I received my MA in philosophy of science many years ago and currently reviving my academic interests. I hope to stimulate individuals in the realms of science, philosophy and the arts...to provide as much free information as possible.
"Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Heroic Quest To Pinpoint Superman’s Home Planet"
by
Will Oremus
November 9th, 2012
Slate
Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist extraordinaire, can sometimes seem like a character in a superhero comic. Now he is one.
Tyson, the charismatic director of New York's Hayden Planetarium, appears in DC Comics' newest Superman issue, helping the Man of Steel glimpse his home planet, Krypton. The scene is poignant: Superman observes the planet just in time to witness the explosion that devastated it shortly after his birth.
When DC Comics approached Tyson to allow his likeness to appear in the issue, he didn't just sign off and go on with his day. He worked with the writers on the storyline and ended up identifying a real-life star that could serve as the basis for Krypton's sun, called Rao in the comic book series.
On Thursday morning, Tyson invited a few reporters to his office at the American Museum of Natural History to explain how he "found" Superman's home solar system—and why he thought it was worth doing. Here's Tyson on how the conversation with DC Comics went down:
So Superman is in our present, but always the same age [according to DC Comics]. Well how old is he? They say late twenties. It's a little nebulous there, late twenties. Well, if he comes to the Hayden Planetarium and observes the death of Krypton from an actual star, that star will have an actual distance. And if it has an actual distance, it tells us exactly how old Superman is. So my task, at their request—well actually, they didn't even know how to ask this. They just said, "Could we just show this?" And I said, "Sure you could show it. Why don't I get you an actual star?" They didn't even know that maybe we could do that. There are star catalogues. Let me see if there's a star that is late-twenty-something light-years away. Then it would have taken twenty-something years for its light to get here. Superman is twenty-something years old. He sees the destruction. ... So there's a huge effort that's been going on for the past several decades to catalog the nearby stars in the night sky. So I look at the nearby catalogs, and I find a star that's 27 light-years away. That's a nice, virile age for Superman to be. And it is an M-dwarf. It's red. So was Superman's home star! His home star, which I would learn in my conversations with them, has a name: It's Rao. It's red. So we got a red star at the right distance. So—[slaps hands three times as if brushing off dirt]—got that done. Then we said, alright, we bring him here in a wormhole—[slaps hands again]—got that done. So one by one we are assembling the scientific foundation for their storytelling.
The correspondence isn't perfect. Rao's real-life counterpart, called LHS-2520, probably doesn’t actually have any planets. If it did, they would be too dim for our telescopes to spy. And if it had a planet whose years lasted as many days as Krypton's do, that planet's distance from Rao would likely make it inhospitably frigid. (To account for this, Tyson posits that Krypton is geologically active, which could help to explain why it blew up.)
Regardless, it's pretty cool that generations of Superman fans can now point to the speck in the night sky from which the superhero originated. It's within a small constellation called Corvus, which is visible from the Southern Hemisphere (or the Northern Hemisphere's lower latitudes at the right time of year) with a high-powered backyard telescope.
This isn't the first time Tyson has injected genuine astronomy into a fictional work: He also goaded James Cameron into changing the night sky near the end of Titanic to more accurately represent the star field that Rose would have seen that night.
So why would a real-life astrophysicist take the trouble to flesh out make-believe stories? Tyson offered a couple of reasons. One is that he feels artists often avoid scientific detail out of fear that it will constrain their creativity, when it's more often the opposite, in his experience: When it comes to space, truth tends to be stranger—and more fascinating—than fiction.
The other reason struck me as even more compelling. Tyson has long been a vocal critic of NASA budget cuts, arguing that America's space program has immeasurable positive spillover effects on the nation's economy. Not least of those, in his mind, is its capacity to inspire wonder and scientific curiosity in the country's children. At the height of NASA's Apollo program, Tyson says, "You didn't need special programs to get people interested in STEM fields. You needed programs to manage the vast numbers of people who were interested." Kids were so excited about science you practically had to hold them back.
Tyson is all for today's commercialized space exploration efforts, but he doubts that the free market will ever produce expeditions as risky, groundbreaking, and awe-inspiring as those that the government could sponsor. From Ferdinand and Isabella backing Columbus to NASA putting men on the moon, he says, "Governments have always taken the first steps into the unknown." With NASA ever more constrained, Tyson sees it as part of his mission to keep young people excited about the worlds beyond ours in any way he can. He’s not Superman—he jokes that he had to ask the strip's illustrators to "shave a few pounds off" when they portrayed him in the comic—but his quest has a heroic element nonetheless.
"Superman: Clark Kent quits reporting at the Daily Planet"
October 23rd, 2012
BBC NEWS
Alter ego Clark Kent is resigning from the post of star reporter at the Daily Planet, the Metropolis newspaper where he has worked since the first Superman comics were published in the 1940s.
DC Comics, which publishes the Superman stories, says Kent will walk out in protest that hard news has given way to too many "soft" entertainment stories.
