# How does Superman fly
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-superman-fly/705556
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [November 25, 2014, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-superman-fly/705556 "2014-11-25T03:28:02Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2014, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-superman-fly/705556/81 "2014-11-27T20:43:17Z")
I don’t think that then Japanese “Golden Bat” “violates” any rules. I’m surprised, however, that something that looks like puppet theater can be as long lasting as this, and have an acknowledged “creator”. Certainly I’m surprised that anything like a Suyperhero could have originated in something other than comic books or pulp fiction magazines.
The origin of superheroes flying is actually of considerable importance. We think of it as obvious today, having grown up with the idea, but it isn’t by any means obvious. Clearly Siegel and Schuster didn’t think it obvious (despite having done comics with a flying hero previously, as this thread indicates), and Superman didn’t start out flying, but sort of grew into it. I could see Hawkman flying – he had those damned big wings, after all. But it’s not obvious that Green Lantern should fly. Nor is it obvious that an undersea superbeing should fly – what does flying have to do with the ocean? And, has been pointed out, his winged feet are ludicrously tiny (and badly placed). The whole idea of the Humasn Torch itself is compleytely off-the-wall (He’s not even human, for starters – he’s an android) Once youaccept the idea of a constantly combusting humanoid, though, the flying part doesn’t seem so ridiculous – flame goes up, after all. And, if he didn’t fly everywhere, he’d constantly be setting whatever room he was in on fire. Maybe Namor had to fly just to be considered his opponent.
Heroes had flown before – in nGreek mythology the Boreades, the sons of the North Wind who were on the Argo, flew. So did Perseus, after he got his flying slippers (with ridiculous tiny wings on them, like Namor’s) . But they didn’t fly in the clasasic comic book hands-out-front pose. Nor can I think of anyone else who did. That bodysurfer pose, and the idea of flying non-demigod heroes, seems to have been a creatyion of the 19430s.
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2014, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-superman-fly/705556/82 "2014-11-27T21:01:58Z")
Incidentally, we’ve all forgotten the most accurate comic-strip-to-film portrayal ever.
**"GORDON’S ALIVE!?!"**
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2014, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-superman-fly/705556/83 "2014-11-27T21:14:47Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> Heroes had flown before – in nGreek mythology the Boreades, the sons of the North Wind who were on the Argo, flew. So did Perseus, after he got his flying slippers (with ridiculous tiny wings on them, like Namor’s) . But they didn’t fly in the clasasic comic book hands-out-front pose. Nor can I think of anyone else who did.
Can you rule out Peter Pan?
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### Author:  [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2014, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-superman-fly/705556/84 "2014-11-27T21:19:16Z")
[deleted]
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### Author:  [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2014, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-superman-fly/705556/85 "2014-11-27T21:47:39Z")
Despite the opening narration in the first episode, saying that Superman is “able to leap into the air an eighth of a mile in a single bound, hurdle a 20 story building with ease,” the very second episode of the Superman radio show from 1940 begins the action with “Today as our story continues, we find him hovering with his curious power above a quiet highway in Indiana.” When a trollycar approaches, Superman “wheels and turns in curious flight.” (Incidentally, in this version Superman arrives as an adult. The car contains the first Earthlings Superman meets, an unnamed professor and a boy, Jimmy—who Superman rescues from an accident. They welcome him to earth, give him the idea of becoming a reporter, and then are never heard or mentioned again.)
Incidentally, the “explanation” for Superman’s powers back then was simply that Kryptonians are more advanced that Earthlings, “men and women like ourselves, but advanced to the absolute peak of human perfection.”
In the first episode, Jor-L tells Lara about Earth: It’s “a planet smaller than our own, situated on the other side of the sun” filled with people something like Kryptonians but weak and with limited faculties.
“How do you mean?” Lara asks.
“Something like this,” Jor-L explains. “You know how far you step when you want to go somewhere?”
“Practically as far as I want. Why, one step takes me to Brotter’s house near the fountain.”
“Exactly. But down where I’m sending this space ship, it’s quite different. An Earth man steps three feet at a time at most…and everything else is in proportion.”
So there you have it, direct from the lips of the foremost scientist of Krypton. What more explanation could possibly be needed? You say it’s not enough, that it makes no sense? Caution! Others questioned Jor-L’s theories once, and remember what became of them!
