How Does Superman Fly?

[Super Hero Guy]

Could someone explain how a person can fly without any visible means of lift or propellsion? Is it like a psychic power or something?

[DMike]

Well post-Crisis he did have that small telekinetic field/aura around himself, so yeah, he may have actually flown by levitation depending on how you look at it.

[ZNOP]

Could someone explain how a person can fly without any visible means of lift or propellsion? Is it like a psychic power or something?

From Wikipedia:

In fiction, particularly fantasy, science fiction and comic books, many characters have the ability to fly without a vehicle, often attributed to supernatural or paranormal explanations.

In Greek mythology Daedalus, the legendary Athenian craftsman and inventor, made wings for himself and his son Icarus out of wax and feathers to escape from King Minos of Crete. They flew away, but Icarus flew too near the sun. The wax of his wings melted and he fell into the sea and was drowned. Daedalus landed on the island of Aegean Sea (now known as Ikaria) and buried his son's body.

Dumbo, the Disney-created elephant, employs his comically oversized ears as wings for flight.

*Charles M. Schulz's legendary cartoon dog Snoopy can fly by spinning his ears extremely fast above his head like a helicopter, or as he calls it, a whirlydog. (I, love Snoopy:) )

Western dragons are depicted with wings.

Superman is a superhero in comic books, cartoons, and films; flight is among the various superpowers he is portrayed to obtain from the yellow rays of Earth's sun. Most fictional comic book superheroes are said to fly by willpower or by telekinetically levitating themselves.

Jean Grey of the X-Men, for example, uses telekinesis to levitate above ground.

Storm of the X-Men flies by controlling the weather in her immediate vicinity.

Magneto flies by magnetically polarizing the high electrolyte content in his blood against the Earth's (or the largest in proximity) natural magnetic field.

Apocalypse can grant himself flight by morphing his arms into wings or jets.

Also, some superheroes have wings, rather than willpower. For example, Archangel from the X-Men flies thanks to two feathery wings that come out of his back.

In the 1995 film Slam Dunk Ernest, Jim Varney's trademark character is granted the gift of flight by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Santa Claus has a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer.

In the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books, Arthur Dent accomplishes flight by throwing himself at the ground and missing.

Pegasus was a winged horse in Greek mythology who appears in, among other things, the 1980s film Clash of the Titans.

In Bionicle storyline, a Kanohi mask called Kadin allows the user the ability to fly.

In the popular Dragon Ball metaseries, Son Goku and the other Z Fighters achieve the ability to fly by controlling and manipulating their chi energy.

In the television series Heroes one of the main characters, Nathan Petrelli, has the capability to fly. His brother Peter Petrelli was able to absorb this ability and reproduced it. Also, West has the ability to fly.

Miles "Tails" Prower from Sonic the Hedgehog uses his two tails to propel himself and maintain temporary flight over short distances. Other fictional characters from this universe, like Rouge the Bat and Cream the Rabbit, can also fly.

That should help you.

[Lorendiac]

Well post-Crisis he did have that small telekinetic field/aura around himself, so yeah, he may have actually flown by levitation depending on how you look at it.

That's pretty much how I look at it. After Kon-El/Superboy was introduced in 1993 and was eventually established to have "tactile telekinesis," I've figured that Superman has the same power -- but it only works for him in a much more limited sense. He can use it to make his own body fly through the air -- up, down, forward, back, sideways, whatever -- and he can also use it (as John Byrne hinted during the Post-COIE Reboot, about 21 years ago now) to help "carry the weight" of incredibly heavy objects when he is flying through the air with them . . . and his telekinetic potential probably also contributes to his "aura" to automatically help defend his body against massive physical attack (although I figure his skin really is naturally bulletproof even if you take away the aura and leave his other powers alone) . . . so the way I see it, it's just that Kon-El has much greater conscious control over the "same" power that Superman's subconscious has always used to help Superman fly, lift thousands of tons, and shrug off laser blasts and the like.

In Superman's case, it appears that he can't consciously reach out and manipulate the individual molecules of a piece of metal he happens to be touching with one finger, however, and then make the metal twist itself into a new shape at the drop of a hat. For some reason, the weird stuff that Cadmus did to Kon-El gave his brain more flexibility in that regard.

That's the rationale I've been using for years, anyway. :)

[Alan2099]

Could someone explain how a person can fly without any visible means of lift or propellsion?
The same way they can shoot lasers from their eyes or freeze things by breathing on them really hard.

[Paul Dee]

The same way they can shoot lasers from their eyes or freeze things by breathing on them really hard.

I knew there'd be someone who'd try to be clever. There has to be some sort of internal logic though.

[dreyga2000]

Through sheer will...

or it may be

It may be tied to limited form of tactile telekinesis

[Lorendiac]

I knew there'd be someone who'd try to be clever. There has to be some sort of internal logic though.

Hmmm. Well, doesn't making something hotter just mean that its molecules are getting agitated and moving around faster and faster? (If I messed that up, I'm sorry -- it's been a long time since I took a physics class.) Presumably making it colder would be the opposite -- slowing down those internal molecules more and more . . .

So I think we could argue that Superman's heat vision, and possibly his freezing breath (how often does he use that particular schtick nowadays?) could be superficially different applications of the same power of "tactile telekinesis" to speed up or slow down molecules and direct the flow of the "hot molecules" or "cold molecules" away from his face toward whatever he was looking at or blowing at, with the details working at a subconscious level . . .

[Magneto X]

The same way they can shoot lasers from their eyes or freeze things by breathing on them really hard.

The freezing breath is the hardest to believe. That and lifting buildings without them falling apart. And insane power levels.

[Alan2099]

I knew there'd be someone who'd try to be clever. There has to be some sort of internal logic though.