The move has been prompted by the Daily Planet's takeover by a conglomerate.
The publisher has hinted that the Man of Steel might even go the way of many journalists and become a blogger, in an effort to get his views across to a wider audience.
"Why am I the one sounding like a grizzled ink-stained wretch who believes news should be about, I don't know, news?" says a disillusioned Kent, according to a leaked panel from Wednesday's edition of the comic that appeared on the Newsarama.com website.
New Superman writer Scott Lobdell told USA Today newspaper: "This is really what happens when a 27-year-old guy is behind a desk and he has to take instruction from a larger conglomerate with concerns that aren't really his own."
"Superman quits Daily Planet day job to go online"
DC Comics' superhero turns back on print journalism to fight for truth, justice and the American way on the web
by
Alison Flood
October 23rd, 2012
guardian.co.uk
Journalism's future lies online – at least according to Superman's alter ego Clark Kent, who is about to quit his job at the Daily Planet and found a version of the Drudge Report.
In the new issue of DC Comics' Superman series, out tomorrow, Clark will stand up in front of staff in a "Jerry Maguire-type moment" which will see him resign from the Daily Planet and mourn "how journalism has given way to entertainment", writer Scott Lobdell told USA Today.
Clark will also call on his fellow reporters to stand up for truth, justice, "and yeah — I'm not ashamed to say it — the American way," said Lobdell.
"Rather than Clark be this clownish suit that Superman puts on, we're going to really see Clark come into his own in the next few years as far as being a guy who takes to the internet and to the airwaves and starts speaking an unvarnished truth," said Lobdell.
The Man of Steel is unlikely to be looking for a new employer, however. "I don't think he's going to be filling out an application anywhere," Lobdell told USA Today. "He is more likely to start the next Huffington Post or the next Drudge Report than he is to go find someone else to get assignments or draw a paycheck from."
Clark Kent has worked at Metropolis paper the Daily Planet since the 1940s, although Comic Book Resources notes he has left the company in the past, in 1971 becoming a news anchor.
Lobdell said his departure this time is "what happens when a 27-year-old guy is behind a desk and he has to take instruction from a larger conglomerate with concerns that aren't really his own…
"Superman is arguably the most powerful person on the planet, but how long can he sit at his desk with someone breathing down his neck and treating him like the least important person in the world?" asked the writer.
What will comic editors do to prolong a superhero?
"Wonder Woman and Superman are now officially doing it"
by
Cyriaque Lamar
August 22nd, 2012
io9
After decades of cavorting with human women — and occasionally being brainwashed into making pornos with superhuman gals — Superman has found a cervix hardy enough to withstand his ballistic Kryptonian seed. In next week's issue of Justice League, Superman and Wonder Woman will officially become the DC Universe's new power couple. Commence the atmospheric diddling!
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Justice League writer Geoff Johns revealed that "this is the new status quo" for the two iconic heroes. Where's Lois Lane? Her marriage to Superman was annulled when reality was rewritten, which is the easiest way to weasel your way out of a prenuptial agreement in a comic book universe.
Johns also claimed that many people will have a lot to say about these heroes shacking up, presumably...because they're orbiting the Earth as a star-spangled beast with two backs, their supersonic coitus destroying satellites, flocks of geese, and weather balloons. This story hits next Wednesday, August 29 in Justice League #12. Hopefully this will go better than that time Maxima, an alien warrior, became a supervillain because Superman refused to act as a big blue turkey baster.
The following is the eighth installment of nine selected informative, thoughtful, and well-written essays regarding science, science fiction, technology, and literature from Science Fiction Studies .
Superman
"Japoteurs"
1942
"On SF Comics: Some Notes for a Future Encyclopedia"1
by
Bernt Kling
Translated by Nancy King
November 1977
Science Fiction Studies
The best known pure SF comics are Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, to which were later added the "Super-hero comics". Buck Rogers goes back to a SF story by Phil (Philip Francis) Nowlan which appeared in Amazing Stories in 1928: a hero named Anthony Rogers falls into suspended animation by means of a kind of active gas. He awakes 500 years later, in a future when the Earth is ruled by the "Han Air Lords," an oriental race whose ancestors came from another planet, and fights successfully against this yellow peril from outer space. From 1929 the adventures of Buck Rogers 2429 A.D. appeared as comic strips in many newspapers. Every year the date in the title changed, so that the action always took place exactly 500 years in the future; finally the series received a permanent title, Buck Rogers in the Twenty-Fifth Century. The scripts for the comics were also written by Phil Nowlan, the illustrations were by Dick Calkins. Buck Rogers also became the hero of a radio show series which was written and produced by the same people as the Superman radio plays.