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2014, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-superman-fly/705556/86 "2014-11-27T22:45:05Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#):
>
> Despite the opening narration in the first episode, saying that Superman is “able to leap into the air an eighth of a mile in a single bound, hurdle a 20 story building with ease,” the very second episode of the Superman radio show from 1940 begins the action with “Today as our story continues, we find him hovering with his curious power above a quiet highway in Indiana.” When a trollycar approaches, Superman “wheels and turns in curious flight.” (Incidentally, in this version Superman arrives as an adult. The car contains the first Earthlings Superman meets, an unnamed professor and a boy, Jimmy—who Superman rescues from an accident. They welcome him to earth, give him the idea of becoming a reporter, and then are never heard or mentioned again.)
>
> Incidentally, the “explanation” for Superman’s powers back then was simply that Kryptonians are more advanced that Earthlings, “men and women like ourselves, but advanced to the absolute peak of human perfection.”
>
> In the first episode, Jor-L tells Lara about Earth: It’s “a planet smaller than our own, situated on the other side of the sun” filled with people something like Kryptonians but weak and with limited faculties.
>
> “How do you mean?” Lara asks.
>
> “Something like this,” Jor-L explains. “You know how far you step when you want to go somewhere?”
>
> “Practically as far as I want. Why, one step takes me to Brotter’s house near the fountain.”
>
> “Exactly. But down where I’m sending this space ship, it’s quite different. An Earth man steps three feet at a time at most…and everything else is in proportion.”
>
> So there you have it, direct from the lips of the foremost scientist of Krypton. What more explanation could possibly be needed? You say it’s not enough, that it makes no sense? Caution! Others questioned Jor-L’s theories once, and remember what became of them!
Yeah, but the ones that _didn’t_ question his theories died, too.
Do you know who wrote the radio show? I haven’t found that info, but I’ll bet it wasn’t Siegel and Schuster.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2014, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-superman-fly/705556/87 "2014-11-27T22:47:26Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#):
>
> Can you rule out Peter Pan?
Interesting point. Barrie didn’t describe how Pan flew in his first appearance (later reprinted as _Peter Pan in Kernsington Gardens_), but onstage he flew kinda upright and pointing ahead. Can our imagery of flying be blamed on the limitations of stagecraft?\*
\*Like Dracula’s high collar.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2014, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-superman-fly/705556/88 "2014-11-28T01:00:20Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> Do you know who wrote the radio show? I haven’t found that info, but I’ll bet it wasn’t Siegel and Schuster.
[Superman on Radio](http://www.supermanhomepage.com/radio/radio.php?topic=r-radio)
> [@](#):
>
> DC’s press agent Allen Ducovny and former pulp fiction author Robert Joffe Maxwell developed the new series. …
>
> In 1939, Maxwell and Ducovny prepared several sample audition disks to sell the idea to prospective sponsors, co-writing the first version of Superman’s famous opening signature: “Faster than an airplane, more powerful than a locomotive, impervious to bullets. ‘Up in the sky - look!’ ‘It’s a giant bird.’ ‘It’s a plane.’ ‘It’s SUPERMAN!’ And now, Superman - A being no larger than an ordinary man but possessed of powers and abilities never before realised on Earth: able to leap into the air an eigth of a mile at a single bound, hurtle a 20-story building with ease, race a high-powered bullet to its target, lift tremendous weights and rend solid steel in his bare hands as though it were paper. Superman - a strange visitor from a distant planet: champion of the oppressed, physical marvel extraordinary who has sworn to devote his existence on Earth to helping those in need.” “We had a lot of fun writing that opening,” Ducovny once said. “It was a typical radio action piece that fully utilized sound effects.”
>
> …Frank Chase produced the early episodes of Superman, George Ludlam scripted, and a repertory of the finest actors in New York radio was assembled.
I can’t find any more information on George Ludlam, though, except that he apparently was a staff writer for the Mutual Broadcasting System, the radio network that ran the show. That explains why the opening contradicts the script: two different writers. It doesn’t say on that page, but IIRC only 11 stations carried the show in the beginning. By the time it expanded nationally, all the basics were long settled.
Alan Smithee, thanks. I wanted to go back and listen to the first six episodes to check whether they had already featured flying but I haven’t found the time.
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2014, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-superman-fly/705556/89 "2014-11-28T03:23:45Z")
Just wanted to put [this](http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/jet-packs-in-flight-and-fiction/2/) image out there because, c’mon.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2014, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-superman-fly/705556/90 "2014-11-28T03:39:07Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#):
>
> Just wanted to put [this](http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/jet-packs-in-flight-and-fiction/2/) image out there because, c’mon.
Yep, that image always gets cited by everyone.
But it’s not a jetpack. It’s an anti-gravity belt. No jets. No rockets. Nothing blowing out of whatever that thing is on his back.
And the text on that site is wrong in two ways.
