinct that kicks in, even though it's completely useless when tried with Superman.

** Everyone may have heard that bullets can't hurt Superman, but what exactly does "can't hurt" mean? A superhero who was merely invulnerable, not impervious, might be driven back or slammed around by bullets even if he isn't wounded by them. Not that the criminals are thinking it through that much, but if that's what they pictured when they heard the story ...

*** Because trying to punch him would be an even worse idea.

** As put in Lorne Michael's (really pretty awful) 1988 TV special celebrating Superman's 50th birthday, "There's just something about that "S"...you just want to shoot it..."

** Maybe they're just checking to make sure he's really Superman and not just another, weaker DCU flyer in disguise.

** And while I am at it, why doesn't the moron just make his suit with lead lining so Kryptonite doesn't hurt him? Or at least a lead-cotton weave fiber to at least lessen its effects.

*** Lead has a fairly low melting point; given how fast Superman flies, a lead suit could burn up from friction.

**** If there is anything Superboy Prime has taught us it's that supersuits, no matter how well-built, will not last long in Superman-level fights.

*** Full-on lead suits were used by the Silver Age version. All but one had a critical flaw: Lead blocks X-ray vision as well as kryptonite radiation. If he let himself see, the kryptonite could affect him. And the only one that didn't have that problem (used a television and camera to get around the stunt) I think did die of friction. Not counting the story where the suit{{spoiler|along with everything else on earth, got turned to glass}}. The Silver Age had some weird plots.

*** Eh, [[This Troper]] disagrees, but [[Your Mileage May Vary]].

**** When you fly ''faster than light'', you are not superstrong and fast, nor you are a God. You are just ''laughing in the face of physics''.

 

* Wonder how Superman got {{spoiler|circumcised}} if he's a man of steel.

*** Especially if killing Batman would ''[[The Only One Allowed to Defeat You|piss off]]'' the Joker....

** Villains and random thugs rarely think that far ahead. All they care about is that right now some large man in colored underwear is standing between them and what they want, and they can't allow that now can they? If they gave a damn about the greater good, they probably wouldn't be involved in villainy in the first place.

** From an economic standpoint, there's probably more money in Metropolis banks due to both the presence of Lexcorp and of the world's greatest hero. As such, some enterprising criminals are willing to take the (high) risk of being stopped by Superman on the off chance he might be somewhere else doing League business, in which case they make off like ''kings''.

*** In JLA/Avengers a Genre Savvy criminal named Loophole actually takes advantage of a Justice League emergency to knock over a few Metropolis banks, knowing Superman will be occupied for the time being. A good plan, and it would have worked if the Avengers didn't happen to coincidentally pop out of a boom tube right next to them...

** Well, while Batman has to be on the other side of the city, Superman often has to be on the other side of the planet fighting a giant gorilla with kryptonite vision or on the other side of the galaxy dealing with cosmic villains. He doesn't have time to personally prevent every single robbery.

** Didn't the Ringmaster then promptly get his butt handed to him by ''Howard the Duck?''

*** In most continuities, Jor-El is the one who discovered the yellow-sun effect while investigating options for saving his family.

* Superman doesn't age at the normal rate, correct? So doesn't that mean he'll eventually have to give up being Clark or reveal his secret identity?

** Due to the [[Comic Book Time|rolling timeline]] it's unlikely to ever come into play in canon.

* How does Superman cut his hair? I know we've seen him shave his beard with his heat ray vision, but how does he actually style the hair on top of his head if scissors couldn't cut it?

** Alternatively: You know how the hair on your eyebrows only grow out that long? Like that.

*** This was the [[Pre Crisis]] explanation---his hair didn't grow under a yellow sun, thus he didn't need to shave/get haircuts (unless he was under red sun conditions for an extended period of time).

*** That was when he was depowered from red sunlight, though. Otherwise we saw him do the mirror trick.

*** "Smallville" had scissors break when {{spoiler|Isobel/Lana tried to cut his hair for one of her spells}}.

** Superman doesn't keep a secret identity to protect his loved ones, he keeps a secret identity because he doesn't want to be Superman 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. He was raised up as a human and he wants to keep his human lifestyle, and to do that he needs a human identity.

