JSA #6: A Medical Review (Just How Strong in Black Canary’s “Screamer”?)

March 19th, 2007

Filed under: Comics, Medicine

This is the first post of JSA Week — looking back at some of the science and medicine shown in the early issues of JSA.

cover, JSA #6JSA #6 “Justice, Like Lightning…”
David Goyer and Geoff Johns, writers
Marcos Martin, penciler

Black Adam comes tearing into town and picks a fight with the JSA. Black Canary (back before she regained her sonic scream powers) sneaks up behind Adam and places one of her “Canary Cry” screamers in his ear:

Black Canary: Since we’ve got special ear plugs — let’s see what 300 decibels does to your heightened hearing at close range.

A decibel (dB) is unit of ratio. It uses a logarithmic scale so small numbers can represent a large difference in effect. The most common use of decibels is to describe the intensity of a sound.
(Now remember that a sound wave is actually a compression wave, and that while the eardrums are the most sensitive part of the body to sound, they are not the only part affected by strong sounds — as anyone who’s ever “felt” the bass at a rock concert can attest). So how does Black Canary’s 300 dB Screamer rate?

decibel
event
effect on human body
40
 Whisper  
60-70
 Normal conversation  
100
 Average car stereo  
116
   Human body (not just the ear) perceives low frequency sounds
120-130
 Front row at rock concert Tinnitus (ringing in the ears) begins
140
   Pain threshold (hearing is painful)
145
 Formula 1 race car Vision becomes blurry
152
   Joints are vibrating and painful; difficult to swallow
160
 NHRA dragster  
163
 Minimum glass breaking level  
165
 Boeing 727 take off Air begins to heat up due to compression
190-195
   Eardrums rupture 50% of time
194
 1 atmosphere of pressure. At this level and higher, sound waves begin to act like shock waves
200
 Richter 1.0 earthquake Human death from shock wave
212
 Sonic boom from jet  
220
 Saturn V rocket launch  
230
 Richter 4.0 earthquake  
240
 F5 tornado  
243
 Largest non-nuclear explosion  
257
 1-megaton nuclear bomb  
286
 Mount St Helens 1980 explosion  
300
CANARY CRY “SCREAMER”
302
 Tunguska event (estimated)  

Oops. Looks like the screamer’s a little too powerful — stronger than the shock wave from a 1-megaton nuclear bomb.

I think those ear plugs are probably a moot point.

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12 Responses to “ JSA #6: A Medical Review (Just How Strong in Black Canary’s “Screamer”?) ”

  1. David Oakes
    March 20th, 2007 at 1:41 am

    If more parents would just teach logarithms instead of letting their kids pick up exponentials off the street, such senseless crimes could be avoided…

    Though considering the Canary Cry has been shown to knock people over, I think we have to rate it at 194 db at least. (Or, I don’t know, wonder how Superman can puch someone into the next time zone without ripping their head off. Comic Book Inertia is even more funn that Comic Book Math!)

  2. Jennifer
    March 20th, 2007 at 5:29 am

    Very interesting. My earplugs, rated at 30db, do nothing against the husband’s snoring. Now I know why! Interestingly enough, they’re the same earplugs I use at work for to be around military aircraft in full afterburner.

  3. mike.
    March 20th, 2007 at 9:34 am

    Yikes! And to think of all those wasted hours at the Duane Reade agonizing over whether to get the 27 db earplugs, or paying the extra dime for the 30 db. Earplugs for sleeping are de rigeur in NYC, what with 3 AM garbage pickups and drunks stumbling home after 4 AM last call – I know they really don’t block out that much noise, they just make me FEEL better.

  4. Tooms
    March 20th, 2007 at 10:34 am

    So the Canary Cry is more powerful than Black Bolt’s voice?

  5. Jake Reid
    March 21st, 2007 at 1:57 pm

    So a more reasonable level of the “Canary Cry” would be around 150 decibels then, with the possibility of it going up to 200 should it need to? That would seem to fit in with what we’ve seen of Black Canary’s powers in the comics.

  6. jps
    March 21st, 2007 at 4:02 pm

    What about “standing on the deck of the USS Iowa while fires a full broadside”?

  7. Scott
    March 21st, 2007 at 6:53 pm
    Official Comment

    BATTLESHIP NEW JERSEY FIRING ALL 9 SIXTEEN INCH GUNS = 215 decibels.

  8. Tom Scudder
    March 26th, 2007 at 10:45 pm

    300 decibels is nothing on Cyborg’s (at least during the Wolfman/Perez Teen Titans in the 80s) “million decibels of white sound” that he would shoot at people. Which extrapolating the above chart would seem to be slightly louder than the Big Bang.

  9. Anonymous
    July 2nd, 2008 at 7:04 am

    How exactly do the “30 db earplugs” work?
    Are they good against noise up to 30 db, or do the subtract 30 db from the noise level…?

  10. Black Canary’s Bizarrely Shaped Breasts! « Bob Mitchell in the 21st Century
    July 16th, 2008 at 7:19 pm

    [...] It’s no wonder her sonic scream is so powerful with a set of lungs like that. [...]

  11. fluffy
    July 13th, 2009 at 9:37 am

    @Anonymous: They attenuate the noise level by 30dB (i.e. the resulting sound will have an SPL of 30 dB less than it did before). It’s not “subtracting” strictly-speaking although that’s what happens to the numbers, yes (that is how logarithmic scales work).

  12. kettch
    July 20th, 2009 at 9:25 pm

    Well, her power level fluctuates according to the writer. I remember an issue of Batgirl where she helped out Cass by LEVELLING A MOUNTAIN that was in their way.

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