If You Wrote Comics: Superman

[Jon Clark]

Superman would face mostly impersonal threats. Not a lot of focus on people targeting Lois or Jon. If a story focuses on a threat to Lois, it will more likely be the result of Lois' actions than her connection to Superman. Certain villains like Brainiac might target Superman as a threat to some larger plan. Some like Toyman or Atomic Skull might encounter Superman simply as a byproduct of operating mainly in Metropolis. But guys like Lex, Zod and Mxy who specifically seek out Superman would be the exception.

[The Dying Detective]

Superman's powers would be a cross between various takes over the years.

Krypton was a hostile heavy gravity world settled by a proto-human race (like the Guardians and the New Gods) who at that point were advanced enough to make genetic alterations to their basic DNA. As a result his muscles are designed to lift hundreds of time what we can and his body tissues were able to survive the effects that gravity would have. But a secondary part of his powers is an internal field that exists between the cells of his body that was intended to cope with the effects of gravity as well. And the third component is a brain and sensory system that works like our but with increased scope and efficiency.

So physically Superman could lift several tons and shrug off most conventional weaponry short of heavy artillery. He can run at speeds approaching that of sound. But under a yellow sun his internal field becomes supercharged enhancing many of those abilities. So he goes from lifting several tons to not only lifting but actually reinforcing the structure of what he lifts. And his own body makes use of the enhanced field in some way to fly as well as gaining a massive increase to resisting damage. The energy field is slightly variable so if Superman is operating at high levels for a long period he will have points when his abilities drop either over time and with sudden shifts (like a high speed flight might cause Superman to need a minute to fully access his strength.

And his senses designed for a dense atmosphere with low light and muffled sound on Earth translate into increased range of vision. His X-ray vision is actually his mind trying to decipher various wavelengths of radiation that penetrate opaque objects. As a result his X-ray vision in many cases lacks the fine detail to for example tell two masked people apart, though it does enable him to tell things like steel from wood based on density and how it blocks different wavelengths. To protect his mind Superman's senses normally operate closer to human levels with his brain filtering out much of what he is "seeing" or "hearing". So in a quiet room Clark might be overhear a whispered conversation accidentally on a crowded Metropolis street unless he makes an effort that same conversation is just background noise. So Superman does NOT overhear every crying baby, irate parent, or even the domestic disturbance up the block anymore than you or I would.

The only standard power I'd drop or severely limit is Heat Vision which is both energy intensive and not really in keeping with the explanation of the powers.

Interesting choices here that provide a more adequate explanation than the solar battery concept. Because going by it powers like super speed, strength, heat vision, and the solar flare ability should be the only powers Superman should have. Things like flight, X-ray vision, super hearing, telescopic vision and micro-vision should not even be part of his power set. I got this idea from a YouTuber who thought limiting Superman's powers is not enough you have to take away some of them frankly I do agree but where did you get this take from anyway?

[stephens2177]

If you take away some of Supermans powers than every character needs to have some of theirs taken away also.

We like to believe comic character fandoms are not pissing contests,but they are,so I believe if you handicap one character,then you have to do the same to all the characters,and Superman doesn't deserve to be the one who gets shit on just because he is "the man".

[The Dying Detective]

If you take away some of Supermans powers than every character needs to have some of theirs taken away also.

We like to believe comic character fandoms are not pissing contests,but they are,so I believe if you handicap one character,then you have to do the same to all the characters,and Superman doesn't deserve to be the one who gets shit on just because he is "the man".

I mean there has to be some sort of limit to what any character can do to keep things interesting and that includes Batman and Wonder Woman so why not take away some of the things that make writing them something of a challenge?

[stephens2177]

I mean there has to be some sort of limit to what any character can do to keep things interesting and that includes Batman and Wonder Woman so why not take away some of the things that make writing them something of a challenge?

I'm all for making challenges that the hero can't overcome or atleast not with a lot of work,but I'm not for somebody saying "I've decided Superman is to powerful so I'm gonna cut out some of his power,but this other hero who is just as powerful gets to keep all his,um...because reasons".

