BvS Henry Cavill IS Superman - - - - - - - Part 21

[Lone]

I can't imagine Supes feeling the need to protect himself in that way from a car of all things. I'm sure it was intentional, because he wanted the car to slide into the wall exactly as it happened. I think we'll be seeing a Superman with a much greater grasp of his strength.

The only way that scene could be even more awesome is if Superman deflected the Batmobile with his superjunk.

 

[Young Superman]

lol

 

[Da-Scribe]

He doesn't need to cover his face when the dream Black Zero touches down and blows dust everywhere in MoS, but he does. Nor does he need to protect himself by raising his face with his arms when the bullets are striking him in the last trailer, but he does. It was a reflex that adds a very, very little touch of reality to the moment. Why would he even want or need the Batmobile to stop in a particular spot a few meters away, and why would raising his knee be the best way to do it? That doesn't make sense...

He'd spent his entire life mostly hiding his powers until the events in MoS. He was more Clark than Superman still, so it makes sense he'd react in a more human way. That aside, you could just chalk it up to a knee jerk reaction. Here, he's clearly standing in front of the Batmobile and appears completely calm. Looks to me like he just deflected the car to hit the wall behind him in order to disable the vehicle. My guess is that he's very intentionally confronting Batman in this scene.

Outside of all that, it just seems really stupid for him to cover his junk in a film that's been toted as gritty and dramatic. That's something you'd get out of a Transformers film.

 

[lukebrodyg]

I absolutely want freeze breathe, for the record.

Snyder would make it look amazing.

 

[Angel0fDeath]

The freeze breath is awesome. Maybe they should just call it "science" and people will accept it.

 

[MydnightPhoenix]

What are Superman's solar flares?
As for his powers I've also been led to believe that he is some kind of solar battery that heightens some normal human body functions like speed and strength. Contining that he would have heightened lung capacity but I still say super breath is lame and I hope they don't attempt to show it in these movies. The artic breath is just on the same level as Superman's latex shield in S2.

 

[Joeyjojo72]

The only way that scene could be even more awesome is if Superman deflected the Batmobile with his superjunk.

I assumed he did.

 

[Mad Love]

We are having nice conversation please lets keep it that way, you are starting to sound a little antagonistic.

I guess the way I see it is if sunlight super charges his hearing and strength, then why can't it supercharge his breath? In the link provided by Mainline it says:

"If you create a jet of fast moving air through stationary air it tends to drag the stationary air along with it, essentially due to friction. This is called entrainment, and the effect is stronger the faster the air jet is moving.

When your mouth is open the air coming out will entrain some cold air, but the air which reaches your hand will still be dominated by the warm air from your mouth

But when your blow hard through pursed lips the jet is moving a lot faster so it entrains more air, and there is less warm air there to start with, so most of what reaches your hand is colder room air. Although this air is slightly warmer than the air in the room it moving so it is much better at removing heat from your hand both by conduction and evaporation so it feels cold."

Edit: Why couldn't his breath be so powerful that it completely removes the heat from what his breath touches effectively freezing it?
Edit: By the way if I've come off as antagonistic I apologize.

That's why I said it didn't make sense to begin with. I was being nice but you were antagonistic and came off close-minded from the start. And now were back to what I first said.

You're still misunderstanding how the science works which is what Mainline was pointing out. There is no "supercharging of breath". If you have have a fan, it's not going to blow out snow no matter how more powerful the motor is. The air he breathes out is the same air he inhales. Meaning it's not colder than the ambient temperature. It only feels cooler to your skin, not to a thermometer, because of evaporation and loss of your body heat, while the air your normally breathe out is warmer than the ambient temperature because it's been in your lungs.

 

[Monochron]

That's why I said it didn't make sense to begin with. I was being nice but you were antagonistic and came off close-minded from the start. And now were back to what I first said.

