Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Superman

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

It’s a bird! It’s a podcast! It’s Justin’s superhero anatomy textbook to the rescue! What is the medical and scientific explanation of how Superman’s powers work? Batman has thoroughly analysed his Justice League colleagues, but Dr. Sydnee brings the actual medical knowledge to discuss X-Ray Vision, Super Strength, and a Kryptonite weakness. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers https://taxpayers.bandcamp.com/

Sawbones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, this one is about some books. One, two, one, two, three, four. Hello everybody and welcome to Sawbones.

It's a podcast. It's a bird. It's a podcast. It's Sawbones. Hi, I'm Yoko, Justin Mack. And I'm Sydney McRoy. I'm so excited, Sydney. I know you're excited.

I appreciate that you're excited. It's helping me recover from my sadness. Do you wanna tell everybody what happened while I prepare for this? This is a Manitour of Misguided Medicine. We're the co-hosts of it. And usually what happens on the show is that Sydney researches a topic from medical history.

Which I did do. You did do. Here's the problem. Can't say you didn't do it. We've been doing the show for 11? Yeah, 11 years now. 11 years. 11 years now we've been doing this show.

That's a lot of episodes. I don't know how many, but you probably do because it's probably listed in the, it's probably next to the episode, right? You can see this right now. Wonka was 500. Wonka was our 500. So over 500. And in that time, you forget things sometimes.

Maybe that you've done an episode before. And maybe because from my perspective, I know a lot of this stuff already, not the history. I'm researching history. I don't know all of medical history. But the medicine part, I know. And so it doesn't occur to me, oh, I've talked about this before because I knew it.

I don't know. Anyway, I researched the spleen. And we made it a good six minutes in. Oh, honey, we were 15 minutes in. Yeah, it was deep. It was deep before we realized. Before Justin said, I think I were 15 minutes in. Yeah, it was deep. It was deep before we realized. Before Justin said, I think I've heard this before.

And then we realized we have indeed done an episode on The Spleen before. I don't know how I forgot that. I don't know how I forgot that. You got a lot going on, Toots. But let me tell you, Sid, you don't need to worry because I am here to educate you for a change, even though you probably know a lot of the stuff that I'm probably gonna tell you anyway. But I would like to educate you for a change, even though you probably know a lot of the stuff

that I'm probably gonna tell you anyway. But I would like to mark this, take this opportunity of having an episode where we don't have something to talk about. I would like to fill that gap by talking to you about the last set of Krypton, Kal-El, Superman. Specifically Superman from a medical perspective. I have a text here, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell. Superman.

Specifically Superman from a medical perspective. I have a text here, a tome. Many remember my Anatomy of the Marvel Universe textbook. This is the- Textbook? This is my, yes, Sidney. Textbook? As you can, if you look at it, it's quite clearly a textbook. Okay, what is the formal definition of textbook? A book with text that is about truth

and teaches you things and is a store of knowledge for future generations. This is Anatomy of a Meta-Human. It is the same idea where it's talking about the medical science. So we can finally get over this, prove it stuff. And it's the medical science of meta-humans. I'm gonna say, I think you can call it a textbook

because this definition I just Googled very quickly is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. It doesn't say it has to be real. Yeah, that's true. I mean, I think a branch of study could be- Branch of study is a little bit, I mean, yeah. I mean, I mean I think a branch of study could be study is a little bit. I mean

Yeah, I mean you're right. This is a textbook. Thank you Sydney for the re Guess it's a textbook. I mean unless yeah I'm a study of a subject your subject is Superman and that textbook is telling you about Superman So I guess so on the front it says it was written by S.D. Perry and Matthew K. Manning. On the inside it's written by Batman, so I'm pretty sure it was written by Batman,

because everything's from Batman's perspective. But this is a whole book about metahumans, and I'm definitely gonna dive into the whole thing. But I realize there's enough right here just in Superman, the original superhero to talk about. Okay. Do you have something that strikes you as funny, Sydney? The Batman wrote the book is funny.

I didn't think- Why wouldn't Batman write the book? Well, you know more about Batman than I do. And I know that he's a detective. That's part of the Batman thing. I mean, there's the bat thing too. It's a huge part of it. And I know so he's got a lot of gadgets and stuff.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah. I didn't know that researching and creating textbooks. You will actually- Like that feels slightly different than I made a Batarang. Batman has had his optical problems, but I think that we can not like literal optical problems because he's got like a variety of bat suits with incredible hyper optic technology.