*** Exactly. But the secret-identity does still keep his loved-one's (relatively) safe. If people knew Superman was Clark Kent, and they made the connections to Lois and Jimmy, they'd be in danger [[Up to Eleven|even more than usual]].

** He was made by Cadmus Labs, who were using Lex Luthor's DNA. Presumably Cadmus is good enough to keep their DNA files out of Luthor's hands, although not good enough to stay out of his machinations entirely.

** One, Cadmus security is a running joke, and two, Lex Luthor was at one point President of the United States, and Cadmus is a US government agency.

*** If I recall correctly, most of the efforts to create Superboy were secretly spearheaded by Dabney Donovan (the mad genius who cloned Luthor's new body once he developed cancer by Kryptonite poisoning). Donovan was basically the Mister Sinister of the DCU; seriously, half the Cadmus freaks are Donovan's creations. If anyone could figure out how to kludge together a human-Kryptonian hybrid, it'd be him. Also, Luthor had his agents secretly substitute his DNA for that of Project Director Westfield, who was intended to have been the human "parent."

* Where do all these villains keep getting [[Kryptonite Is Everywhere|Kryptonite]]? It's a chunk of a planet that exploded on the other side of the galaxy more than three decades ago. Even if a good sized piece of Krypton followed Kal-el's pod, it should not be so easy to find or cheap enough to afford. Is Lex Luthor manufacturing and passing out the stuff for free just to screw with Supes or something?

** See above--Luthor still hasn't managed to synthesize Kryptonite, but early in Post-Crisis continuity, he tried to collect every piece on Earth that he could find once he discovered its effects on Superman. Post-Crisis, most appearances of (green) Kryptonite existed either as Metallo's power source (which Luthor later stole and fashioned into the original Kryptonite ring) and Bloodsport's bullets (supplied by Luthor).

** My own fan theory is this: Kryptonite is a substance. It's stuff, it gets formed by natural processes, so any place where those natural processes exist should produce Kryptonite. It's like helium in real life--helium is formed in the sun, was first discovered in the sun, and it was even named after the sun. Does that mean that the sun is the only place where it comes from? Of course not. Besides, every so often someone makes artificial Kryptonite. If that's possible, it should exist in nature too.

*** Not exactly. Post-Crisis, green Kryptonite can only be formed by subjecting fragments of Krypton to some sort of nuclear bombardment and fusing it into a new element. At least in the 90s, green Kryptonite just didn't make nearly as many appearances as people assume it does.

 

 

** Krypton being much more massive than Earth was mainly just used pre-crises when there was less emphasis on the whole yellow sun radiation thing and more on Kryptonians just being much more evolved.

 

** For the first, remember that Krypton hadn't had much of a space program for millenia; he had no idea where inhabited planets were, and its rather impressive that he happened to find one, period, by sheer luck-its unreasonable to expect him to find ''every'' inhabited planet in 2814 with so little manpower and such little time. As for why they were where they were... ''they saw the End coming''. They wanted to spend their last moments on Krypton with family,

*** Neither of those answers are reasonable.Krypton had an [[Inter Galactic]] Empire within living memory,and probably within Jor-El's lifetime (ended by the peace party winning the elections),and Earth and Rann at the time were within seconds or minutes of each other at the speeds needed to have an intergalactic empire.And a desire to be with family would be a reason for Jor-El to be in Argo,not out of it.

** I've also seen him call Supes "The Alien" which works much better.

 

** Depending on which version of Superman it is, it'd be either. Currently, I'd say Clark Kent.

** Since Death Notes specifically affect ''humans'', it would not affect him.

* Superman gets his powers from yellow sunlight. On Krypton he's just like any other human. Does this mean that if we travel to say, Antares, we can get superpowers?

* So, in quite a few of the old Silver Age comics, Superman goes to talk to the citizens of the bottled city of Kandor, apologizing for not being able to return them to their former size. However, he enters using a shrink ray, and leaves using a ''ray specifically designed to make things that have been shrunken down larger''. Does he not see how he could use that on them, or is there something I'm missing?

** Is it not possible that Superman's growth ray only works on things shrunk by HIS shrink ray?

* If someone wanted to use [[I Know Your True Name|True Name Magic]] on Superman, would they need to use Kal-El (his birth name, but not one he uses often IIRC), Clark Kent (his adopted name), or Superman?

** Silver Banshee is this Irish ghost chick who has the power to kill you if knows your real name and screams at you. She needed to find out Superman's real birth name to be able to wipe him out.

** The suit is mostly symbolic, intended to convey a sense of hope or comfort. Bright primary colors, so you can see him coming a mile away and dont feel threatened by his presence, no mask to convey a sense of trust, cape to convey authority and dignity, etc... The shorts are a result of the times, I believe. From what I understand, they were created so that characters like Superman and Batman would look less naked when printed in black and white. They became part of the iconography and stuck.

** Actually, they're taken from old school circus strongman outfits, which were the original inspiration for the Superman costume. Then it just sorta stuck as a 'superhero' thing once circus strongmen became a [[Forgotten Trope]].

 

== Film ==

* Lex Luthor. The greatest criminal mastermind on earth. And after getting out of prision, his great comeback plan is... boning an old, sick woman? he really couldn't find a more dignified, less pathetic way to get back in bussiness? REALLY?

* Superman Returns picks up from Superman II, and Jason is the son of Clark Kent. I use that name intentionally because Kal-El was de-Kryptonized so that he could ethically marry Lois and live as a human. Boy does their de-Kryptonization suck! In Superman Returns, Jason (late in the game) starts to exhibit superhuman powers. You'd think they would have bothered to do something about possible offspring; otherwise, what's the point of de-Kryponization in the first place?

** He wasn't de-Kryptonized. He was bathed in red sunlight, which took away his powers. Later on, he's bathed in the energy of yellow sunlight, which recharges his powers. He was still Kryptonian throughout the whole thing. There was no changes made to his physiology of DNA. Essentially, he had the batteries pulled out of his powers.

** The whole thing was summerized fairly well [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yavK0mnE3wI here]. Kryptonite, red sunlight, and magic are no match for Superman's [[Plot Induced Stupidity|true weakness]].

** Superman's speed is never consistently shown, but then again, neither are any of his other powers. We sometimes see him appear to strain to lift a bus, but he can lift California from sinking into the ocean or push a Kryptonite continent into space. I think all of his powers can be summed as, "Strong as the plot demands." That said, here's a possible [[Fan Wank]] explanation for the time travel: Superman didn't make the earth spin backwards - he himself went back in time, and the image of the Earth spinning backwards is merely how Superman would have perceived it. How'd he do this? By flying faster than the speed of light. The Earth's about 25,000 miles around, and Superman's flight in [[The Movie]] is a good 2 or 3 diameters larger than earth, meaninging that he was flying in loops anywhere between 50,000 to 100,000 miles - in less than a second. The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. At the speed at which he's depicted flying, Superman is flying much faster than light, and given the dubbing from Jor-el about relativity, we can probably assume that Supes was just traveling back in time, and seeing events play out in reverse.

** One possible explanation for the speed question: Superman is trying to save Lois from death. It's one thing to try to save nameless thousands from doom, but it's another thing to save the one person you love the most. He was just trying harder to go faster, pushed along by his emotions. And it's a good thing he did try traveling in time; in the state he was in, he could've also flown to Metropolis and ripped Luthor apart one atom at a time.

 

** Zod a bad leader? This surprises you why, exactly?

** Well, the Kryptonians judged him and his henchmen to be ''so'' dangerous that only exile to the Phantom Zone would be suitable punishment. ''These'' are the idiots that posed a danger to the very fabric of Kryptonian society? Come on.

**** Their planet ''exploded''. Earthquakes were a mere sideeffect.

*** More to the point, Zod and his cronies ''caused'' the explosion. ''That'' is why they were sentenced to the Phantom Zone.