The Flash Gordon comic strip was begun on January 7, 1934, and was similar in content to the Buck Rogers series, but considerably better drawn (by Alex Raymond, who later became known through Rip Kirby and Secret Agent X-9). The blond, blue-eyed hero fights against prehistoric monsters and evil humanoid races, which are for the most part led by a tyrant with Mongolian features, Ming the Cruel. Gordon is accompanied by his sweetheart Dale and by the Scientist Dr. Zarkoff. Flash Godon fights amid a hostile environment (thick jungle, icy landscape) in a planet where the social formation is a most primitive feudalism. Especially striking is the contrast between the feudal society and advanced technology: the fighting uses both swords and atomic cannons; the hero and his opponent are like mythological figures who decide the fate of a people by technological means, while the people only celebrates the victorious hero or kneels before the evil antagonist.
lash Gordon has become one of the best known SF comics, appearing in large editions and many countries; e.g., Federico Fellini wrote the Italian version for a while, since under Fascism U.S. comic strips were not allowed into Italy. The success of the comics brought in its wake radio-serials and film serials in which Buster Crabbe, who had portrayed Tarzan in the early Tarzan films, took the role of Flash Gordon. A British comic series with a similar hero, Jeff Hawke, who is projected from everyday situations into space and time -adventures, has had a long-standing success up to the present day.
In 1938 Superman appeared for the first time. He was followed by numerous other super-hero comics, which determined the development of the SF comics (with the exception of a few comic book series such as Strange Stories and From Beyond the Unknown, which remained relatively unimportant). In addition, numerous SF comics have been taken from TV serials, such as Space Family Robinson and Star Trek.
A special style of drawing has been developed for various French comics, e.g. those drawn by Druillet or Moebius. Especially in the comic-strip periodical Pilote, a real national school of SF comics developed. Later, these bandes dessinés began also appearing in the more accessible form of large comics albums.
In West Germany the strip series Test Pilot Speedy, begun in 1954, became later Astronaut Speedy, with a mixture of space and SF-thriller adventures. Speedy is the astronaut of a federation in permanent conflict with an enemy and has primarily to deal with enemy sabotage. Such plots, clearly a paraphrase of the West-East Cold War, were rather bad, but the drawings were worse. In Italy, the comics serials Fulgor the Cosmonaut and Raka, the Hero of 2000 were published in the form of small "piccolo" continuations. A similar form was used in West Germany for H. Wäscher's Nick the Astronaut, which however after 1959 appeared also as large color albums (rptd. 1976). All these series had current space-opera plots. Other West German series have mostly failed, except for the super-hero comics. Even Perry—Our Man in Space, a comics version based on the successful Perry Rhodan series of novels, lasted only from 1968 to 1975.
Superman.
Superman is a motif from SF literature taken up by the comics industry at the end of the 1930s and since utilized in ever new variations of "Super-hero comics". Superman was the first, and is still the best known of these costumed superhuman heroes. His predecessors are to be found in certain heroes from the SF pulp series such as Captain Future and Doc Savage. Three favorite themes of SF literature come together in Superman: the visitor from another planet, the superman, and finally the secret identity. It has been shown that the idea of the comics hero Superman goes back to Philip Wylie's 1930 novel Gladiator. In this novel the possible super-strength of a man is explained by comparison with insects such as ants or grasshoppers who are a hundred times as strong as we are:
If a man could be given the same sinews as an ant, he could carry his own house away.... Make a man as strong as a grasshopper—and he would be able to leap over the church. I tell you, there is something which determines the quality of each and every muscle and every sinew. Find it—transplant it—and you have the solution. [§7]
In Wylie's novel a scientist finds the answer, and injects his pregnant wife with a chemical mixture which makes her child eventually grow into a man with superhuman strength. The creator of Superman, Jerry Siegel, had reviewed this novel in a fanzine he edited. Siegel developed the idea of Superman already in 1933 and had it put into drawings by his 17-year-old friend, Joe Shuster. The two tried in vain for five years to sell their comics to a publisher or a comics syndicate, but had it rejected as "a rather immature work"; actually, both the text and the illustrations were rather poor. Thus, the first adventure of the Man of Steel appeared for the first time in 1938 in the new comic book series Action Comics. Through its success, a great need was discovered and the explosive expansion of the Superman myth began. Superman appeared in 230 daily and Sunday newspapers, film serials were produced both live and as cartoons, radio plays were broadcast, and the comic books with "The World's Greatest Adventure Strip Character" sold in ever increasing editions which occasionally were as high as one and half million.