I'm saying there's some issues with the way he approaches himself being a rich white dude and how he fights crime or what have you. I will say I think we can all celebrate the part of Batman's brain is like, I'm going to keep a file on how to kill Superman. I am gonna be the one, everybody's so up with Superman and like, yes, absolutely Superman, but one of us has to think about how to kill Superman

and I will be that guy. Is this outside of this textbook? I'm gonna keep calling it that. This is a textbook about how Batman would kill everybody. Right, but outside of this textbook, is that canon that Batman? Phenonically. So there are other comics or movies or something where,

no, no, no, where Batman has collected information into a reference file so that he can kill metahumans. Yes. This is a thing Batman does. This is not made up. That's all I was trying to figure out. I didn't know that. Not so he can hunt them down and kill them,

but things fall off. Maybe, it's Batman, you don't know. Yes, Batman does like to be prepared for every ritual. Okay, so tell me about. So what do you know about? No, I don't wanna talk about metahumans. I wanna talk about the number one metahuman in the DC universe, Superman. Is he a metahuman when he's an alien?

So this is an interesting question. He is, as Batman writes, Superman is a name that is elegant in its simplicity yet speaks volumes about what he truly is, a godlike power in the guise of a human. Because he writes- He's not a human. No, he cannot be the,

Superman can't possibly be the best of us when in fact, he isn't one of us at all. Batman wrote that. Hmm, very interesting. Yeah, well, he's not, so he's an alien. This is gonna make- He's a Kryptonian. Right, this is gonna make it harder to apply my knowledge of human medicine to him

because he is not human. That's correct, but we are, this is, what this is, these books are really about is a sort of, and the fun of it is a sort of speculative anatomy. A speculative science of, okay, you know this person can do these things, and given the, I wanna start with base knowledge where you at Superman in terms of facts.

And we're gonna assume that Superman, like in terms of basic structure and function of his body, is similar to humans. Kryptonians and humans are fairly, like the organs are the same. No. No, none of that. None of that, you should assume.

You should assume he looks like a human being and that's it. And inside him is a dark swirling morass of powers. So he can fly. Where I, listen, I have a, can you see I have a list in front of you wanted to tell Me what this is a list of hours. I'm asking you. Yes. Okay, not about his specific abilities, but about the motivations for his abilities What do you know about him as a person scientific?

I my understanding is that he I don't let me say this. I don't know what power this is not a quiz I don't know enough about Superman lore to know what powers he had on Krypton no powers Okay, so this is interesting the Sun gives him power right Sun does give him power that is mmm in part Okay, that's I thought he be he's powerful because he came to earth and on earth We've got the Sun well. We don't have the sun here, you know what I mean. We do have the sun here, actually. Well, you know what I mean.

Like, we don't have it here on, it's not this way or. We have a yellow one that's different from his crappy red one. There's a sun shining on us and it's giving him powers and I guess if he went back to Krypton, he wouldn't have them? Right, so this is an excellent starting point for our dialogue here. Superman is a Kryptonian,

which means he is from the planet Krypton, which is bathed in a red sun's light, not the yellow sun of here. Now, it does beg the question on how that would impact the visible spectrum of light on Krypton. Does everything look different and weird? The answer to that is we cannot tell you what Superman's vision looks like. It looks different from ours It has to be he can see electromagnetic fields. Okay, there's no reason to compare these two He has x-ray vision doesn't he? He does not We'll get to that. He doesn't?

Technically speaking Sydney I thought he could see through stuff. He can But it's not x-ray vision. So let's start at the beginning. What's the problems with researching Superman, Sid? If you were Batman, and you have to do research on Superman, this meta-human research, even if Superman's willing and able, what do you think some of the challenges might be? Data collection, that's where I wanna start with you.

I would wanna know about other Kryptonians, or about Kryptonians in general, anatomy, physiology, that sort of thing. Sure, but you have to- But I wouldn't be able to do that because I'm assuming there's no books about Krypton here on Earth. Not that we, I mean, no.

