Superman vs. Namor

[Jcogginsa]

Superman takes on Namor the Sub-Mariner!

with a twist: Both only get their feats from their first appearence, in Action Comics #1/ Marvel Comics #1

[Shellhead]

Just so everyone can get up to speed:

Action Comics #1: https://www.cgccomics.com/1134755001/#features/

Marvel Comics #1: https://youtu.be/wHTdZYDXGdQ?t=316

[Shellhead]

A quick review of feats:

Superman:
1. superhuman strength: lifted a car.
2. superhuman durability: bulletproof and knife-proof.
3. superhuman speed: faster than a speeding car.
4. no flying, but able to leap at least several building stories high.

Namor:
(0.) narrative at the start of the story claims that he has the strength of 1,000 men.
1. superhuman strength: able to crush a metal diving helmet with his bare hands and tear apart the metal propellor of a ship. He also throws a guy pretty far, like maybe 50 yards.
2. flight: able to fly while carrying a person, but found it more convenient to escape a fight by hijacking a small plane.
3. standard equipment includes a knife.

Superman is definitely the hero in this fight, while Namor is either a villain or anti-hero at best.

[Pendaran]

The main hitch for Namor... actually no, his ability to endure the pressures of the ocean depths is totally framed as a durability thing. I was going to otherwise note lack of durability showings being a thing.

Hm. I mean he has better mobility, and superman's speed here isn't that crazy. I dunno, it's a close seeming fight. Rare for this board!

[Shellhead]

They both have feats, but the feats are different so it's hard for me to compare them.

Strength: lifting a car versus crushing/rending metal

Durability: bullet-proof versus enduring the ocean depths... I read something recently that the pressure of the ocean depths are only a problem for an air-breather, because of the threat of collapsing lungs. So maybe Namor's durability feat isn't even a durability feat. I suppose that not hurting his hands while crushing and rending metal suggests some durability.

Speed: Mostly this is a comparison of travel speed, since neither one of them dodges any bullets or does anything that seems faster than bullet-timing. Superman is running really fast, while Namor's flight speed doesn't look all that quick on panel, but he did catch up with a plane that was likely going faster than a car. Also, Namor did fly up and attack that sniper before the sniper could take even one shot, though maybe it was because the sniper spent too long aiming.

My very rough estimation is that they are roughly equal strength, but Superman is clearly more durable while Namor is probably faster. Namor isn't fast enough to put Superman down with a blitz, so Superman will likely win the fistfight due to his superior durability.

[The Arbiter]

The ocean depths thing is weird. Like, if you were to teleport a fish that lived in the Mariana Trench onto dry land... it would be about as durable as any other fish. Like a foot would squish it just fine. Its purely evolution and how certain materials compress differently, not durability.

In comics its sometimes different. Both Namor and Aquaman have cited their resistance to such depths as more of a durability thing instead of a biological mechanism thing.

[Pendaran]

Durability: bullet-proof versus enduring the ocean depths... I read something recently that the pressure of the ocean depths are only a problem for an air-breather, because of the threat of collapsing lungs.

Let me put it another way, what are the remote odds the comic writer knew something like that?

Basically, it's some sort of durability thing, it's just hard to take from it a more specific impression.

[big_adventure]

Let me put it another way, what are the remote odds the comic writer knew something like that?

Basically, it's some sort of durability thing, it's just hard to take from it a more specific impression.

This is an entirely fair point, and I say this as the person who has explained repeatedly on this board about how resisting being crushed under water doesn't require durability in real life. Liquids and solids do not compress, only gasses do. So you being teleported from sea level to 10K meters would cause you to crush: your lungs are full of air, and that's not resisting outside crushing forces. Plus all of the "dissolved gasses in my blood forming bubbles and killing me" part.

But...

There is simply no way most comic writers know or care about this, and both Namor and Aquaman have been repeatedly presented as "wicked tough thanks to resisting pressures, yo" for thousands of years (or it seems that way).

[Beadle]

More importantly, would this weaker, comparatively featless Namor yell “Inferius Rex”?

[Shellhead]

This is an entirely fair point, and I say this as the person who has explained repeatedly on this board about how resisting being crushed under water doesn't require durability in real life. Liquids and solids do not compress, only gasses do. So you being teleported from sea level to 10K meters would cause you to crush: your lungs are full of air, and that's not resisting outside crushing forces. Plus all of the "dissolved gasses in my blood forming bubbles and killing me" part.

But...

There is simply no way most comic writers know or care about this, and both Namor and Aquaman have been repeatedly presented as "wicked tough thanks to resisting pressures, yo" for thousands of years (or it seems that way).

Good points, but by the same logic, regular Atlanteans from either DC or Marvel should be just as tough, and yet they don't seem to be even a little bit bulletproof.

[Pendaran]

Welllll.. that itself has wildly varied over the years. Regular Atlanteans from marvel for instance might not be bulletproof, but they are often all held up as being ten times stronger than average humans and better resistant to blunt force trauma as a baseline with their "ocean pressure resistance" as the given demonstration of why they have overall superior physiologies.