The myth of Superman corresponded to a need in the socio-political atmosphere of the Thirties:
It was 1938 and the country was recovering slowly and unsteadily from the blow which had crippled the economy in 1929, In the air was talk about war in Europe and a crazy clown by the name of Hitler. The technocrats were preaching that science could rule the world and could solve all human problems forever, while the communists were aiming for a united socialist world under the dictatorship of the proletariat. It was a time of idealism and of shattered ideals. We had been cast down, but everything wasn't over yet. Our world was in pieces, but we knew that we could build a better one.2
Superman was, of course, all that which his creators were not. Jerome Siegel and Joe Schuster were described as "two slim, shy, nervous, nearsighted kids"; they were each 17 years old and in high school when they invented Superman. Therefore they made their "Man of Steel" tall, strong, self-confident, affable, and furthermore, a super-human being with perfect reflexes and X-ray vision (Superman can see through walls and into farthest distances). Superman always reestablished a compensatory justice and put the world in order with his mighty strength. And as the success of the series proved, America had many Siegels and Schusters who felt equally powerless and indulged only too gladly in power fantasies of a superhuman being who had come out of the cosmos to Earth to defend justice and order. Thus, Superman was the fulfillment of a widespread wish-dream: a power from outer space, descended to Earth, he had become an American, a genuine patriot. The Superman story is well-known but should be mentioned: when his native planet was destroyed by a catastrophe, a scientist put his son in a test rocket and sent it towards Earth. There the super-baby was adopted by an elderly, childless couple; the child grew up, became Superboy, and gradually his super-powers became apparent. In the first issues, for example, he could not yet fly, but (like the hero of Wylie's novel) only take long leaps on the basis of his super-strength. However the "super" concept and the readers' expectations enforced a continual increase in his powers. They increased in the course of the decade so much that Superman could even move planets out of their orbits. Also, at the beginning Superman was not invulnerable; he only gradually became the unbeatable and invulnerable superhuman. Yet, how many exciting adventures can a hero have if he is unbeatable and invulnerable? Thus, Superman had to be given certain weaknesses. They were brought into play by the red and green kryptonite, a radioactive rock from Superman's no longer existent native planet, which fell to Earth in the form of meteorites. This kryptonite wholly counteracted Superman's super-powers or caused physical changes in him—so that Superman could be delivered to his enemies, almost powerless, when Kryptonite was brought into his proximity. His secret identity became an additional weakness, for he had to protect it at any price. For in his private life Superman is called Clark Kent and is a reporter for a daily newspaper (later a TV company); he wears glasses and is rather helpless. Only when the need arises does Clark Kent, generally something of a fool and coward, metamorphose into Superman.
During the Second World War, Superman became a super-patriot, and dedicated his powers to the battle against America's enemies: the cover picture of a Superman issue from September, 1941, shows Superman going arm-in-arm with a soldier and a sailor. From then on the Man of Steel had appropriate steel enemies: battleships, submarines, tanks, airplanes. He fought at the same time on all fronts: against the Nazis, the Japanese, and saboteurs and war profiteers in the U.S.A. In addition he still helped old ladies to cross the street safely. The nationalistic message of Superman's warfare was supplemented by calls for the purchase of war bonds.
After the Second World War this personified dream from the American collective subconscious continued reflecting the changes in the "American way of life." Just like the G.I.'s returning from the War, who had carried Superman's "numerous adventures in their knapsacks when they stormed the Atlantic Wall,"3 Superman too returned to the civilian everyday life, tired of battle. From this point on everyday skulduggeries often gave him more trouble than his worst enemies; Superman was degraded to a slapstick figure, for his stories contained more costume-comedy than action. This extended to Superman's haircut, for one pair of scissors after another broke on his hard-as-steel hair.
Above all, his double identity grew more pronounced, and the contrast between the helpless Clark Kent and his Superman-version ever more pronounced. The insignificant, clumsy and scared Clark Kent loves his colleague Lois Lane, also a reporter, but she has only contempt for him, since she loves Superman. Out of this situation and the constant hide-and-seek around Superman's identity new comic complications continually arose. Nevertheless Superman, desired by all, cannot love: he fulfills his manhood only in action and battle:
Here is a saga about a masculine American, a macho, who because of his omertà, can have as many women as he likes, but absorbed in his male world and repelled by his own desires, does not know what to do with women—in complete contrast to the weakling (who he is at the same time) whose impotence is evident, paradoxically, in his positive attitude to women.4
Superman, the clean American, the super-boyscout, has no sexual drive—if anybody has this it is his enemies, the super-scoundrels whom he must vanquish again and again. And yet another quality can be found in his super-enemies which is missing in Superman: they are intelligent. The Superman writer Jerry Siegel said "We do not emphasize the intellectual side of Superman. People do not dream of becoming super-intelligent." Only his enemies have intelligence, and are often Mad Scientists who because of their intelligence do not fit into the desired simple order of a Superman America. Their intelligence leads them to ever new and more perfect crimes, and enables them to carry these ideas out; Superman can never prevent their success by intellectual effort, but only by the power of his fists. It could have become "an American dream," said his creators Siegel and Schuster of Superman in 1975. But for them it did not become one. They had signed away their rights in 1938 for 130 dollars and some promises, to National Periodical Publications. After a few years they were kicked out while others profited from "their" dream. Only in 1976, when both had reached 61 and become impoverished (Schuster had also become blind), were they given lifetime pensions of $20,000 by Warner Communications which now owns Superman! This followed on a campaign by well-known comics' artists, which went on parallel to a film-project going into millions of dollars.5
The Superman myth has existed now for over 30 years, and it is by no means played out, even if its external manifestations may change.
