Was that the episode where the villain jumped the gun on the statute of limitations because Superman advanced the clock?
I remember his Super Eating power–he was having dinner with Lois and needed to go change into Superman just as he was served a whole game hen. He picked it up and, while nobody was looking, just sucked all the meat off of the chicken.
Rather than crushing it into a greasy pellet, because that would have been nasty.
How does that “super fast typing” work? There were many stories where Clark Kent would type out his stories at super speed, and while I could buy that he could hit those typewriter keys at the speed of sound they would still only pop back up at their normal speed.
Here is the passing through walls power start at 3:30
Not the first time. Although sick from Kryptonite Superman managed to hypnotize and levitate Lois Lane, and then be a real jerk.
I’m pretty sure Supes said that he used that particular skill while in school, presumably to win at Hide and Seek. He’s a big cheater.
Cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater!
Wasn’t there a comic with pink Kryptonite that turned Superman gay?
Which made me say wait he isn’t even human, but then made me say would it matter if the other species is a Kryptonite fascimile?
Yes, but that was a one-panel throw away joke from when Peter David’s Supergirl finds herself in an alternate Silver Age. I understand her daughter with that Earth’s Superman is still roaming the multiverse, acting like a precocious part-Kryptonian child would.
And the reason the glasses amplified his “I’m not Superman” mental mantra is that the glass from his spaceship was the antenna used to telepathically educate him on his way to Earth.
I’ve never cared much for Superman, but I’ve always loved that bit of retconned explanation for why a pair of glasses is sufficient to keep anyone from recognizing him when he was Clark Kent.
Kryptonian typewriter, obviously, manufactured at the Fortress and smuggled into the Planet offices (and onto Clark’s desk) for just that reason.
Superman had a lot of stuff like that. His wardrobe as Clark Kent was all specially trated so as to be compressible (by super-pressure) to the size small sheet of paper so he could store it in his cape pouch. That became an issue when he was a news anchor and had to wear clothes provided by the station, and thus didn’t have complete control over what he wore anymore.
There was his “Energy-Superman” phase, but that was more a complete (temporary) redo than adding a new power.
Yup. And if the villain had waited another half hour instead of coming back immediately, he would have been just fine.
Man, that’s gotta smart.
People have said his powers came and went.
Did they explicitly say, “I used to have super-typing powers, but now I don’t” or did he just not use that power anymore?
What I’m asking is, is Superman unable to use those powers anymore, or does he just choose to not use them? Were previous powers explicitly deleted? I’m unfamiliar with the Crisis mentioned above, which apparently adjusted his powers.
It was rare that they were specifically deleted (other than by the reboots). They’d just be ignored.
Remember again, up until the 1960s, no one expected strict continuity in the comics and the audience did not worry about minor inconsistencies for some time after that. I think the assumption was that people outgrew comics so no one remembered what happened five years ago.
I remember a Silver Age comic (I think it was a *Brave and the Bold *reprint) with the following line of dialog from Superman: “Using my super-strong hair as a mop, I’ll clean up this mess.”
Silly, yes, but at least it wasn’t Supergirl doing it, unlike the Bionic Woman, who used her powers for housework all the time.
Since no one else has mentioned the “shooting a tiny Superman out of his hand” power, I will. (Apologies for hideous google link; not sure if Comics Alliance is blocked from work.)
The usual quoted number is 7 years.
This didn’t just apply to dropping Superman’s powers, it went all the way to wholesale reusing old stories.
(For example, Supergirl’s first encounter with the Legion of Superheroes was almost word for word identical to Superboy’s - they changed all the 'Superboy’s to 'Supergirl’s, and the location from Smallville to Metropolis (and, oddly, removed one jokey ‘futuristic’ ice cream name, while retaining the now nonsensical joke that surrounded it), but aside from that…)
Egads, Tom Scud! I missed that episode. And it was ONE episode. Never to be mentioned again. As the linked article (great comic blog, by the way) says
What’s wrong with that? She was cleaning her own house as I recall, not someone else’s. If you had super-speed, wouldn’t you use it for mundane, boring things?