Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-34954086-20120922085545/@comment-4928331-20121116003608

Just to keep you on your toes, I would like to talk about Black Manta's optic blasts.

Here are the properties I observed: Now! One would think that the beam is some kind of super-shrinked portable laser that's somehow powered by nano-nuclear reactors (or some technological voodoo since Black Manta is a tech-based villain only). BUT, let's say you're Aquaman, you're running towards the visor, and gets zapped by a laser. It cuts a hole through you, and due to your forward momentum, you fall on your face -- Aquaman was knocked back instead in Depths.
 * 1) The beam can penetrate water up to a depth that regular bullets can't.
 * 2) The beam pierced through Aquaman's chain mail
 * 3) The beam is superheated - it vaporized Aquaman's chain mail, leaving some smoke
 * 4) The beam has a lot of mass - it knocked Aquaman back considerably
 * 5) The visor can function underwater
 * 6) The visor is hollow

Which means it's not a laser.

So my question is, what is it, and how does it work? How is it powered, and why does it work underwater?