Before they take from Superman remember their is martian manhunter,captain marvel,all the green lanterns,the flashes,the other supers,magical characters,wonders,and anyone else that doesn't fit into one of those groups who need to be treated the same.they all could be considered over powered also,the only difference is Superman has been on top for so long,ppl have a desure to knock him off.i don't think it has anything to do with powers or how powerful he is,and more they just want to take the guy down who made it big and stayed there.

[The Dying Detective]

I'm all for making challenges that the hero can't overcome or atleast not with a lot of work,but I'm not for somebody saying "I've decided Superman is to powerful so I'm gonna cut out some of his power,but this other hero who is just as powerful gets to keep all his,um...because reasons".

Before they take from Superman remember their is martian manhunter,captain marvel,all the green lanterns,the flashes,the other supers,magical characters,wonders,and anyone else that doesn't fit into one of those groups who need to be treated the same.they all could be considered over powered also,the only difference is Superman has been on top for so long,ppl have a desure to knock him off.i don't think it has anything to do with powers or how powerful he is,and more they just want to take the guy down who made it big and stayed there.

Well this thread is dedicated to getting fans to talk about how they would write Superman so of course the focus would be on him. I've already started threads for a lot those characters you mentioned not many really talk about whether or not they would take away some of their powers though I might bring that up at some point. And I thought Batman was at the top these days considering the Batgod agenda at DC. Nevertheless I see your point. Also the YouTuber I mentioned also came up with this interesting idea to put the people on the side of Lex Luthor by playing more with his philanthropy that allows him to be the perfect villain with good publicity.

[Mutant God]

A couple of ideas:

A Chinese businessman named Tao Ling buys the Daily Planet and plans to make up, edit, and cover up stories that have to do with him or clients of his.

Tao's daughter, Lilith Ling, is put in charge and sometimes sexually harasses Clark Kent.

Introduce Pierre Harris, a fashion blogger hired at the Daily Planet by Tao to give Americans what they want in the news, Fashion!.

Toyman has the name Superman copyrighted and creates many Superman toys and ends up brainwashing kids using the Superman toys and uses the kids as shield from Superman.

New Villains:

Introduce Nuclear Man as a greedy businessman who runs for mayor/governor just to edit laws on nuclear power. During the campaign he gets involve in an accident between nuclear energy and Kryptonite which gives him super powers. After surviving the accident he claims nuclear power is safe and uses his power to cheat and win the election. (I'm thinking a mix between Mr. Burns and Donald Trump)

Superman battles an evil banker who is given the nickname Mr. Appetite for swallowing up clients and assets. Appetite however is actually an alien with a second mouth in his stomach. When he was a baby he was set to Earth and was raised in a small town where as a child/teenager he would roam the streets in the dead of night eating anything and anyone who he would come across. As an adult he has a job as a high ranking banker who eats up the assets of his clients and when the clients have nothing else to give and become homeless, Mr. Appetite simply finishes the meal by eating them when no one is wiser, until journalists Lois Lane and Clark Kent decide to question him about his ex-clients.

Superman battles Monster Man, a horror movie fanatic who is given the powers of classic movie monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein, CFtBL, The Mummy) and some modern (Jason) by a demon/mystical creature to take down Superman.

Superman battles a Drug Lord, and some metahuman Juggalos, who is trying to get certain drugs banned so his drug empire can take advantage of the prohibition causing Clark to question himself on the laws of drug use.

[Jon Clark]

Interesting choices here that provide a more adequate explanation than the solar battery concept. Because going by it powers like super speed, strength, heat vision, and the solar flare ability should be the only powers Superman should have. Things like flight, X-ray vision, super hearing, telescopic vision and micro-vision should not even be part of his power set. I got this idea from a YouTuber who thought limiting Superman's powers is not enough you have to take away some of them frankly I do agree but where did you get this take from anyway?

It was an extrapolation of Eliot S! Maggin's explanation in his first Superman novel.