Super-Hero Comics.
A frequent form of the comics series that originated in the tradition of SF comics such as Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. The huge success of Superman, after 1938—also as a hero of radio plays and film serials—soon brought forth numerous imitations which were at first prosecuted for plagiarism and forbidden. But eventually Superman was followed by a flood of super-heroes, who today appear in part with the same publisher (National Periodicals—DC), and in part in the supposedly competing Marvel Comics (in reality, these two leading comic book publishers are financially allied). While Superman is superior and stronger in every respect, most of his colleagues are only "specialists" with extreme, specialized gifts. Flash is the fastest man in the world, Plastic Man can shape his body in any way, The Human Torch can transform himself into a living flame, The Green Lantern draws his secret powers from the energy of green light, etc. A few heroes have in addition a mythological background—The Mighty Thor, for example, is a god out of Nordic mythology who came to Earth over a dimension-bridge from Asgard, the city of Nordic gods.
With many heroes we notice the totemistic use of an animal symbol, so Hawkman, who wears the mark of a hawk and has wings, and The Amazing Spider Man, who acquired super-abilities after being bitten by a radioactive spider and who, in an appropriate costume, looks like a spider. This totem symbol indicates the characteristics and capabilities of the respective heroes. Thus, Batman has a Batmobile, a Batcave and a hiding place, a Batcostume which makes him similar to his totem animal—the bat, etc. The totem device gives rise to a type-casting which rules out everything else, and raises the super-heroes to the level of mythological beings:
The super-heroes are characters who by a limitation to the very small, homogenous part of the spectrum of what is thinkable (from names to speech habits, looks, behavior and destiny) seem to be monolithic—a sort of shorthand which immensely simplifies dealing with the phenomena of everyday life, that simplification terrible which Sartre indicated a few years ago as assign of fascism. The identity of a character consists solely of his name and the aura of vague conceptuality which spreads out around that. The mythology which follows from this replaces and prevents any utopian ideas.6
Practically all the super-heroes take over the model of a secret double identity from their prototype of Superman. They all live unknown among mankind, and transform themselves into their immanent, super-powerful superbeing only in (permanently recurring) emergency situations. As a charismatic Führer type, such a super-hero has mostly a respectable middle-class occupation such as journalist, doctor, lawyer, or he is a multimillionaire, like Batman and Iron Man; the latter is given out as the owner of America's largest armaments industry. Implicitly this is tantamount to pretending that an elite of the society sacrifices itself for everyone in its secret super-heroism.
The super-heroes are always selected by an only barely understandable destiny to be defenders of the status quo, of law and order. Furthermore, in their morals and their behavior they are past-oriented, advocates of feudal tutelage who adapt themselves with difficulty, often with a sour face, to the system they serve without wholly understanding it. Though a powerful protector of the people, the super-hero never reaches for direct political power. He is never elected by the people, but is sent to Earth by higher powers (as the Green Lantern by the ancient "Guardians of the Universe"). His existence must always be justified anew by threatening catastrophes, but most of all by the ever returning super-enemies, who frequently use superior technical means (super-weapons) and are also frequently connected with politically inimical powers. Up to the last years, super-enemies often fought against revolutionary movements in South America, or in Vietnam, for American victory. The super-enemy opposed to the particularly patriotic "Captain America" (whose costume has the colors of the American flag) was the Chinese-built "Red Guardian". The Iron Man had to oppose the Russian-created "Titanium Man" in order to demonstrate in a duel of superbeings that the free West is superior to the East Block.
Thus the super-heroes compensate not only for individual but also national feelings of inferiority. In many stories the super-heroes fought and fight political battles for the U.S.A., from the discussions about new and more destructive superweapons during the Cold War up to the Vietnam War. The "avengers on a higher mission" also intervene in unrest within the country, uncover dangerous drug-pushers as ring-leaders of student demonstrations, or fight against an organization of militant Blacks. Such political struggle is particularly present in the Marvel Group series, which were not infrequently—because of their quality illustrations and often ironical texts—enthusiastically received by intellectual critics.
This obviously reactionary political alignment became more subdued parallel to the general resolution of the Cold War tensions. The comics producers also attempted, for commercial reasons, to appeal to the critical part of American youth; thus around 1970 for a time there arose a new trend in the super-hero comics, for which the production of the comics author Denny O'Neil (National Periodicals group) can be seen as representative. This trend included in the range of their themes public corruption, racial discrimination, destruction of the environment and drug addiction. (There even appeared black heroes of comics, for example Black Panther and Luke Cage, Hero for Hire.) The national crisis of student unrest, Vietnam War, and racial conflicts was experienced by some U.S. super-heroes as an identity crisis. Comics were increasingly receiving artistic and intellectual recognition, while a large section of the mass readership had finally gone over to TV serials; thus the mass circulation of the regular comics series declined. In order to regain circulation by a new image, the American comic-book publishers jointly founded the Academy of Comic Book Art. At the same time the super-hero series The Green Lantern, which was close to shutdown because of low sales, was from No. 76 used for a kind of test production and aimed at a new public, mainly high-school and university students.