You're still misunderstanding how the science works which is what Mainline was pointing out. There is no "supercharging of breath". If you have have a fan, it's not going to blow out snow no matter how more powerful the motor is. The air he breathes out is the same air he inhales. Meaning it's not colder than the ambient temperature. It only feels cooler to your skin, not to a thermometer, because of evaporation and loss of your body heat, while the air your normally breathe out is warmer than the ambient temperature because it's been in your lungs.

I'm not saying his breath needs to be cold. I'm saying why couldn't his breath be so powerful that it completely removes the atmosphere from around an object or area thereby freezing them? So that the result would as if the object or area were in the vacuum of space.

 

[Mainline]

(1) I'm not saying his breath needs to be cold. (2) I'm saying why couldn't his breath be so powerful that it completely removes the atmosphere from around an object or area thereby freezing them? (3) So that the result would as if the object or area were in the vacuum of space.

Since you're asking mechanical questions, these are mechanical answers:

1. In essence you are saying that, intentionally or not. Your end desired result is breath which freezes and the ONLY way for that work is for it be be cold.
2. Why? Two reasons: First, it's mechanically impossible to gather enough breath [Footnote 1]. Second, no amount of powerful blowing will create a vacuum [Footnote 2].
3. No, because even if a vacuum was created, they don't freeze [Footnote 3].

Footnote 1 - Air is a known quantity. There's no mystery or magic to it. It can only be compressed so much before it [for the sake of simplicity] "can't be uncompressed." Moreover there's no organ, no matter how strong, which could mechanically compress air to that degree... it's a little like trying to scoop water with a sieve... even if the sieve is made of titanium or diamond, the strength of the sieve isn't going to improve its ability to scoop water. No matter how strong Superman is, he'll quickly reach a point where more air rushes out while trying to compress air in. There's just no plausible way to contain and expel air in the way he often does.


Footnote 2 - Moving air behaves like a fluid(ish) and while you can perhaps create pockets of low pressure, it is essentially impossible to use a jet stream of air to create a vacuum. What you're essentially proposing is like this: Someone is treading water in a pool. You bring a firehose and say, "With the force of this, I'm going to hose them bone dry!" Perhaps you can see some of the problems. At a basic level, you risk more damage to the person in the pool than you do risk of making them dry. The amount of force required by breath to reliably create low-pressure towards a vacuum is going to absolutely kill and destroy anything it touches. To put this into perspective, tornado and hurricane wind speeds don't even remotely come close to creating vacuum-level low-pressure. Additionally, air moving that quickly starts to generate HEAT! The particles rubbing that rapidly can literally ignite the air. That's why reentry into Earth's atmosphere requires heat-shielding... forceful fast air generates heat through friction rather that some cold low pressure.


Footnote 3 - Assuming all the laws of physics get broken and Superman can blow vacuums, it still isn't "colder" than "cold breath" because scientifically there's no such thing as "cold" only "heat" as a property of matter. In order for heat to be conveyed away from an object- for it to turn colder- it must be transferred through the medium of matter. The problem with vacuum is that it is the absence of matter. Which means there's nothing to convey the heat to and away from the object to be cooled. Vacuum is literally the best insulator, which is why it is used in your Thermos to separate the inner chamber from the outside and minimize the conveyance of heat between the two. The only way you would get breath that works something like what happens in the comics is if the breath itself had less heat (it's colder)... but again, air is a finite thing and known quantity which can only be so cold before it ceases to be air.


To get the kind of results that you want, you're better off with a freeze ray. There's no way to make the power make scientific sense with the feats in the comics. If you don't need the breath to be that cold ("near absolute zero" as some claim), you can make it slightly more internally consistent, but you'd still have a load of problems with the volume and power of the breath and why it's cold at all.

