Heh, I didn’t know that. It’s a good point, though. When you only have a few characters in a comic or show or movie then yeah, it’s completely obvious who is who. When it’s just some rando on the street, the most you’d generally think is “hey that kinda looks like xxxxx.”
Of course, it got kinda cheesy in the 70s when Clark became a nightly newsanchor on GNN (?). I think you’re starting to get into dangerous territory there and people might start to put things together…
Superman is super shaped. It’s right there in the name. If he weren’t, he would be called something else. Like “the Hulk” or “Super-fatty”.
Whereas General Zod is zod-shaped. Zod doesn’t sound like a fit, muscular man.
Or maybe Superman looks like that because he grew up in America and that made him perfect, whereas Zod did not so necessary is flawed.
Or maybe Kal-El has the best genetics that Krypton had to offer so his body naturally finds the perfect form, whereas Zod is just an average Kryptonian with average genes.
Right. You see in warm climates, said strongmen would wear shorts. But in colder climes, the needed a bit of protecting from the cold that still let them show off their muscles. Thus, tights. And why Supes wears shorts over his tights.
But tights aren’t that warm, so the additional layer of a cape to wrap around and then take off when it was time to show off.
Of course the shorts aren’t baggy boxers anymore.
I think Superman was depicted with the cape because it enhanced the costume and gave the cartoonist a way to give some flash and flair to the scenes.
What if his “underwear” serves as a jockstrap but also is more rigid/ padded to be rated G? After all, Superman takes pride in being wholesome and a symbol of virtue, maybe he didn’t think showing his bulge would be very virtuous. Armor plated, because nobody likes getting kicked in the nuts. (I know, there are weirdos who actually do. Shut up. Supes isn’t one of those.)
You’ve described the set-up for a wonderful one-off. Maybe even a series. A fat slob from Krypton has super abilities because he’s in a lower gravity/under a yellow sun/your explanation here. He is able to leap tall buildings at a single bound, etc. He’s good-hearted, so he rescues people, stops dams from collapsing, fights off super-villains, and all the other Superman stuff. But he’s a tub of lard. Guys who have been working out for years to have big muscles and six-packs HATE him. But there’s nothing most of them can do about it. This emboldens some to try to take on the Man of Flabby Steel in various ways. None of them successful.
It wouldn’t even help if a Kryptonian in superb shape took him on. They’re both SUPER.
It would be a series of stories of pissed-off symied people, but the BUtterball from Krypton would triumph over all. It’s even better if he’s really clever.
Heck, he wouldn’t even have to worry about health problems. His super-heart would blast through any arterial plaque. His super-brain wouldn’t get strokes. He could smoke like a chimney and never get cancer or emphysema.
The whole flying thing is complex. As the page below implies, Superman first flew on the cover of a British comic in 1939. But that wasn’t exactly canon. He did fly in the radio series before he did in the comics, but I suspect Superman #10 has him hovering (and then, in the next issue, flying) more because the fleischer cartoons were i production by then, and the guys at the magazine knew about it. The cartoons tried to show him jumping around (in, fact, they literally show him “able to leap tall buildings at a single bound” in the intro to the first carton), but they were pretty clearly happier drawing him as flying and hovering in the air – he’s not hopping around in the first Superman cartoon, so he must be flying.
But Superman wasn’t the first superhero to fly. In fact, the reason he ended up flying might simply be because it was expected of his class of metahuman. Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner, was flying in 1939. The Alan Scott Green Lantern flew in 1940.
But much earlier, Ogon Bat (The Golden Bat) was a flying superhero in Japan – in 1930. I can’t believe that western comic book writers and artists were familiar with this character at the time (or even ten years later), but his existence shows that flying was one of the features associated with superheroes practically from the start.
Heck, if you allow super-villains, you had Spring-Heeled Jack in the Victorian era
That’s basically this guy.
He also posts on the SDMB.
No it’s not. I’ve read all the Buck Godot books. He’s the hero of the series, and he’s fat, but he’s not anything like Superman – he can’t fly, he’s not invulnerable, doesn’t have heat vision, etc.
And do you mean to say that Phil Foglio has been posting here?
He’s a fat guy who has exceptional strength and durability because he was born on a high gravity world. Minus the fat, he sounds pretty close to Superman to me, at least as the character was originally conceived.
No, I mean @Buck_Godot.
Expected? I’m not sure. I read a ton of early comics for my robot book. What surprised me most was that flying heroes were so extremely rare. Even those who did had some sort of auxiliary mechanism, like Namor’s wings and Scott’s ring. Oddly, many villains could fly, but they also usually had devices.
After Superman, flying became used more; every company wanted a taste of his magic. Artists especially loved the dynamics of flying scenes. Besides, they already had a decade of Buck Rogers scenes to swipe.
Not Golden Age, but I have to mention Fatman the Human Flying Saucer.
One of my favorite comic book characters is super strong just because she is fat. Little Lotta doesn’t care what color the sun is.
Not in the early 1930s, but by 1940 you had
Namor, the Sub-Mariner
The Human Torch
Hawkman
Captain Marvel
Bulletman and Bulletgirl
Black Condor
…all flying without the use of a plane. Hawkman had wings but only needed his anti-grav belt of “Nth metal”. Black Condor sometimes had wings, sometimes demi-wings, and sometimes not much.
Don’t forget Stardust the Super Wizard.
It’s worth mentioning that that era (1930s) was the one where the airplane went from flimsy daredevil oddity to mainstream technology used in the mainstream culture.
As such flying (via any means) was very much a novel exciting idea of the time. So of course various superheroes would do the zeitgeist activity, but naturally sans airplane. Because they’re super.
Kinda like Matrix and its ilk were all about the zeitgeist of the exciting new idea called “life online”. The heroes didn’t experience it vicariously by looking at a screen and typing on a keyboard. They lived it by physically diving inside of it.
Marilyn Monroe could do that as well. I read about one journalist who was interviewing her, and she suggested they go for a walk. He said that they’d distracted all the people recognising her.
She said, “If I don’t want them to notice me, they don’t.” She put on a pair of sunglasses and they went for a walk. No-one seemed to notice her.
Well, Black Condor was raised by condors. So, obviously he learned how to fly. Duh. Any ten-year-old could have told you that.
But a tiny handful of flyers, most of whom used devices rather than it being a personal attribute, didn’t make flight expected. It was rare and somewhat miraculous. Superman seemed special at the time. He was super-ior to all the others. And built for flight. Even before that power was official, the cover of Superman #3, in 1939, shows him flying, not jumping. So did the cover of #7. People wanted Superman to have all the powers; that’s why Captain Marvel as parody got the combined powers of six gods to drive home how ludicrously Superman was already portrayed.
You can nitpick who did what first in comics until the sun goes out. Costumed characters already had a very long history in multiple media to draw upon. My point is only that Superman transformed the concept of a superhero: the entire business stems from him and his awesomeness. Only later imitations had expectations and those were reflections of the images implanted in readers’ minds by what Superman already was.
IIRC, the other thing about a circus strongman looking to show off his physique is: you cover up with the cape as you walk out in front of the audience, and toss back the cape right at the fanfare moment when you flex your muscles and go into your act — because otherwise (a) your muscles look less impressive during that walk, while you’re making first impressions? Or (b) you flex during the whole awkward walk to center stage, and then try to perform a feat of strength that you’ve just made more difficult?
Showmanship favors an unveiling, is my point.