And as far as Superman knows, he's just a gushy bag of blood. He has no idea. To study Superman, he would need to allow you to do tests on him to do, I would imagine, like some imaging studies, some MRIs. First problem, first problem, Batcave's technology incapable of fully analyzing

his alien physiology. Needles won't pierce his skin. Oh. Conventional radiological imaging devices often fail to penetrate his dense musculature. needles won't pierce his skin. Oh. Conventional radiological imaging devices often fail to penetrate his dense musculature. So there's a few problems just in that. His muscles are so dense

Yeah, that the x-ray that you can't use a CAT scan. I know. Pfft. What about the other structures in his body? He's not just a solid mass of muscle, I'm assuming. There is a, this Batman does kick around the possibility that an X-ray machine that uses the radiation

from kryptonite could be an option here, but is that worth the risk to Superman unless he's like swallowed a truck? What? Wouldn't it kill him? We'll get to that. So the first thing I wanna talk about is what you touched on his solar, his ability to generate his powers from the yellow sun.

Batman has some theories about how this happens. And I should explain that Batman, for a lot of this, he's not going to be able to give you hard data because of this data collection issue. going to be able to give you hard data because of this data collection issue. So a lot of what Batman is cooking up is metaphorical or an analog to what we might understand, even if it's not accurate. So like what taking these this energy and making it into something he can use? Well, I guess there's a couple options. If you're comparing him to human physiology, I mean, there's like, I guess UV rays help us

convert vitamin D to its active form in our body. So there are reactions that take place from being in the sunlight, right? Like from being in the sunlight. And it also has hormonal and chemical influences on our brains because our circadian rhythms are very much tied to visual light.

As Batman writes, it seems likely that absorption is normal for Kryptonians similar to our own ability to synthesize vitamin D from sunlight. So you and Batman are basically in lockstep right now. Did Batman consider it all though that maybe it's plant-like? Yes. Mimbranous in appearance, his epithelial cells appear to be unique.

I don't know why I said it like ill-mint for a second. His epithelial cells appear to be unique, perhaps analogous to a hybrid of animal and plant. While membranous in appearance, they seem to share characteristics with wall plant cells and are able to photosynthesize and store energy through exposure to sunlight. So it's like a hybrid.

See, that was my next question. Could photosynthesis be part of it? Because if he is a plant, then using the sun for energy is very, I mean, that's boring, basically. Yes, exactly. Superman is a plant. Superman is in part a plant.

Now, what about the fact that he can get hurt so much and be very tough? Batman's got a wild theory for this one, and it's about sighting. is in part a plant. Now, what about the fact that he can get hurt so much and be very tough? Batman's got a wild theory for this one and it's about cytoplasm. Well, okay. Let me ask this question. Is it that he gets hurt and heals quickly

or is it that things cannot? Why he is, he does both. Like if I tried to stab him, my knife would break. Correct. Well, yes, my knife would break. Correct. Well, yes, it wouldn't penetrate his skin. It wouldn't go through his skin. Nothing, almost nothing penetrates Superman's skin. I mean.

It used to be that nothing short of, I think when he was created by Seel and Schuster, it was nothing short of like an exploding cannon shell could penetrate his skin or an exploding tank shell. We just have to generate enough force. But now it's, I mean, he's basically in the structure. Well, then it's not, I mean, my question would be is like, when we talk about like human cells, like epithelial cells,

like you talk about skin cells, his are not the same. They're not made of that. So here's what that- They're made of a different material. What Batman suggests is that in his epithelial tissues, particularly his skin, maybe the cytoplasm in there may be similar to a non-Newtonian fluid. So that the cytoplasm is a non-Newtonian fluid, so to the touch, it would feel normal.

But if you tried to strike it with any sort of force or energy, it would absorb that in the same way that they now. Like when you put, what is it, cornstarch and water? Like when you make, whatchamacallit, what's that called? You know, Charlie loves to make that. Ooblack. Ooblack, yeah.

So he's made of Ooblack. Yes. So what you've got for me so far is that he's a plant whose skin's made of Ooblack. Correct, yes. But let's talk about his terrible eyes. I mean, to be fair, this diagram you're showing me of Superman's eye, nobody's eye would look

great in that cross section that you have there. That would be disturbing in any. Yes, this is a wild diagram, but I want to talk about you. We talked about visual capabilities a little bit. You mentioned x-ray vision, which I want to get to, but as we can all, well, we don't all know, but at least some people know, Superman can also see at extremely long distances and he can see at microscopic levels.

