Super-Dude's Superdo

Superman is a legendary character. His is the story of a boy becoming a man, a foreigner becoming his adopted home's greatest hero, the story of a God trying to be a person. But those character defining aspects aren't the topic of today. No today we're talking about how stupidly incredible his hair is.

So one of the things most people know about Superman is how invulnerable, invincible, and indestructible he is. The guy has only technically died once due to overexposure to solar radiation, and three months later he was revived and fused with the other half of his presence. It's weird. But we all think of his invincibility in terms of not getting cut or bruised, Superman's clothing is even indestructible sometimes. How? Well, one of Superman's more obscure powers is an "aura" of psychic energy radiating around his body. Ever wonder why his hand-sown super-suit never gets ripped by wind resistance or burnt by fire? Later stories establish his suit as Kryptonian armor, but old-school fans will remember his suit was made by his mom Martha with her knitting kit. Superman's aura keeps Lois Lane from having her skin peeled off when they go for a flight, too. Under extreme conditions the aura can be deactivated and his clothes can rip for all the ladies to see, but Connor Kent-the clone of Superman-has a distorted version of this power. Instead of having said aura-and using the aura to propell off the ground which is how Superman flies-he can create bursts of psychic energy with the aura. But enough about auras and clones, we're here to talk about hair.

The reason I wanted to write about this is because my beloved girlfriend is currently going to Beauty School for hair dressing, and my mother works at a salon as a hair dresser. Which means I basically get free haircuts for life. It also means she knows a lot about hair now and I here a lot of this stuff and think to myself "don't start talking about Superman's hair". Superman has indestructible hair, mostly. Aside from the comics above-depicting the impossibility of cutting his hair throughout the 40's, 60's, and 2000's-one might also remember a scene in "Superman 4: The Quest For Peace". In terms of classic Superman movies it's really the worst of the four, partly due to it's original villain The Nuclear Man. He was created by Lex Luthor cloning Superman by using a string of hair Superman donated to a museum. As demonstrated, a single string of hair from Superman can hold up a 1000 Ibs ball of steel without wither or tear. This is very impressive when you factor in how hair is just dead cells, it's hair to break a hair without scissors, but under stress hair can become longer and thinner and lose it's strength. Superman's hair is canonically less durable than Superman himself, meaning for as long as Superman can live-which is a long time if "Batman Beyond", Kingdom Come, and The Dark Knight Strikes Again has shown us-his hair can last almost as long.

But then we get to the defining question: how does Superman cut his hair? We all know he has to, we've seen his mullet in the 90's. There's no doubt he cut that off as soon as 1995 ended. Well the answer is pretty well known. Heat vision. If being hit by General Zod's heat vision can actually hurt Superman it stands to reason that his own heat vision can hurt him too, and hurt enough to destroy his hair. To shave, Superman has to blast his heat vision on low level into a reflective surface like a mirror. It must have taken a lot of practice, imagine how many melted mirrors The Kents had to go through. But by burning each hair individually Clark can maintain that smooth jawline. As for the hair on his head it could be just as simple, he has enhanced vision so he could possible burn his mullet off. Another explanation could be a Kryptonite blade or Red Sun Lamp. Since Superman has been stabbed with Kryptonite before it stands to reason it could cut his hair if shaped properly. And light from a Red Sun can nullify his powers, which means no more invincible hair. The latter seems smarter as Kryptonite cutter could actually poison him.

Now despite being the "Last Son of Krypton" Superman has plenty of relatives on Earth who may face similar problems. His aforementioned clone Connor is only half Kryptonian and has shows signs of cuts and bruises and even shaved his head bald once so he doesn't have the same level of invincibility. His dog Krypto on the other hand comes from Krypton like him, so his hair can't be cut by normal means. But at least he won't shed on the couch. And then there is Kara/Supergirl. Again, living with an actual, real-life female has taught me their methods of shaving and such, so Kara's situation may differ. We never really see her cutting her hair or shaving really, since most Kryptonians are so damn attractive she may not have to bother worrying about hair in places. Maybe it's better to believe that than to imagine her using heat vision...downward. On her legs, you sicko!

Hope this information regarding the super-strong hair of Superman has entertained you! And just remember, for as strong as you can get, a strand of Superman's hair can lift more than you.

Thanks for reading!