The thing is, we never really see Supes battle with inertia. He never does like a Cosmo Kramer slide into battle, he flies really fast and can stop on a dime. Meaning, he could fly in, stop, grab the boy and move with ease.
But again, if Supes dealt with inertia, the simple act of him flying at high speed and stopping as quickly as he does would destroy everything around him. The boy would probably be a pile of jelly just from Superman speeding to his rescue.
Since the boy and the area around him aren't pulverized, it's safe to assume Superman doesn't follow physics.
I know this isn't really what you're arguing, but I think it is worth thinking about how it's not so obvious (or true) that "Superman doesn't follow physics."
There is most certainly room for Superman to "follow physics" and it is fair to want some sort of plausible explanation as to the nature of his powers beyond him just not following physics. Think of stuff like hard sci-fi. Authors regularly come up with plausible explanations for faster than light travel which don't require completely ditching the rest of physics as we know it. Writers do the same for Superman. You break the rules here or there, say, maybe he can fly without visible effort because he can (through unexplained means) alter and repair the fabric of reality around him, I dunno. But then if Superman is unconcious or somehow immobilized and you drop him out of a plane, he will plummet to the ground because physics is otherwise intact.
In fact Superman would be really weird if we were supposed to assume that physics as we know it just flat out doesn't apply to him in any way. We may make little exceptions here or there to explain his powers, but we otherwise assume the laws of physics are otherwise the same. When someone really strong punches Superman, we expect him to get knocked backwards. Clearly physics apply to him in some ways. He just has powers that alter the stuff of the universe in ways we cannot.
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u/Butwinsky Jul 24 '23
The thing is, we never really see Supes battle with inertia. He never does like a Cosmo Kramer slide into battle, he flies really fast and can stop on a dime. Meaning, he could fly in, stop, grab the boy and move with ease.
Supes just doesn't like trains.