So he can see way out into space and then he can use his eyes like a microscope. I mean, I would say there's, oh man, eye stuff is rough. For all of my fellow primary care docs out there, you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, I am. The eye stuff is rough. For all of my fellow primary care docs out there, you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, I am. The I stuff gets rough. I know when the emergencies are happening.

Generally speaking though, I would say, one, we're talking about the focusing ability. And so the lens of Superman's eye is capable of doing things that our lens, our human lens is not. I mean, in terms of being able to focus on something that is very far away or very close. But then the other thing would be the light. Like, if you're talking about something that's very small, that's like focusing ability.

But then if you're talking about something that's very far away in space. You have to let more light in, right? Right, you're not, because there's no light reflecting off of that thing. That's why we can't see it. And so the dilation of the pupil, the convexity and concavity of the lens. He's saying, so what Batman, the best Batman come up with, and I think even Batman knows

at this point that this is like, not a good solution. He says his eyes must contain multiple lenses of varying thicknesses. So Batman is suggesting that there's a bunch of lenses in there that Superman is just like adjusting the diff the distance between to adjust his vision. Now here's what I'll say this is after that he says to account for this incredible range and accuracy, his eyes should be much larger. So I think that's what he's depicting. So like Batman's like, I've got it all figured out.

The only problem is his eyes would need to be like, like pool balls. He would be like the entirety of his head. But this is basically- An adorable anime character. Yada yada, this is how Batman's vision thinks his vision works. I don't think, I mean, what you're dealing with though,

is like you almost need a mechanism by which the lenses flip in and out, kinda like they do if you've had an eye exam, where they flip the lens. This is what I imagine inside. Like one or two, two or three. Inside the jellies, yep. Like yeah, you would almost have to have

that sort of scenario, cause otherwise if the light is focusing through all of those lenses, and somehow he is using, willing the use of different lenses, or I guess those would have to be on the subconscious, I mean, like, this can't be a willful action. Yeah, it's all instinctual.

That's the key with all the Superman stuff. It's mostly instinctual. I think it's more likely that the lens can change. Oh, change shape or something? Yeah, change shape and size. I don't see any reason or migrate forward and backward within the globe. I don't know why would you need multiple lenses

if you would imagine that he has adapted the ability to, the lens can adapt to what is needed. I think that makes more sense. Yeah, but then you're bumping up against the fact that where is it retracting and expanding to? Like at a certain point, are you like creating and detracting mass from an object? No, because I mean, if you imagine that his lens

is somehow made of some sort of latticework of cellular tissue that expands and contracts. So he's eliminating the amount of. Did they ever make you do, you remember when Kosai traveled and came to your school and did Kosai stuff? Did they ever make you cut a piece of paper into a shape that would,

so a bandage would cover an entire wound? Did they ever make you do that thing? You cut it into this latticework accordion sort of thing. That's the trick. That's how you take a piece of paper that's not big enough to cover something and then you cut it into this accordion style thing thing. That's the trick. That's how you take a piece of paper that's not big enough to cover something, and then you cut it into this accordion style thing, and it stretches further,

and you can use it to more or less cover the entire area. This is what I'm suggesting about Superman's lenses. You also mentioned x-ray vision, and that's actually a misnomer. He can't see through stuff, but I'll explain more. You can tell me more about that after the billing department. Let's go.

The medicines, the medicines but I'll explain more. You can tell me more about that Yeah? after the billing department. Let's go. The medicines, the medicines that escalate my cough for the mouth. Hello, internet. I'm your husband, host Travis McElroy. And I'm your wife, host Teresa McElroy. And this is a promo for Schmaners. It's extraordinary etiquinary Etiquette.

For ordinary occasions. Every week we're going to tell you about a bit of culture, a bit of history, how etiquette still applies in the modern day, all that stuff. We also love to do biographies and histories of and, you know, general procedurals, how to do etiquette in today's society. So, come check it out every Friday on MaximumFun.org or wherever you find your podcasts. Maners, shmaners, get it? My name is Doug Duguay and I'm here to talk about my podcast in the middle of the one you're listening to.

It's called Valley Heat and it's about my neighborhood, the Burbank Rancho Equestrian District, the center of the world when it comes to foosball, frisbee golf, and high-speed freeway roller skating. And there's been a Jaguar parked outside on my curb for 10 months. I have no idea who owns it. I have a feeling it's related to the drug drop that was happening in my garbage can a little over a year ago.

