Boom tube

Boom tube
A Boom tube as seen in Superman: The Animated Series.
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
Created by	Jack Kirby
In story information
Type	Technology
Element of stories featuring	New Gods

A boom tube is a slang expression for a fictional extra-dimensional point-to-point travel portal (a form of teleportation) opened by a Mother Box used primarily by residents of New Genesis and Apokolips in DC Comics. The concept was created by Jack Kirby for his Fourth World series of comics.

The "science" of boom tubes has never been explained (as is normal for the New Gods, though Orion, in the first issue of New Gods, says that a tube "stems from the waves of the mind") but they allow people to quickly travel interstellar distances, and between dimensions, by creating an apparent tube between two points through which people can travel. When used, a low humming accompanies the formation of the "tube" (a tunnel of rippling circles of light) which increases in volume as the tube is maintained and traversed, ultimately culminating in a loud "booming" noise when it closes. This "boom" has been known to knock bystanders off their feet and shatter glass, and gives the technology its name. The tubes are generated or opened by another device, a Mother Box. Boom tubes are powered by the mysterious X-element, which serves as a matter threshold.

The initial Kirby comics depict boom tubes as a sort of quasi-technological equivalent of Bifröst, the Rainbow Bridge linking Asgard and Earth; indeed, boom tubes are described as a "bridge to Earth." Subsequent writers have allowed the tubes to be used for point-to-point transport between various locations on New Genesis, Apokolips, Earth, and other planets, thereby making them near-ubiquitous for the travel of the New Gods.

In Brad Meltzer's Justice League of America #1, a villain named Doctor Impossible uses a "father box" to summon "hush tubes".