One thing Byrne did get right was the psionic aspect and the implied telekinesis aspects to super-strength and flight, for instance.
Flight certainly implies by its very existence a telekinetic aspect.
The lack of adhering to physical laws when using his strength, such as objects not crumbling under the stress of their own weights, plus the variability of his power levels (one issue being staggered by a gorilla only to take a supernova without effect a couple of issues later), do imply psionics do have something to do with how his powers manifest.
Not everything Byrne did was wrong. He just tends to spew out more garbage than gems -- and no one has the editorial guts to tell the guy "NO!".
It's very telling that the one thing Byrne supposedly didn't do wrong, he actually
stole the idea blatantly from Alan Moore's MIRACLEMAN, where all of the powers the Miracleman Family's miraclebodies were from their mind;s flight as a reflexive self-levitation, invulnerability as a result of a type of biological force field, etc.
I don't know. I miss Superman's invulnerable super-stretchy cape.
One might argue that Superman as a character is based on plagiarism to some extent. I disagree. Superman is not *exactly* like the characters that inspired him: Hercules, Doc Savage, Popeye, Flash Gordon. Yes, Doc Savage had a "Fortress of Solitude" in the arctic
first, but Superman's had enough distinctive elements in his (the Interstellar Zoo, Kandor, that giant key) and it served a different role than Doc's, as a retreat and reminder of dead Krypton, unlike Doc's, which was for solitude, meditation and scientific research. Yes, the Marvel Family came before the Superman Family, but while the
concept of a superhero family was born with the Marvels, the Superman Family is distinctive enough to stand on its own: there were no equivalents to the Lieutenant Marvels (Fat Marvel, Tall Marvel, and the politically incorrect Hillbilly Marvel), no Uncle Marvel, and Krypto is
not quite the same as Hoppy the Marvel Bunny.
All this makes the ruthless, outright conceptual lifting by Byrne of the MIRACLEMAN physics anomalous in Superman's history; the serial numbers aren't even filed off.
And while you are correct, Captain Kal, that some of the feats Superman is capable of (objects not shattering under their own weight when he lifts them, for instance)
do violate the laws of physics and require a search for alternative solutions, it doesn't mean the MIRACLEMAN explanation should be the only one. Mark Wolverton in THE SCIENCE OF SUPERMAN offered a counter-explanation: Superman's powers are based on a superconductive at room temperature nervous system (which is also the explanation for his superspeed as well) that can manipulate gravity; this is both the explanation for his flight, and his superstrength, as he decreases the gravity of objects he hoists. My summary is a poor one; my advice is to read the book yourself.
