TV Review: Science of Superman -A National Geographic Special

By Ronald Wilkinson Jun 23, 2006, 10:45 GMT

With the summer hit “Superman Returns” flying in like Jor-el’s spaceship for a smash landing in theatres near you, director Bryan Singer teams up with that wild and crazy National Geo team to take a look and what really makes the big guy tick. 

From super-breath to indestructible eyeballs and from x-ray vision to the dreaded Kryptonite, the intrepid NG team takes you where no mortal man has gone before: inside the Man of Steel.

Most people know the story of Supe’s dad being dissed by the non-believers on the planet Krypton when the nerdy scientist predicted the big-boom was coming to the stainless steel paradise.

In fact this was just one of the marvelous visions of the original Superman writing team. Foretelling the end of the super-planet Krypton when everybody thought the place was hunky dory was a pretty good prognostication of our own world’s current condition.

After all, Love Canal hardly had any dioxin in it at all, Three Mile Island was just a glimmer in some engineer’s eye and global warming was still something that was only happening to Campbell soup.

We are much closer to self-destruction now than we were then and so the present release of both the movie and the science are just that much more timely.

Probably the coolest part of the whole super-myth is Kryptonite.

Everybody knows it makes the flying fortress as limp as yesterday’s pizza but do they know it comes in colors? Yellow, red and the deadly green? Now why is that?

And how does that tie in to sapping the super strength out of the big guy if he so much as sets eyes on the stuff?  The new Superman Brandon Ruoth as well as “Smallville” creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar sound off on this weighty issue as well as the one about the x-ray vision.

The original concept of x-ray vision was simple: x-rays go through things and show stuff inside.  But in the lab that uses photographic plates and that is not what superman does at all. He sees through layers as he pleases and his x-rays bounce back more like an ultrasound than an x-ray.

So why didn’t they call it ultra-sound vision?  And what does this have to do with Lois Lane’s underwear?  National Geo has it covered.  Or uncovered.  Whatever.

Then there’s the super breath, blowing both hot and cold.
When air is compressed and then released it gets cold. Is that how super breath can freeze that gasoline tank before the gas can reach Jimmy Olson who is smoking in the garage?  If so, how does the hot breath work?  Is it connected to the x-ray vision?

You will have to watch the special to find out, but here is a clue.

There were two things that the “Superman” comic books had before the rocket scientists and the first was laser, er, rather, heat-ray vision. He could give a look like the flame out of a supersized Bic and toast a tree at twenty paces.

But it wasn’t called laser vision at the time, because there was no laser at the time. Those nerds on the super-writing staff were way ahead of the curve

The other rocket science invention was, of course, smashing the atom, a story that showed up in the Sunday papers’ Superman strip at the same time the Manhattan project was toiling away at Los Alamos, much to the dismay of the US counter-spies at the Pentagon.  A few guys with overcoats made a visit to the writing team and atom-smashing was discussed in detail and with hot breath from what we understand.  But that is getting ahead of the story. 

Although anyone can go in ignorant to see the upcoming spectacular “Superman Returns” it pays big-time to know your stuff before checking out King Krypton, not to mention Lex Luther, Lois, Jimmy and all the rest.

 Why be left out when everyone else knows the inside scoop on everything from the color of Jore-el’s Kryptonite to the shade of Lois’ knickers?  Know the Science of Superman.

Check it out June 29 at 9pm ET/PT (USA) on National Geographic.