Should Superman be outright best at anything?

[JackDaw]

I would prefer that if they are going to tone him down to just a little more powerful than other heroes, so that he is still the most powerful but not by a vast gulf, then they do away with the weaknesses that were created to begin with because there was a huge gulf between Superman and other non-cosmic heroes.

Yes..that’s one aspect that is often overlooked...while (for most of time) Superman has been dialled down from Silver Age levels (while still retaining all his original weaknesses) in general the other heroes have been ramped up.

Take a few examples:-
Flash has acquired a tranche of speed force abilities...ability to steal or add speed, ability to create speed force constructs, and is routinely shown as many times faster than Superman, rather than on a par.

GL’s...yellow weakness removed, strict need to recharge every 24 hours removed...and then, of course, Kyle made into a White Lantern

Wonder Woman...used to just glide, so actually needed Invisible Plane, and seemed to need her bullet proof bracelets. Now you wonder why she bothers with either (plane or bracelets).

Batman..used to be “merely” world’s best detective. Now he’s best at practically all human disciplines. If he entered national ballroom dancing competition, I’d expect him to win!

[Last Son]

Yes. When they started, just wearing a circus costume with a cape and having essentially the same powers made them similar. Captain Marvel was even given a bald scientific genius as his main opponent paralleling the bald super scientist the Ultra Humanite who was Superman's first serious opponent. But Marvel flew first and then Superman flew. But yeah, they looked way more similar when there were not more than a few heroes super around.

Although I definitely cut Cap some slack because Hugo Danner from Philip Wylie's novel "Gladiator" could leap an eighth of a mile, outrun a train and it took a bursting shell in World War I to finally penetrate his skin. Oh, and he was vulnerable to electricity which was the first thing ever shown to knock out Superman when the Humanite used it on him.

So the "borrowing" thing goes a number of ways. But, in terms of popularity, ever since acquiring Cap, DC has struggled to find any way to make him popular.

While I agree that Superman borrowed heavily from the Gladiator novel, it's the context that matters too. I think what stops Superman from being just a blatant ripoff in this case is Gladiator was not exactly a superhero novel, and superhero comics aren't just about the struggles and pitfalls of trying to find a place in the world when you have extraordinary abilities, although that is often an element of it. It's about a person dedicating their lives to being a hero, even going as far as to design a uniform for it.

I guess what it comes down to is just about any great idea you can find has been done before in a different form. A lot of people like to say "no, Superman isn't the first superhero, this guy is" and then you can probably find a character even earlier than that character that has superhero-like traits. You find a character from, say, 1934 who seems to be the first superhero, then you end up finding yet another character from 1929, then another from 1915, then another from 1905, then another from the 1890s and so on. And ultimately, you have mythological figures from thousands of years ago who fit the bill. In light of this, DC probably should have been more forgiving of Captain Marvel's similarities to Superman, since every idea is based on a combination of previous ideas with a few original touches.

[Shadowedeyes]

That's the one thing I didn't like about "For the Man who has Everything". It has that scene where WW can't do anything and hurts her hand and a scene I think where Superman moves so fast she cannot even perceive him. That's carrying it too far in the other direction and is the same as the Flash being multiple times faster than Superman. I don't want to see others disrespected like that.

I think Superman should be the strongest and most durable. Speed should be close and even ambiguous, maybe slight edge to the Flash. As much as there is to criticize about the Justice League movie, I thought the representation of the power levels were exactly right.

Had Wonder Woman been intending to hurt him rather than get him to stop, I think it would have been one helluva fight with him clearly more powerful but her making up for it with skill and weapons. The Flash maybe just enough faster to barely avoid getting hit and survive. Cyborg, Aquaman and Batman, quite frankly, are traditionally not in a league (pun intended) to take on Superman unless Batman has kryptonite.

Maybe a bit off-subject but one of the reasons I think kryptonite was brought into the stories and the "weakness" to magic was that Superman had become so powerful even compared to other heroes. Supposedly, and I don't know for a fact if this is true, there was a year where he ran into kryptonite in literally half the stories.