Why? Trying to explain these things often takes the fun out of them. You limit yourself far too much by setting down rules for how things work.

[botch]

In the 1995 film Slam Dunk Ernest, Jim Varney's trademark character is granted the gift of flight by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.


this stood out for me.

[Phil Hunn]

Little-known fact: Superman originally travelled by means of "super-leaps", not full-on flight.

As to how he actually flies? His cape makes him do it. That's how I rationalise it, anyway...

[Angelo2113]

I thought Kryptons gravity was far heavier than ours so I thought that's how Superman could fly

[Lorendiac]

I thought Kryptons gravity was far heavier than ours so I thought that's how Superman could fly

That can certainly explain how he could jump really, really, really high -- and that was, in fact, what Siegel & Shuster had in mind when they first created him -- but it wouldn't explain how he can fly straight up and then stay put, hovering in mid-air, for ten minutes while he looks around, before he decides to fly off in some other direction entirely.

I mean, if I went up to our moon, I'd only weigh one-sixth of what I weigh here. So I could do really high jumping. But I wouldn't be able to fly around for hours at a time without touching the ground.

[mattx110]

like this:

......./
....0/
..///_
_/ \
..../ ignore the "...."

[Angelo2113]

I wonder if he can almost generate himself like Cannonball does from Marvel, but Kryptonian powers may be able to control it

[BYC]

I always thought he could do it naturally. It's just a function of his body. Kyptonians has many things they can do, and Superman has learned most of them. Since he's one of the last survivors, the writers can easily use that as a plot device for new powers and stuff, like back in the day.

[HalWho]

I've always thought about gravity when they flew. Superman for instance, perhaps he is manipulating gravity around him and it can propel him forwards and allow him to float as well. Because, his strength doesn't do much good when he is flying and not pushing off the ground. However, he still has many feats of strength when flying.

[NotSuper]

I think it's a combination of physical and psi abilities.

[marshal99]

He's always eating onions so his super farts propels him through the air. ;)

[Wally_West]

"It is well established that Superman's flight is a feat of strength. It is an extension of his ability to leap tall buildings on ability he derives from Earth's yellow sun."

-Sheldon

[Spiffy]

"It is well established that Superman's flight is a feat of strength. It is an extension of his ability to leap tall buildings on ability he derives from Earth's yellow sun."

-Sheldon
That sound like the explanation for the Silver Age Superman. I'm pretty sure that's been redone/rethought since then. Golden Age could leap, Silver Age could fly as an extension of leaping.

Ultimately MOST of his powers DO seem to relate these days to the Yellow sun, true. It's the "feat of strength" portion which I think is no longer relevant to any current continuity.

[Wally_West]

That sound like the explanation for the Silver Age Superman. I'm pretty sure that's been redone/rethought since then. Golden Age could leap, Silver Age could fly as an extension of leaping.

Ultimately MOST of his powers DO seem to relate these days to the Yellow sun, true. It's the "feat of strength" portion which I think is no longer relevant to any current continuity.

Oh, you misunderstand. I personally do not agree with that quote.

However, this question did bring me back to episode 2 of the Big Bang Theory, in which they discuss at length superman's ability to fly due to an argument started from him saving lois lane in the first original superman movie. I just thought it'd be fun to bring that up and see how many people here actually watch that show.

[Gilda Dent]

Superman can fly because that's one of his powers, which he gets from being an alien and absorbing yellow sun radiation.

No, it doesn't make any sense in real world science, but so what? This isn't science fiction, it's fantasy with a little bit of a science fiction veneer added on top.

[icctrombone]

I knew there'd be someone who'd try to be clever. There has to be some sort of internal logic though.

No internal logic. Just a couple of guys that made up a character in 1938.
Just enjoy the wonder of it.

[Captain Smith]

Suspend disbelief and you can suspend yourself in the air.

How does the yellow sun thingee work? The surface area of the body isn't big enough for him to store up enough energy to lift a ship unless he sunbathed on the beach for 75,000 years or so.

[Agilulfe]

He is the Goddamn SupermanTM:evilsmile

[saintsaucey]

"It is well established that Superman's flight is a feat of strength. It is an extension of his ability to leap tall buildings on ability he derives from Earth's yellow sun."

-Sheldon


i love this show this moment made the show worthy of my further attention.

btw tiger woods one granted me the power of super speed

[Alex Dragon]

There was a book that came out a few years ago that had scientific explanations for many of the superpowers of characters in comics. I remember thumbing through it and they covered flight how in pretains to characters like Superman (I think). I believe the book was called THE SCIENCE OF SUPERHEROES or something of the sort.

[SpaceBooger]

The freezing breath is the hardest to believe. That and lifting buildings without them falling apart. And insane power levels.

I always thought the same thing. Our breath is always warm since its inside our body, thats why we can see it in the winter.
If Superman is a giant solar battery one may think that his breath would be more "dragon"ish and fiery hot.

[RowdyRodimus]

He thinks happy thoughts.

[icctrombone]

He thinks happy thoughts.

We all should.

[Ghost]

Simple: he just falls and misses the ground! ;)

[jeromefus]

I think he generates his own inertia by warping space. Doing so would make it seem like everything else is moving and he's standing still. From his point of view, that is.

[Spiffy]

No internal logic. Just a couple of guys that made up a character in 1938.
Just enjoy the wonder of it.
Well, as has been said, the power of flight wasn't even there in 1938. That came years later. Originally it WAS leaping, and that WAS a feat of strength. Then somewhere along the line a DIFFERENT creative team made a decision to change that.

And its not like changing his powers, or the explanations for them, isn't a regular ongoing thing. DC has, and probably will continue, to rethink his powers, as well as the explanations for them. They've made a point of doing that, not the fans.