Comment on at least no more trolley problems
Macchi_the_Slime@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 days agoDepends on the time in which he had to do the deceleration. I did some more looking and I guess that this page comes from Action Comics 1000 from a short bit where the current iteration of Superman is getting deja vu like flashes of things that this iteration of the character has not done but were rather part of the overall character's history.
So this likely came from a very early iteration of Superman that A) wasn't nearly as strong or fast, and B) that the situation most likely _ began _ with attempting to stop a runaway train from crashing. Then while attempting to stop the train, a child wandered into the path of the train and Clark couldn't exactly let go of the train to move the kid out of harm's way.
icelimit@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
If he can decelerate the passengers in the train non lethally, he by definition also had time to accelerate the kid nonlethally. Supes has muscles for brains.
Macchi_the_Slime@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
Not if he was already pushing the train when the kid entered the equation. If this is an earlier version of Superman as this seems to be and he was already pushing the train when the kid came into the picture, then the only way for him to accelerate off the train to grab the kid is if he pushes off the train. Which effectively creates the same "stopping the train too fast," problem.
icelimit@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
If he pushes off the train, starts from Vo=Vtrain, he simply has to push off less than he would if he were standing still to get to the kid, since Vkid_intercept would be quite a bit greater than 0 anyway.
He would also decelerate (and then accelerate) during the kid intercept, which being ‘super’, I would expect him to be able to do, as he can perceive things faster as well.
Snap the neck? Just support the neck. Just put the kid on his whole torso so the kid’s body experiences the acceleration as a monolith as if on a rocket seat.
Macchi_the_Slime@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
Him starting off at the velocity of the train is the problem. It's not as simple as "Superman just goes a little faster," momentum has to be conserved. To launch himself forward he has to launch the train backward and the train likely doesn't survive that. Continuing to push the train was still likely the best option Superman had in this situation.