I would prefer that if they are going to tone him down to just a little more powerful than other heroes, so that he is still the most powerful but not by a vast gulf, then they do away with the weaknesses that were created to begin with because there was a huge gulf between Superman and other non-cosmic heroes.

Edit: Just occurred to me that this might not be as much of a problem if we and the companies were not into this idea of the characters fighting each other. As a kid, I loved Superman and Batman and tons of other characters. I remember once someone saying that Superman would trounce Batman in a fight and my reaction was that, sure, minus kryptonite, of course he would but why would they be fighting and why would anyone want to see that?

To be fair to Alan Moore, Mongul was much more powerful at that point in time, and Wonder Woman was generally not considered at Superman's level at the time. Still not great, but it makes sense. I didn't really like the Justice League portrayal myself, but I see what you're getting at.

I do think Superman's weaknesses could be toned down. Magic could be dropped entirely I think. Kryptonite is too iconic at this point to drop, but reduce the red sun weakness and actually make Kryptonite rare and I think it'd be fine at that point. And I'll never disagree with less hero fights. In fact when looking at this question it was more from a team-up/team point of view rather than a simple who beats who sort of thing.

[Last Son]

To be fair to Alan Moore, Mongul was much more powerful at that point in time, and Wonder Woman was generally not considered at Superman's level at the time. Still not great, but it makes sense. I didn't really like the Justice League portrayal myself, but I see what you're getting at.

I do think Superman's weaknesses could be toned down. Magic could be dropped entirely I think. Kryptonite is too iconic at this point to drop, but reduce the red sun weakness and actually make Kryptonite rare and I think it'd be fine at that point. And I'll never disagree with less hero fights. In fact when looking at this question it was more from a team-up/team point of view rather than a simple who beats who sort of thing.

Yeah, I don't think magic should be considered a specific weakness to Superman. It's a weakness of any powerful, non-magical/supernatural being.

[Osiris-Rex]

I do think Superman's weaknesses could be toned down. Magic could be dropped entirely I think. Kryptonite is too iconic at this point to drop, but reduce the red sun weakness and actually make Kryptonite rare and I think it'd be fine at that point. And I'll never disagree with less hero fights. In fact when looking at this question it was more from a team-up/team point of view rather than a simple who beats who sort of thing.

Red sunlight shouldn't instantly weaken Superman. It should just prevent him from recharging, so the more he uses his powers the weaker he gets. He could maybe rapidly weaken over a period of a
few minutes if he is doing something arduous, similar to Solar Flare. But not all at once. Conversely a yellow sun shouldn't instantly recharge Superman. His power should build at the same rate that he
was weakened, several minutes to recharge.

[stephens2177]

Red sunlight shouldn't instantly weaken Superman. It should just prevent him from recharging, so the more he uses his powers the weaker he gets. He could maybe rapidly weaken over a period of a
few minutes if he is doing something arduous, similar to Solar Flare. But not all at once. Conversely a yellow sun shouldn't instantly recharge Superman. His power should build at the same rate that he
was weakened, several minutes to recharge.

I actually agree with u Osiris,OMG the end of the world is here

[Jon Clark]

Red sunlight shouldn't instantly weaken Superman. It should just prevent him from recharging, so the more he uses his powers the weaker he gets. He could maybe rapidly weaken over a period of a
few minutes if he is doing something arduous, similar to Solar Flare. But not all at once. Conversely a yellow sun shouldn't instantly recharge Superman. His power should build at the same rate that he
was weakened, several minutes to recharge.

My only caveat to that would be that I don't like the idea of Superman as a solar battery being the sole explanation of his powers. So I'd prefer that certain powers be inherent and thus unaffected by what color sun he is under.

[stephens2177]

My only caveat to that would be that I don't like the idea of Superman as a solar battery being the sole explanation of his powers. So I'd prefer that certain powers be inherent and thus unaffected by what color sun he is under.

