Same way Namor does? I mean…you don’t really think those teeney wings provide lift do you?
The problem with telekinesis as an explanation for all of Superman’s powers is that it doesn’t explain all of them: He also has super-senses. The usual explanation for that is that they’re based on clairvoyance, and that the true unifying factor is that all of his powers are psionic.
Except that “he’s psionic” doesn’t explain anything at all. “Psionic” is nothing but a label, and there’s no real reason why “sensing at a distance” should go along with “moving matter” as, in some sense, the “same power”.
Maybe Superman stays still and lets the rest of the universe move relative to him.
The man has super speed. He is just flapping his arms and legs so fast that they look like they are keeping still.
All of Superman’s abilities are normal human abilities dialed up to the nth degree. We can all levitate but it is so weak that we don’t notice it. Same with emitting x-rays form our eyes.
He is projecting superbreath down and back, augmented by other gasses.
Superman’s change from leaping top flying doesn’t seem to follow a smooth trajectory (Ha!) in the comics.
In October 1938 he covers “huge distances…with giant leaps”
In June 1939 he leaps from a rooftop holding a racketeer, who tries to stab him in mid-leap. The startled Superman lets go of him, and he falls to his doom, but Superman saves himself by grasping a window ledge.
In November 939 he’s still leaping, not flying.
In Sept/Oct 1940 he has to use his cape to direct his falling through the sky.
In March/April he “streaks through the clouds”, but it’s still described as a “leap”.
In May/June 19451 he seems to hover in the air
In July/Aug 1941 he can change course in midair and perform maneuvers. He’;s clearly not just jumping.
In December 1941 he’s holding a crippled airplane, and certainly seems to be flying.
But in 1942 and 1943 he acts as if he can’t fly – he climbs a skyscraper and swims to a destination, and transports Lois Lane in a rowboat to keep her dry. If he could fly, he’d do so in these cases. But in May 1943 Superman is referred to as someone “who can fly like a bird” (presumably not by flapping his arms)
By October 1943 Superman is unquestionably flying
On the other hand, despite his “leaping tall buildings at a single bound” in the opening, Superman is clearly doing more than simply leaping in the first Superman cartoon, which was released in September of 1941. You can’t say that he isn’t flying by the next carton, Mechanical Monsters from November 1941. He has x-ray vision, too!
So if he was flying in 1940 on the radio, that would seem to be the earliest. I haven’t heard it myself, and it still seems weird to have him flying at first in a non-visual medium, where it wouldn’t be as striking. In any event, the onset of flying seems to take place at different times in different media. YUou get the impression that they were still figuring out what was canon and what wasn’t. People in one medium might do things not sanctioned in another, too. Superman married Lois Lane in the newspaper strip in the 1940s, for instance.
“The Great Superman Book” by Michael L. Fleisher pp. 346-349 (1978)
The radio shows are public domain. The flying sound effect is a wind-tunnel-like whooshing and actually is pretty striking.
I won’t argue that it isn’t the case; I just find it surprising for reasons I give. But evidently the folks responsible for the radio show (I’ve looked, and can’t find out who wrote the episodes) went off on their own extrapolating on Superman’s powers, which the other media wouldn’t take as canon until later. Possibly, if they were earlier, they pushed Superman in that direction.
Leaping heroes(and villains) go back much farther than Superman. I mentioned John Carter earlier, but Spring-Heeled Jack was much earlier. An urban legend by 1837, he eventually became a penny-dreadful character.
But here’s a question – before Superman did any such characters even FLY? Or is Superman the first?
Mandrake the Magician could hover in mid-air, floating well above the ground.
He wasn’t at full strength yet, he was still storing up solar energy?
But in all seriousness, I thought that they explained it when they tried to replace him after he died. I have a compilation edition of “The Death of Superman” at home, but IIRC, they said that there was a field that he generated that allowed him to fly. He would extend that field around things to lift them. The clone Superboy they created had an imperfect version of the field, so he didn’t have all of the powers.
X-ray vision.
A possibility. Mandrake started in 1934, and apparently originally deceived people hypnotically, although he later had telekinetic powers. :
The operative question – was he hovering before Superman was doing it?
Nifty!
The Sub-Mariner 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.)
Hawkman was flying while Superman was still leaping – and with considerably bigger wings than the Sub-Mariner has, but you’d still better suspend that disbelief.
Oh, and Superman’s co-creators gave one of their other caped crimefighters a belt that granted him the power of flight well before ACTION #1 hit the stands.
Green Lantern was flying in his first appearance, back in 1940.
Superman is a fictitious character, doesn’t exist and doesn’t fly. The better question is how does Michael Jordan fly? (First class). But seriously, when he was a player, how did he do that?
WTF? He halts himself in mid-air after falling 15,000 feet - but Lothar has to gather a pile of snow for him to fall softly into? That’s *easier *to believe?
Superman is definitely flying in the 1942 novel The Adventures of Superman, by George Lowther. That was the first mention of Jor-El and Lara among other inventions.
We can’t appreciate how stunning the arrival of Superman was. Comics books were nothing at all in 1938 before Action Comics 1. By 1939 he had a second comic book, a first, one named after himself. There was a daily comic strip - much more prestigious - and a Sunday color comic strip, even more prestigious in a day when many strips were one or the other but not both. The radio show debuted in 1940. The Max Fleischer cartoons started in 1941, the first superhero cartoons, and got an Oscar nomination. And then a novel (or novelization) in 1942, also the first ever. That’s Beatles-level domination of the media and culture.
That’s why I find it weird these days when people talk about Batman being more famous than Superman. Sure, his latest movies have been better, but Superman is etched into worldwide culture in a way that Batman never can be.
Exapno:
Good summing up, and excellent points. As Steranko put it in his History of Comic Books, Superman was the Superstar.
Back to my earlier question. Did anyone else fly before Superman? I mean, Mandrake may have hovered, but did anyone else dynamically fly. You know – going at high speed, poised-with-hands-outstretched-in-front-of-you fly?
I could easily see Superman being first in this, too.
Witches and ghosts don’t count
As was said, the Sub-Mariner, and Hawkman, and Green Lantern all did.
IIRC, Captain Marvel also beat Superman to it.
Sorry – all those guys are post-Superman
Sub-Mariner – 1939
Hawkman – 1940
Green Lantern – 1940
Captain Marvel – 1940