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around my house. These poor people have waited long enough to find out how the X-ray vision works. So he doesn't have it or he does? He doesn't because he's not irradiating whatever he's looking at. So it's not X-ray vision. X-ray vision is a misnomer. Now what Batman suggests is that perhaps he can detect particle density patterns or perceive the length of radio and sound waves in complex layers and visually observe how they interact and reflect

from matter. Now Batman does go even out on a wilder limb than that and says, Muons, the detritus of cosmic rays, may settle to the surface of our planet at something like 10,000 per square meter per second. If Superman were able to sense how these decaying particles interact with matter, the ability might be likened to X-ray vision. Probably not though, Batman.

I mean, probably not that, you wild dog. What does that mean? I mean, there are muons, that's a thing. Muons are a thing, but everything else he said was just like, wouldn't it be, isn't it easier at a certain point to just say it's magic, Batman? Just say it's magic, man. I mean, he would have to, in order to be able

to look through someone's skin, which like, that is what we are, he can look through a solid object. He can, yes. But the muons are interacting with the particles and he can see that he has no idea. But I mean, it just has no idea. I mean, is he using some sort of, but does he, so he also has the,

can he shoot lasers? Heat vision is what we're gonna talk about next. Can he emit some sort of wave that can interact with the particles of the object he's trying to look through in order to create something that is momentarily and perhaps just for his vision, transparent. That's an interesting, maybe the way that he's,

it's almost like an echolocation, but he's like making his own electromagnetic pulses. The way that the flash moves through things, right? Right, yes. By vibrating at the same frequency that it does. Now we're talking. I wonder if like you could use a beam of radiant heat. So he creates directed beams of radiation, right?

I don't know why you couldn't use that. I mean, I know it's different waveforms, but like. There is a wild sentence in here. It says, Clark says that the energy is solar based, and I have no reason to doubt him. So it's wild that in this book, Batman wrote, didn't just write it's solar based. He says, Superman says it's solar based,

but how do I know if Superman's telling me the truth or not? Just so you know history, he might be lying to me about this. He's so paranoid. That sounds like Batman. I mean, is he suggesting that he is drawing somehow, oh, this feels like that thing you always say when I'm like, but matter cannot be created or destroyed and that doesn't make sense and you're like,

well, but they pull it from another dimension. Right, yes. This kind of feels like one of those like- You're in my heat vision at this point. Yeah, like are we suggesting that he is extracting the heat from the sun and then directly funneling it through his eyes? And if so, like what is the conduit?

Does he have some sort of, now, I mean, the other thing is does he have some sort of like solar panel in his head? I don't know, somewhere like, does he have an exterior solar panel on his body that it's absorbing? Is that what the cape is? We've all wondered. No, because then, no, because I am certain

that if you dug back through all of the Superman media that's ever been created, there is some moment where he uses his heat vision without wearing the cape, right? Right, yeah, no, I'm just kidding about the cape. Well, unless he can store, maybe at night, he attaches something to himself that's like solar panel-esque and then stores that energy in his optic nerves.

Okay, are you ready for this? Yeah. So, Batman talks about that while he studied bats, he saw that bats and other nocturnal mammals have reflective layers of tissue behind their retinas, which allows them to amplify available light. So think about if you see like your cat sometimes and they look at you in the right way, it's like, whoa, is that like generating light from your eyeballs? Your eyeballs glowing? It's like, no,

it's just they have this material behind them to it. So like what Batman is saying is like, okay, for starters, some mammals can do this, so maybe Superman is doing that. And then he imagines that Superman has a variation of this retro reflector made of some sort of semi-solid optical crystalline material, like a phosphate used in laser amplification. It's possible that the vitreous gel acts as a lasing medium.

