Question...
In this New-52 era, is Superman's costume (or any Kryptionian gear) super anything?
Once upon a time, it was super stretchy, super compressible, super watertight (ew, do Kryptonians sweat?) and so on, whatever the story called for.
I know that got removed during the Byrne reboot, and replaced by a skin-tight force field. (I'm also sure that went away after a few years.)
But what's the current status?
I was thinking about anything Kryptonian today, trying to figure out if it made sense that anything was "super" other than the biology. I mean, Kryptonian stuff is not sturdier than our stuff in its own environment, so that seems to limit the ability to be super to anything that still has an active biological component. Cloth wouldn't, but presumably the equivalent of a Kryptionian sheep might. We see that Kal-El's hair is "super strong" so presumably something that grew up under a yellow sun might be nigh invulnerable.
That is, a wool sweater from Krypton is just a wool sweater, but raise the sheep on earth, find a way to shear them, and boom, you have invulnerable fabric.
Mind, this leads to Superman leaving invulnerable beard stubble all over the planet. Or maybe he burns it off with heat vision, in which case he leaves the gassy byproducts of his burning Kryptonian hair all over. (A good spectrograph will find that source for you. Reason 1287 why Superman has no secret identity any more...
Presumably Power Girl and Supergirl are naturally hairless; as I recall, we've only seen facial hair on Kal, and I can't imagine the two Karas meeting up on a regular basis to deal with unwanted body hair. Though I'm sure there's a porn story somewhere in a depilatory visit. ("I've been thinking of getting a Brazilian," Kara said provocatively to her alternate-universe equivalent.)
Maybe there's a sexual dimorphism there, a small one (besides the invulnerability and s forth). Kryptonian men and women are different. (At a certain age, Kryptonians swap sexes. Kal doesn't know this: it will be a big surprise when the imago cells start to proliferate.) Or worse, that hair on their heads just looks like human hair. It's actually something else....
No, let's not try to apply real biology to the -El (or -L) families. (Though I'm curious about Clark's colour vision, having developed under a red sun.) We know from countless imaginary stories that Kryptonians and humans are interfertile.
Posted on DreamWidth at http://doc-lemming.dreamwidth.org/191849.html. Try this link to reply over there.
Once upon a time, it was super stretchy, super compressible, super watertight (ew, do Kryptonians sweat?) and so on, whatever the story called for.
I know that got removed during the Byrne reboot, and replaced by a skin-tight force field. (I'm also sure that went away after a few years.)
But what's the current status?
I was thinking about anything Kryptonian today, trying to figure out if it made sense that anything was "super" other than the biology. I mean, Kryptonian stuff is not sturdier than our stuff in its own environment, so that seems to limit the ability to be super to anything that still has an active biological component. Cloth wouldn't, but presumably the equivalent of a Kryptionian sheep might. We see that Kal-El's hair is "super strong" so presumably something that grew up under a yellow sun might be nigh invulnerable.
That is, a wool sweater from Krypton is just a wool sweater, but raise the sheep on earth, find a way to shear them, and boom, you have invulnerable fabric.
Mind, this leads to Superman leaving invulnerable beard stubble all over the planet. Or maybe he burns it off with heat vision, in which case he leaves the gassy byproducts of his burning Kryptonian hair all over. (A good spectrograph will find that source for you. Reason 1287 why Superman has no secret identity any more...
Presumably Power Girl and Supergirl are naturally hairless; as I recall, we've only seen facial hair on Kal, and I can't imagine the two Karas meeting up on a regular basis to deal with unwanted body hair. Though I'm sure there's a porn story somewhere in a depilatory visit. ("I've been thinking of getting a Brazilian," Kara said provocatively to her alternate-universe equivalent.)
Maybe there's a sexual dimorphism there, a small one (besides the invulnerability and s forth). Kryptonian men and women are different. (At a certain age, Kryptonians swap sexes. Kal doesn't know this: it will be a big surprise when the imago cells start to proliferate.) Or worse, that hair on their heads just looks like human hair. It's actually something else....
No, let's not try to apply real biology to the -El (or -L) families. (Though I'm curious about Clark's colour vision, having developed under a red sun.) We know from countless imaginary stories that Kryptonians and humans are interfertile.
Posted on DreamWidth at http://doc-lemming.dreamwidth.org/191849.html. Try this link to reply over there.