> [@](#):
>
> Buck Rogers’ debut
> Sci-fi hero Anthony “Buck” Rogers made his debut in the August 1928 issue of Hugo Gernsback’s “Amazing Stories.” In “Armageddon 2419 A.D.,” Rogers was awakened from suspended animation and joined the United States’ “Second War of Independence,” in which soldiers fly via rockets encased in “inertron” strapped to their backs.
First, as I said, there are no rockets, encased or not-encased. What Buck sees is a “jumper.”
> [@](#):
>
> Wilma cleared up for me the mystery of those flying leaps which she and her assailants had made, and explained in the following manner, how the inertron belt balances weight:
>
> “Jumpers” were in common use at the time I “awoke,” though they were costly, for at that time inertron had not been produced in very great quantity. They were very useful in the forest. They were belts, strapped high under the arms, containing an amount of inertron adjusted to the wearer’s weight and purposes. In effect they made a man weigh as little as he desired; two pounds if he liked.
>
> “Floaters” are a later development of “jumpers”—rocket motors encased in inertron blocks and strapped to the back in such a way that the wearer floats, when drifting, facing slightly downward. With his motor in operation, he moves like a diver, headforemost, controlling his direction by twisting his body and by movements of his outstretched arms and hands. Ballast weights locked in the front of the belt adjust weight and lift. Some men prefer a few ounces of weight in floating, using a slight motor thrust to overcome this. Others prefer a buoyance balance of a few ounces. The inadvertent dropping of weight is not a serious matter. The motor thrust always can be used to descend. But as an extra precaution, in case the motor should fail, for any reason, there are built into every belt a number of detachable sections, one or more of which can be discarded to balance off any loss in weight.
Second, the quote leads you to think that the picture on the cover of that _Amazing Stories_ is of Buck Rogers. It isn’t. It’s of Edward E. Smith’s Richard Seaton, the inventor of the rocketship Skylark of Space and of - wait for it - an anti-gravity belt. Right. Weird as that coincidence is, two stories by brand new authors appeared in that same issue, both of them involving anti-gravity belts, although Doc Smith got the cover. Not a jetpack. Not a rocketbelt. Anti-gravity, powered by “intra-atomic energy.”
The whole thing drives me crazy.
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2014, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-superman-fly/705556/91 "2014-11-28T04:05:43Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> I could see Hawkman flying – he had those damned big wings, after all. But it’s not obvious that Green Lantern should fly.
Sure it [is](http://jeffoverturf.blogspot.com/2010/02/bill-finger-ghost-writer-of-bats-and.html). _“Wha? … I wished I could fly to Dekker … and I’m doing it! The green lantern said all I needed was **Will-Power**!”_
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2014, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-superman-fly/705556/92 "2014-11-28T13:54:54Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#):
>
> Sure it [is](http://jeffoverturf.blogspot.com/2010/02/bill-finger-ghost-writer-of-bats-and.html). _“Wha? … I wished I could fly to Dekker … and I’m doing it! The green lantern said all I needed was **Will-Power**!”_
Shows Alan Scott’s lack of imagination. He could’ve wished himself teleported there.
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### Author:  [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2014, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-superman-fly/705556/93 "2014-11-29T17:07:58Z")
Unless I missed it up thread, Cecil deals with something or other Superman, and **Una Persson** quite passionately takes him down.
Found it: squeezing coal
> **[If I had super strength, could I squeeze coal into diamonds?](https://www.straightdope.com/21343980/if-i-had-super-strength-could-i-squeeze-coal-into-diamonds)**
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### Author:  [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2014, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-superman-fly/705556/94 "2014-11-29T21:51:38Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#):
>
> In point of fact, the term “tactile telekinesis” (not quite “contact telekinesis,” but close enough), was the _explicit_ comic book explanation of Superboy’s powers. Well, one of the Superboys (there are about 397 different versions of Superboy in DC comics history). I’m talking about the one who was introduced right after the much-ballyhooed “Death of Superman!!!” in the early 1990s. Originally he was supposed to be clone of Superman. I think they later retconned him to be a clone of Lex Luthor, genetically manipulated to have Superman-like powers (and look like Superman) just because.
Originally he was not a clone of Superman, because the scientists found kryptonian DNA to be uncrackable. He was just a clone of some guy (the director of the project, who was no one you’re likely to have heard of) made to, as best as they could, mimic Superman’s looks and powers. How they could do that is because comic books.
The retcon that came later was that, yes, he was in fact a clone of Superman, but also of Lex Luthor. How that works, I dunno. Comic books. And bad writers ruining Young Justice and Titans to make a really bad Teen Titans series.
