Clark's hair...

[UncleRogi]

I was watching an episode of "Smallville" and had an interesting thought to ponder...

Who or what was barbering the young Clark?

I'd like to hear some wild theories about how the Kents' might have dealt with this.

In the comics, we were told long ago that Clark barbered himself with heat vision. But an infant Clark? lol like to see that!
Also, I'm STILL in the camp that teleporters should not work on Kryptonians under yellow sun influence. Is the guy invulnerable or not? I would like to hear the Communities thoughts on this!

 

[Kor]

Is it possible for something with high tensile strength to still be cuttable (is that a real word?) with regular scissors?

Kor

 

[Kai "the spy"]

Well, in the comics (since 1986), Clark doesn't have his powers from the start, but develops them as he grows, so child Clark could have had his hair cut the conventional way.

 

[Christopher]

In the comics, we were told long ago that Clark barbered himself with heat vision.

Well, if by "long ago" you mean "1986," which is kinda long (three decades), but not that long relative to how long Superman's been around (nearly eight decades). I read an article about this just recently:

http://www.cbr.com/superman-hair-cut/

A 1960 story established that Superman's x-ray vision (heat vision hadn't yet been split off into a separate power) couldn't cut his own hair, but that Supergirl's and Krypto's x-ray vision combined could do it. The story didn't address how he did normally cut his hair, but in 1967, it was established that his hair just didn't grow at all while he was under yellow-sun conditions.

Also, I'm STILL in the camp that teleporters should not work on Kryptonians under yellow sun influence. Is the guy invulnerable or not? I would like to hear the Communities thoughts on this!

If it's a teleporter based on disintegration, then no, it shouldn't work on Superman. A teleporter based on wormholes/dimension folding would be another matter.

I have the same issue with Star Trek: Voyager showing shuttles getting beamed up. The duranium and tritanium and other such superstrong materials in ship hulls should be strong enough to resist disintegration, but they're shown to be beamed as easily as anything else.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

I'm not sure that Superman actually is invulnerable.
Nearly so? Yes.
But a sharp enough blade should be able to.

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Wolverine is his barber!

 

[UncleRogi]

http://www.cbr.com/superman-hair-cut/

A 1960 story established that Superman's x-ray vision (heat vision hadn't yet been split off into a separate power) couldn't cut his own hair, but that Supergirl's and Krypto's x-ray vision combined could do it. The story didn't address how he did normally cut his hair, but in 1967, it was established that his hair just didn't grow at all while he was under yellow-sun conditions.

I have the comic, and several others illustrating the same. Clark used a mirror backed with lead to do the deed. I'd like to constrain folks thinking just to the series, and ideas as to how this was dealt with.

If it's a teleporter based on disintegration, then no, it shouldn't work on Superman. A teleporter based on wormholes/dimension folding would be another matter.

I have the same issue with Star Trek: Voyager showing shuttles getting beamed up. The duranium and tritanium and other such superstrong materials in ship hulls should be strong enough to resist disintegration, but they're shown to be beamed as easily as anything else.

Thanks, Christopher! Yours being one of the opinions I was looking for. I agree that the density should be an issue.

 

[UncleRogi]

I'm not sure that Superman actually is invulnerable.
Nearly so? Yes.
But a sharp enough blade should be able to.

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Wolverine is his barber!

We HAVE seen that Dianas' Sword can cut his skin, but not do much damage. And her blades edge is just one molecule thick.

 

[Christopher]

Of course, I can easily imagine how Otto Binder or Edmond Hamilton would've dealt with a story about Superman being dematerialized by a teleporter:

"Of course! The filament of the vacuum tube that emits the dematerialization ray was fashioned from a kryptonite meteor!"

Silver Age comics were oddly adamant about the rule that nothing except kryptonite or magic could affect Superman in any way. Whenever anything else seemed to have a damaging or weakening effect on Superman, it would eventually turn out to be kryptonite-based in some manner. Either that, or it would turn out that Superman was faking the whole thing in order to protect Lois, Jimmy, Batman, or whoever from some threat that he somehow couldn't just tell them about.

 

[UncleRogi]

Of course, I can easily imagine how Otto Binder or Edmond Hamilton would've dealt with a story about Superman being dematerialized by a teleporter:

"Of course! The filament of the vacuum tube that emits the dematerialization ray was fashioned from a kryptonite meteor!"

