SCOTT: Today we’re going back into the comments section to talk about some great comments
that you all have left this year so far.
[MUSIC]
Welcome to Comic Misconceptions, I’m Scott and we’ve
only been going for a short time this year but already you guys have posted some amazing
comments, and every few months I like to highlight some of my favorite comments that you’ve
left. These aren’t compliments although those are always appreciated, but rather they
are comments that expand upon ideas from videos, as well as ask some good questions that encourage
me to do a bit more follow up research. And as always, I apologize for all of the names
that I will definitely mispronounce. With that said, let’s get right to it. On the
episode discussing why Lex Luthor is bald I had a ton of you commenting about how you
always had though Lex lost his hair because of cancer or kryptonite radiation poisoning,
so after doing some research here is what I found. In Superman #2 from 1987
Lex was shown wearing a kryptonite ring that he had made to protect himself in the presence
of Superman. He would wear this ring day in and day out as a precaution since kryptonite
radiation is harmful to Supes but harmless to humans, at least that’s what Lex thought.
As it turns out, after a few months of wearing the rind non-stop Lex’s hand had absorbed
so much kryptonite radiation that it actually needed to be amputated and replaced with a
robot hand. Then a bunch of other confusing stuff happens that I won’t get into that
involves Lex faking his own death, some stuff about evil clones and deals with demons, it’s
really not important right now. But I did want to note that a similar thing happened
in the Justice League cartoon in a two part episode called “Injustice for All” where
Lex was diagnosed with blood poisoning due to kryptonite radiation as well, thanks to
a fragment he had be carrying around for years. Either way, there’s nothing that I could
find that directly links Lex’s kryptonite poisoning with his hair loss, as you can see
in the comics at least, he was already bald before he started wearing the ring that would
poison him. So as far as my research goes Lex didn’t become bald due to overexposure
to kryptonite, however as with everything, I could be absolutely wrong and there could
be, there could easily be a comic that I didn’t have access to, that I passed up so if you
guys know any sources that specifically say Lex lost his hair this way, then please let
me know in the comments. Still on the topic of Lex Luthor, I’d mentioned in the episode
that Lex used to have hair but was first portrayed bald in the comics because artist Leo Nowak
confused him with a bald henchman from an earlier Superman comic. Rob Morris and a few
others commented about another person that Lex could have been confused with: Ultra-Humanite.
If you are unfamiliar, Ultra-Humanite is actually one of the first supervillains in comics
history and was Superman’s original archenemy before Lex came into the picture. He’s a
super genius inhabiting the body of an albino ape, so how could Lex Luthor accidently be
confused for him? Well Ultra-Humanite wasn’t always an ape. He first looked like this:
a bald human scientist and he would later transfer his consciousness to a mutant guerrilla
which would become his most notable form over the years. The story goes that it was this
original incarnation of the character that Leo Nowak confused with Lex Luthor when he
was drawing his Superman comics and not the bald henchman that I had mentioned earlier.
Rob Morris even goes on to provide sources to where he had heard this story which is
always the best thing that anyone can do. He points me to a book that I went and bought
off of Amazon called “Superman: From the 30’s to the 70’s”. The introduction
was written by E. Nelson Bridwell and apparently holds our answer. But as I read through it,
I couldn’t really find any mention of Ultra-Humanite being the unintentional inspiration for Luthor.
I did however find a section that does reinforce the idea that Lex was mixed up with that bald
henchman from Superman number four, so even though it wasn’t your intention Rob, you
did help find yet another source for the original video, which is awesome. But if any of you
know any reliable source that points to Luthor being based on the golden age Ultra-Humanite,
please let me know in the comments. I’d love to get to the bottom of this one permanently.