It's possible. It's very possible that stored solar energy could be key to the process. So the light builds strength through this reflection amplification, the photons will be produced in the trillions. And basically he is like you say, and he's also pointing out that mammals have the capacity for endothermic heat generation. So this was just a combination of maybe those two things. See, I don't know enough about building a laser

to know about like what kind of medium, what kind of material would the vitreous indeed be inappropriate? Do you need a medium to focus a laser? I don't know. I don't know how to build a laser is what I'm telling you. Now at this point in putting together this document, I think Batman was starting to get kind of demoralized

about the idea that he might have to fight Superman someday. He just keeps stacking these up. He writes here, this is the page about freeze breath. He says, as with his heat vision, Superman's freeze breath could also pose a significant threat if he ever chooses to use it offensively. And then there's another line below that,

a single breath would likely have the same effect on a human being as being immersed in liquid nitrogen. Death would be instantaneous. Like, wow, it does sound very hard to fight Superman. You're right, Batman. Can the freeze breath freeze anything? It's cold enough that hard to fight Superman. You're right, Batman. Can the freeze breath freeze anything? It's cold enough that it can freeze me. He has seen him freeze thousands of gallons of water.

He's frozen entire waves, saving thousands of lives in the process. This is from Batman's own notes. Is it because it's so cold? Is it just cold? He's just freezing through the power of cold? Or is it like an ice nine kind of situation? So, oh, isn't that interesting?

No, he thinks that he might have some sacks of liquid nitrogen or ammonia inside of his lungs, as you can see here. I've got a medical diagram. You've got a medical diagram that has those. You can describe that for the listener so the medical diagram. So you've got lungs and then I don't know

if this is sitting in front of or behind his heart. It's probably both. Behind I guess. There's like a little sort of Mickey Mouse head shaped bag. Oh sack. It's a sack. It's in the body. It's a sack.

Which I think is meant to mean cold because it's blue. Yeah cold liquid nitrogen. So it's like liquid nitrogen. It's a sack. Sack of blue. It's in the body. It's a sack. Which I think is meant to mean cold. Yeah, cold liquid nitrogen. Because it's blue. So it's like liquid nitrogen. Liquid nitrogen or other chemicals. Right. Biochemicals. Batman is like straight up with you,

like I don't know how this works. He's like, I actually don't know. He's like, the Joel Thompson effect in thermodynamics describes the temperature change of a compressed and insulated gas. So maybe he's like super compressing the air in some way inside of him. And that is what is giving it cold, coldness.

And that, well, but then when he releases it, you'd have to release it in a pretty concentrated stream to actually freeze something, right? Cause if it was just sort of emanating from him and dissipating into the atmosphere. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like. Now I have a few more powers to get through. I'm sorry, I gotta speed up a little bit. and dissipating into the atmosphere. You know what I mean? Like...

Now, I have a few more powers to get through. I'm sorry, I gotta speed up a little bit. All right, speed up with your powers. I'm just on the strength. So Superman's strength, according to Batman, comfortably estimates that his muscular strength exceeds five sectillion metric tons of force, which is like, he's just so strong. Does he have like more fibers?

He may possess an alien network of additional tendons and ligaments that fortifies his muscular strength, 100%, 100%. Possibly he has bivalves and trivalves between the atria and the ventricles. More valves. Oh, why would you? Youles, more valves. Oh, why would you? You might have more valves.

Now that doesn't, more valves in the heart? Yeah, look at his heart, man, it's crazy. This is incredible. I don't know why you would need, like why would more valves move the blood faster? Are we suggesting that we need to get the blood through, then why doesn't he just have an open circulatory system? He's saying it's a more efficient design.

So it's more streamlined and it's able to operate better because it's more symmetrical. No. Now this is- That's not. What's weird about- That now, because you don't need the same amount of pressure to pump blood through the lungs. See that heart, what you're suggesting is that,

I mean, assuming that his circulatory system works the same as a human's, one side of the heart is pumping the blood through the human's, one side of the heart is pumping the blood through the lungs, the other side of the heart is pumping the blood to the entire body, which is why that muscle, that side of the muscle is meatier, because it's got to pump blood throughout the entire body. You don't want that same sort of pressure entering

the circulatory system of the lungs, because you damage it. And so it is not as strong on that side of the, but that's by design, unless we are suggesting that everything is just heartier. Everything's made of whatever the skin is made of. Everything, he said the connective tissue has to be like machine made carbon fiber

or something like that, something that's like diamond hard. So he's like part Mecha something. But this is where Batman really starts to frustrate me. He says, muscular strength alone can't explain how the heavy objects that Superman lives don't collapse under their own weight or how he's able to protect them himself from forces like inertia and momentum.

So what Batman is asking here is like, even if all this stuff is right, if there's a plane falling from the sky, sky right and Superman goes over and comes underneath it and catches it Theoretically, this isn't a good example, but you can understand Understand how he should just go through it right like if he catches a building The force the the weight of that building is then pushing on a very small point, which is Superman. So like- I gotcha.

