They often use the "bracing for impact" explanation... which might be fine with low metas such as Spiderpussy and Venompussy... but with heavy hitter bricks it's not so convincing... almost as if they all generated a personal gravity field like Blob or something.
Didn’t Carter cry about the machine that was used by Superman to bench press the weight of earth?
So how those spindles not breaking? Or the ground that doesn’t give way beneath their feet. I bet there’s more to this than what carver is making it out to be.
Yeah, even the bracing makes no sense once you really think about it. To cancel out the upwards force, they'd have to create a downward force at least equal to the punch.
So their chins are actually being hit by a fist at 2x the fist's speed. Like running headfirst into a car traveling at 5mph.....
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Similar problem with the rolling with the punches bs.
I mean, sure, that one works irl - but in comics, we're often dealing with superhuman attacks and even a glancing blow should be devastating... if not fatal.
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Does Billy have the physical strength/power to handle forces equivalent to this feat? Yes, because his body was still the lever he used to stop the moon's rotation. He still had the physical toughness to not be liquified by the forces kinetic energy he was counteracting and the strength to physically keep his arms braced while doing it.
The flight basically gives him the leverage to attempt the feat at all. If he didn't have the prerequisite strength to do it he would splatter against the moon or at least basically bounce with his arms flailing against the moon uselessly if his body was durable enough to withstand the impact.
Of course the feat should still be impossible because even if he had the strength and toughness as well as the flight his arms would basically just rip through the surface of the moon when he touches them lol, because what his hand is holding with give way well before the rotation of the moon is stopped. Comics and magic though.
Even for comics though I can't imagine any non-gag character doing this feat if they don't have flight, specifically flight of the Superman variety where they can mentally anchor themselves in place as opposed to wing or propulsion-based flight.