In the latest tie-in video about whether or not Batman truly remembers the murder of his
parents, we talked about how memory works and is it’s that you’re physically changing
the memories every time you recall them, so your memories of an event slightly change
the more you think about them. Alessandro Castellani and a few others give this theory
that we as an audience have never actually seen the actual Wayne murders and each time
it shows up in the comics and movies and shows we’re only viewing one of Bruce’s altered
memories of the event and that’s why little changes happen between the flashbacks. Like
with what his parents said, or wore, stuff like that. I absolutely love this idea and
I accept into my head canon, there is no one true interpretation of that night that we’ve
seen yet because we’re always viewing it through the mind of Batman or Gordon or somebody
else who’s remembering it, whether it’s explicitly stated or not. I like it. You all
left some really great comments on last week’s video about Superman’s new super flare power
as well. Dael from MonarchsFactory points out that the ideas in the episode reminded
her of Rick Altman’s theory of Film/Genre which genre theory is something that I find
so interesting that I would probably want to make a video about someday if I can find
a way to relate it to comics. But, right under that comment is, in the same thread, is Luke
Slater who gives us a quote from Douglas Adams who famously wrote “The Hitchhiker’s Guide
to the Galaxy”. The quote relates to shifting baseline, specifically technology and it’s
great. He says, quote “I’ve come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions
to technologies. Number one, anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal
and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Number two, anything
that is invented between when you’re 15 and 35 is new and exciting and revolutionary
and you can probably get a career in it. Number three, anything invented after you’re 35
is against the natural order of things.” That first rule is probably the clearest way
to understand the concept of shifting baselines, so thank you, thank you so much for this comment
and this quote. Still on that same Superman episode I had mentioned that the Fleischer
Studios Superman cartoons were the first place that Superman officially gained the power
of flight and I’d gotten that little bit of info from Brian Cronin’s book “Was
Superman a Spy?” which is on the shelf back here, and he’s an author that I quote a
lot on the show. In the book Cronin writes quote “The Adventures of Superman radio
show had a notable tagline, describing Superman as faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful
than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Note that last part:
'leap,' not fly. In his early appearances Superman could not fly." He goes on to explain about
the Fleischer Studio’s films quote “to animate Superman jumping, however, required
extra frames to be drawn of Superman crouching down and then leaping forward. A way to avoid
drawing these frames was to simply take the frame with Superman standing and move it slowly
over the background, which would make it appear as though he was flying off the ground.”
Cronin then ends by saying that the popularity of these films lead to Superman flying in
the comics and that his flight became a standard power of the character ever since. However,
Badre Bally and Scott Harris pointed out that it was the radio program that first had the
Man of Steel fly, specifically the second episode where in the announcer says that:
Speaker 1: “Superman wheels and turns in curious flight.”
SCOTT: And one of the characters in the show also said that Speaker 2: “…he flew down...”
SCOTT: ...to save them. This episode came out in 1940 which is at least one year before
the Fleischer films. So I emailed Brian Cronin to ask him about this, usually he gets back
pretty quickly so if I hear anything soon I’ll try to do a tie-in video to go over
his response. But as far as I can tell you’re correct. I think the radio show is pretty
clear that Superman could indeed fly. And actually I really would like to do a full
video about the importance of that radio show. That’s something that I've wanted to do
for a while now, so, maybe. Lastly, I want to end on a comment from IncanTV on the history
of the Comic’s Code Authority video where I asked if censorship might actually be beneficial
in certain scenarios and they said that a really talented creator would see censorship
as a challenge and not a limitation and I absolutely, 100 percent agree with this. Wonderful
comment, thank you very much. And that’s all the time we have for this video of comment
responses. My friend gave me the idea of calling these types of episodes “Comments Misconceptions”
so I guess that’s what we’re doing from now on, just keep leaving the great comments
guys you can find all the ones I mentioned linked in the description below if you want
to go and check them out and add your thoughts into the mix as well. And if this is your
first time hanging out with us here at NerdSync we do weekly comic book videos that expand
your understanding and enrich your comic book reading experience. And hit that big, sexy
subscribe button, so you’re not missing out on anything. Once again, I’m Scott you
can find me on Twitter and Instagram and we’ll see you right here next time for more things
I thought you knew about comics. See ya!