* Considering how happy Sir Richard Branson was to let the producers paint the Virgin logo on the shuttle in the rescue scene of Superman Returns and get a cameo, am I the only one who thinks they really screwed him over? The system isn't anything like what Virgin Galactic's actually going to do, the flight is stated as being controlled from Cape Canaveral and never indicated to be private spaceflight at all, if Superman hadn't showed up, it would have ended in a horrible disaster, and you can't even see the logo without freezing the frames!

** That poor, abused billionaire. How awful it must be for him to have such anguish heaped upon him.

* Here's a real head-scratcher. Point 1: We know that at least ''some'' Kryptonians are aware of the fact that yellow sunlight gives them fantastic super powers. Point 2: We know there are ways of simulating yellow sunlight (Supergirl's rocket was specially designed to emit solar radiation so she'd be fully-powered when she made it to Earth, Superboy-Prime built himself a suit that stores solar radiation and channels it into his body, etc.). So...''why didn't the people of Krypton take advantage of this?'' Why doesn't every Kryptonian household come pre-installed with some kind of solar radiation emitter? Why doesn't every citizen of Krypton walk around in a solar suit? The things should be as common as coffee machines.

** An entire civilization where absolutely anyone can obliterate a continent with a single punch? That's going to be easy to police/govern. It's clear that access to yellow-solar radition and the means to generate it would be strictly limited, and probably banned outright for the civillain population. Granted, that doesn't explain why no one thought to apply it to military or emergency services (and of course criminal) applications, but I think "common as coffee machines" is a bit unlikely. It's for the same reasons (aside from logistical/economic) that everyone in the Western world doesn't have their own nuclear reactor for their home- it's too much power to trust with just anyone.

*** If I recall correctly, in the modern age, it took time for Superman to absorb enough yellow sun radiation to get powers, so you couldn't just turn on a device and get them instantly. In the [[Silver Age]] and [[Bronze Age]], it was instant--but ''everything'' was affected. You couldn't gain super-powers and smash a city because the city buildings would become super-tough just like Superman's costume did. (And Krypton had such high technology that you wouldn't need superpowers just to do things like fly.)

*** Also, in this connection, the Silver Age and Bronze Age had X-Kryptonite, which gave non-Kryptonians super-powers. A tiny piece gave powers to Streaky the Super-Cat. But then, there was a Supergirl story in ''Superman Family'' where a girl exposed to this substance went into a coma for years because her body couldn't handle the super-powers. It may not necessarily be safe to just get powers.

**** Thinking about it further, it wouldn't even be in the Krypton government's best interest to have their own squad of supermen or sanctioned superhero. The moment they let one man fly around and perform superheroics, people would start asking how that's possible. And when the answer's as simple as "shine a certain color of light on you", that's the one question they can't afford to let anyone wonder about.

*** It's not the ''color'' of the light, it's the ''radiation'' of a yellow sun. The color is just a handy way to tell which is which. Shining a flashlight with yellow saran wrap on it isn't going to supercharge Superman, nor is a flash light with red wrapping over it going to de-power him. It has to be the special radiation from either type of sun.

***** Human eyes change their focus using little muscles that change the shape of the lens. If Superman's eyes work the same way, no problem -- the lenses are super-tough, but the muscles are correspondingly super-strong.

**** If Superman's skin can function perfectly as well as skin despite being rigid enough to stop nukes, then why are we worried about his eyeballs?

** It's not Superman's skin. His invulnerability comes from an extremely thin but nigh-unbreakable forcefeld he projects just over his skin. It wasn't bouncing off the actual eye, just the field around it. Yes, that's the in-canon explanation for his invulnerability.

*** Not anymore. The current canonical explanation is that he's just that tough. Not to mention that the whole electrochemical field was never really an explanation of his invulnerability, but of why his supersuit doesn't get destroyed. In Byrne's day, his uniform was Earth-made, not kryptonian. That's why you often saw him with his uniform intact but his cape ripped to tears - his field protected the uniform because it was skin-tight, the same didn't happen to the cape.