In No. 76, the Green Lantern is confronted with a black ghetto, the slum quarter of Star City. There, blacks are helplessly delivered over to a businessman who behaves like a tyrannical landlord, a "slumlord" who wants to evict the black tenants because "he can earn more money if he puts a parking lot here." A black turns to the super-hero: "I have read lots about...how you fight for people with blue skin...how you helped people with bright skin on a planet...and you also concern yourself with people who have violet skin! There is only one skin color which you've ignored... Black! Why is that...Green Lantern?" The hero decides to help the blacks. Equally typical is the plot of No. 84: in a city largely cut off from the outer world, all the inhabitants are employed by a single firm which produces new plastics. The whole city consists mostly of a synthetic material, and inhabitants are held in a state of unconscious dependence by means of a hypnotic gas and conscience-dimming noises; then they are "perfect employees" for the owners of the city. In the course of the action it is pointed out that all of America is really such a "company town."
The first and quite consistent step of O'Neil's was to reduce the super-powers of his heroes Green Lantern and Green Arrow to a bearable level, and even to deprive them of such powers for long stretches of time. The second was to deprive them of their certainty. Green Lantern was confronted with social and political problems, and became not only a restlessly active but also a doubting and reflecting figure. O'Neil proceeded similarly when he became the script-writer for Superman, still the most famous of the super-hero series. O'Neil humanized Superman in two ways. First, he gave him greater human—even physical—weaknesses; thus he confronted the bewildered Superman readers with the image of a "Man of Steel" regularly beaten up by his opponents. On the other hand, Clark Kent, Superman's civilian alter ego, became better characterized and more self-assured, and in addition advanced from a newspaper to a television reporter. The discrepancy between the normal citizen Kent, earlier described as weak and clumsy, and the super-powerful Superman diminished.
O'Neil slightly changed and modernized also the second most important series of DC Comics, Batman, as well as Wonder Woman. However, there the critical intent was much more subdued and less definite. O'Neil's comics acquired an increasing tendency to escapist fantasy-plots. Finally, the Green Lantern was shut down as an independent comic-book series. The super-heroes returned to normality—violence against stereotyped enemies.
NOTES:
1. On SF-comics in general, cf. beside the works in the following notes, Alfred C. Baumgartner, Die Welt der Comics (Bochum, 1965); Pierre Couperie; "100,000,000 de lieues en ballon: La science-fiction dans la bande dessinée," Phénix No. 4 (Paris 1967); Wiltrud Ulrike Drechsel, Jörg Funhoff and Michael Hoffmann: Messenzeichenware: Die gesellschaftliche und ideologische Funktion der Comics. (Frankfurt, 1965); and Reinhold C. Reitberger and Wolfgang J. Fuchs, Comics: Anatomie eines Massenmediums (Munich, 1971).
2. Ted White, "The Spawn of M.C. Gaines," in Dick Lupoff and Don Thompson eds., All in Color for a Dime (New York: Ace, 1970).
3. Günther Metken, Comics (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1970). For further literature on Superman cf. Kirk Alyn, A Job for Superman (US, 1971); Robert von Berg, "Der aufhaltsame Abstieg Supermans: Neuer Trend in der amerikanischen Comic-strip-Industrie," Süddeutsche Zeitung (4 January, 1971); Nicolas Born, "Supermann oder: Die Helden der Schweigenden Mehrheit," Konkret No. 8 (1971); Heinz Politzer, "Mehr David als Goliath: Eine Analyse des Superman," tendenzen No. 55 (1968); Carna Zacharias, "Charlie Brown contra Superman," tz (17-28. January, 1973); and White and Siegel in notes 2 and 5.
4. Oswald Wiener, "Der geist der super-helden," in Vom Geist der Superhelden: Comic strips, Schriftenreihe der Akad. der Künste, Bd. 8 (Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 1970).
5. "Jerry Siegel Talks About the Case Against Superman," Mediascene No. 17 (1976).
It is a pity that some of the more familiar classic horror films are not available online...The Mummy, Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, or the Wolfman but here is one related to mummies.
And what sparked your interest in science: Reading those hardcore texts on chemistry and physics or a multitude of comic books chockfull of superheroes with super powers fighting crime and evil scientists? Have you ever heard of Jim Kakalios? Probably not. Jim Kakalios teaches physics at the University of Minnesota. One semester, for a freshman class in physics, he offered a course called "Everything I Know About Science I Learned from Reading Comic Books"...Superheroes and physics. Needless to say, it was a very popular course pulling in students from a variety of areas different than physics. And, he went further and wrote a book called...guess what, The Physics of Superheroes.
In Paul Sorenson's article "Superhero science" Jim Kakalios said this:
"Take Superman,"says Kakalios."In his very first year, he could only leap, not fly. His skin was tough, he had great strength, all because [his home planet] Krypton had larger gravity than Earth." Using the hero's ability "to leap over tall buildings in a single bound" as a benchmark, the class calculated that Krypton's gravity would have to have been six to eight times that of Earth.
That means Krypton had to be either six times larger or six times denser than Earth. Assuming that normal matter on Krypton obeys the laws of physics, the planet could not be six times denser than Earth."So Krypton had to be six times larger,"explains Kakalios."But any planet that much larger than Earth would have to be a gas giant like Jupiter. Because Krypton had a solid crust supporting buildings and cities, the only other explanation for its increased gravity would be a super-dense—and unstable—material like a neutron star in its core. And that would explain why Krypton exploded."
And this from Toni Feder's article "Teaching Physics with Superheroes" [2002 American Institute of Physics's Physics Today]:
How did Superman get to be so strong? What killed Spider-Man's girlfriend Gwen Stacy? How fast can the Flash run? Jim Kakalios, a condensed matter experimentalist and comics buff, analyzes questions like these from action comics to teach physics in a freshman seminar at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.
"Take Superman," says Kakalios. "What does it take to leap a tall building in a single bound?" To find out, Kakalios's students use Newton's laws of motion. "We calculate how much force is required," says Kakalios. That leads to the question, How did his legs get so strong? "Back in the 1930s," Kakalios says, "it was presumed that Superman was so strong because he was acclimated to Krypton's gravity." In the class, the gravitational force of Krypton--Superman's home planet--is calculated to be about 15 times that of Earth's. "We talk about Newton's law of gravity, and then we talk about how you would build such a planet, and not make it a gas giant. I bring in things from different parts of the physics curriculum, and show how interconnected everything is," says Kakalios. "It turns out that the only way we could figure out how to make such a planet, it would be very unstable--it would explode." It's an amusing twist, he adds, "that this is completely consistent with the comics."
Another example is the controversy over the death of Gwen Stacy, who was knocked off a bridge tower. Spider-Man may have been surprised to find her dead when he caught her in his web, but Kakalios's students weren't: By estimating the height of the bridge, Gwen's mass, and the time Spider-Man had to catch her, and then using conservation of momentum, says Kakalios, "it turns out the force has to be at least 10 Gs. If she experienced such a sudden jerk, it's not unreasonable that she would have broken her neck."
The Bernoulli principle, time travel, and the biological and physical feasibility and implications of shrinking to the size of an atom or growing into a giant are among the topics Kakalios's class tackles through comics. The comics don't get the science right all the time, says Kakalios,"but I am struck by how often they do."Over the years, he says, comics have kept up with the times: In the 1940s, a lot of superheroes gained their powers through some mystical artifact from the Far East; in the 1960s, they got them through radioactivity; and, since the 1990s, they get them through genetic engineering. A few years ago, adds Kakalios, results on entangled quantum states found their way into a comic book just months after they were published in Physical Review Letters.
"Interestingly,"says Kakalios,"when I talk about comic-book examples, no one asks how they'll use it in real life. They never expected comics to be accurate. Once you show them it's relevant, and develop the physics, I put in real-world applications."For example, he continues,"once we've talked about the Spider-Man story line, and shown that it's conservation of momentum [that delivers the impact that kills Gwen], I bring in airbags. They increase the time to slow your head down. The force to your head can still knock you out, but it doesn't kill you."
It's a sneaky class, says Kakalios."Basically, the course is really 'physics in the everyday world.' [Students] are so busy eating their superhero ice cream sundaes, they don't notice that I am feeding them their spinach."
Now what about Superman's outfit. Neither is it's origin definitive nor its composition. Superman in a late 1930/early 1940 comic strips vouched that the suit was "...constructed of a cloth I invented myself which is immune to the most powerful forces!" However, the chronicle is better explained and embellished in subsequent issues. But it was basically the product of the three blankets that wrapped Superman from the planet Krypton via the seamstress efforts of his mother Martha Kent. One comic issue hinted that both Superman and the materials accompanying him acquired the phenomenal qualities enroute. Nevertheless, the costume is impervious to atomic blasts, radiation, bullets, lightning, etc.--truly indestructible and protective. But, for some reason, the costume only functions within the Earth's environment...has problems when cavorting on planets that revolve around a red sun--go figure. The fabric cannot be cut, but I wonder if a laser could disintegrate or separate the Kryptonian fibers? The strength may well be explained by nanotechnology of super strong atoms bound together. Perhaps the fabric is lined with a few atoms thickness of lead for radiation protection. But wait...a new product of fantastic material characteristics--Zylon. Super strong fabric? Tarek Zohdi and George Johnson [UC Berkeley] have teamed with the Boeing company, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Toyoba Corporation. The new product is supposed to be seven times stronger than Kevlar which is the material used for bullet proof vests. The copy states "...Zylon is woven from yarn consisting of 350 individual polymer microfibers. One square inch of the fabric contains more than 400,000 of those fibers."
