Superhero Physics

Adam Weiner? More like Adam Whiner!

Oh lets make a comic about an accountant balancing people's checkbooks in his free time because that's possible and based on logic, that's not exciting!

Storm does not generate lightning from her body like an electric eel, she manipulates weather..

Even in fiction, if you write n00bish articles, then uber-nerds will pwn ur ass.

Uses Nuclear batteries and Solar Power....

Geez, wiki a little will ya

uhhhhh....please CLARIFY who you're talking about, nestersan. who the hell uses "nuclear batteries and solar power?"

Storm manipulates the weather rather than generating lightning at will. Her power allows her to "fly" via a localized storm that propels her, and allows her to cause storm clouds to generate lightning.

According to Ultimate Fantastic Four, the Human Torch (ironically, Johnny Storm) does actually eat a high amount of food for caloric intake. He is also no longer human (as I suspect none of the FF are) and emits plasma jets. Apparently, Johnny's main propulsion organ is his skin, as he had to shed it at one point and appeared to be seriously ill and dying.

If, according to the article on Superman, he expels high velocity jets of air through the pores of his skin, the air jets would have to have a much higher velocity when he was carrying something heavy. In the new Superman movie, when the Daily Planet globe falls and Superman catches it just above the ground, the downdraft would have obvious effects on Perry White, who was standing right below Superman. It would probably look like he was standing under a helicopter...

The Author of this article also has not read the comic books, or even done any in-depth research into the characters he is poking at.

1. Ironman does not use rockets. The "Jets" on his boots are the same as his palm mounted weaponry, which are repulsor pads. These pads produce a repulsive force of some kind, presumably a gravimetric force, but it could also be some kind of electromagnetic wave. His power supply is in his suit, and (in the comics at least) this power supply could be further augmented using such things as high-tension electrical lines. Because of this, it could also be assumed that Ironman's suit could absorb static electricity built up during flight.

2. Storm does not produce lightning bolts as Lee_Jones already pointed out. Looking at some of the older (and better) comicbook story lines, Storm is able to control the weather through some kind of specific telekenesis. This would explain why the weather would change suddenly in accordance with her emotional states.

3. Magneto is also like Storm, in that he has a property specific telekinetic ability (ex. able to effect magnetic objects). Both of these "mutants'" abilities require concentration in proportion to the feat, as a loss of concentration is usually followed by something big going wrong.

4. The Hulk and a number of other characters in the Marvel universe gain special abilities when exposed high levels of radiation due to the fact that they have interesting genetic structures, and the massive amounts of energy simply trigger growth of these abilities. There have been several characters where the deliberate exposure to high yield radiation has caused normal human reactions (ex. Saskquatch, Bucky, etc.) Whether this is at all possible is the question, but it clearly is not.

Comic book superheroes belong to a subset of the fantasy/ science fiction genre. The powers and abilities of these amazing beings are fun to speculate about, but are never terribly logical. Let's face it, if their abilities made sense, we'd all be sporting diy superpowers.
Ironman's "wearable jet" isn't realistic (I want his power source, whatever it is) but it sure does make for some cool graphics and story lines. Nobody buys a comic book, after all, to watch someone in an erector-set exoskeleton manipulate a tennis ball. They want escapist action fare.
And Superman's powers have a constantly evolving explanation. It used to be claimed that the gravity differential between Krypton and Earth provided his abilities. Then they switched to the difference between a red and yellow sun. Now it's alien physiology, I believe. At any rate, does it really matter? All good fantasy stories require suspension of disbelief. Go watch the movie, enjoy, then go back to the real world and actual physics. That's what I plan to do.
C.

Great article, keep up the good work.
العاب-العاب بنات-العاب فلاش-العاب اطفال-صور رومانسية-صور حب
Thanks

This article is great and all, and it gives an insight to what science thinks about the comic world, but all of your examples and evidence comes from the films. Hollywood has notoriously taken the the superhero out of context and has manipulated the elements to make a better story. For example, in Spiderman the movie tells us that peter parker's ability to sling webs derives from a natural-bio manufactured filiment. But in the comics the web filiment was created by him, in a lab, and was projected by a wrist based weapon. So Hollywood isn't really a good source to base your arguments on.

Plus there are some flaws that most people make when the argue sceince over comics. First of all, they are all works of fiction, and the things that are depicted will never happen to the extent that they do in the comics. Second of all, Superman isn't human, so you can't apply human sciences to him, he is scientifically untouchable. In the comics Batman never dove straight off a building and allowed himself to hit the end without using a flexible rope. In fact most of his movement was centered around swinging from place to place. Ironmans power derives from a single powers source, and all of his abilities come from the the same source. The boots don't require fuel, because his propolosion system uses high amounts of energy to propel him through the air.

Like I said before the comics are fiction and should stay there. Read the comics, they're pretty cool

If superheroes were realistic, they wouldn't be called SUPERheroes now, would they? The whole point of having icons like this is so we have someone to fantasize about, and not someone to share a physics lesson with. This article is just silly. Let the public have their enjoyable (if not realistic) fantasies.