* The original line. You know the one. "Look, up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's Superman!" I understand finding Supes exciting, at least the first couple times, but...come on. Even for tourists, "Look, it's a bird"? Really? And who registers shock at a plane since there were commercial airlines?

** I think it's meant to be said by two or more people. Sorta like.

'''Person1''': No, it's Superman! }}

*** In fact, that's ''exactly'' how it's performed in the original radio and television shows. For example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=[[Q 2 l 4 bz 1 FT 8 U]]

** Except they still shouldn't be cheering for the bird or the plane. Though one could assume early on it was just a nice quote and then it [[Memetic Mutation|mutated memetically]]. I always imagine the original like this:

'''Alice''': No! It's ''Superman''! }}

*** This was how it was done in ''[[Superman Returns]]'', by Jimmy, Perry and Lois.

* Okay, so why hasn't anyone mentioned the fact that after so many encounters with Superman and Clark Kent, no one ever says, "Hey, those two guys look alike. I think they're the same person."?

*** It's also explicit that Superman vibrates in place whenever a picture is taken of him, so that his picture comes out blurry and indistinct.

**** Wait just one minute. Superman can ''[[Fetish Fuel|vibrate]]''? Lucky Lois!

** Okay, those are some good attempts at explanations, but they don't explain why someone like Lois or Jimmy would ever be fooled. If you're close to either Superman or Clark and then you see the other, you'd have to have some seriously-impaired skills of observation to not tell they are the same person. Sure, Clark can slouch, wear his hair differently, and wear glasses, but that doesn't change the structure of his face or the shape of his eyes or the general tone of his voice. I think someone who was supposedly a trained investigative reporter like Lois would have figured it out immediately, especially with all the times Clark is present and Superman isn't and vice versa.

*** This troper has a personal theory that some people do notice, in the same way you notice someone resembles a how a friend resembles a celebrity. But with all them Superman robots flying around, and with Clark going out of his way to act differently, it might just make them see the physical resemblance as just that: a physical resemblance. As for Lois, Jimmy and everybody else......[[Too Dumb to Live|maybe they're just stupid.]]

** Seriously, just watch the first Superman film, then come back, look me in the eye and tell me that Christopher Reeve as Clark Kent and Christopher Reeve as Superman look the same. Facial features matter some in recognition and they, of course, are the same. Posture, attitude, demeanor, clothes and voice also matter, and they are completely different. At best, someone might think "Hey, Clark looks kinda like Superman", but since Clark and Superman are, and act, so fundamentally different, there is no way someone is even going to consider that they might be the same person.

*** That's because you're ''watching the movie''. You know, the movie that you heard about before ever seeing it as featuring Christopher Reeve as Clark Kent/Superman, and the franchise for which you ''already know the secret identity''. They're not trying to "fool" the audience because the cat's been out of the bag since 1939. You already know the secret. '''The people in Clark Kent's world do not'''. They have little reason to suspect that there's ''any'' connection to the [[Physical God]] Superman and the clumsy, whimpy, pathetic country bumpkin Clark Kent.

** All-Star Superman does something similar: Clark Kent is clearly the same size of Superman, and has the same color hair, but that's where the resemblance ends. Clark is noticeably pudgier and his face is less chiseled. He slouches. He stutters and trips over his own two feet. And as Lex points out, Clark may look similar to Superman, but lots of people purposely emulate Superman, like cutting their eyebrows in the "Superman Swoosh."

** Most people, upon seeing someone who looked like, say, Brad Pitt, dressed in a t-shirt and bermuda shorts with a bad haircut, at a hot dog stand in Peoria, Illinois, aren't going to immediately assume "Hey, that's Brad Pitt! Incognito!" They're going to assume it's some dork who looks like Brad Pitt. Humans are creatures of expectations.

** Jim Carrey rather famous pulled off a bit of [[Clark Kenting]] at an awards show, where he showed up dressed (and acting)like a hippie caricature with waist-length hair and full beard. Until he went up on stage to accept his award, no one, not even the people sitting next to him in the audience, knew he was there. If he can do it, so can Superman.

