Saturday, 6 September 2025

Two Time Travellers

Poul Anderson's Jack Havig, Philip Wylie's Hugo Danner and Jerry Siegel's and Joe Schuster's Clark Kent grow up in small American towns hiding their powers.

Havig: time travel.
Danner: strength and speed.
Kent: strength, speed and more.

Kent's powers increased as his series progressed. For a while, by flying faster than light, he was able to time travel. An editorial reply to a reader's letter disclosed that he travelled into the future by spinning clockwise and into the past by spinning anticlockwise. 

Danner's powers probably influenced Kent's and, for a while, Kent's powers included a duplication of Havig's. We find some obscure connections between fictional characters.
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4 comments:

  1. Sean M. Brooks7 September 2025 at 06:47

    Kaor, Paul!

    To paraphrase a line from one of Pournelle/Niven's books: "Popular culture in action."

    Ad astra! Sean

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jim Baerg7 September 2025 at 18:41

    Is that image from a comic that is pre or post 1957?
    If pre, were the comic authors about to speculate about future events?
    If post, did they pick 1957 because of the first artificial satellite?

    ReplyDelete
  3. paulshackley2017@gmail.com7 September 2025 at 19:14

    Jim,

    I don't know. I googled for images of Superman time travelling and that was one that came up.

    Paul.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sean M. Brooks8 September 2025 at 04:32

    Kaor, Jim!

    I fear I was never a Superman fan, being far interested in Donald Duck and his uncle Scrooge McDuck! (Laughs)

    Ad astra! Sean

    ReplyDelete