Golden age limits normal all the time
Full power when yellow sun triggers the change.

The bio aura could work to explain the jump in power levels

[Shadowedeyes]

Wouldn't that make all of Krypton powered though? Which would make them all dying seem kinda weird. I guess you could make it that they become powered under a yellow sun, but it's a permanent change instead of powering them. Could also be a good way to explain Zod being just about as powered as Superman ten minutes after arriving. Huh, guess I answered my own question.

[jimmy]

Bad example, back then Wonder Woman was definitely not on the same level as Superman, she couldn't even fly unaided yet.

Hmm... as that same example was used in the post crisis Justice League Unlimited IN 2004 and WW really could not put a dent into Mogul (good suplex) I understand that it was adapted from "The Man Who Has Everything".

If not on the same level then, One thing it illustrates, is the massive boost WW was given!

[Jon Clark]

Wouldn't that make all of Krypton powered though? Which would make them all dying seem kinda weird. I guess you could make it that they become powered under a yellow sun, but it's a permanent change instead of powering them. Could also be a good way to explain Zod being just about as powered as Superman ten minutes after arriving. Huh, guess I answered my own question.

My preferred take is that Krypton was a harsh environment by our standards. An Earthman on Krypton would instantly be crushed and either baked or frozen (depending on where they arrived). If you somehow managed to adapt your skeleton to the gravity, you'd find that standing up took more energy than running a quarter mile on Earth. And if an apple fell on your head it would hit with the force of a bullet. So your average Kryptonian getting out of bed in the morning is under a worse physical assault than you being dropped from a mile up onto a steel plate heated to 1000 degrees.

Now add in that some of the abilities needed to survive there actually get a power-up from yellow solar radiation over time....

[Last Son]

One idea someone had that I liked is a Kryptonian's ability to fly was necessary to allow them to move around in a high-gravity environment, and so when they leave the planet, the ability that allows them to resist the gravity of Krypton also allows them to fly.

[Powerboy]

Wouldn't that make all of Krypton powered though? Which would make them all dying seem kinda weird. I guess you could make it that they become powered under a yellow sun, but it's a permanent change instead of powering them. Could also be a good way to explain Zod being just about as powered as Superman ten minutes after arriving. Huh, guess I answered my own question.

I kind of liked Byrne's compromise on that one. Kryptonians come from a heavy gravity planet but it can't be more than about +50% of Earth gravity or they wouldn't be humanoid. Then again, heavy worlders should be short and squat which matches neither Kryptonians or Vulcans so real science is already out the door.

I think the heavy gravity explanation was okay (pseudo-science but okay) when Superman was leaping an eighth of a mile. Byrne, I think, had Kryptonians at about three to five times as strong as humans so about equivalent to vulcanss. But then throw in the Yellow sun explanation that is the real source of all their powers. Personally, I like the idea that it's not absorption since the sun's output on a single man-sized object doesn't even remotely begin to explain the level of solar power that would be needed to do the things Superman does. I prefer to think the yellow sun triggers some sort of natural abilities latent in Kryptonian cells. There has to be a duration to it, a period of time a Kryptonian can go without sunlight before the powers begin to fade or they would lose their powers at night.

[Last Son]

I don't remember Vulcan having particularly heavy gravity, at least not in the original series(the human Enterprise crew members move around without any trouble). I do remember something about the air being thinner, though.

[Powerboy]

I don't remember Vulcan having particularly heavy gravity, at least not in the original series(the human Enterprise crew members move around without any trouble). I do remember something about the air being thinner, though.

It was supposed to be heavy gravity, about 50% greater than Earth's, with extreme heat and thin air. Granted in "Amok Time" where Kirk and Spock had the ritual fight they just emphasized the heat and thin air. So people weighed 50% more there and it was supposedly the explanation for why Vulcans were so strong. It was mentioned in the original series and definitely in later versions of Star Trek.