** I've thought about this a lot, and these are the several reasons that I've come up with: 1. People noticing that Clark Kent looks a bit like Superman will assume that this is exactly how things are; Clark Kent is a person who resembles Superman and that's all there is to it. 2. The fact that he could spend his time working as a reporter out looking for crime and stopping it will make people think "Why would Superman be sitting in an office working when he could be out saving lives?" This is my best argument; nobody who knew what a caring and self-sacrificing person Superman is could possibly believe he'd spend a single second writing newspaper articles if he could have been using that second saving an innocent child. 3. There are other people whose facial features resemble Superman's. There's no reason at all to pick Clark Kent as the guy to compare to Superman; surely there are other men who look a bit like the Man of Steel. 4. With Clark Kent's different way of speaking, behaviour, and hairstyle (plus the specs), the difference just isn't noticeable unless you've spent time with both Clark Kent and Superman for a long time. You'll just assume that Kent and Supes share certain charasteristics, but not more since you don't ''know'' that there is anything to look for. 5. I think there has been stories where [[Identity Impersonator|Clark Kent has been seen together with Superman]] through some trick or other. 6. Can't mention this enough: One doesn't notice that kind of thing unless one's looking for it! If you're at a party and you've been told that one of the guests is Al Pacino in disguise, you'll find him after a while. But if you haven't been told, you'll probably just miss it. 7. If people notice he looks ''exactly'' like Superman, they won't think "Wow! It's Superman in disguise!" They'll think "Wow! A normal man who looks just like Superman!" The idea of a normal man being Superman is just too darn implausible unless they see some superpower-related activities.

** The pilot of Lois & Clark offers an amusing possibility that has the added value of explaining the point of his costume's most baffling aspect: he wears tights, so nobody ever looks at his face.

 

* In the first film, Jor-El's recording mentions, during Kal-El's space flight, Einstein's theory of relativity. By way of confirming this theory, he later states, in the Fortress of Solitude, that he has been dead for thousands of years. So...how did he know who Einstein was?

** [[Translation Convention]], and he was referring to a Kryptonian physicist?

* Superman can time travel.He uses it to save,basically,one woman (and incidentally save millions of other people) on Earth. ''Why doesn't he use it to save Krypton?''

** What, exactly, could Superman do, once he got there, that his dad couldn't?

**** I do believe you mean "Guy ''Claiming'' to be From The Future", since the lack of a future for Krypton and its destruction means he won't have all that much foreknowledge that couldn't be obtained by sufficiently advanced subterfuge by a native of the era.

**** Yeah, any attempt by Superman to try to convince the council that he's from the future is probably going to be answered with "wow Jor-El, we know you're really obsessed with your pet doom-and-gloom theory, but hiring this guy to pose as your time-traveling son from the future? That is just ''sad''."

* Ok, this is a bit silly on my part, and I'm sure you can you guess I just finished watching an episode of Robot Chicken, but while when Superman was first created, a random couple in Kansas could reasonably expect to claim they had a child, and set up paperwork for their son without anybody worrying. Especially if it was winter, and they were on a farm. Maybe they spent some time isolated on their farm in the snow, and then brought the boy to town after a few weeks. Not too impossible for the early 1900s, even up to the 1920s. But here's the problem, Superman is on a sliding scale, with his arrival continuously pushed forward to closer to modern times. At this point, you wonder about his records. I suppose if he didn't get his invulnerability till later he could at least get his shots, but still, I suppose that's why Smallville had Kal-el arrive during a meteor shower, so they could handwave past it by having everybody believe that his parents were just unlucky blokes passing through who got blown up. The same could be applied to all other versions of Superman if you wanted. And I believe that some DC comic declared Superman had honorary citizenship as an international gesture of support. However there's one slight issue, Clark Kent's never officially become a citizen. Would a lawful good type like him vote with his status being in doubt? So...

** In at least one version of the comic origin, he was technically a fetus while in-transit, and the spaceship doubled as an artificial womb, so from a medical standpoint, his exit from the spaceship counted as being "born", giving him American citizenship. I know that was the main story post-Crisis, and I think they've changed it since, but nevertheless.

