Monday, September 23, 2013

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a fusion bomb

Yeah, this is another post about super heroes.

So, Superman... he gets his powers from the yellow sun. His powers don't go away at night because he stores solar power. Just hanging out on Earth he can charge up enough to ... well, to be Superman. He can fly between star systems so long has he has a small tank of oxygen just on what he gets from hanging out on the third planet of a yellow sun. He defies gravity. He fires beams of energy from his eyes. He tosses around tanks. When he really needs a boost he flies into the heart of the sun. There was one storyline where that poisoned him, but typically it's either a place to get super charged or a place for him to hide from the noise of Earth. The point is that he stores a lot of solar power.

How does he store this power? How does he control it? What I'm worried about is that when Superman finally does die his containment system is going to break down. Last time he died he was really just in a really deep coma. When he really dies he may lose control completely. What happens then? I'm thinking the energy all gets released.

Worse case scenario: He releases all the energy in a flash that wipes out a city and possibly sets the atmosphere on fire.

Better case scenario: The energy gets released as his body breaks down. That still has him burning with an absurd intensity. If his cell structure is dense enough he may be a clean source of heat for some power plant for years. Or maybe he becomes a tourist attraction. A pyre that makes a city block uninhabitable. Come look at Superman's body and toast a marshmallow from two blocks away.

I'm beginning to think Lex Luthor is right. The alien is a menace.

No comments: