Discussion Main / DepletedPhlebotinumShells

Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: condensing examples, started by Deboss on Nov 1st 2010 at 10:58:41 PM

There are actual wood bullets used as blanks. Need to use a special adaptor to destroy the wood - acording to my instructor in the army a 7,62 NATO wood plugd blank is dangerous at more distanse than other types of planks (Quote: Goes through winter survival gear at 100m, dont get shot in the ass as removing all the splinters takes time)

What about the Adaminium bullet to kill Wolverine?

This is way too much for a single example. Condense any relevant information before adding it back.

• Among the occasions are an Alex Ross short where Superman, under mind control, rampages until Batman shoots him with a Kryptonite bullet. It also happened in Smallville. A variation is Superman Returns, where Lex Luthor stabs him with a kryptonite shiv.
• It's actually been shown that Supes is rather dense about the fact Genre Savvy bad guys can and do use kryptonite bullets. Normally he just stands there like he does with other bullets and gets shot like the rest of us.
  • Usually it's because he's trying to save someone. A kryptonite bullet is just as deadly to a human being as a regular bullet. At least with Superman, if you can remove the bullet, he recovers rapidly.
  • Played with in early issues of Superman/Batman. Supes attempts to use the Kryptonite bullet against his evil future self, after Alfred Pennyworth just pulled it out of him. Thank goodness random chunks of space rock fit into the Chekhov's Gun Alfred had shown up with when he misinterpreted Superman's appearance in the cave. Psst, Alfred, next time use Mr. Freeze's gun.
  • One issue of Supergirl showed Arsenal preparing to fire liquid-Kryptonite-filled rounds at her.
• Of course, the way Kryptonite works, a bullet really should be an ineffective way to weaponize it against Superman. His powers don't wink out instantly around Kryptonite, they simply diminish at a rapid rate but the fraction of a second a bullet takes to travel to its target coupled with the range of effective exposure (somewhere around ten to fifteen yards) should mean that Superman's skin is still plenty tough when the bullet bounces off it and flies well away from it's effective exposure range. A more effective method sometimes used against him is a dispersed cloud of Kryptonite dust that gets all over his clothing. It prolongs exposure.
  • This is extremely dependent on the writer of course, and if in this incarnation Kryptonite is able to pierce Supe's skin (regardless of whether it weakens him beforehand) then having a Kryptonite chunk INSIDE HIM is going to cause some rather nasty 'exposure.'
  • This issue would be minigated if the crook figured out to put the Kryptonite inside a lead casing, which Superman wouldn't be able to tell what the bullet was until it was to late.
• And, of course, during the Silver Age, Jonathan Kent was shown to punish Superboy with a Kryptonite paddle. Which, yeah, discipline, but is still kind of a dickish thing to keep around the house.
• The Dark Knight Returns features a showdown between Superman and Batman. Part of Batman's plan involves Green Arrow as a sharpshooter with a glowing... green arrow (which it took Bats "years to synthesize" just in preparation for such a possible confrontation).

Would anyone be averse to reorganizing the page? The way it's set up now is really clunky, I think it would look better to list the various types of materials up in the description and then list the ones that pop up in the media.

Just because I have to give vent to my inner pedant - surely depleted phlebotinum would be phlebotinum minus any of its defining properties, in the same way depleted uranium is much less radioactive and only used for Armor Piercing because it's really dense. That said, it's one of my favourite trope titles...

X Just X example cut from page:

• Taiyohhhhhhhhhhhh!