[Kirkwood]

"The Man of Steel was that strong because he was designed to resist Krypton's powerful gravity. "

Urgh! This is just flat out wrong. The teacher gets an F. The strength of Superman is not inherent in his body. Everyone knows that Superman gets his amazing superpowers from the radiation of our yellow Sun. The further Superman is from the Sun, the more his strength is weakened. Place Green Kryptonite near him and his superpowers are so much reduced that he becomes even weaker than the average human. Every atom within his body irradiates a force field at a certain distance allowing him to resist external forces upon his body, such as bullets, missiles, etc.

[pctech]

I saw that one too. Nice pick up.

[MikeD]

It depends on the version of Superman. The original Golden Age Superman got all his powers from the high gravity of Krypton. The solar angle was added for the silver age Superman. Post-crisis added the force field bit.

Thanks to all for the links -- I love the Larry Niven essay.

MD

[VadeRetro]

Every atom within his body irradiates a force field at a certain distance allowing him to resist external forces upon his body, such as bullets, missiles, etc.

Kewl! (Sort of.) What, what, o what is he made of? If it's not the usual carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, etc., how does he eat? That is, where does he find a substance made of similar atoms from which to replenish himself as the rest of us do?

If he is made of the same elements as the rest of us, why is it that the atoms in his body radiate that anti-injury force field and those of mine don't?

Also, the atoms of his costume seem to have the same attributes his body does. My clothes wear out without taking anything like the beating that suit of his does. When he flies into a fire or whatever he never emerges naked or even with a singe on that garish outfit.

[Fledermaus]

It goes back and forth.

In the more current Superman cartoons on TV they went back to his limits - gets tired, moving large objects strains him, etc. The ones with Tim Daly were like that.

They always update and change them like with the Spider-Man movie. It went from a "radioactive" spider to a "genetically altered" spider that bit him.

And in the comic books, Peter Parker made his own webs with a formula he came up with and a web-shooter he built. It wasn't natural like in the movie. But the movie wouldn't have worked as well if they didn't make the webbing a part of his change.

Even in the very old Superman serials, he couldn't fly...only "leap" in a single bound.