When it comes to superheroes, many of their feats of daring and actions go well beyond the realm of what is possible in the real world — after all, this is what happens when you’re dealing with alien beings, magic users, gods come to Earth or even just a teenager bitten by a radioactive spider and given all sorts of incredible powers as a result. But while all superheroes and superhero movies deal with things that defy the laws of physics, there’s one movie that Neil deGrasse Tyson says is the most unrealistic: 1978’s Superman. Speaking with ComicBook at the premiere of Speak No Evil, the astrophysicist explained that one of the Christopher Reeve-starring film’s most iconic scenes would have been catastrophic had it been actually possible.
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“It’s definitely Superman I where he flies backwards around the earth and reverses time. I mean, please,” Tyson said.
The scene Tyson is referring to comes near the end of Superman when Eve Teschmacher frees Superman, who had been trapped by Lex Luthor, and the hero flies off to stop a missile that had been set for New Jersey. He manages to successfully diver the missile into space but misses a westbound missile which causes massive earthquakes in California. Superman manages to deal with the catastrophe and save others, but Lois ends up trapped in her car during an aftershock and suffocates. Distraught, Superman flies around the Earth to reverse time, allowing him to prevent Lois’s death as well as the missile. While the scene is dramatic and has a positive outcome in the film, Tyson went on to explain that in the real world, with the laws of physics, Superman would have actually killed billions and, for him, that’s the peak violation of the laws of physics in superhero film.
“Okay, so he flies backwards around earth. Time reversed. Had he slowed down Earth and stopped it, he would have killed a billion people because all the oceans would have washed up onto the continents and this is all in the interest of saving Lois,” he said. “So, this was like, in terms of violation of all known laws of physics, that’s peak. The rest are sort of magical things that maybe one day we’ll figure out how to do. You know, like… Doctor Strange. You see, I prefer Rick from Rick and Morty because when he opens those portals, he uses real science whereas Doctor Strange uses magic. So, it’s the real science I’m going with here.”
While Superman has the worst violation of the laws of physics, Tyson did have a suggestion of a superhero moment that would represent something more accurate, albeit one that hasn’t happened on screen: a battle between DC’s Batman and Marvel’s Iron Man. For Tyson, a fight between the two heroes would fit more into the laws of physics because it’d be just two human men using their technology — though had a firm opinion about who would prevail.
“So, then it’s technology against technology and who can be most clever. And we know Iron Man would wipe his a** with Batman because Batman, he doesn’t know any of the science. It’s his corporate military infrastructure rich guy that just buys it whereas Iron Man knows everything that he’s doing. He’s in the lab So there’s some authenticity to that that you don’t find with the other superhero.”
Tyson’s assessment that Iron Man would prevail really isn’t a huge surprise, however. Back in 2020, he was asked who was more scientifically accurate, Marvel and DC and, for Tyson, it’s Marvel.
“Oh yeah. No question. Oh, there’s no question,” Tyson says without skipping a beat. “Oh, it’s obvious. Marvel wins that contest hands down over DC Comics if for no other reason that almost, minus Thor and maybe one or two others that I’ve lost track of, almost everyone with powers in Marvel Comics, those powers are derived from something scientific that happened to them.”
The physicist adds, “Spider-Man. He’s bitten while he’s in a biology lab where there’s a radioactive spider. There’s the Hulk, who… it was gamma rays. Everybody’s got a science-based story behind their superpowers, and that creates a fertile landscape that you can go back to if you need to. Plus, Banner was a medical doctor, for goodness’ sake. So, this has value.”
Speak No Evil opens in theaters Friday, September 13th.