 

[Monochron]

Since you're asking mechanical questions, these are mechanical answers:

1. In essence you are saying that, intentionally or not. Your end desired result is breath which freezes and the ONLY way for that work is for it be be cold.
2. Why? Two reasons: First, it's mechanically impossible to gather enough breath [Footnote 1]. Second, no amount of powerful blowing will create a vacuum [Footnote 2].
3. No, because even if a vacuum was created, they don't freeze [Footnote 3].

Footnote 1 - Air is a known quantity. There's no mystery or magic to it. It can only be compressed so much before it [for the sake of simplicity] "can't be uncompressed." Moreover there's no organ, no matter how strong, which could mechanically compress air to that degree... it's a little like trying to scoop water with a sieve... even if the sieve is made of titanium or diamond, the strength of the sieve isn't going to improve its ability to scoop water. No matter how strong Superman is, he'll quickly reach a point where more air rushes out while trying to compress air in. There's just no plausible way to contain and expel air in the way he often does.


Footnote 2 - Moving air behaves like a fluid(ish) and while you can perhaps create pockets of low pressure, it is essentially impossible to use a jet stream of air to create a vacuum. What you're essentially proposing is like this: Someone is treading water in a pool. You bring a firehose and say, "With the force of this, I'm going to hose them bone dry!" Perhaps you can see some of the problems. At a basic level, you risk more damage to the person in the pool than you do risk of making them dry. The amount of force required by breath to reliably create low-pressure towards a vacuum is going to absolutely kill and destroy anything it touches. To put this into perspective, tornado and hurricane wind speeds don't even remotely come close to creating vacuum-level low-pressure. Additionally, air moving that quickly starts to generate HEAT! The particles rubbing that rapidly can literally ignite the air. That's why reentry into Earth's atmosphere requires heat-shielding... forceful fast air generates heat through friction rather that some cold low pressure.


Footnote 3 - Assuming all the laws of physics get broken and Superman can blow vacuums, it still isn't "colder" than "cold breath" because scientifically there's no such thing as "cold" only "heat" as a property of matter. In order for heat to be conveyed away from an object- for it to turn colder- it must be transferred through the medium of matter. The problem with vacuum is that it is the absence of matter. Which means there's nothing to convey the heat to and away from the object to be cooled. Vacuum is literally the best insulator, which is why it is used in your Thermos to separate the inner chamber from the outside and minimize the conveyance of heat between the two. The only way you would get breath that works something like what happens in the comics is if the breath itself had less heat (it's colder)... but again, air is a finite thing and known quantity which can only be so cold before it ceases to be air.


To get the kind of results that you want, you're better off with a freeze ray. There's no way to make the power make scientific sense with the feats in the comics. If you don't need the breath to be that cold ("near absolute zero" as some claim), you can make it slightly more internally consistent, but you'd still have a load of problems with the volume and power of the breath and why it's cold at all.

Okay, freeze ray it is then.

 

[Da-Scribe]

This discussion makes me grateful for a little thing called suspension of disbelief. Superman has freeze breath. Why? Because aliens!

 

[BH/HHH]

I absolutely want freeze breathe, for the record.

Snyder would make it look amazing.

Judging from the trailers I think we're getting it. I agree aswell I want it.

 

[RadioSha]

How would can it be done without making it look silly?

Heat vision is inherently badass. Blowing on the other hand- not so much.

 

[Mad Love]

This discussion makes me grateful for a little thing called suspension of disbelief. Superman has freeze breath. Why? Because aliens!

So you'd be okay with Superman getting any of the crazy powers he had before? It's funny how people pick and choose what the like but don't apply the same rules.

Good science fiction have their own logic. It's not all suspension of disbelief.... but to each their own. For example, some people liked Ant-man and never questioned their explanations or wherever the plot took the movie.

 

[kalhawj]

Who cares about the science. This is a fictional character from the comics... lol... As long as the power set stay true to the comic source, i won't have an issue. I just don't want him to have a new power just for the purpose of the movie...

 

[Angel0fDeath]

I don't see how the ability to freeze is any crazier than heat vision.

