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Peter Martin
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 March 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 15797
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| Posted: 23 June 2016 at 5:51am | IP Logged | 1
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15 mph is too slow for Spider-Man.
Usain Bolt can sprint at 23 mph!
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Eric Sofer
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 31 January 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 4789
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| Posted: 23 June 2016 at 6:41am | IP Logged | 2
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Time dilation isn't hard. Normal people can do it. I'm an actor in community theatre, and I've had to do a song or two as fast as possible ("All for the Best" - Godspell, and "The Elements" - Tomfoolery) and I was still able to track the notes and words I was singing.
"Super speed" is a slippery phrase, as "super strength" is, or "invulnerability." It's a matter of degree. Luke Cage is "invulnerable", as was the original Superman - but compared to, say, Iron Man or Earth-1 pre-Crisis Superman, it's not even close.
Same with super speed. I think Kurt Busiek really got it right in Avengers/JLA, comparing the Flash to Quicksilver. Both faster than anyone can conceive... but Quicksilver wasn't in the Flash's class.
I suppose we just have to say "Because", unless we really need to dig into it. How do speedsters go so fast without having to replace those calories? How do they not cause titanic vacuum-induced tornadoes in their wake? How can they touch anything when moving at an accelerated rate without either destroying what they touch or breaking their hands off? How do they breathe? How do they exceed seven miles per second (escape velocity) without shooting off the Earth? How do flying insects not leave holes through their bodies? How do they not burn to a crisp from air friction?
Julie Schwartz established an aura around Flash and Kid Flash that addressed most of those issues, but for others - Johnny Quick (both of 'em), Quicksilver, the Whizzer (both of 'em), Wonder Woman - none of them really have any excuse.
I guess, once again, we just gotta go with "Because it's a comic book and it works."
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Wallace Sellars
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 May 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 17670
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| Posted: 23 June 2016 at 7:09am | IP Logged | 3
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Why do a superhero's abilities have to be quantified in such a specific manner?
I'm perfectly comfortable with… Quicksilver runs faster than everyone else.
Spider-Man is strong, but not nearly as strong as Ben or the Sub-Mariner. The
Hulk is the strongest one there is. Captain America is able to perform amazing
acrobatic feats; the Beast can perform even more incredible maneuvers.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132282
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| Posted: 23 June 2016 at 7:10am | IP Logged | 4
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Time dilation isn't hard. Normal people can do it. I'm an actor in community theatre, and I've had to do a song or two as fast as possible ("All for the Best" - Godspell, and "The Elements" - Tomfoolery) and I was still able to track the notes and words I was singing.•• That's not time dilation.
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Michael Penn
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 April 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 12438
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| Posted: 23 June 2016 at 7:17am | IP Logged | 5
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QUOTE:
| Why do a superhero's abilities have to be quantified in such a specific manner? I'm perfectly comfortable with… Quicksilver runs faster than everyone else. |
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I agree, Wallace. What's essential is having a general yet firm idea of what any super-power is and being consistent issue after issue, year after year.
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Robert Shepherd
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 30 March 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 1268
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| Posted: 23 June 2016 at 1:01pm | IP Logged | 6
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Quantifiable power sets make for interesting story ideas. Flash, Quicksilver, and say a speedster who runs 200mph might all use different method to escape the same death trap.
While I think the whole study of how make-believe science really works is super interesting, in the end, it is just a comic book. You just have to let it go enough to enjoy the story.
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Robbie Parry
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 June 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 12186
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| Posted: 23 June 2016 at 1:12pm | IP Logged | 7
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I'm perfectly comfortable with… Quicksilver runs faster than everyone else.
Spider-Man is strong, but not nearly as strong as Ben or the Sub-Mariner. The Hulk is the strongest one there is. Captain America is able to perform amazing acrobatic feats; the Beast can perform even more incredible maneuvers.
***
Works for me.
Quantifying things, especially in the pedantic internet age, will only lead to distractions and anal questioning of such stuff. If we quantify things, how long before a comics message board gets bombarded by 20 posts asking how Flash can run x mph when he previously took x number of hours to reach somewhere? Or something like that.
Edited by Robbie Parry on 23 June 2016 at 1:12pm
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Rick Whiting
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 April 2004
Posts: 2188
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| Posted: 24 June 2016 at 12:10am | IP Logged | 8
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Here is another episode of Cyborg 009 in which 009 is stuck in acceleration mode. Does anyone know if the science in this episode is accurate or makes sense? I ask, because after seeing this episode many years ago I always wondered about the science in this episode, since this episode played more like an episode of the Outer Limits. The episode is divided into 3 parts.
Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VPg3f7oTSM
Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnKhxLhxjWU
Part 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yynxaKFXChU
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Brian Hague
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 November 2006
Posts: 8515
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| Posted: 24 June 2016 at 7:57pm | IP Logged | 9
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But if you don't quantify everything, how can you play Magic-style card games or Heroclix with the characters? And isn't that really the point of the whole exercise?
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Stephen Robinson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 5835
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| Posted: 24 June 2016 at 10:46pm | IP Logged | 10
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Some of my pet peeves regarding the depiction of super speed:
Speedster showers at super speed.
Or the speedster quickly does things that require human interaction:
Clark getting Chinese food for Lois in China and returning with it within
a few minutes. Or Clark rushing to Vermont for maple syrup for Lana's
pancakes before she can finish a sentence.
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Eric Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 October 2013
Location: United States
Posts: 2292
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| Posted: 25 June 2016 at 1:06am | IP Logged | 11
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I'm actually fine with Superman flying at light speed in the void of space, but that should not translate into being able to run around the Earth ten times in a second--there are issues with all the damage the wind draft would create, sonic booms, even finding the right road and staying on course. And just seeing things clearly and your brain processing everything you see--even if your brain is capable of processing information that fast and sending it back to your limbs fast enough to avoid running over that child in China or kicking that dog in the Ukraine (aren't you moving faster at that point than the electrical impulses coming from your brain?), you would probably consciously or subconsciously turn that ability permanently off, otherwise the rest of the time everybody would seem to be talking or moving so slowly that you would be driven crazy by boredom or aggravated to a killing mood. (Ever sit at a red light that turns green and you're instantly ready to go but the person in front of you is half as quick to react? Multiply that by every moment of the day and every person on the planet.)
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132282
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| Posted: 25 June 2016 at 6:04am | IP Logged | 12
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Some of my pet peeves regarding the depiction of super speed:Speedster showers at super speed. Or the speedster quickly does things that require human interaction: Clark getting Chinese food for Lois in China and returning with it within a few minutes. Or Clark rushing to Vermont for maple syrup for Lana's pancakes before she can finish a sentence. •• Showering at super speed was on that bugged me as a kid. As I have mentioned before, there was an episode of THE WILD WILD WEST that did a nice job with super speed. In "The Night of the Burning Diamond" the bad guy has distilled a potion from doing just what the title says, and when he ingests that potion everything else slows down to the point that nothing seems to be moving. He demonstrates this to an accelerated Jim West by releasing a test tube in mid air and noting that they will be back from what they are doing before it hits the ground. There are plenty of flaws in the episode, of course. Lots of curtains pushed aside that fall back into place when released. And, of course, it overlooks the most basic problem with super speed -- that the speedster would be like a fly in amber, with the air itself seeming almost solid, since its atoms could not move out of the way fast enough. This is one of the reasons Quicksilver, at least at first, made much more sense than the Flash. Pietro was fast, but he wasn't supersonic, or speed of light fast.
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