Do they have any prescription strength? If so, does he wear contacts in battle?
I know its’ just a show and I should really just relax, but I’m curious.
What I want to know is, if he forgot and accidently did the laser-vision thing with his glasses on, would it bounce back and fry his own eyeballs out?
In the comics, they were made of glass from Kal-El’s ship.
nO PRESCRIPTION AT ALL. jUST GLASS.
Stupid CAPS lock!
I’ve always wondered how Kent got to be so muscular. I mean, if the guy can lift a building with no effort, where does he go to do his resistance training?
The glasses are not prescription. In one of the Superboy comics, Lana Lang, during one of her missions to prove that Clark Kent is Superboy, takes Clark’s glasses and puts them on. She sees that Clark is out of focus. However, it turned out that she wasn’t look at Clark, she was looking at Chameleon Kid (from the Legion of Super Heroes, who just happened to be visiting that day) who had shaped changed into Clark, and then to a blurry Clark after Lana put on the glasses.
To answer meyer’s question, he has occassionly used his various super vision powers through his glasses to no ill effect, presumably due to their being made of Kryptonian glass.
And, yes, it does frightens me that I remember all this crap.
As with everything else in Superman history, they’ve changed the answer to this question eighty-seven jillion times. Make up any answer you can think of, and it’s a guarantee some idiot writer has already used it in a story.
Naw. They’re transparent, not reflective. Light passes through 'em, it doesn’t bounce off of them.
However, isn’t Superman supposed to have “heat-ray vision”? I’m not up on my thermodynamics, but I’d think that if he used it through his glasses, he’d get rivulets of molten glass running down his face. Except, of course, that his glasses are made out of “Kryptonian glass,” which, like everything else from the planet Krypton, has the nigh-mystcal ability to behave in whatever manner the writer wants it to behave.
His heat vision would melt the lenses, so he always slips them off or bends them down when he needs to fry something in clark mode
Yes, as children my brother and I used to fantasize about Kryptonian lamps that would never shatter whenever we broke something.
SMASH!! “Darn! If we had been on Krypton that wouldn’t have happened!”
On the original Superman TV show, there was no glass in George Reeves’s frames, in order to prevent camera glare from the lights.
But, within the reality of the TV show, were they supposed to be empty, or was it just a cheap prop?
Superman’s got bigger problems than the glasses. For example, reproduction.
Not to mention: does he need to eat? If nuclear bombs cannot harm him because they cant penetrate his invulnerability, then how does an ice cream sunday get absorbed into his body? And if ice sundays can get in, why not poison? Does Superman crap?
Depends on whose version you’re reading.
Pre-Crisis: Clark’s glasses lenses were made of super-plastic from the ship that brought him to Earth as a baby, and he often used his heat vision or X-ray vision while wearing them.
Post-Crisis: Clark’s glasses are plain ordinary Earthly materials, and he has accidentally destroyed at least one pair because he had to use his heat vision while wearing them.
As to eating… well… pre-Crisis, Superman routinely traveled through space without any apparent need for air. Post-Crisis, he definitely needs air, but seems able to hold his breath for quite some time, and much mention is made of his body’s ability to absorb and utilize solar energy… so, hell, maybe he DOESN’T really need to eat. He also is known not to get TIRED very often, and doesn’t sleep much…
Sure he needs to eat. The energy he expends has to come from somewhere, unless his superpowers include a biological equivalent of a perpetual motion machine.
The solar energy absorbed by the area of the human body, even at 100% efficiency, couldn’t power flight. Let alone how he could then fly at night or in space.
So, what exactly would I need to eat to get enough power to shoot heat rays out of my eyes?
Five alarm chili and a dozen Immodium tablets.
Someone has GOT to mention the most HORRIFIC attempt to explain Clark’s glasses.
Haven’t you ever wondered how Lois and Lana and the rest of the world could be fooled by one measly pair of glasses? [Try this at home: put on glasses, greet friend, friend says “Did you get glasses?”] [No one’s going to say “Gee, who are you?”]
Well, some DC hack decided that he’d come up with a “rational” explanation. The best he could do was…
are you ready…
i can’t say it…
i know you’re waiting…
it hurts to type it…
here it is…
Super-Hypnotism.
Clark is surprised to find that his glasses have a Super-Hypnotic effect on everyone (even if he’s on TV or a picture is printed-!??), that cause Clark to look smaller, older and frailer than Supes Without Glasses.
The logical inconsistencies of this require much more Suspension O’ Disbelief ™ than “Okay, let’s pretend Clark’s glasses, Robin’s mask and even Jay Garrick’s little pie plate hat are disguises”.
See Cheeks The Toy Wonder’s web site for one of many skewerings of this issue.