Silver Age comics were oddly adamant about the rule that nothing except kryptonite or magic could affect Superman in any way. Whenever anything else seemed to have a damaging or weakening effect on Superman, it would eventually turn out to be kryptonite-based in some manner. Either that, or it would turn out that Superman was faking the whole thing in order to protect Lois, Jimmy, Batman, or whoever from some threat that he somehow couldn't just tell them about.

And bend over backwards to come to a logical, sensible solution. LOL, it's the comics after all.

 

[Hugo Rune]

Hugo - Keep trying you crazy crazy lady

 

[marillion]

Ah the age old question about how Supes cuts his hair/shaves..

Not that it counts in the comics, but in (shudder) Superman IV, Lex used bolt cutters to cut the strand of his hair that was holding up that humongous weight in the museum scene. Not the most efficient way to cut one's hair, but whatever it takes, right?

 

[UncleRogi]

Hugo - Keep trying you crazy crazy lady

Awesome, thanks so much for this; of course Clark has his idiosyncrasies.
Is Clark flirting with Harley, or telling her the Joker might not want his ass up a tree in Moldavia? Literally.
LOL

 

[mos6507]

Ah the age old question about how Supes cuts his hair/shaves..

Not that it counts in the comics, but in (shudder) Superman IV, Lex used bolt cutters to cut the strand of his hair that was holding up that humongous weight in the museum scene. Not the most efficient way to cut one's hair, but whatever it takes, right?

Not that it needs a scientific explanation but it sounds like his hair would be similar to carbon nanotubes, the kind of thing theorized to create a space elevator. So durable, but not infinitely so.

 

[Skipper]

Silver Age comics were oddly adamant about the rule that nothing except kryptonite or magic could affect Superman in any way.

And of course other Kryptonians or Kryptonian animals under a yellow sun could harm him. And in theory a Kryptonian blade can cut him (in the Silver Age everything from Krypton became "Super" under a yellow sun).

 

[Christopher]

And of course other Kryptonians or Kryptonian animals under a yellow sun could harm him.

Well, yes, that too, but that's an extension of the same thinking behind kryptonite -- that only things of Kryptonian origin could affect Superman. So there's still a pretty rigorous consistency to it (insofar as anything in comics was ever consistent).

 

[Skipper]

Well, yes, that too, but that's an extension of the same thinking behind kryptonite -- that only things of Kryptonian origin could affect Superman. So there's still a pretty rigorous consistency to it (insofar as anything in comics was ever consistent).

I admit I'm not so well versed in Pre-Crisis Superman lore, but I distinctively remember one (exceptional) time when he felt physically threatened by something that wasn't of Kryptonian origin.
Googling....
Dc Comics Present V1 28 - the first appearance of War World!

 

[Christopher]

I admit I'm not so well versed in Pre-Crisis Superman lore, but I distinctively remember one (exceptional) time when he felt physically threatened by something that wasn't of Kryptonian origin.

Yeah, there were attempts in the '70s and early '80s to dial back Superman's invulnerability a bit and find new ways to create threats to him. But I'm talking about the '50s and '60s, the Silver Age stuff where the rules of how Superman worked were really fleshed out and fell into a clear formula. I'm thinking about such things because I just read a collection of World's Finest comics from the 1950s, as part of DC's Golden Age/Silver Age reprint series. (This is billed under Silver Age, but that's a bit imprecise, since it starts with the first Superman/Batman crossover in 1952 and then picks up with their regular crossovers in World's Finest Comics from '54 to '58, but the Silver Age's beginning is generally considered to be the debut of the Barry Allen Flash in 1956.)

 

[Nerys Myk]

And of course other Kryptonians or Kryptonian animals under a yellow sun could harm him. And in theory a Kryptonian blade can cut him (in the Silver Age everything from Krypton became "Super" under a yellow sun).

Except for the metal the ship was made from, apparently.

 

[Christopher]

Except for the metal the ship was made from, apparently.

No, the caption says only the "super-fuel" was strong enough to blow open the ship. That was the way it worked -- everything from Krypton was super-ized to the same degree on Earth, so it was all invulnerable to Earthly things, but one Kryptonian thing was as vulnerable to another Kryptonian thing as it would've been normally.

 

[Nerys Myk]

No, the caption says only the "super-fuel" was strong enough to blow open the ship. That was the way it worked -- everything from Krypton was super-ized to the same degree on Earth, so it was all invulnerable to Earthly things, but one Kryptonian thing was as vulnerable to another Kryptonian thing as it would've been normally.

I was referring to the crumpled nose cone in the first panel. Now I'm wondering if the pop-off canopy is part of Jor-El's design or is it from the impact?