Look, Up in the Sky!

In DC’s revamped Superman series the Man of Steel is 27 years old. Which means that the light from the destruction of his home planet of Krypton is reaching Earth this month! (OMG!!)

You may safely disregard any apparent gaps in the scientific logic because Krypton’s location has been pinpointed by no less an authority than astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson

Tyson, whose planetarium sits next to the Museum of Natural History on West 81st Street at Central Park West, was happy to be of service.

“As a native of Metropolis, I was delighted to help Superman, who has done so much for my city over all these years,” he said.

Tyson himself makes an appearance in “Action Comics” No. 14, which goes on sale Wednesday, but in it, it’s the Man of Steel who figures out the exact location.

David Klaus still felt compelled to ask about one discrepancy. “I wonder if Dr. Tyson is aware that Krypton was originally considered an undiscovered planet in this star system: an early Superboy story had a wall chart with facts about Krypton in Clark Kent’s high school classroom, listing Krypton’s distance from Earth as .317 light-years.”

I think the answer is DC is ignoring such things in the new series. Otherwise we might have to ask if there is more than one Krypton in the universe, as there was more than one Desolation Island in the Aubrey-Maturin stories.

[Thanks to David Klaus for the story.]

One thought on “Look, Up in the Sky!

  1. I haven’t followed the Supersaga in any detail since the 1960s, but I do vaguely recall some relatively recent animated version that showed rubble from Krypton entering the FTL field opened by Kal-El’s spaceship, thus explaining how it arrived on Earth as fast as he did. There was no dialog about this, but I still thought it was a nice touch.

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