This is silly :

This is just as bad ass as the heat vision :

 

[KillerWolf]

While I do appreciate Mainline's long and educational post, I have to ask, what would be the logic of heat vision then?

I think it would be wrong to presume that this Superman is entirely grounded in reality this way. While explanation behind his strength and ability to fly is a very-well made one and something I really liked in MOS, heat vision just cannot be explained in similar manner, so Cavill's Superman already has a power that basically "doesn't make sense". So, nothing of a sort prevents them to add freeze breath if they want to.

 

[MydnightPhoenix]

Sorry I see freeze breath as being the same as the latex \S/. Just stay with heat vision flight and strength, nothing else to do with him creating giant gusts of some kind of wind.
As for heat vision, I assumed it was energy from the sun.

 

[KillerWolf]

It's one thing to dislike it, I am just trying to understand a logic where freeze breath is deemed nonsensical and blasting fire from the eyes somehow isn't. Freeze breath, at least appears like it makes sense, as all humans can blow air from their mouth. Haven't met any that can do anything which includes fire in their eyes.

 

[Jaxon]

I absolutely want freeze breathe, for the record.

Snyder would make it look amazing.

You don't want to power boost superman anymore than he is. Snyder got his power level perfect. He could do all the classic things you expect but everything looked like it took an effort to do it.

 

[Mainline]

While I do appreciate Mainline's long and educational post, I have to ask, what would be the logic of heat vision then?

The difference is the fact that there's scientifically no such thing as "cold"... you can generate and emanate energy throughout the physical universe. Fundamental particles throughout the cosmos interact with fields to do this on every level. The idea of irradiating energy or heat is what stars do, what particles do, what the universe did at its birth. One more entity within that cosmos emanating energy is hardly a radical idea and consistent with all of nature.

Moreover it's consistent with all of Superman's other field and energy-based powers if they're ultimately all psychic phenomena. The Solar Flare from the comics erupts from Superman's entire body. In BvS, the heat "vision" erupts from Doomsday's mouth. This proves that the emanation of heat-blasts has nothing to do with any organ (it clearly isn't an organ that covers all of Superman's body for the Solar Flare and it clearly isn't some body part that exists both in the eyes and mouth of Doomsday). It's mechanism is deliberately magical and united to all the other powers in the same way... and therefore consistent.

It's one thing to dislike it, I am just trying to understand a logic where freeze breath is deemed nonsensical and blasting fire from the eyes somehow isn't.

What isn't consistent? Air being colder than air can be while still remaining air while sucking away heat energy through convection but behaving nothing like convection. Freeze breath having to come from the mouth and come out like breath. Unlike heat blasts coming from Superman's entire body or Doomsday's mouth, freeze breath requires a mechanism and it's a nonsensical one. IF Superman could shoot freeze beams from his hands or create a freeze field THEN freeze breath could be consistent with that magic, but as it stands, it's an anomaly without any kind of basis for why it mechanically expresses itself the way it does.

Freeze breath, at least appears like it makes sense, as all humans can blow air from their mouth. Haven't met any that can do anything which includes fire in their eyes.

No, freeze breath doesn't appear to a make sense. Not scientifically. A child can say that it appears that trees move their leaves to make the wind, but that's not how it appears to someone who knows the basic science.

I already addressed the eyes issue above. Doomsday proves it isn't tied to an organ. Arguably Zod proves that too because he couldn't simply turn his eyes in his sockets to kill the family held hostage at the train station. Since the power isn't tied to an organ- some mechanical device that if you cut open a Kryptonian could be used to generate heat vision- it's magic is sensible and supported by the fact the power gets used without the eyes.

Contrast that with breath and you will never see Superman freeze things with his hands or employ the power in a broader way. It HAS to be breath with him, which means it's tied to his respiratory organs, which makes the power's magic tied to mechanical devices which could never do this thing... arbitrarily removing heat energy from air while allowing air to still be air, etc. Heat vision just has to add energy, which is scientifically more plausible.

