What became of Superman?

[Kryton]

TGTheodore wrote:

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No, Superman did age, but much more slowly. (Silver Age mythos, I believe).

You'll remember that his Earthday (anniversary of his arrival on the Kent farm) was on leap year day, so they always used to joke in the letter columns that for every 4 years WE age, he only ages by 1.

[Christopher]

EnsignRicky wrote:

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That's true. He could just resume aging normally from that point as opposed to immediately advancing to the age he would be in relation to the years that he has existed. I may be getting superlore mixed up with vampires or mummies or something; It's all very confusing.

There is no reason in hell why a being with an artificially prolonged life would instantly, magically advance to their "true" age once the prolonging mechanism was interrupted. That's a particularly ludicrous fictional trope. Aging is not caused by the mere progression of the calendar. It's caused by gradual wear and tear on the body -- cells accumulating genetic errors and failing to replicate or work as well, joints and tendons wearing out from cumulative stress, toxins accumulating in the organs, DNA strands replicating so many times that their telomeres shorten to nothing and they can't replicate anymore. If there were a mechanism that halted or reversed all those processes to keep your body at peak health for centuries, then if that mechanism ceased to apply, you'd still be at peak health and it would take decades for that cumulative damage and decay to take hold.


As for the influence of the Sun on Superman, remember that it's not just our Sun, it's any yellow star. Assuming that means F or G stars inclusive, there are something like 40 billion of those in our galaxy, about 10 percent of the galaxy's stars (not counting brown dwarfs). So there would be plenty of worlds where Kal-El would have the power to be Superman. Of course, red stars outnumber yellow ones by about 9 to 1, so there'd be plenty more where he wouldn't.

[Trekker4747]

I wonder how other types of stars effect Kryptonians and how their physiology as "solar batteries" effects their interstellar/galactic travels?

What if a Kryptonian interstellar vessel visited a planet with a blue star?

[leandar]

I THINK a blue star would make him even more powerful and an orange one would make him still superpowered, but weaker as it's closer to red.

[Trekker4747]

leandar wrote:

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I THINK a blue star would make him even more powerful and an orange one would make him still superpowered, but weaker as it's closer to red.

So you think his power is related to the wavelength of light and not by the energies outputted by the star, its type or other factors I would think could be more at play than the wavelength of the light.

But who knows?

Are their viloet or ultraviloet "stars"? How would a blackhole effect him?

[Obi Wana Jones]

1. After he marries Lois, she nags him to death.

2. He collapses from the big one after a marathon session with Wonder Woman

3. Eco Nazis send the Earth into another Ice Age after scientists disclose the green house effect is hogwash design to make millions off fluorescent lights

[Trekker4747]

4. Superman is deported for not being a natural born citizen of Earth.

[Sketcher]

He trips over a brick

[Christopher]

Trekker4747 wrote:

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So you think his power is related to the wavelength of light and not by the energies outputted by the star, its type or other factors I would think could be more at play than the wavelength of the light.

Uhh, what? Those are all the same thing. The peak wavelength of light given off by a star is inversely proportional to its energy output (i.e. the peak frequency is directly proportional to its energy), and a star's spectral type is defined by its peak wavelength. A blue star is hotter than a yellow star is hotter than a red star. The reason (post-Crisis) why Superman gets superpowers from a yellow star and not a red star is because a yellow star is more energetic and thus "supercharges" his cellular batteries.

The comics and other fiction have been inconsistent about the effects of blue stars. Elliot S! Maggin's Superman novels said that blue starlight would give Superman diminished powers, somewhere between his yellow-star and red-star conditions, but I don't think the reason for this was explained. In some recent comics, it's been asserted that blue stars give Superman, not greater powers, but additional powers, specifically the ability to induce Kryptonian superpowers in others via a beam from his eyes. Don't ask me, I'm just the messenger.

Are their viloet or ultraviloet "stars"? How would a blackhole effect him?

O-type stars do peak in the ultraviolet. But we're talking about a blackbody spectrum here, and the color of a star is its peak wavelength, not its only one. A hotter star would have its peak further toward the blue/violet end of the spectrum, but would still be even brighter in the red, orange, yellow, green, etc. bands. So while an O star's peak is in the UV, the starlight still appears blue to the observer.

As for black holes, they're just plain black -- no energy output at all, by definition. As long as Superman's far enough away to be unaffected by its gravity (and despite sci-fi mythology, a black hole's gravity is no more "sucky" than that of a star of equivalent mass, and is only dangerous if you get really close), he'd get no energy from it at all and it would be no different from being exposed to empty space. Unless it has an accretion disk of infalling matter, in which case the inner portion of the disk would be so hot as to be giving off x-rays and gamma rays. However, in order for a black hole to have an accretion disk, it would pretty much have to be orbiting a star (another thing that mass-media depictions of black holes almost invariably get wrong), so Superman would be affected by that star's light in the usual way.

[JoeZhang]

Superman?

Well the original is...

about to become a space zombie - Kal-L is going to be a member of the Black Lantern Corps.

[blaXXer]

JoeZhang wrote:

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Superman?

Well the original is...

about to become a space zombie - Kal-L is going to be a member of the Black Lantern Corps.

WTF? I thought Bats was gonna be in it

[Admiral_Young]

^ That hasn't been confirmed about Batman yet. As for Superman's destiny in the Smallville universe yes an early first or second season episode had a meteor freak with the ability to show people's future upon touch. Clark touched and saw a yellow and red cape across a generic space backdrop indicating that he would leave the solar system. As the first poster who mentioned this episode stated the statement she made (I think it was an old woman) said that he would go on to live a long life...and must've been a reference to DC One Million. Also in Legion I think it was Garth who mentioned that Clark who influence entire solar systems across the galaxy...so he'll live a long time.

[Christopher]

Admiral_Young wrote:

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Clark touched and saw a yellow and red cape across a generic space backdrop indicating that he would leave the solar system.

Couldn't it have been indicating that it was night?

[Trekker4747]

Admiral_Young wrote:

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^ That hasn't been confirmed about Batman yet. As for Superman's destiny in the Smallville universe yes an early first or second season episode had a meteor freak with the ability to show people's future upon touch. Clark touched and saw a yellow and red cape across a generic space backdrop indicating that he would leave the solar system. As the first poster who mentioned this episode stated the statement she made (I think it was an old woman) said that he would go on to live a long life...and must've been a reference to DC One Million. Also in Legion I think it was Garth who mentioned that Clark who influence entire solar systems across the galaxy...so he'll live a long time.

Actually it wasn't an old woman it was a kid that had just joined the school and latched on to Clark because Clark's was the only death-future he saw that wasn't horrifyingly depressing to him.

[Dusty Ayres]

Brent wrote:

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Forgive me, my knowledge of this stuff isn't that great, but I remember hearing about or reading somewhere that for some period of time in Superman's life he decided to go live inside the core of the Sun for a very long time, is this correct? how much time was it?

That plot point is in the universe of the 12-issue mini-series All-Star Superman, not in the regular continuity of the standard monthly Superman title.

Here's the summary of the story: All-Star Superman