> [@CaptMurdock](#):
>
> [The Sub-Mariner](http://marvel.wikia.com/Namor_McKenzie_%28Earth-616%29) could definitely fly, starting with his first appearance in 1939.
>
> (although how _he_ flies is almost as much a mystery as Superman. Those little wings on his ankles couldn’t possibly produce enough lift… :rolleyes: Sorry, forgot we were discussing comic books for a second.)
Well, at one point, I think it was when the infamous Mr Byrne started writing Namor, his ankle wings fell off, and as a result he could no longer fly (of course they later grew back, and he could fly again). Also, Namorita turned out to be a clone of his cousin instead of her daughter. Because of course she did. But I digress… Maybe his ankle wings are like Dumbo’s feather, and he only thinks he needs them to fly.
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### Author:  [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2014, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-superman-fly/705556/95 "2014-12-01T00:57:52Z")
> [@TBG](#):
>
> The retcon that came later was that, yes, he was in fact a clone of Superman, but also of Lex Luthor. How that works, I dunno. Comic books. And bad writers ruining Young Justice and Titans to make a really bad Teen Titans series.
>
> Well, at one point, I think it was when the infamous Mr Byrne started writing Namor, his ankle wings fell off, and as a result he could no longer fly (of course they later grew back, and he could fly again). Also, Namorita turned out to be a clone of his cousin instead of her daughter. Because of course she did. But I digress… Maybe his ankle wings are like Dumbo’s feather, and he only thinks he needs them to fly.
So basically, it’s clones all the way down?
I wonder if anyone ever thought to clone Spider-Man? Boy, that would surely make a terrific story! 🙂
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2014, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-superman-fly/705556/96 "2014-12-02T02:02:40Z")
Quoth Nietzsche, “I teach you the Superman.”
_Now about the time that Zarathustra sojourned on the Blessed isles, it happened that a ship anchored at the isle on which stands the smoking mountain, and the crew went ashore to shoot rabbits. About the noontide hour, however, when the captain and his men were together again, they saw suddenly a man coming towards them through the air, and a voice said distinctly: “It is time! It is the highest time!” But when the figure was nearest to them (it flew past quickly, however, like a shadow, in the direction of the volcano), then did they recognize with the greatest surprise that it was Zarathustra; for they had all seen him before except the captain himself…_
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2015, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-superman-fly/705556/97 "2015-11-11T17:49:22Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> Interesting point you raise, though, and sorry if I missed the implication. If Superman is flying on radio by 1940 he’s equal with if not beating Hawkman and Green Lantern, although the cartoons and comics don’t catch up until later. But if Sub-Mariuner was flying in 1939, he has an edge. I know he flew later, but did he fly in 1939?
> Namor’s nemesis, the Human Torch, was flying in his first appearance in October 1939, IIRC, and was certainly doing so later. So that shows two two possibilities before Superman ever flew, even on radio.
Bumping the zombie thread because I only just stumbled across this: sure, Superman debuted in ACTION #1 back in '38, but _so did Zatara,_ who in that first appearance teleports his assistant and transforms a gun into something harmless and works some mind control – and, when he’s shoved from a speeding train, _“Zatara’s magical powers save him and he floats gently down to Earth!”_
Which maybe isn’t mentioning in itself – but in ACTION #2, a young woman darts in front of a car, and Zatara saves the day with an ESIRA, YM YTTERP ENO as _“Zatara gestures and the girl is suspended in the air”_.
Granted, still weak. But after “invisibility” this and “melting stuff” that during the rest of 1938 came 1939 – and _earlier_ in ‘39 than either the Sub-Mariner or the Human Torch, Zatara was for-real-no-foolin’ _flying,_ with the hands-out-front-pose even. Here, I’ll quote [DC itself](http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Action_Comics_Vol_1_9) on the matter: _“Zatara strains his mind’s eye to scan out across the land, looking for the source of the hypnotic spell. A monastery lies to the north, and whatever caused everyone to sleep was inside. Walking would have taken too long, so Zatara makes himself and his companion, Tong, fly over the mountain path to the monastery.”_
(Don’t believe that summary? [Here’s](https://babblingsaboutdccomics2.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/act_9_007.png) the panel from ACTION #9.)
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2015, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-superman-fly/705556/98 "2015-11-11T18:09:40Z")
Zatara was written and drawn by Fred Guardineer. Someone who apparently didn’t know about the concept of wind resistance.
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2015, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-superman-fly/705556/99 "2015-11-11T18:21:32Z")
[jazz hands]
MAGIC!
[/jazz hands]
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2015, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-superman-fly/705556/100 "2015-11-11T18:28:43Z")
Midichlorians!
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