Polite Dissent

8 Responses to “ Thoughts on Superman #654 ”

1. David Oakes
   August 28th, 2006 at 12:41 am
   

   But. but… He’s *Superman*!

   (I can’t even bring myself to say “He’s the goddamn Superman!”, that’s just how gosh darn swell he is…)

   Seriously. He hears a shot over a cell phone, flies halfway around the planet, and stops the bullet. He can hear freakin’ cells dividing inside Manheim’s aging ventricle, and assess how long until failure.

   All those sparrows…

2. Seth Finkelstein
   August 28th, 2006 at 5:25 am
   

   I’d argue it’s more reasonable than you grant. Think of a person’s voice. It changes with age. It can be affected by injury. It will sound different if a person is stressed, versus relaxed. Some medications will indirectly affect the inflections by affecting emotional state. The volume of someone’s voice can vary, from a shout to a whisper. Yet it wouldn’t be unreasonable to have Superman recognize someone by their voice. Think of “rate” as a property akin “volume” - people’s voices are recognizable even over a wide rate of volume, though there’s a tail-off at the ends of a scale (someone screaming is less distinguishable than normal volume).

   Note also the feat isn’t like he heard it once when the subject was a small child, and now recognizes an old man with multiple heart attacks. He seems to be comparing some general features “It’s a [voice]. Deep, slow, mild [accent]. It’s “Ugly”, Mannheim’s [voice]”.

   So if he’s listening for a particular sound-pattern which hasn’t changed too much *on the average* from when he last heard it, it’s a logical extension of super-hearing, being able to hone in on other “body-voices”.

3. Eric TF Bat
   August 28th, 2006 at 7:00 am
   

   Here’s how I think it works: Kryptonians have psychic powers. They were bred for it during all that genetic engineering they did, post-Clone-Wars (is that still in continuity?). The heat vision, as Salaak pointed out in an Action Comics shortly after the Byrneboot, is “telekinetic agitation of molecules”, ie pyrokinesis. The flight and strength are TK as well. The invulnerability is a telekinetic forcefield, which was pretty much Byrne’s explanation for his suit never ripping. The vision powers and the hearing are just clairvoyance, constrained by the subconscious to mimic ordinary-but-enhanced vision and hearing. So when he says he’s hearing a particular heartbeat he believes he is, but really he’s picking up on something else, something requiring psychic ability, like a sort of a human RFID tag that everyone (presumably) has. Supes is in denial about his abilities, mainly because they’re gengineered to work just so. If ever he or another Kryptonian managed to work through the mental blocks, there’d be very little they couldn’t do. Solar powered Dark-Phoenix-class genetic mutant? Check!

   Mind you, I quit reading Superman right about the time of that stuff about Zod and/or the priest with cancer. I realised that whoever was writing it had all the literary talent of earwax, and I decided to spend my money on something better, like cigarettes or crack cocaine or somesuch — something I wouldn’t regret.

4. Steven
   August 28th, 2006 at 8:05 am
   

   So even if there were such a thing as an individual’s unique heartbeat, the fact that it can change from moment to moment would render this information useless.

   Not even getting into the Superman aspect, the human voice also changes from moment to moment depending on conditions, and we are able to recognize individual voices. You live with someone long enough you even recognize the sound of their breathing.

   So it seems possible that someone who can hear heartbeats could learn to recognize them.

5. Loren
   August 28th, 2006 at 11:28 am
   

   It’s surprising that although Superman could detect other supposedly distinctive features of Mannheim’s heartbeat, he didn’t notice that it was an awful lot bigger and louder than it should have been.

6. Bryan Long
   August 28th, 2006 at 3:55 pm
   

   The real problem here is not the feasibility of this “power,” but the fact that the writers have taken the next steps in the rapidly accelerating process of writing themselves into a corner. As Superman approaches omniscience and omnipotence (and let’s face it, this is getting close to that point — the bullet scene described by another poster violates several laws of physics), it becomes exponentially more difficult to create credible challenges to his ever-escalating abilities. Yes, Grant Morrison makes it work, but who else will be able to pull it off when he moves on? Moreover, Superman’s omnipotence renders most other characters in the DC Universe moot. What function does the Justice League serve when omnipotent Superman is available? Applause? There were sound dramatic reasons for the reboot, and I’m sorry to see those abandoned. I started regularly reading Superman with the reboot, and dropped the books as the reboot began to be unraveled.

7. Really likes Batman Better
   August 31st, 2006 at 2:54 pm
   

   AT LONG LAST - I have been WAITING to write this….

   All this Superduperman god like powers is why this humble aging comics geek…

   “Really likes Batman Better” !!!!!!

8. Sean Duggan
   July 13th, 2007 at 7:26 am
   

   Bryan,

   Of course, before they decided to add his fear of fire, Martian Manhunter actually overshadowed Superman in many ways. He was just as strong, just as fast, could fly, and also got nifty telepathic and insubstantiality powers.

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