 

[Vaibow]

What about if freeze breath is almost like, blue energy, that sucks energy away, rendering it frozen, maybe like how sweat draws away heat?

Or.... compressed gas is cold when it is released, CO2 etc - someone could work that into 'science'

 

[Mainline]

What about if freeze breath is almost like, blue energy, that sucks energy away, rendering it frozen, maybe like how sweat draws away heat?

That's fine, that's what a "freeze ray" is... nonsense magic that's at least internally consistent with itself. The problem that distinguishes freeze breath from heat vision is that heat vision isn't mechanically tied to an organ and is just trying to add energy (something that already exists)... so the magic is self consistent.

For freeze breath, you have to explain why it can only come from the mouth, why does it act like air, how can his mouth create this new thing that sucks away only heat energy when nothing in the universe is like that (again adding and emanating heat is common place). Re-characterizing it as blue energy only helps a little since that's essentially what it already is... there's no way that it's air, because air would turn solid if that cold, and because air doesn't give you the comic-book-like total-freeze... even literal absolute-zero still has to carry away heat and can only do it so fast, because different objects conduct heat (or lose it, even to absolute zero) at different rates. Basically, the breath IS a freeze ray.

But a freeze ray makes no sense and there's no way you can build one that HAS to come from the mouth only. If he has freeze ray powers, why is it only expressed as breath?

Or.... compressed gas is cold when it is released, CO2 etc - someone could work that into 'science'

No. That's the pressure differential which was already covered. Air can only be compressed so much. Yes, exploiting PV=nRT will get you a temperature differential, but not anything remotely close to absolute zero and nothing that will give you comic-book-like effects.

Put it this way, the maximum possible heat that can be carried away has to be absorbed by the compressed air... and it has to do it through an incredibly inefficient process of convection... so it's some fraction of what all the air that Superman could possibly compress at once, going from- say- absolute zero [for simplicity's sake, again, that cold and air isn't air] to room temperature. That's a lot of energy, but a drop in the bucket compared to what's necessary to accomplish comic-book-level feats.

Compression alone doesn't even get you 1% there.

 

[RadioSha]

That's fine, that's what a "freeze ray" is... nonsense magic that's at least internally consistent with itself. The problem that distinguishes freeze breath from heat vision is that heat vision isn't mechanically tied to an organ and is just trying to add energy (something that already exists)... so the magic is self consistent.

For freeze breath, you have to explain why it can only come from the mouth, why does it act like air, how can his mouth create this new thing that sucks away only heat energy when nothing in the universe is like that (again adding and emanating heat is common place). Re-characterizing it as blue energy only helps a little since that's essentially what it already is... there's no way that it's air, because air would turn solid if that cold, and because air doesn't give you the comic-book-like total-freeze... even literal absolute-zero still has to carry away heat and can only do it so fast, because different objects conduct heat (or lose it, even to absolute zero) at different rates. Basically, the breath IS a freeze ray.

But a freeze ray makes no sense and there's no way you can build one that HAS to come from the mouth only. If he has freeze ray powers, why is it only expressed as breath?

No. That's the pressure differential which was already covered. Air can only be compressed so much. Yes, exploiting PV=nRT will get you a temperature differential, but not anything remotely close to absolute zero and nothing that will give you comic-book-like effects.

Put it this way, the maximum possible heat that can be carried away has to be absorbed by the compressed air... and it has to do it through an incredibly inefficient process of convection... so it's some fraction of what all the air that Superman could possibly compress at once, going from- say- absolute zero [for simplicity's sake, again, that cold and air isn't air] to room temperature. That's a lot of energy, but a drop in the bucket compared to what's necessary to accomplish comic-book-level feats.

Compression alone doesn't even get you 1% there.

What are you, a scientist man?