Superman

Superman has been regarded as one of the first old fashioned Superheroes.  A brain child of both Canadian Joe Shuster and American Jerry Siegel, this comic lives up to it's reputation of being one of the oldest franchises in the world back before there was even a DC comics.  It has had a currently ongoing comic series, Serials, A TV series starring the late George Reeves, various cartoons both solo and Justice League.  Most Notably a series of films, the most famous starring the late Christopher Reeve.  I mentioned once before that he was the real Superman and I still stick to it.  When I first watched Superman it was the 3rd movie one of the things that stuck in my memory was the junkyard fight between him and Clark Kent.  All I could say about that is. "Why are you hitting yourself? Stop hitting yourself."

The story goes like so.  Krypton a planet billions of years ahead of earth is about to explode.  Resident Scientist Jor-El tries to warn the government, only to be rebuffed.  How it's destruction was set off is unknown but debatable.  Desperate to save one piece of his planet, Jor-El and Lara Zor-El send their only son, Kal-El out into space in hopes he can reach Earth.  Using a ship of his own design, Jor-El sends Kal-El out in the nick of time as the planet along with it's red sun explode into chunks of radioactive pieces.  Kal-El lands on earth near the home of John and Martha Kent, who adopt him and rename him Clark Kent.  When he becomes a teenager, he finds that he has extraordinary powers, such as super strength, speed and the ability to jump long distances.  Upon learning his alien heritage, Clark leaves his home town and goes to Metropolis.  By day he is a mild mannered reporter and a clumsy coward foolishly trying to woo Lois Lane. The only useful feature he has being that he is the fastest typist in the world.  However when danger is around, he becomes.....Superman.  Champion of truth, justice and the American way fighting crime and rescuing those who need rescuing.  Along the way he becomes fast enemies of Alexander Luthor,  a super genius who is focusing most of his power on harming the man of steel.

Now for the fun part.  Could It Exist In Real Life?

Let's start with the abilities.  I am only gonna go with the original Action Comics No. 1 since History Channel's Science of Superman explained the rest. 

The first ability is his ability to superspeed.  Now the fastest a human being can run at peak physical condition is 35 - 40 miles an hour that's about as fast as a car on a regular drive.  However Superman is faster than a speeding Bullet.  The speed of a bullet is 1000 miles per hour.  An average human is only 10 mph from being 20% of Superman's Speed.  However the physical part of the super speed does not debunk it's existence.  Smallville came up with a different concept behind the Man of Steel's super speed by being one of the first mediums to show superspeed in Clark Kent's point of view.  As he begins to run fast, it looks like the rest of the world is standing still. In our POV it looks like he either disappeared or depending on where he went and came back from, he never left. According to Wingmakers, the effect is commonly known as Chronokinesis a psychic ability in which the user could slow down or speed up time with their mind.  In Kent's case, he slowed down time just enough so he could be everywhere in a microsecond. As for the existence of said abilities ask your self this.  Every time you've gone to sleep, it seems like only seconds before the next morning you wait yet, you really slept 8 hours. How is that possible?

The next ability is his super strength.   According to New Scientist: Andy Boulton a weightlifter from Britain set the record by lifting up  457.5 kg of weights from the floor to his thigh. That is about over 1000 pounds or half a ton.   The car Superman lifts is at least 2200 pounds, that's considered minimum since he could level buildings with his fists.  However that also means in peak physical condition us humans could be able to lift half a car.  I advise not to try it, for you could be at risk of either crushing yourself or breaking every body part of your body trying.  That being said, our muscles are actually capable of lifting more than what our minds inhibit from us. How that's possible I shall explain in my next article. 

Last but not least is leaping tall buildings in a single bound.  This is possible only as soon as you master super strength since that's what it is. Only instead of lifting things you are propelling yourself. But as stated before don't try any dangerous stunts with this information.

Next is the Kryptonite.  Radioactive pieces of Superman's home planet of Krypton that are deadly to him. This actually exists.  On earth many iradiated pieces of our own planet could kill us from over exposure.  Most common is uranium which is what's mostly used in Nuclear power plants.  Without any safety precautions, this could give us a disease known as lymphoma a rare cancer that is a slow and painful way to die. Luckily for Supes, all he has to do is go into the sun and recharge, however for us there is no quick cure.

Last but not least is Kryptonians themselves.  They can and do exist in two forms.  The first is according to abc news, scientists have theorized many Earth like planets all over the universe.  Some of which are near Red Dwarf stars.  Red sun + earth-like planet. = Real Life Krypton. Second we are the Kryptonians.  As stated in many of Superman's adaptations, we are billions of years behind them meaning eventually we shall reach their state technologically and politically.  However tragically like Krypton we will end up too oblivious to the end of our planet until it is too late.  So I advise everyone reading this article to devise and maintain an evacuation procedure, so that billions of years from now, we'd be ready to do what Krypton failed to do, save for a scientist and his wife who only wanted to save their only son.  As Jor-El said "They can be a great people Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way."  Be that light ladies and gentlemen.

As usual debate, argue and let me know what I miss. Stay Tuned For More.