The best explanation I've heard for Superman's heat vision actually stems from his X-ray vision. Superman has the unique ability to emit X-Rays (as well as absorb, like most humanoids) from his eyes, and thus that's how he can 'see through' things. But as X-rays are a form of radiation, when he turns the intensity up a
lot and focuses them more.......................................... they become heat vision, like a laser. All of these 'vision' powers are made convenient by the massive reserves of solar radiation his body can store.
It will be interesting to see how Snyder makes it look on screen. The Donner Superman films, as we all know, had Superman's heat vision looking like red lasers - which was probably fairly acceptable bearing in mind it was the late 70s, and stuff like Star Wars was making it big. Lasers were cool
In early Smallville episodes, heat vision was shown as shimmering air. This was done in Superman Returns also, though it seemed to be toned back a bit and more subtle. Then in later episodes (presumably as Clark's powers grew and he got older) they became more like beams of fire. I guess the intensity of the heat vision should affect how it looks - a mild beam would realistically look like shimmering/heated air, full force would look like a huge red beam, almost like Cyclop's beam in X-men.
In both Smallville and SR versions, the effect was a pulsating effect, rather than a smooth, constant laser-like beam. I preferred this effect as it looks a bit more organic and less machine-like.
Early -
Later -
Superman Returns -
The strongest depiction in Smallville was when he used his heat vision to completely vaporise a huge flood which was about to hit a man and his young son who were out in the wild. In that scene, the camera angle was from directly in front of his face and the heat vision just made it look like he was engulfed in flames
No matter what effect they use, I'll just be happy to see Superman let loose with the heat vision on Zod in MOS
With regards to his speed, I've no problem with Superman moving at crazy speeds. Whether it's close to the speed of light or halfway there, who cares. They did it in SR (remember the news reports about his activities around the globe, when they alluded to him moving at those speeds?). If the guy has to be capable of stopping multiple speeding bullets, outrun explosions and whatever else Snyder decides to throw at him, why not make him insanely fast? After all, if we can accept a humanoid can move at 5000mph, why not make it 50,000mph or 500,000mph ............... it's not that much more of a stretch of the imagination.
What I meant was, he handled the
weight of the plane with ease. His problem (in struggling with it) was getting a grip on the large plane structure itself without it breaking apart. When he finally made his way to the front of the plane as it was about to impale itself nose-first in a baseball pitch, and he finally got a grip on the fuselage structure itself, he was able to lower the plane without too much effort. This was something that SR actually did right, it's about time they had Superman handling large objects 'realistically' without them breaking apart under their own weight.
