History Main / BatmanCanBreatheInSpace

* ''Young Samson & Goliath'' episode "Moon Rendezvous". Kunev Khan flies his rocket ship to the Moon with the title characters as stowaways. After arriving, Kunev Khan, Samson, and Goliath cheerfully walk around in the Moon's near-vacuum with no side effects at all. And Samson and Goliath's superpowers don't explain it: they exposed themselves to the non-existent atmosphere before they changed to their super-powered forms.

* In the ''Franchise/DCAnimatedUniverse'' (particularly ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'', ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'', ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague''), there is a general consensus that even metahumans can't breathe without oxygen -- even Superman uses a Space suit or at least breathing gear.
** Batman, however, has snuck onto and off of the Watchtower without the use of teleporters or shuttles, when it was ''in orbit''. [[CrazyPrepared That's just how Batman rolls]]. [[ParanoiaFuel He could be behind you right now]].
** The other one to use this trope is Lobo, whose usage of this trope is pure RuleOfFunny: He rides through space in an open-topped space-bike with no spacesuit or forcefield and gets by fine. He is even able to talk audibly in space unaided and gets heard through hulls and spacesuits... Somehow.

** The episode was adapted from the comic of the same name, where the line is "those candy-butt astronauts didn't have the stones to try it."
** The ability to breathe on the moon isn't even {{Hand Wave}}d for the game ''Bright Side of the Moon'', which provides the page image.

** One humor fic had fun with this, with Jaga, during his long sojourn piloting the ship all alone, becomes suicidal and throws open an airlock... only to be flummoxed by discovering that [=ThunderCats=] can apparently breathe in space. (Tigra makes an editorial comment about how he hadn't noticed before, but that they can and it's really ''weird''.)

** Not even just the cats. Mandora may have been a gynoid, but Captain Bragg and his circus, and when he hauls the Lunattacks and Mutants to Exile Island (an asteroid with its [[BabyPlanet own problems]]).
** Space works even more weirdly in ''WesternAnimation/SilverHawks'', by the same creators. There's air, gravity, and ''night and day'' by virtue of switching on a gigantic light on a schedule.

* Used frequently in ''WesternAnimation/SuperFriends''. Actually, usually only Superman went into space without breathing equipment. Nonetheless, the other Super-Friends were able to survive with just fishbowl helmets. Oh, and [[SpaceIsNoisy Space was Noisy]].

* ''WesternAnimation/GreenLanternTheAnimatedSeries'': Lantern rings give their wearers life-support forcefields that let them operate normally in space, justifying the trope, but the trope is played straight for many non-lanturns. In one episode, Kilowog lifts a bunch of evacuees into space on a platform with no roof or walls to escape their planet's destruction, while in another a group of [[WingedHumanoid Thanagarians]] simply fly out of an astroid prison via flapping their wings. Not only are none of them wearing closed helmets, they're [[WalkingShirtlessScene not even wearing shirts]].

* In ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'', the trope namer was referenced almost to the letter [[https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2007-12-22 here]], with ''Webcomic/{{Shortpacked}}'' mentioned in that strip's note. And with a nice lampshading of the speaker's ''sanity''. Not that it's a surprise to anyone at that point...

* In ''Manga/ACertainScientificRailgun'', Mikoto and Kuroko are launched to the edge of the atmosphere to deal with an approaching missile. They are not bothered by the vacuum, but could not breathe and had to work fast so Kuroko could teleport them back to Earth before they suffocated.
** This is a borderline case, however, because they had not actually left the Atmoshpere at all, but were on the edge of the stratosphere to intercept a satellite that was falling from the Themosphere. And in the aftermath, both were left in poor condition from the act, thus were not unharmed from the stunt.

** Batman, however, has snuck onto the Watchtower without the use of teleporters or shuttles, when it was ''in orbit''. [[CrazyPrepared That's just how Batman rolls]]. [[ParanoiaFuel He could be behind you right now]].

A work featuring this trope tends to be a soft science fiction.

* The RuleOfFun/[[RuleOfCool Cool]] physics of the ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' setting ''TabletopGame/{{Spelljammer}}'' allow this: there is no oxygen in space, but whenever an object goes into space, it takes an "envelope" of air with it. So everyone can breathe in space, for a minute or handful on their own. The amount of air is proportional to the size of the object, which helps the crew of a huge ship, but not a giant, for example, since it uses proportionally as much air. After a while, the air becomes stale and eventually runs out, though far-traveling ships usually avoid it with air-creating spells or plants. Escape velocity or burning up in the atmosphere aren't problems -- if you go up high enough, you end up in space, simple as that. All of this was designed to allow SpacePirates to [[RuleOfCool stand on the decks of their wooden ships]]... [[RecycledInSpace In Space]]. Incidentally, the way gravity works is even weirder.\\\

** A straighter example would be in "Nobita's Great Adventure into the Underworld" where Nobita mentions how they're in space and able to breathe. Doraemon replies / {{HandWave}}s that because they're in a parallel universe that runs on magic instead of science, our standard understanding of the laws of the universe doesn't apply.

** In ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'', Thor can breathe and talk in space, both surviving a ship explosion and later when he kicks starts a dead Neutron star.

* Played with in ''Manga/UQHolder'' in regards to Karin Yuuki. She actually can't breathe in space but her immortality makes it only a minor nuisance rather than a a life-ending danger.

* ''Manga/{{Doraemon}}'': Doraemon has pocket gadgets that allow one to breathe in space without a suit. No mention is made of the ''other'' problems with space travel.

Superpowers complicate the situation. This is about how ''ordinary people'' don't need spacesuits in space. SinglePowerSuperheroes are usually close enough to normal to count, but characters with [[NighInvulnerability Nigh-Invulnerable]] powers, BizarreAlienBiology, and [[WitchSpecies magic powers]] aren't "normal" enough for this trope. Their survival can be {{Handwave}}d away as part of their abilities. This trope is for when characters with no relevant powers are exposed to the vacuum of space without protection and suffer no negative consequences.

A work featuring this trope falls on the softer edge of SlidingScale/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness.

A work featuring this trope falls on the softer edge of MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness.

%%* '''Unsure - powers''' The titular Symphogear users from ''Anime/SenkiZesshouSymphogear'' not only breathe in space but they also have no problem talking or ''singing'' there. Handwaved as a telepathy from the gears' powers.

* 'In the ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987'' episode "[[Recap/DuckTalesS1E4WhereNoDuckHasGoneBefore Where No Duck Has Gone Before]]", Launchpad accidentally dumps himself into outer space when he opens the wrong door. Not only can he breathe, but he can also talk.