# Did Superman really turn back time? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 1, 2008, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-superman-really-turn-back-time/466053 "2008-10-01T19:36:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2008, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-superman-really-turn-back-time/466053/21 "2008-10-01T20:51:31Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > I never understood Superman anyway. As **True Blue Jack** points out, once you have a Superman, everything is done and over with. He can stop all crime, he can turn back time (if he could find a way!) he can see all and do all, so that should pretty much be the end of crime, right? And once you have Superman, you don’t need any other crime fighters so the Justice League or whatever is useless. > > And I also think he spun the Earth backwards. Because he isn’t omniscient and he can only be in one place at a time. As evidenced by his inability to stop both the missle heading for Hackinsack, NJ and the San Andreas fault. Which of course makes no sense 5 minutes later as he can now travel faster than the speed of light. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2008, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-superman-really-turn-back-time/466053/22 "2008-10-01T20:58:51Z")
I’m still trying to figure out why his cape flaps in space. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Call_Me_Shirley)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2008, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-superman-really-turn-back-time/466053/23 "2008-10-01T21:03:49Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > I never understood Superman anyway. As **True Blue Jack** points out, once you have a Superman, everything is done and over with. He can stop all crime, he can turn back time (if he could find a way!) he can see all and do all, so that should pretty much be the end of crime, right? And once you have Superman, you don’t need any other crime fighters so the Justice League or whatever is useless. > > And I also think he spun the Earth backwards. The job of the rest of the Justice League was mainly keeping the kryptonite away from Superman. If he could fly around the earth hundreds of times a second, how come he couldn’t cross the US in the several minutes between pushing the first missile into space and the second one going off? ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2008, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-superman-really-turn-back-time/466053/24 "2008-10-01T21:13:36Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > I never understood Superman anyway. He never made no money. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2008, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-superman-really-turn-back-time/466053/25 "2008-10-01T21:57:26Z")
> [@samarm](#): > > So speaking purely theoretically, if you exceeded the speed of light, you would travel back time time. As Superman is not from Earth, is it not possible that his powers would allow him to break the speed of light? No; it’s just the structure of the Universe that imposes that speed limit. Unless you’re talking about comic book “logic”, in which case, Hell yeah. ---
**Author:** ![A\_shameful\_cracka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ebca7d/32.png) [@A\_shameful\_cracka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_shameful_cracka)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2008, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-superman-really-turn-back-time/466053/26 "2008-10-01T22:17:05Z")
> [@wolfman](#): > > I have had seeveral debates about this, and that just doesn’t happen. He actually reverses the rotation of the earth. > > You can tell because after the Earth is spinning in the wrong way he stops and the Earth is still spinning that way. He then goes the other way around to get it spinning in the right direction again. If it was simply his perspective then the Earth would have been going the right way after he stopped, without him needing to get it going in that way again, On his way back he’s travelling at relativistic but less than C speeds to compress time for himself and get back to the present quicker. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2008, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-superman-really-turn-back-time/466053/27 "2008-10-01T22:30:46Z")
Moving thread from IMHO to Cafe Society. ---
**Author:** ![puppygod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@puppygod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puppygod)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2008, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-superman-really-turn-back-time/466053/28 "2008-10-01T22:31:05Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > I’m still trying to figure out why his cape flaps in space. It’s obviously effect of the [solar wind](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_wind). ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2008, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-superman-really-turn-back-time/466053/29 "2008-10-01T22:52:15Z")
> [@A\_shameful\_cracka](#): > > On his way back he’s travelling at relativistic but less than C speeds to compress time for himself and get back to the present quicker. Nope, he doesn’t do anything between spinning the Earth each way. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2008, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-superman-really-turn-back-time/466053/30 "2008-10-01T22:59:11Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > I’m still trying to figure out why his cape flaps in space. Superfarts. Or the impact of monkeys flying out of his butt. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2008, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-superman-really-turn-back-time/466053/31 "2008-10-01T23:02:15Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > It can’t. They needed a happy ending, so they created this bit of fluff explanation. It’s always annoyed me, because it makes no sort of sense, and isn’t event consistent with the comic book it’s supposed to be based on (where Superman could himself travel into the past, but not turn back time in any part of the rest of the universe.) In fact, it was established that Silver Age Superman and Superboy could go back in time and not affect it. I remember a story where Superboy went back to save Lincoln, and was thwarted by Luthor happening to have gone back also. I don’t know what the Superman of Earth e \*\* π can do - they lost me years ago. And I agree that is one of the stupidest solutions to a movie problem in history. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2008, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-superman-really-turn-back-time/466053/32 "2008-10-01T23:40:10Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > I’m still trying to figure out why his cape flaps in space. And they’ve never addressed the effect of getting, say, a grasshopper in the eye while traveling at near light speeds. You know it would happen eventually. ---
**Author:** ![BMax](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bmax/32/4267_2.png) [@BMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMax)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2008, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-superman-really-turn-back-time/466053/33 "2008-10-01T23:42:24Z")
> [@Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](#): > > The job of the rest of the Justice League was mainly keeping the kryptonite away from Superman. > > If he could fly around the earth hundreds of times a second, how come he couldn’t cross the US in the several minutes between pushing the first missile into space and the second one going off? It took him a few orbits to build up that speed. He flew from east to west. when I did that, I time travelled in the opposite direction. I got on an airplane just after sundown on Wednesday night, it was dark for 18 hours then when the sun came up it was Friday morning. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2008, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-superman-really-turn-back-time/466053/34 "2008-10-02T00:47:39Z")
> [@A\_shameful\_cracka](#): > > Maybe he wasn’t really turning the Earth back, but flying at faster than the speed of light to travel back in time - the appearance of the Earth rotating backwards was actually just Superman’s perception. He did the flying close to Earth so he could keep an eye on things and know when he had travelled back far enough. This. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2008, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-superman-really-turn-back-time/466053/35 "2008-10-02T01:08:22Z")
When he turned back time, did Jimmy get killed? If not, why did only the negative of Lois dying get changed? How convenient is this ability? ---
**Author:** ![BMax](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bmax/32/4267_2.png) [@BMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMax)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2008, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-superman-really-turn-back-time/466053/36 "2008-10-02T01:13:17Z")
Check it out, guys. [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNFftA1Pry0) He flies east to west at super-light speed, gets the earth moving backwards. Then he flies around west-to-east a few times to get the earth moving in the right direction again. That implies that he turns back time, then has to correct the flow of time by correcting the direction of the earth’s rotation. ---
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2008, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-superman-really-turn-back-time/466053/37 "2008-10-02T02:14:55Z")
This is somewhat topical: [Superman: How It Should Have Ended](http://pl.youtube.com/watch?v=yavK0mnE3wI). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-superman-really-turn-back-time/466053.md?page=1)