So why doesn't he blast through it? He should just blast through it, right? I mean, you would think, yeah. I mean, unless again, we're referring to the Ooblack nature of his entire body, which can absorb and redistribute that force equally. He says that he might, he thinks Superman might project a field of negative mass, effectively negating the weight

of objects he encounters. Okay, Batman, just again, just say you don't know. Just say you have no idea. And then he gets to flight and it's like, well, it may be the thing I said about the negative mass, obviously that would explain a lot of it. And if it is the negative mass, that's kind of hysterical, that Superman's like, I'm lifting this.

It's like, you're not, you're just using magic on it. Yeah, that would be magic at that point. Here's the thing about the flight. If you combine, like, his muscles are so strong, I assume that's why he can jump high, right? Cause he can leap tall buildings. Yes. So he has jump high, right? Cause he can leap tall buildings. So he has this like strength and then some sort of-

I mean, yes, he could jump, but he also- Elasticity, the oobleckness, whatever. You combine that with his speed. So he also is super fast, right? Yes, yes. That alone could account for the flight. Yes, but also he- He's just got the momentum to get,

he's got the hops to get up there and he's got the momentum to stay in the air. Right, that's true. One thing that I did wanna point out, you're covering all the bases that Batman hit. He's just a plane. He's basically like a plane, yes. But he says, in fact, if he can in fact create

and or interact with magnetic fields, he could conceivably fly sitting or standing. Batman writes that in the book. Like, yeah, Batman, I guess he could fly around in a seated position. That would look absolutely unhinged. Have you never seen someone fly around Batman? I don't think there's any reason to believe

he couldn't fly in any position given the speed. How quick do we turn on Superman if he starts flying around in the upright standing position? We're done instantly, right? Well, I think there is. We need a soup line or not at all. When someone, when you see a character in some sort of, you know

Whether it's superhero fantasy supernatural something horror movies do this if you see something Upright right moving towards you don't like that. That's scary. That's scary. We don't like it. That's scary and sitting Go back to crib. No, that's it's menacing. Why don't it's menacing? We're sitting is not menacing sitting like, this guy has to go. Well. Can't be on this planet anymore. No, I think it's like, why do you have the time? What are you capable of?

Yeah, why aren't you making a better use of this? No, but I think that the laying down position, the classic Superman flying position, I would assume is just practicality, like it's best aerodynamically. Yeah. Real quick to move on to our last few. You mentioned, he does have super hearing. practicality, like it's best aerodynamically. Yeah. Real quick to move on to our last few,

you mentioned he does have super hearing. And I just, he's really struggling with this one. He writes, there's a kind of moth that can hear up to 240,000 Hertz. Normally we can hear between 20 to 20,000 Hertz. So he's thinking, and that is so the moth can avoid being eaten by echolocating bats. Batman has a lot of knowledge about bats

that he trots out to see if it connects to Superman. That makes sense. Batman's always making it all about him. He also thinks, now he- But how does the moth's ear work? What is the- Oh, he doesn't say in here. He thinks maybe multiple cochleas.

Multiple, oh. Multiple cochlea. This idea that we just need more of things to make them work, no, it has to do with the size and shape, the like distance between things. Like when it comes to sound and the movement of sound waves, like more cochlea, I don't know why that would make it. There's also like in this diagram of two cochlea,

he's like, it looks very clearly scribbled out in pen and I did not do that. So it's almost suggested that Batman was like, no, it's stupid. It is stupid. That's not, no, it would, I mean like, how thinly stretched is his tympanic membrane and how, what is the depth of that canal and like how sound,

I mean, that's what you would talk about. Maybe a more efficiently shaped ear canal, because like our ears are shaped pretty well for hearing, but obviously, oh, and can his ears move like a cat's, because that would help. That's not clear, but I feel like it's probably within the membrane. If I can almost do that, I feel like it's probably within the membrane. If I can almost do that, I feel like Superman

should definitely be able to. I would imagine that we have a different, this is a structural thing. If you look inside his ear with an otoscope, I think you would see a different structure of the ear canal, the bones, the membrane. He talks about the super speed brief, and I do wanna say he's equally flummoxed by that.

