I remember that being mentioned previously, that he's had some strange powers in the comics early on. I also have the collection of Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told and it has quite a few silly stories in there as well. Has he done any time travel from the mid-late 80's on? Again, i don't really keep up, but it felt like they allowed the modern Superman to be more vulnerable in that regards, instead of giving him all sorts of random abilities. Time travel in particular just stands out.

Jeez. Didn't you guys read Crisis On Infinite Earths?
Superman can't move time! He sacrificed the mass of of Earth 1 to escape to Earth 2. The one where Lois was still alive.

He abandoned Earth 1 (which was now tectonic soup, I mean try that trick with a can of soda) to reform a new Pangea and eventually evolve life again. He killed everyone on that planet to enter a parallel dimension that still had Lois in it.

Even as a small child i couldnt understand how reversing the rotation of the earth would make time go backwards. Make the sun rise again..sure. Bring Lois back to life? Well...thats pushing things.


But all this time travel nonsense has really covered up the really important question....why doesnt Superman disguise his voice? Why doesnt anyone realize that Clark = Superman (see also Batman)

Read DC's "Identity Crisis". Doesn't someone mention this problem in one of the issues? That it had something to do with the Magical Heroes or something like that?

The same place Wonder Woman keeps her suit. Different demension?

None of us have ever reversed the planets rotation so how are we supposed to know what could happen if we did? Maybe when he did he totally screwed up some sort of time line or something.

How does he decide that flying around the earth so fast as to reverse its spin will allow him to travel back in time? I thought he was supposed to be educated. No where besides Superman The Movie has it been suggested that reversing the spin of the earth will result in anything but apocalypse.

I seem to remember that years ago in the comics, they explained that there was a secret pocket in his cape where he would hide his Clark Kent gear. Though, I don't remember seeing any weird bulges in his cape, caused by his shirt, pants, shoes, etc.

Superman has enough weird bulges in his suit already

How did he know when to stop? What if he went back too far, and the next thing he knew he was being chased by Dinosaurs?

That's true. There was no bulge, because he folded the clothes (using his super strength) down to wafer size.

I'm afraid you are thinking of "Pretty Good Man".

Thats a lie! We all know Superman uses SPACEBAGS!!

I really think some of ya'll are totally off base. You can't really bring logic to a movie about a baby coming to earth in a spaceship, him being strong enough to lift up a truck at the age of what 2? Learning to fly, picking up helicopters with one arm, lifting up California, racing against two rockets, etc. It's fantasy, do you ask "Well how do the Nazgul exsist if they're nothing?" or "How does the Death Star conjur up enough power to destroy planets?" You don't, you accept it and enjoy it for the visceral experience. Those of you looking for an explanation on things like this in what is clearly a fantasy movie, well your selling yourselves and the movies short.

With all due respect, it is not inconsistent or irrational to criticize or question a movie's lack of internal logic. (It may be a waste of time, and totally nerdy thing to do but that is a whole other discussion.)

The original question had to do with the storyline, not necessarily the mechanics of how Superman turned back the clock. The ending simply failed to make sense because it lost its internal logic. It isn't a matter of whether the very act of going back in time was plausible or credible or not. Curious viewers aren't asking a physics question like, "how can Superman fly without some sort of propulsion?" but rather, "what the hell just happened in this story?"

Well, that's quite clear isn't it. He turned back time to before the rockets were launched.

No, a lot of it doesn't make sense, but it doesn't have to. It's a fantasy film. Take it at face value.

How is the fact that it's a fantasy film excuse it from making leaps (and not necessarily in a single bound) in logic? We can accept in STAR WARS that there are space ships and aliens, but it would defy its own "fantasy" logic to suddenly see Han Solo use heat vision, when there is no indication that he is anything more than a human being (or Correlian - however it's spelled - as the case may be).

Also, you are incorrect. It is not clear at all that Superman turned back time before the rockets were launched. There were earthquakes and explosions, described by Lois after she is brought back to life, which happened somehow.

There is an internal logic to even the most fantasy based movies which the characters and story must adhere to.

It's not a leap in this particular film. After all it features an alien who comes from another planet who can magically fly around and pick up whole land masses. Why? You could ask the similiar questions in Star Wars or Lord of the Rings? But why, just go along with it, stop trying to explain everything and just let it happen.

Yup, i agree. You simply can't use the "it's a fantasy or sci-fi film so it doesn't have to be explained" argument for everything. Granted, different people will be able to suspend their belief under different circumstances. The ending of The Matrix Reloaded is a good example of this, as Neo's powers at the end was never really given a clear cut easy to understand explanation. Telling people to just accept it doesn't always work.

I guess you didn't watch Revolutions...

The original question really isn't that difficult. He only has to turn back time to the moment when he stops the NJ missile. However, at that moment in time he is in California now instead of NJ so he can still do all that other stuff and get to Lois a few minutes earlier, thus saving her.

I don't want to turn this off topic and in the direction of the Matrix, but as i said, the explanation given is hardly clear cut or easy to understand. Ask 10 people who saw all 3 Matrix movies why Neo was able to stop the Sentinels at the end of Reloaded and i'm willing to bet only half of them will be able to. Then again apparently i've never watched Revolutions on my Ultimate Matrix Collection or the 2 disc set i bought on release day.

Anyway, the point still stands. Giving the reason "just because" as an explanation doesn't always cut it.

I'll explain everything, after which, I get a No-Prize.

Superman did go back to far! Notice that after he stops spinning the world in reverse, he then goes around it a few times, seemingly getting it to spin in the correct direction.

But what happened was he actually over shot. While traveling back in time he notices "Oh shit, I'm in 1977," so those last few spins where it looks like he's restarting the rotation of the earth? He's actually traveling forward a year.

Clearly doing this isn't an exact science, otherwise he would have allowed himself some more time, or gone back a year earlier and used his knowledge of sporting event outcomes to get rich.

As for Superman's voice, I think that Christopher Reeve sounded pretty different as Clark than as Superman. There was a lot more confidence in Superman's voice.

And Batman does make his voice deeper when he talks, that was the case in the first three Batman movies. In Batman & Robin he was whacked with the retarded stick, that's why Batman and Bruce Wayne's voices sound the same.

Would be easier to just buy a book:

Well, those people didn't pay attention to Revolutions.