Spoilers Supergirl - Season 2

[Christopher]

Yeah, I'm STILL to this day wondering what physical law of Krypton's Galaxy allowed Superman to toss a physical manifestation of his <S> emblem to entangle Zod and his compatriots in Superman II

People make such a fuss over that and the other random powers Superman manifested in the movies, but in fact it's very much in the spirit of the Golden and Silver Age comics, where writers frequently gave Superman random powers out of nowhere. Early on, Siegel and Shuster gave him the ability to shapeshift his facial features by "tensing his muscles" the right way, which he used to impersonate a human in one issue and an alien in another. That latter issue also gave him telepathy. Then in the Silver Age we had such skills as super-ventriloquism, super-knitting, and that one issue where exposure to alien radiation temporarily gave him the ability to fire a mini-Superman out of his hands, leaving him powerless while his homunculus did the heroing. (He got so jealous of the attention his mini-me was getting that he sent it on a suicide mission. Yes, really.) There was one story -- I think involving the giant ape Titano -- where he dealt with Titano by sending him back in time, then conveniently manifested an ability to see through time in order to reassure Lois that Titano would be fine. So many readers wrote in to object to this new power that, in a reprint, they rewrote the dialogue to say he was just using his "super-imagination" power, which wasn't at all an improvement, so they changed it back in the next reprint.

 

[Photoman15]

Yeah, I'm STILL to this day wondering what physical law of Krypton's Galaxy allowed Superman to toss a physical manifestation of his <S> emblem to entangle Zod and his compatriots in Superman II

The "S" was dimensionally transcendental.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I always figured the "S" was just a bit of Kryptonian gadgetry, not one of his own powers per se. The images could have been Fortress gadgetry or a super-speed trick (not something Superman typically did, but a very common piece of Flash business back in the day).

The blue finger beams...well, we didn't see Superman use them, so maybe they were a Phantom Zone thing....

Rebuild-the-Great-Wall-Vision...there's a reason we ignore that film.

 

[Christopher]

Rebuild-the-Great-Wall-Vision...there's a reason we ignore that film.

George Reeves's Superman manifested a similar power once -- a bad guy knocked over a chimney to drop it on him (or on Clark, I think) from above, and Clark/Superman used his super-breath to blow all its bricks back into place, which looked exactly like the film running backward.

There was also an episode where he used his x-ray vision on a torn-up note in a wastebasket, which somehow caused the note to reassemble via stop-motion animation. Perhaps this was just symbolic of his mental reconstruction of the note, but who knows...? Maybe reassembly-vision is one of Superman's lesser-known powers.

 

[The Old Mixer]

At least the former was a manifestation of an existing power, if an unlikely one. The latter I took to be symbolic...what his super-brain was seeing from looking at the individual pieces.

 

[dahj]

Early on, Siegel and Shuster gave him the ability to shapeshift his facial features by "tensing his muscles" the right way

But he still just went with glasses?

 

[sojourner]

He was obviously afraid of the old myth, "you keep making that face it'll stay that way".

 

[Christopher]

But he still just went with glasses?

Well, early Superman wasn't as all-powerful as he later became; maybe he would've gotten tired if he'd kept his facial muscles tensed too long.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I always figured the "S" was just a bit of Kryptonian gadgetry, not one of his own powers per se. The images could have been Fortress gadgetry or a super-speed trick (not something Superman typically did, but a very common piece of Flash business back in the day).

That's always been my take on those two.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Have to correct myself...just remembered where Superman says that he used to pull the image trick in school, so it couldn't be a Fortress thing...that leaves a speed trick.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

 

[tomalak301]

Looks like we get more Jonn this week. There was no reason why Jonn was only in like two scenes last week.

 

[Commander Richard]

^ I guess they didn't want him to save the day on that other planet.

 

[Christopher]

^ I guess they didn't want him to save the day on that other planet.

Naturally. Not much point doing a story about Supergirl having to save the day without her powers if there's another superpowered character to do it for her.

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

and that one issue where exposure to alien radiation temporarily gave him the ability to fire a mini-Superman out of his hands, leaving him powerless while his homunculus did the heroing. (He got so jealous of the attention his mini-me was getting that he sent it on a suicide mission. Yes, really.)

Yup, Superman is a real jerk…

 

[Guy Gardener]

Did Kara have her dimensional door with her on Slaver's moon?

1. Skipping back and forth, between Galaxies is a good way to avoid being monitored and hunted by security, because it effectively means that you can walk through walls, if one moon is on lock down and the other one isn't, unless her door is not just fixed between two universes, which means that she has millions of chances to get to the cell where the humans are hiding, and would probably pick up several dopplegangers on the way interested in joining forces.

2. Opening an Einsten-Rosenberg bridge inside someone, will at the very least, cut them in half, although I doubt Kara would do that on purpose.

3. Opening an Einstein-Rosenberg bridge between yourself and gunfire makes you bullet proof.

4. Opening a large enough bridge, by adding power and changing the projectors focal point, if she studied Phantom Zone projectors at middle school, if the tech is at all similar, to know how to do that, Kara could have pulled that entire building down, once she was sure it wasn't going to fall on any humans.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Next Episode Preview (parody):
https://twitter.com/CritterOfHabit/status/825446397570736128/photo/1

 

[Romulan_spy]

3. Opening an Einstein-Rosenberg bridge between yourself and gunfire makes you bullet proof.

Yes, but wouldn't the bullets come out and possibly hit someone on the other end? It would really suck to be that guy talking a stroll in the park and suddenly a portal opens up and bullets fly out and kill you.

 

[Christopher]

I did wonder if Kara had her dimensional extrapolator with her, but I'm not sure it would allow interstellar travel as well as interdimensional. Cisco built it to cross between parallel Earths, and part of that parallelism is that they're physically in the same place in overlapping dimensions. Presumably it allows a jump from Central City to National City, maybe a couple thousand miles, but that's trivial compared to interstellar distances. If Kara had brought her extrapolator and used it, the best she could've managed was to cross to a parallel dimension's version of Slaver's Moon. Which might not even have had a transmatter portal ("stargate").

It's called an Einstein-Rosen bridge, by the way, not Rosenberg.

 

[Forbin]

The Einstein-Rosenberg bridge was a little arched wooden one that spanned the little stream between Einstein's back yard, and his neighbor, Mrs Rosenberg's back yard.