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Was this an original comic book power of Superman or Fortress defence... or was this completely made up by the director Richard Lester?
There's quite a few sites which talks about this, probably the best two which contradicts one another are these where the first mentions the throwing of the "S" was Lester's invention and the latter describes it being a trap of the Fortress:
Do we know which is true?
New powers came and went in the Superman comics over the years (telepathy, telekinesis, freeze breath, super blow, flare, etc.) but throwing the family crest, technically the Kryptonian equivalent of name-dropping or "throwing a title" (e.g. Mission Impossible III's "Did you just throw a title at me?"), never ever appeared in the comics. Nor can the idea be attributed to Richard Lester as it appears in the original shooting script as follows:
Non, made furious by the taunt, leaps from his place and springs at Superman.
393 EFFECTS: Quickly, in a dazzling display, Superman puts his hand to his chest.
Magically, the "S SHIELD" emblazoned there becomes a literal object in his hand while its "original" remains on the costume. It shimmers and shines with an energy force that clearly connotes immense power .
Superman flings it like a discus.
394 The effect on Non as the "S SHIELD" hits him and wraps around him.
395 ON ZOD -- He looks worried. He is beginning to realize that Superman, on his home turf, has powers and devices at his command beyond their comprehension.
The screenplay is attributed to Mario Puzzo (yep...the guy who wrote The Godfather) and to David Newman, Leslie Newman, Robert Benton (un-credited) and Tom Mankiewicz (creative consultant) but no-one's admitted to the S-THROWING idea. In the writer's defense, it does read a little better than it was shot and sounds more like a non-lethal high-energy taser-like restraint device rather than the plastic wrap we ended up with.