Since two stranded space wanderers found each other on the big red planet ten thousand star orbits before, the world had been in its death throes. In geological terms it had been enough time to draw a final breath. In human terms it had been over seven hundred wildly successful generations. Enough time to build a prosperous, self satisfied civilization. Enough time to grow proud of a race that had tamed a world so unfit for human life that early generations had to sleep more than half the day and felt more comfortable crawling on all fours than walking erect. The gravity was that intense.

If ever in the history of the galaxy there had been a test of survival of the fittest among the human family, it was on Krypton. The weak died before they could produce offspring, yet the infant mortality rate was frightful for thousands of years. But here, as on the thousands of other more habitable worlds across the stars to which man had migrated, the human species displayed its surprising adaptability. The land changed man long before man changed the land.

The race's physiology was subtly altered while outward appearances changed very little. Muscle tissue became denser. Motor reflexes became sharper. Perceptions broadened. Optic capacities widened. A whole new range of physical abilities began developing, just to allow human beings to live under normal conditions on a planet whose gravity was monstrous, whose weather changes were drastic, whose sun was unusually variable as to heat and generally too dull as to light intensity. Finally, when the suffering was near an end, when subsistence on resources of a near-depleted planet became possible, the race of humankind began to spread north and south from the relatively low-gravity equatorial regions, and the humans began to build.



That was something I stumbled across nearly 40 years ago, and it has always formed the basis for how I understood Superman's abilities. They weren't a single mutation. They were a culmination of them. Even in the comics they had divided up his powers into two groups based on the dual sources of the powers. While none of the powers seemed to work under a red sun, there were a few stories that showed Superman under Kryptonian gravity on Earth (some type of gravity weapon). I fondly remembered the idea of Superman having certain powers that failed and others that didn't under just the gravity … and sort of wondered why the opposite wasn't true. Always figured if I got a chance to write a Superman book I'd "fix" that point by giving him powers under a yellow sun and powers that were just from the lighter gravity.

[Ascended]

I mean there has to be some sort of limit to what any character can do to keep things interesting and that includes Batman and Wonder Woman so why not take away some of the things that make writing them something of a challenge?

I think this is a limited way of looking at things.

There's no such thing as a character who is "too powerful." There's only writers who can't come up with viable problems.

I could spend my entire life writing Superman at a crazy high power level and never run out of stories, threats, or problems that would challenge him.

But if you ask me to write a good mystery story for Batman? I'll struggle to write that one story, and probably won't have a second one in me.

The problem is never power levels. The problem is always getting the right talent on the right book. And when it comes to Superman, DC almost always makes the wrong/mediocre choice. And on the occasion they make the right choice, it's usually short-lived.

Dropping power levels just means you're giving the people already qualified to write the character less to work with. And the writers who aren't equipped to write Superman won't become any more qualified just because he can't bench press as much.

[The Dying Detective]

I think this is a limited way of looking at things.

There's no such thing as a character who is "too powerful." There's only writers who can't come up with viable problems.

I could spend my entire life writing Superman at a crazy high power level and never run out of stories, threats, or problems that would challenge him.

But if you ask me to write a good mystery story for Batman? I'll struggle to write that one story, and probably won't have a second one in me.

The problem is never power levels. The problem is always getting the right talent on the right book. And when it comes to Superman, DC almost always makes the wrong/mediocre choice. And on the occasion they make the right choice, it's usually short-lived.

Dropping power levels just means you're giving the people already qualified to write the character less to work with. And the writers who aren't equipped to write Superman won't become any more qualified just because he can't bench press as much.

Well you could do but those who found the power levels of the Pre-Crisis Superman just got confused. Okay sure it generally depends on the overall skill of the writer in question on how they plan on challenging Superman to keep him interesting and if you take away some of his powers it could be to Superman's detriment as a character and to anyone who tries to write him. But didn't DC once try to take away something from Superman so they wouldn't have to continuously use Kryptonite as a plot device?