** Yes he'd still vote. Being a "lawful good type" doesn't mean he has to strictly adhere to every letter of the law Or Else. He is not (repeat: '''Not''') a DnD style Paladin, or a DnD character at all. Ergo, '''''[[Character Alignment]] means exactly nothing'''''.

*** It probably meant more that the publishers didn't want to risk offending part of their fanbase by having Superman, who generally serves as the paragon of all that is Right and Good pick a political party and thus imply that whoever he ''didn't'' pick was wrong. What irked me before is that I see people taking the DnD alignment as if they're actual constrictions that apply to the character in question. Useful shorthand? Yes. Rules a non-DnD character has to follow? Not at all.<br />As for the US-citizen-or-not question? Whether or not he was technically born on US soil, he's spent his entirely life in the US. It takes 14 years (I believe) to qualify for citizenship, and if anyone's going to know enough to pass the citizenship exams, it's the big blue boyscout himself. Even if Clark won't take the exam, he clearly considers himself an American (truth, justice, the American way), and would likely think those qualifications were close enough.

**** I could see Clark refusing to let himself get too strongly into politics, though, for the same reason Batman won't let himself cross the line and kill criminals. Superman has the power to easily enforce his opinion onto the world. If he decides that any particular political cause is absolutely just and ''needs'' to happen, he can effortlessly turn it into an ultimatum. To hold onto his ideals of democracy and respecting the public will (even in cases where he totally disagrees with it, like President Luthor), he may have a self-imposed taboo on getting too strongly attached to either side of a political issue. Just like Bruce Wayne knows how easily he could become a [[Serial Killer Killer]] if he lets himself cross the line, Superman is aware of how easily his patriotism could lead to a [[Beware the Superman]] dystopia if he lets himself get too personally involved.

***** Yes, see [[Red Son]] for an example where Superman does take that role.

** During the ''[[Millennium (Comic Book)|Millennium]]'' crossover, part of this plot hole was fixed: the Manhunters tried to capture his spaceship and created a blizzard to keep people from reaching the crash site, but the Kents found him anyway and ended up stuck in a blizzard for five months. It was plausible that Martha could have given birth during that time.

*** I thought I had seen that idea somewhere, thanks.

*** "Anchor baby" implies that the parents are illegal aliens, and that the fact that the baby is a citizen benefits other members of the family. Neither of these is true for Superman.

*** Whether or not he is an anchor baby, if the birthing matrix is still canon, if Superman was indeed born on American soil, he ''is'' an American citizen. It's automatic. If you are born on American soil you are an American citizen.

*** From 1948 to the End of the Silver Age the anonymous motorist was replaced by the Kents discovering the child, reporting to the proper authorities the finding of one foundling, male, and a desire to adopt said foundling. Different versions of that part of the origin exist, in the original Kal-El survived the crash, while the rocket was totally destroyed, later on the rocket survived and so on, but Clark Kent became that way a citizen of the United States of America. He had as Superman for part of the Pre-Crisis Age honorary citizenship of all members of the United Nations.

* In the first movie, why does Lex Luthor plan to set off a ''300 megaton'' nuclear bomb right next to where his new premium ocean-front property will be? The fall-out of such a bomb would probably contanimate the entire continental US, and then some. Why was the military testing such a weapon anyway? The most powerful thermonuclear device ever test-detonated by the US in real life was Castle Bravo at 15 megaton (and any tests done inside the continental US never even got into the megaton range). The most powerful device ever detonated, period, was the Russian Tsar Bomba at 57 megaton. A 300 megaton warhead detonated in California would probably break windows in New York! And Jimmy Olsen sees this thing go off at a distance where he should've been hit by the blast (even if it was a more reasonable size, like maybe 20 kiloton, which is what the mushroom cloud size he sees suggests), but he isn't even phased! In fact, the nukes appear to have ''no consequences whatsoever'' besides breaking the fault line. [[Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale]], I guess.

** ...He's insane.

** 300 megatons is nothing to sneer at, but there've been plenty of more powerful explosions in history. Mt. St. Helens was a bigger blast, for example.