You mentioned the Flash earlier. That's getting in touch with the Speed Force, but Superman doesn't seem to interact with the Speed Force in any sort of meaningful way that he knows. So it's probably not the Speed Force. I mean, are we just talking about the expansion and contraction of, like, his muscle fibers fire more quickly than the rest of ours Yes, but it starts to get into this question of like impact on the environment

Like why isn't he destroying things around him with the speed that he is? Theoretically moving now. He does not there are limits to this. He does not it says He does not travel the speed of light Because to do that, he would have to convert it into energy, which he clearly does not. I would remind Batman that in the 90s, he did momentarily lose his powers

and did become energy that was only contained by a special blue suit during the Superman Blue Days. Well, also, didn't he fly around the Earth backwards once and then turn back time? In the Richard Donner film, he did do that, and it is pretty unhinged, I'll agree. Well, I mean, none of that makes sense, but like he definitely would have to fly faster

than the speed of light to accomplish. Also, you don't need to turn the Earth back around, but whatever, the point is. The best Batman comes up with is he repeatedly pierces have to fly faster than the speed of light to accomplish. Also, you don't need to turn the Earth back around, but whatever, the point is. The best Batman comes up with is, he repeatedly pierces the fabric of space-time, creating wormholes that exist for fractions of nanoseconds. Batman, just say you don't know.

Just say he's so fast, and I have no idea how to do it. He's winnowing. He's winnowing, yes. He's winnowing, like an Akatar, he's winnowing. Then, you know, we did want to mention briefly, in case you ever need to kill him, he has weaknesses. Do you know Superman's weaknesses? Kryptonite. Kryptonite. I assume if you remove him from the power of the Yellow Sun, that would be bad for him?

It slowly weakens him. It basically hinders his photosynthesis abilities Which sometimes makes him like a regular person and sometimes weakens him you're talking about removing him from the L son No, I'm talking about the presence of kryptonite hinders his abilities The presence of it. So just it being near him. Yes because you can't just deprive him of the yellow Sun you have to actively like undo the process of What is kryptonite is a rock it is a it is a mineral

It's a meteorite from Krypton. It's rock. I Mean, it's a piece of Krypton It's what I mean. Well, like what do you mean? What do you mean a piece of Krypton like dirt? No, no, the debris that came from Krypton was Irradiated and the and it's basically like the fact that is irradiated By his home planet. So it's like debris from the Krypton explosion. This is a rock Presumably it's a green rock presumably yes, and it's emanating radiation correct But it doesn't hurt anybody else.

So that it hinders his abilities. He is also very vulnerable to a red sun radiation. If you can get him in front of a red sun. Because it'd make him normal. And then it'd make him normal. And then my number one favorite is that, is magic. It's just, it's just, because people are writing Superman and they could say anything they want, but they straight up are just like no magic because they had they came up with Mr. I do want to close out here with one small note. It's just written in this book here and it's one of the last things in this section.

And it says, although you won't hear me say it to his face, I consider Superman a friend. Batman, I would encourage you to let Superman know how you feel about him. You guys are in a lot of dangerous situations together. I don't think you should let your machismo get in the way of telling him that yes, even though you have contingency plan

on top of contingency plan about how to kill him, should the need arise, you do consider him a friend. But that's Batman's whole thing, you know? Broody and dark and mysterious. But he cares, deep down. And he has the mask of being like a jerk that he has to wear when he's Bruce Wayne. No, it's actually a bat.

It looks like a bat. I mean metaphorical. His mask is a bat shape. The metaphorical mask of being like the rich playboy. What a terrible burden that is. I know how hard it is. I'm just saying that he's more complicated. Oh yeah.

Superman is more pure. He's just good. He's just trying is more pure. He's just good. He's just trying to do good. He's just good. If you wanna get into the philosophical underpinnings of these characters, we're gonna need a lot more time. Thank you so much. I don't. I know, off mic then perhaps.

No, that's good. Maybe I could interest you in some off mic conversation. Thank you so much to the taxpayers for using their song, Medicines, as the intro and outro of our program. Thank you to you for listening. You're the best. And I will research a new topic next week

that I've not done before, and I'm sorry, and I can't believe I did that. Thanks, I don't mind at all, sweetheart. Thank you. That's gonna do it for this week on Sawbuns. Until next time, my name is Justin McElroy. I'm Sydney McRoy. As always, don't drill a hole in your head. Alright!