In the climax of Superman 2, Superman pulls off his S-logo which becomes a sticky-tape like snare for one of the three phantom zone escapees. All four of the Kryptonians play a ‘psych’ game, in which they teleport/replicate into multi-doppelgangers with a signature ‘blip’ sound effect. I’ve never seen these powers manifest themselves in any of the comics, cartoons, and TV shows that came before or after this movie.
Where did these powers come from? They are cool, but more bewildering to me the more I think about them. Was there any controversy regarding them when the movie was originally released?
Most likely scenario: The director, Richard Lester, didn’t really understand what Superman could do and what he couldn’t, and thought those would be cute special effects.
On the contrary, I think the director had read the comics. Remember these movies were made in the early 80s, pre ‘Crisis’. Superman back then was one super powerful dude, especially on the comics. If anything the movies toned down his powers. At that stage Superman was truly invulnerable, he could fly through the heart of stars and on occasion even flew into a black hole and out again and had a range of other powers to boot. He could fly at faster than light speeds, travel through time at will under his own power, use his x-ray vision to see through the entire planet and move so fast that he was invisible. He also had a ‘super Kryptonian brain’ that basically let him invent almost anything he wanted, instantly.
Supes, like The Flash and any other Kryptonian, had been known to create doppelgangers by using a type of strobe effect. By moving FTL and stopping briefly he could appear to be in multiple positions at once. This was a power that had been used in the comics.
The use of the ‘S’ was bit of licence on the part of the movies, but perfectly within the scope of the comics canon at that time. Pre- Crisis Supes’ uniform was Kryptonian super-fabric. Pre-Crisis everything Kryptonian was super something. It was made from the blankets he was wrapped in when he crashed on Earth. The fabric was indestructible but also infinitely expandable. At one stage he used it to make a tent over an entire city. He routinely used it for wrapping up bundles of all sizes, including villains… With the fabric having those powers there is no reason why the ‘S’ wouldn’t function the same way. It could have been used as ‘a sticky-tape like snare’.
So yeah, all those powers and more were referenced in the comics of the era when the movies were made. And even in the comics superman was forced to confront magic, renegade Kryptonians and kryptonite every other week to give him any sort of challenge. The other weeks he simply forgot how to use his powers for reasons never explained. This inability to write for Supes with any credibility to anyone over 12 was one of the big motivating factors in demolishing the whole Universe and starting afresh.
Even in the comics, Supe’s powers varied dramatically. A bomb might kick him back a few hundred feet, yet he can move the planet earth (at least, in an animated cartoon). And depending on the situation, he can develop super powers of ventriloquism and spatial computations (in the live action series, Supes looks over the remains of a shredded document and rearranges it back into its original form in his mind).
And let’s not forget super breath, where he can blow out more air than he can take in. (And if one says he can compress it, then we need to posit extra air pump organs in Kryptonian lungs.)
Oh, and while he was doing the blipping stuff described in the OP, doesn’t he say something like “he was pretty good at it school”? That sounds like the writer (Mario Puzo) forgot that he went to school on Earth.
Forgive my cynicism but, to borrow a term from Star Trek discussions, Superman movies all rely totally on ‘plot drive’. What he can and cannot do is determinded first and foremost by what will make the story work.
His most obvious power, flight, is never really explained because its utterly impossible (short of a magic spell). There was one throwaway line by his mother, “he will defy their gravity”. Yeah? What the hell, exactly, does that mean?
Yeah, that always bothered me too, given that while in school, in Smallville, he went to great lengths to NOT be identified as anyone other than a somewhat normal person.
Naw…the worst superpower was the ability to turn into melting ice cream.
Ranchoth
(It makes you wonder, though…what kind of offspring would you get if a character with really, really lame powers somehow mated with a character who had really, really cool powers?)
Despite what the credits say, Mario Puzo didn’t write Superman 2. He wrote the first draft of the screenplays for Superman, which turned out to be so long that it would have been LOTR: EE length if filmed. Others were brought in to try to fix it, but were unable to turn it into anything useful. Finally, Bond veteran Tom Mankeweitz was asked to create a filmable screenplay, and he created what was to be a two part movie, with parts one and two being filmed simultaneously and released close together. What you see on the screen for both movies is for the most part his work. However, since the screenplays for both movies were initially based on Puzo’s first screenplay, Puzo still got first credit on Superman and story credit on Superman 2, even though the bulk of the writing for both came from Mankeweitz.
In any case, if you want to lay blame, it ultimately comes down to the last guy to work with the screenplay, Mankewietz, and the director, Lester.
The “I was good at this in school” remark could make sense in two different ways. It might be a reference to hide and seek in elementary school, or, more likely, the school being referenced is the twelve years he spent with the Kryptonian teaching machine at his Fortress of Solitude.
The problem with the powers being used isn’t that they’re out of character for Superman–Blake and moriah covered this–it’s that it was never established earlier in the series that he had these abilities. This is sloppy plotting, and a Bond writer should know better. The gagets that Bond uses late in a movie to dfeat the bad guys are always demonstrated by Q early on. To introduce new abilities during the climax is very nearly a deus ex machina, and at best sloppy writing.
Having said that, I still think Superman 2 is one of the best superhero movies ever made.
I think the movies have Superman’s flight about right. Notice how he keeps changing his leading arm? He’s propelling himself forward with the force of his punches.
Also in the second film, General Zod (Terence Stamp) points at a guy and a white beam shoots forth from his finger, letting him lift the hapless Earthling forty or fifty feet into the air. I’ll assume the walking-on-water bit is adequately explained by the power of flight, though.
The George Reeves television series threw in bits like Supes walking through walls, splitting himself into two independently-operating Superman, etc.
Although I really like the recent Superman and Justice League cartoons, they’ve “depowered” him a lot just to keep the story moving. If his speed is really comparable to Flash’s, there shouldn’t be any way for a superstong villian to even land a punch on Supes. He should be able to dodge effortlessly. For that matter, Supes should be able to wrap up almost any battle within seconds.
Speaking of Flash, why doesn’t he dodge effortlessly? He always ducks the first two hits and gets creamed by the third. Batman, in contrast, seems to have little or no trouble ducking and weaving.
See, I always just figured the multiple Supes was a trick done with holographic projectors in the Fortress, and that the shirt thing was another little weapon he picked up there. I never figured these things were that odd or out of character.