** The real problem with this plan is that, even assuming he had managed to destroy California without irradiating the new coastline, what makes him think he's going to profit from it? Has Luthor never heard of Emminent Domain? Even though the Constitution requires "*just compensation" for property, Luthor's already a known criminal - Otis was being tailed to the lair so police could catch Luthor before Superman is even on the scene. There's no way he's going to keep the new coastline if Phase 1 of his plan worked.

* How did Lois live to adulthood without the aid of Superman to save her from her gross disregard for personal safety? In the movie, she would have been dead three times in the few short weeks after she met Superman, so how did she manage before? Superman saves her from being shot by a mugger. Her purse was obviously more valuable to her than her life (and Clark's). Next, she falls from a helicopter. Finally, Superman turns time back to save her, which leads to my next gripe...

** In the comics, at least, its said that she lets herself get into so many insanely dangerous and fatal situations ''because'' Superman is around to save her. Before she met Mr. Perfect Fallback Plan, she did have survival instincts, its just that she's smart enough to know that with Big Blue around, ''she doesn't need them''.

** Don't question it. Just...don't. [[Austin Powers|You'll go cross-eyed]]. It doesn't make sense. To anybody. Even Richard Donner probably wakes up scratching his head thinking "That made no sense! WTF was I thinking?!"

*** How's this? As others have theorized, Superman didn't turn back time; the shot of the Earth turning backwards was his point of view as he ''himself'' went back. He went back well before the moment of Lois' death, then went forward to a more precise moment before. Then, all he has to do is get her out of the car, so she won't get swollowed up by the crevice, which he does. The aftershock occurs after he leaves her and Jimmy. As for not changing the rest, he's not dumb enough to try and alter history to such a major extent.

 

* In Superman II, we find Lex Luthor in prison making license plates after the crime he attempted in Superman I. All well and good except for one little problem: '''HE THREATENED THE STATES OF CALIFORNIA AND NEW JERSEY WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS!!!!''' At the risk of understating the matter, being threatened with nuclear annihilation isn't something people will easily forgive or forget, so I'm rather baffled that no one in either state was screaming at the feds to sit Lex down in Old Sparky and give him the juice.

** It's not clear how long it's been since I, but II could still have Luthor in the midst of his criminal trial. This makes particularly good sense after [[Superman Returns]], where we learn that Luthor is free because, without Superman's testimony, he was acquitted of his crimes. So in II, Lex is probably just in prison while the government tackles the insanely difficult problem of building a case against a guy whose crime was at least partially undone by time travel.

* I know this is a minor gripe, the kind of thing you put in a Justbugsme page but when other Kryptonians show up on Earth why are they instantly a threat to Superman in physical combat? Here's the thing they get equal strength, sure I get that. But they don't get equal experience and skills, or rather they shouldn't. Zod's a good example of someone who should have gotten curb stomped because of his military experience. The vast majority of martial arts in the real world and presumably on Krypton where they were more or less ordinary humans is based on the idea of gravity and "solid" opponents. Learning a punching combination loses a lot of it's usefulness when your second punch launches the guy three hundred feet and you gotta catch up. Likewise a wrist lock doesn't work if you can fly. Superman (and other similiarly powerful charachters) should be destroying these guys in curbv stomp battles until they at least acclimate to the difference for the same reason why a martial artist is more than capabable of beating opponents physically on par or even superior to them. I suspect that boxing would be a vastly different sport if everybody could shoot lasers from their eyes move close to the speed of light and use buses as weapons. So different in fact that any experience you had going in would work against you for all the reasons just listed.

** The fact that he's trying to avoid collateral damage and civilian casualties likely limits what he can do. In a fair fight, he probably could wipe the floor with other Kryptonians but in a typical, mid-Metropolis super-fight, they can distract him by flinging a bus full of orphans at a puppy dog factory or lasering away the support cables on a nearby bridge. Also, they're usually trying to kill him, using the full extent of their powers to do so, whereas Clark will have to pull some punches.

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