He has super hearing and super speed, and can hear everything across the city. In NYC, an approximate analog of Metropolis, there are over 37,000 car accidents with major injuries or fatalities every year. That's 100 car accidents each day, every day, just car accidents. If he were to actually try to save everyone he could, he would never have any time for anything else, not even sleep. It's one thing to go take a sudden bathroom break when Lois is dangling from the ledge on the roof of a building. It's something else to leave the room every 15 minutes of every hour because people can't stop texting while driving.
this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2025
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Showerthoughts
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Well metropolis isn't exactly NYC, and he doesn't stop every incident. Mostly he is shown focusing on the major disasters, mundane incidents in close proximity, and on protecting a short list of people he looks out for.
Also he moves insanely fast, like he can canonically travel faster than light. So being able to stop even a hundred car accidents could be accomplished in a series of short bursts throughout his day.
Sure, it's fiction, and Superman's powers and limitations are whatever the plot demands.
But if he could move that fast, and he was in a real major city with real people and real problems, then he would be saving people nonstop. Because he could. If he's faster than light, he could go save everyone without anyone noticing he left the room (setting aside physics, of course). But he'd never be able to stop, and he would never run out of people to save.
And none of it would be supervillains and giant robots or space lasers.
But then, applying any sort of real world rationality to Superman never ends well.
That’s super sad and oddly realistic.
Superman deserves a healthy work-life balance
He's still only human, despite it all.
Really? I don't think he'll let anybody die just because there wasn't a convenient phone booth around to get rapid changed in.
I mean, I dont know about you but work will start to ask questions if Im taking a piss break every 10-15 minutes.
He's a reporter, I think he has a little latitude to be away from his desk for a few minutes, even days or weeks at a time.
Any reporters want to confirm this?
Otherwise Im thinking about a career change.
He's a field reporter. He goes out into the world to write about stuff. If he's gone for three weeks working on a story, that's what it takes.
He's also super smart and super fast, so he can write the story in a small fraction of the time as most reporters.
So, as Superman, he flies to where the problem is, solves it, then writes about it as Clark Kent.
Same thing Spider-Man does, except a big part of it is also getting pictures of himself as Spider-Man doing the problem solving.
"It's a field; it's just dirt and grass and bugs."
These types of roles are extremely limited in modern news. They often involve reporting from within active war zones e.g. all the journalists killed by Israel. You don't just say you're going somewhere and fuck off the org will want to know where you are and what work you're doing so they're not just paying you to fuck about the countryside.
There's often references to his flakiness. Its a common trope in various series that he'll here someone in trouble and excuse himself to go save them. Sometimes it just shows him "accidentally" dropping a pen, reaching under the table to get it, and using his super speed to zip off and save someone.
People would notice at my work.
You dont have super speed.
The physics of that speed and the air pressure means he'd be literally blowing people's clothes off in the office.
Shit happens. As long as he comes back nude, no one is the wider. (Taps head.)
There was an open window and they're on a high floor.
Though it was something I was thinking about. Could he somehow use his super breath to replace any displaced air? Does the same super-shielding effect that keeps his costume from get torn in every fight also keep him from being affected by air resistance and thus cause less disturbance when he's moving at super speeds?
Its all comic book magic, of course, but interesting things to think about.
This is true of public services. Society is always making choices which balance the level of service with the cost. If we wanted to save the maximum number of lives, there would be a hospital next to every home. We accept that some people, who could be saved, will die while they wait for an ambulance.
Maybe you shouldn't apply real-world logic to superhero stories.
Why? Gives you bad feels?
Because you're pointing out that the thing which was never intended to be internally consistent... isn't internally consistent.
And it makes you upset?
Sure, why not.
We dont talk about fictional incongruities around here, OK!
Something has to motivate the hero. If not innocent lives the whose?