Okay, a word or two about Superman's "X-Ray" vision--totally mysterious. The only thing stopping the process is lead, thus the villains are always trying to hide something nefarious behind a lead shield. [Such a feature could well turn Superman into a global pervert checking out women's underpanties and at the same time rendering them sterile.] X-rays do penetrate walls, but even with X-ray vision, Superman would never see what is behind them for two good reasons: X-rays do not reflect very good from objects the way light does for they usually go through until they are absorbed and you only see objects around you when they are illuminated by sunlight or by lamps. This notion of emanation of light [or Superman's "X-Ray" vision] from the eyes is as old as Plato and Euclid. Frankly, the attribution of true "X-Ray" vision for Superman may be a matter of definition and pure science fiction. Maybe Superman has the ability to see through opaque objects by another process unknown to us. "To see through" is the key phrase not really meaning "X-Rays"; that it was a conventional term at the time to associate x-ray characteristics to Superman. Nevertheless, it is cool stuff and I suppose the closest we have come to this phenomena is radar and thermography.
In a broad sense our comic book heroes are just a perpetuation of ancient myths like Hercules or the Golem...and the science is there too.
A recent article from Physics World discusses the possibility of Spiderman-like mobility.
"Physicist Models Spiderman Suit"
by
Hamish Johnston
August 29th, 2007
Geckos, spiders and the comic-book hero Spiderman seem to defy gravity by scurrying along smooth walls and ceilings. Now, a physicist in Italy claims that humans could soon do the same by donning a sticky "Spiderman suit" woven from carbon nanotubes. Nicola Pugno of the Politecnico di Torino in Italy has calculated that -- assuming the material could actually be made -- a person wearing the suit would be able to cling safely to smooth surfaces such as the side of a skyscraper (J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 19 395001).
The stickiness of geckos and spiders comes from thousands of tiny fibres on their feet that grab hold using a combination of three effects – capillary forces arising from a thin layer of liquid water between the fibres and the surface; van der Waals attraction between the fibres' molecules and those on the surface; and Velcro-like interlocking of the fibres with tiny structures on the surface. Unlike glue, these effects still allow the feet to easily detach from the surface and thus allow the creatures to walk, and they also seem to prevent the feet from accumulating dirt.
Pugno claims that gloves and boots for humans employing the same effects could be made by weaving millions of carbon nanotubes – which are each only about 10 nm thick – into threads about 1 cm thick. The thickness of the individual nanotubes and their spacing could be chosen to make the thread transparent to visible light, which Pugno claims would make them invisible.
The nanotubes at the end of a thread would be splayed in a fan-like structure, which would ensure that there were millions of contact points between the thread and a surface in order to maximize its stickiness. Pugno claims that a combination of capillary, van der Waals and mechanical forces would allow one such thread to support the weight of a man (70 kg) and that a pair of gloves covered in them could support over 1000 kg.
Pugno says that the material would be self-cleaning because carbon nanotubes are hydrophobic and therefore shed water, which takes dirt with it. Because adhesion involves million of tiny sticking points – each of which is relatively weak on its own – Pugno believes that the material could be peeled off the surface with a minimum of effort, provided the user was specially trained in the required hand motions.
Pugno even goes so far as to suggest that the material could be made into a sticky and invisible web that could be used to capture villains. Strains on the material caused by a struggling victim would change the material’s optical properties, rendering it visible to an aspiring Spiderman.
Although the idea of a Spiderman suit may seem far fetched, several research groups have already made sticky materials inspired by geckos – using polymer fibres rather than nanotubes. Also, researchers in the US have made fan-like structures from carbon nanotubes, which Pugno believes could be used in his suit.
The Physics of Superheroes
by
Jim Kakalios
ISBN: 1592401465
From Publishers Weekly:
"This terrific book demonstrates a number of important points. First, a subject that everyone "knows" is difficult and boring can, in the hands of a master teacher, be both exciting and fun. Second, it's a myth that only people particularly adept at mathematics can understand and enjoy physics. Third, superhero comic books have socially redeeming qualities. By combining his love for physics with his love of comic books, University of Minnesota physicist Kakalios has written a book for the general reader covering all of the basic points in a first-level college physics course and is difficult to put down. Among many other things, Kakalios uses the basic laws of physics to "prove" that gravity must have been 15 times greater on Krypton than on Earth; that Spiderman's girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, died because his webbing stopped her too abruptly after she plunged from the George Washington Bridge; and that when the Flash runs, he's surrounded by a pocket of air that enables him to breathe. Kakalios draws on the Atom, Iron Man, X-Men, the Ant-Man and the Hulk, among many others, to cover topics as diverse as electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, string theory and thermodynamics."
!["Coupling" 1976 [Gum-bichromate]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IoU3bEFUwWc/S69lnr9G6AI/AAAAAAAAH58/O40Gg-G6rKk/S150/COUPLING+3.jpg)
