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Rambling usually ignores it when Dean Cain posts one of his tirades against liberal Hollywood. We held our tongue when the Lois & Clark star turned honorary ICE agent went after Disney’s multicultural Snow White remake. We kept our lips zipped when he took a shot at James Gunn’s “pro-immigrant” Superman. But now, with his dig at Milly Alcock’s Supergirl — sharing posts about how her portrayal violates Kryptonian physics because her bulletproof ears are pierced — we can stay quiet no longer. 

Because the 59-year-old MAGA actor has stumbled into a debate that’s been vexing DC fans for more than six decades. Never mind Supergirl’s ear piercings: How did her cousin shave his presumably indestructible beard? 

An early attempt at resolving this grooming conundrum came in 1960’s Action Comics No. 262, which suggested that under Earth’s yellow sun, Superman’s hair didn’t grow. But five months later, in Superman No. 139, Kal-El asks Supergirl and Krypto to burn off his whiskers with their heat vision. A quarter-century later, legendary DC writer-artist John Byrne tried to settle the argument in his 1986 series The Man of Steel, coming down hard on the side of heat vision, this time reflected off a hunk of metal from the rocket Superman flew to Earth in as a baby.

Case closed — until Henry Cavill showed up bearded in the 2013 Man of Steel movie, and Gillette launched a “How Does Superman Shave?” campaign. Experts weighed in — like MythBusters’ Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, who suggested that Superman used the Large Hadron Collider to generate tiny wormholes that sucked the stubble from his face.

The latest theory comes from Gunn himself, who answered Cain’s question about Supergirl’s piercings with the simple sentence: “She goes to a planet with a red sun,” noting that it’s the same way Supergirl gets drunk — and, presumably, the same way Superman could get a shave.

Of course, there is one other explanation for Kara’s earrings: clip-ons.

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Also in Rambling Reporter:

Why Richard Nixon has suddenly gone viral; It may be dog eat dog in Hollywood, but among the super-rich in Long Island, the canines have live-in help.

This story appeared in the June 16 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.

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