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Hello and welcome to Comic Drake, where I talk about comic books and my name is Drake!
Superman, the Man of Steel.
That nickname is incredibly well earned considering that superhuman durability is one of Clark
Kent’s most prominent super powers.
And we have seen this dude sustain a lot of damage, yet his hair always comes out unscathed
and we know that this hair grows considering that he can grow that kick ass beard or that
um… interesting 90s hair, but how does he cut it?
Now, a lot of big comic book fans already know the answer, but there’s actually more
to it than you might know so let’s take a look!
So would you believe that the Superman Wiki maintains a page showcasing all the times
Superman has had a beard or stubble, fake or otherwise?
Well, yeah, it’s the internet.
Of course that exists.
However, Wiki pages are almost never complete or 100% accurate which is why I combed through
decades of Superman books for more info which I found!
Now the Silver Age of comics was delightfully silly, especially the world of Superman.
We had plots like Supes turning into a sort of Ant-Man or the time that Superman did a
kissing booth for charity, causing Lois Lane to get massively jealous.
Well outside of stories being ridiculous, Superman’s powers and traits were completely
bonkers and inconsistent.
Remember, this is the era where Supes could shoot little versions of himself out of his
hands.
Back then, it was stated that Superman’s hair and nails didn’t grow under a yellow
sun and unlike a lot of the stuff introduced in this era, this trait actually stuck around.
With these callbacks through multiple stories, Clark’s hair never once grew under Earth’s
yellow sun, the exception being exposure to red Kryptonite.
Back then, red K (as it was frequently called) brought on all sorts of crazy effects.
This particular story though (Superman #139 in 1960, to be specific) is actually pretty
important in that it introduced the now canonical way that Clark shaves, his heat vision.
Yet to solve this hairy mess, Superman’s own heat vision wasn’t going to cut it…
literally…so he enlisted the help of Supergirl and Krypto the Superdog allowing for twice
the firepower.
If we’re going to be entirely honest, Superman’s stubble really shouldn’t be that much of
a big topic.
It’s seems more like something you could get a quick answer to in a tweet or something,
but DC Comics likes to add little details to books, especially Superman comics, that
give insight into the unique lives of their characters.
Following the restructuring of continuity with the Crisis on Infinite Earths event,
it was established that Clark goes to great lengths in order to maintain his secret identity.
If you want, I have a whole video about this if you want more information.
As a part of maintaining his cover, Clark owns an electric razor to turn on in the event
that he needs to shave while company is over in order to maintain the illusion that he’s
just a normal guy.
Yet that doesn’t hide the fact that heat shaving makes the place smell like burning
hair and oh yes, this was actually addressed years later.
Like I said, DC loves those little details!
Now what’s interesting to note is that the mechanics of heat shaving are somewhat inconsistent
throughout universes and continuities.
You see, the first time that we’ve seen Supes heat shave, he used a polished piece
of metal from the spaceship that brought him to Earth in order to reflect it back at his
face.
This fact has been supported in various other main continuity books for decades.
In other mediums and alternate universes though, any old mirror seems to do the job just fine
including the Injustice II comics where we see Supergirl using a mirror to cut her hair.
That is pretty awesome considering we almost never get to see other Kryptonians’ grooming
habits.
In the main continuity, Superman using a normal mirror for the purposes of shaving was actually
addressed in Action Comics #663 where Superman gets stuck in time and has to make due with
regular mirrors.
His heat vision consistently melts through them and they require constant replacing.
Outside of the durability problem, I personally think that using this space metal is just
a lot more interesting from a storytelling perspective, especially since the comics have
a long history of using various pieces of his spacecraft to assist with everyday life.
Honestly, that might make a great future video topic…
i’m gonna just write that down real quick.
Oh, and I’d be doing a really bad job with this video if I didn’t bring up that time
in the 90s where Superman lost his normal powers and got a set of new electrical ones.
When Clark tried shaving with his powers then, it… didn’t work.
HA!
Eventually though, Clark did get used to shaving the old fashioned way, save for some hiccups
here and there, but after getting his powers again, it was back to heat shaving!
So yeah, I know that a lot of people already knew that Superman uses his heat vision to
shave, but I think I uncovered some pretty neat things, and hopefully you learned at
least a little something new!
But before I let you go, I want to give a huge shoutout to our sponsor of today’s
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I’m Booster Gold and I support this message.
But if you like this video then why not consider subscribing or even watching another one?
In fact, you might like the video that I mentioned earlier in this one which is how Clark Kent’s
glasses are actually brilliant.
Anyway, I hope you learned at least a little something new and maybe I’ll see you next
time!