All those powers and no privacy at all
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What a nightmarish life the Silver Age Superman led. Take a day in the early Silver Age, say an issue of ACTION COMICS from 1962 or so. Returning from smashing a meteor about to hit the Earth or something, Superman flies low over Metropolis and lands on a roof to think things over for a second. At this moment, he KNOWS he is being watched by any or all of these:
- The Phantom Zone criminals. What a great invention. Hundreds of the worst scum of Kryptonian society are floating in the air, invisible and intangible, drifting through any walls or barriers to observe the Man of Steel. He can't tell they're there, but he knows they are. Talk about creepy. It's like living in a haunted house filled with an army of hateful ghosts. And since they hate the son of Jor-El (who invented the Phantom Zone ray), he knows deep down they are making caustic remarks at everything he does ("Oh, letting that jerk push you around as Clark Kent so no one suspects your identity? Yank his head off, Kal-El, you know you want to!")
- The Superman Emergency Squad. These guys again. In the bottle city of Kandor in the Fortress of Solitude, maybe twenty Kandorians in teeny little Superman costumes are standing by to rush out and help their idol like a swarm of superp-powered mosquitos. But to do this, they watch Superman constantly on their advanced Krpto-tech monitor screens. All the time. You never know when an emergency will turn up. One wonders if they started to get jaded about this. ("Hey, Luthor has him shrunk down in a birdcage made of Kryptonite! Let's go!" "Nah, wait a minute, let's see if he can figure a way out of it himself!")
By the way, both the Kandorians and the Phantom Zoners were shown carrying on as usual in the Fortress itself, one place you might expect Superman to be secure from observation. Nope, might as well be the Goldfish Bowl of No Solitude.
- The Legion of Super-Heroes. From a thousand years in the future, a bunch of teenagers are watching their "past monitors" to check if their most famous member might be in trouble. I don't think they did this constantly like the Emergency Squad but just checked things out once in a while. Imagine some bored sixteen year olds hanging around with a device that lets them peep on anyone for a millenia.
- Another bored teenager, this time "Linda Lee" at the Midvale Orphanage. Wearing her brown wig with pigtails, Supergirl was often shown watching her famous cousin's exploits with her telescopic vision. (The other kids must have thought she was a hopeless daydreamer, always staring off into space.) I'd like to think Supergirl at least was polite enough to stop watching when Superman was taking Lois home after a date but you never know.
- And don't forget SuperBOY. Yes. Fifteen years earlier, when he was a teenager, Kal-El invented a Future Scope gizmo that let him watch himself as an adult. That's one of the bizarre pastimes I can imagine. Not only does he now know he will survive to grow up (so none of his current adventures can really be that life-threatening), he knows where he will live and who his friends will be. ("Oh, there's that idiot Jimmy Olsen again, getting in trouble. I don't know why I'm going to want him as my pal in the first place...") Superboy also saw Batman, Green Arrow etc in action a decade or so at least before those heroes even started their costumed identities. This would be so weird. Imagine him running into Barry Allen after catching some crooks and saying, "Working late tonight, huh Barry? Looks like some storm brewing out there. I sure hope lightning doesn't come through the window and splash you with chemicals, ha ha!" "Are you feeling okay, Superman? What are you talking about?!")
And this is just his friends. Add all the villains who could snoop on him day and night, it's a wonder Superman didn't just snap and move to another galaxy to start over.
Damn. And celebrities like rock stars feel THEY have no privacy, they have no idea. So, Superman is standing in Lois' apartment and she starts trying to smooch and cuddle a little. ("What's the matter, don't you find me attractive?" "Umm, well, sure, Lois.. but we are being watched right now by dozens of people who see and hear everything I do." "WHAT?!")
What a nightmarish life the Silver Age Superman led. Take a day in the early Silver Age, say an issue of ACTION COMICS from 1962 or so. Returning from smashing a meteor about to hit the Earth or something, Superman flies low over Metropolis and lands on a roof to think things over for a second. At this moment, he KNOWS he is being watched by any or all of these:
- The Phantom Zone criminals. What a great invention. Hundreds of the worst scum of Kryptonian society are floating in the air, invisible and intangible, drifting through any walls or barriers to observe the Man of Steel. He can't tell they're there, but he knows they are. Talk about creepy. It's like living in a haunted house filled with an army of hateful ghosts. And since they hate the son of Jor-El (who invented the Phantom Zone ray), he knows deep down they are making caustic remarks at everything he does ("Oh, letting that jerk push you around as Clark Kent so no one suspects your identity? Yank his head off, Kal-El, you know you want to!")
- The Superman Emergency Squad. These guys again. In the bottle city of Kandor in the Fortress of Solitude, maybe twenty Kandorians in teeny little Superman costumes are standing by to rush out and help their idol like a swarm of superp-powered mosquitos. But to do this, they watch Superman constantly on their advanced Krpto-tech monitor screens. All the time. You never know when an emergency will turn up. One wonders if they started to get jaded about this. ("Hey, Luthor has him shrunk down in a birdcage made of Kryptonite! Let's go!" "Nah, wait a minute, let's see if he can figure a way out of it himself!")
By the way, both the Kandorians and the Phantom Zoners were shown carrying on as usual in the Fortress itself, one place you might expect Superman to be secure from observation. Nope, might as well be the Goldfish Bowl of No Solitude.
- The Legion of Super-Heroes. From a thousand years in the future, a bunch of teenagers are watching their "past monitors" to check if their most famous member might be in trouble. I don't think they did this constantly like the Emergency Squad but just checked things out once in a while. Imagine some bored sixteen year olds hanging around with a device that lets them peep on anyone for a millenia.
- Another bored teenager, this time "Linda Lee" at the Midvale Orphanage. Wearing her brown wig with pigtails, Supergirl was often shown watching her famous cousin's exploits with her telescopic vision. (The other kids must have thought she was a hopeless daydreamer, always staring off into space.) I'd like to think Supergirl at least was polite enough to stop watching when Superman was taking Lois home after a date but you never know.
- And don't forget SuperBOY. Yes. Fifteen years earlier, when he was a teenager, Kal-El invented a Future Scope gizmo that let him watch himself as an adult. That's one of the bizarre pastimes I can imagine. Not only does he now know he will survive to grow up (so none of his current adventures can really be that life-threatening), he knows where he will live and who his friends will be. ("Oh, there's that idiot Jimmy Olsen again, getting in trouble. I don't know why I'm going to want him as my pal in the first place...") Superboy also saw Batman, Green Arrow etc in action a decade or so at least before those heroes even started their costumed identities. This would be so weird. Imagine him running into Barry Allen after catching some crooks and saying, "Working late tonight, huh Barry? Looks like some storm brewing out there. I sure hope lightning doesn't come through the window and splash you with chemicals, ha ha!" "Are you feeling okay, Superman? What are you talking about?!")
And this is just his friends. Add all the villains who could snoop on him day and night, it's a wonder Superman didn't just snap and move to another galaxy to start over.
Damn. And celebrities like rock stars feel THEY have no privacy, they have no idea. So, Superman is standing in Lois' apartment and she starts trying to smooch and cuddle a little. ("What's the matter, don't you find me attractive?" "Umm, well, sure, Lois.. but we are being watched right now by dozens of people who see and hear everything I do." "WHAT?!")
statistics: Posted by doctorhermes428 — 6:16 PM - 1 day ago — Replies 10 — Views 332