Hello and welcome to Comic Drake where I talk about comic books and my name is Drake!
Superman is one of the most powerful characters in the entire DC universe and that’s really
fascinating because his powers aren’t entirely natural.
On their homeworld, Kryptonians are nothing special, but on Earth, they are spectacular!
And yeah, Clark might get some of his strength from Earth’s lighter gravity, but he gets
most of his powers by absorbing the rays from our yellow sun.
This can be attributed to his Kryptonian DNA because if you take like any other race in
DC Comics and put them under a different sun, they usually don’t have any differences
whatsoever and it’s really cool because a Kryptonian under red sun is like nothing,
a regular human being.
Under yellow sun, they get all these amazing superpowers and if you put them under a blue
sun, they essentially supercharge!
So if Superman gets his powers from the sun then it would make a lot of sense for him
to wear a skimpier costume so his skin could absorb more solar rays, but what if his skin
was darker?
Would that change the rate of consumption?
Okay, so we first need to figure out how exactly Superman absorbs solar energy.
Now, DC has been purposefully vague about this, but we can take a guess.
The obvious answer would be his skin, right?
Well let’s take a look back at a storyline called the “Tower of Babel” from JLA #43
- #46 in the year 2000.
During this, Superman was exposed to a special kind of modified Kryptonite that made his
skin transparent.
This caused Superman to take in a LOT of solar energy directly, nearly causing him to overload
and explode with power.
This would seem to imply that with Superman’s skin being clear, the energy has easier access
to what actually does the absorbing After all, if the light’s photons can bypass his
skin, that would imply that the skin itself isn’t what does the absorption in the first
place.
The thing is, just because the light passes through more easily, that does not mean that
Superman’s skin doesn’t exist.
This energy is still hitting his skin and can be absorbed no matter the color or the
lack thereof.
In fact, clear solar panels already exist in our real world today!
These fully transparent solar cells work differently from the solar panels that you’re most likely
already familiar with in that they focus on getting energy from non-visible light, mostly
infrared and ultraviolet.
This could mean that Superman’s skin works in much the same way which would help explain
why Superman isn’t cut off from his powers at night where there’s no sunlight.
Sure, he could just have a significant solar charge left over from during the day like
a battery, but he could very well be absorbing infrared and ultraviolet light which is almost
always around us.
This can be further backed up by the Superman Unchained series where Clark fights Wraith,
an alien who absorbs solar energy from Earth’s sun in much the same way as a Kryptonian.
Both of the aliens remark about how they absorb the electromagnetic energy around them.
Well wouldn’t you know it?
Both infrared and ultraviolet light are on the electromagnetic spectrum.
“But Drake!”
Some of you guys might be interjecting.
“We all know for a fact that Superman needs direct sunlight to be energized.
After all, in the alternate timeline of Flashpoint, Superman was locked up for his entire life
and he’s shriveled up!”
Okay, now that is totally fair, but you have to note that this Kal-El is clearly able to
still use his powers without direct sunlight and this helps cement that a Kryptonian’s
ability to harness solar energy not only naturally occurs in the passive form that we mentioned
earlier, but it must ALSO be through direct sunlight exposure!
This brings us to darker skinned Kryptonians.
In humans, skin color is determined by melanin.
This is a sort of catch all term for naturally occurring pigments in Earth organisms.
Melanin is typically produced in human skin by ultraviolet light as a sort of defense
mechanism.
This is what causes tanning.
As ultraviolet light bombards your skin, your body produces melanin to compensate which
is your skin’s way of protecting itself from UV rays.
Granted, Kryptonians are aliens and fictional ones at that, so it’s very possible that
the cause of their skin pigmentation is different and might serve a different purpose from our
usual Earthling skin.
After all, we’ve seen Superman in the sun for a long time and it doesn’t seem to matter
how long he’s out there for or how close he GETS TO THE SUN HIMSELF, he doesn’t even
get a tan!
And that might mean that his skin doesn’t produce melanin to protect it from UV light.
This is not to say that Kryptonians don’t produce melanin altogether though.
In the main DC continuity, there is an island on Krypton called Vathlo which is home to
some dark skinned Kryptonians.
Plus, other universes have their own black Supermen, most notably Earth 2’s Val-Zod
and Earth 23’s Calvin Ellis.
It’s also worth noting that dark objects heat up a LOT faster than lighter ones because
they absorb more of the light that hits them whereas lighter colors reflect it!
However, dark objects also cool down faster than lighter ones!
So while a light colored object may take longer to heat up, it will retain its heat for longer.
This is partly why humans have evolved to be darker skinned in hotter climates and lighter
skin in colder ones.
Pale skin retains heat in the cold while dark skin allows people to cool off in the heat.
Okay so after all this science, let’s get down to the question that everybody wants
to know.
Does a Kryptonian’s skin color affect how efficiently they absorb solar energy?
Well… that really depends on WHAT they need to get power in the first place which we don’t
actually know.
Is it heat based?
Well if so, black Kryptonians can draw power really fast, but they’ll lose steam faster
when compared to white Kryptonians who will last longer.
Is it based on ultraviolet light?
Well if so, the melanin of a black Kryptonian would actually cause them to take longer to
charge.
A white Kryptonian on the other hand couldn’t tan their skin even if they wanted to so their
lack of melanin would cause them to absorb ultraviolet light even faster than their darker
counterparts!
But what if it’s a combination of the two?
Well for that, I’d have to give it to the black Kryptonians.
Their bodies naturally absorb more light as a whole and based on what we’ve seen, it’s
direct exposure to sunlightthat yields more energy than simply passively absorbing infrared
and ultraviolet light.
The fact that a white Kryptonian’s skin would naturally reflect some light rays means
that it is less efficient in drawing power.
Really though, who’s to say?
I can throw science around left and right, but it really doesn’t matter because Superman.
His powers don’t follow the laws of physics so his biology isn’t going to really do
the same and that’s kind of the point!
At the very least, we’ve seen characters like Val Zod and Calvin Ellis be darker skinned
Kryptonians that are capable of achieving feats that are on par with that we’ve seen
of Kal-El in our mainstream comics universe and they have proven that they are just as
much of a Superman as Clark Kent.
As always though, these video would not be possible without all of our supporters over
on Patreon.
Badasses like Sebastian Walker, David Gomez, Taylor Adams, Yosh Flores, Bonnie Davies,
Billy Lewis, and Ashley Donson.
Thank you guys so much and you can see even more names of our supporters down there in
the description below!
But hye, if you liked this video then why not consider subscribing or even watching
another one?
I personally want to recommend the video that we did on where was Krypton’s Green Lantern
when it blew up?
I had a lot of fun doing that.
It was a little story that hasn’t really been mentioned again, but hey, maybe you’ll
learn a little something new unless you’re some comic expert in which case, you’re
probably going to tell me in the comments...