[Ascended]

Well you could do but those who found the power levels of the Pre-Crisis Superman just got confused. Okay sure it generally depends on the overall skill of the writer in question on how they plan on challenging Superman to keep him interesting and if you take away some of his powers it could be to Superman's detriment as a character and to anyone who tries to write him. But didn't DC once try to take away something from Superman so they wouldn't have to continuously use Kryptonite as a plot device?

They definitely de-powered him in post-Crisis, yes. But that just shows the limited way DC was thinking.

It's a mistake they make constantly with the character. Now, granted, things pre-Crisis were different than they are now and there was a lot of inconsistency from issue to issue, because continuity didn't matter like it does now. But you can look at any number of characters or stories in the modern day and realize that power levels aren't the problem. Aaron's Thor, the current Silver Surfer, tons of various indie titles, Morrison's All-Star, Lobdell and Pak's runs in the New52......all of these writers have managed at least a year's worth of stories featuring a planet-breaking character.

Seriously, all you need to do is smash two random words together and you've got a threat.

Okay, I just used a random word generator and this is what I ended up with.

"Massive" "Visitor"

"Thinkable" "Curve"

"Noise" "Frogs"

I dunno about you, but each pairing gives me several ideas for stuff that could challenge a highly powerful Superman, or at least provide a fun tale. A new Galactus type foe, a sentient geometric shape, hypersonic frog experiments....you could manage at least 18 months of stories just from these three things....and all this took me less than three minutes.

[The Dying Detective]

They definitely de-powered him in post-Crisis, yes. But that just shows the limited way DC was thinking.

It's a mistake they make constantly with the character. Now, granted, things pre-Crisis were different than they are now and there was a lot of inconsistency from issue to issue, because continuity didn't matter like it does now. But you can look at any number of characters or stories in the modern day and realize that power levels aren't the problem. Aaron's Thor, the current Silver Surfer, tons of various indie titles, Morrison's All-Star, Lobdell and Pak's runs in the New52......all of these writers have managed at least a year's worth of stories featuring a planet-breaking character.

Seriously, all you need to do is smash two random words together and you've got a threat.

Okay, I just used a random word generator and this is what I ended up with.

"Massive" "Visitor"

"Thinkable" "Curve"

"Noise" "Frogs"

I dunno about you, but each pairing gives me several ideas for stuff that could challenge a highly powerful Superman, or at least provide a fun tale. A new Galactus type foe, a sentient geometric shape, hypersonic frog experiments....you could manage at least 18 months of stories just from these three things....and all this took me less than three minutes.

Well depowering Superman for a while allowed Lois to shine for a brief while not there were not other ways to make her look good. I mean in general planet breaking characters are one of the trickeist characters to balance because on paper they sound so good that they can smash everything in sight and then problem solve. If you don't know how to do it well you are out of luck. And I didn't think Lobdell was able to handle Superman. If I were to write Superman I would try to limit how often he can use his powers to solve a problem and when he solves the problem the problem itself isn't solved like how every time the Young Justice team in the cartoon show seemingly defeated the Light the Light actually found a way to win regardless of their defeat. And how do these ideas allow you to challenge Superman. And the idea to get rid of Kryptonite as plot device happened in Pre-Crisis when DC was under Julius Schwatz's leadership.

[stephens2177]

Lois can shine even if Superman was a planet buster,the writer just needs to make her a priority.

Superman might be able to over power most anything,but he can't magically solve every problem or save someone who is using them as a target.

Lex isn't as powerful as superman,but seems to be able to get away with tons of stuff right under Supermans nose,had nothing to do with power levels.

[Ascended]

I mean in general planet breaking characters are one of the trickeist characters to balance because on paper they sound so good that they can smash everything in sight and then problem solve. If you don't know how to do it well you are out of luck.

Well, just as I shouldn't be writing Batman because I can't write mystery or detective stories, if a writer can't do high concept s/he shouldn't be writing Superman.

It's just a matter of matching the strengths of the IP to the strengths of the author.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

There was a character called Sharif who was gonna debut in Superman Grounded but was pulled. He was a middle eastern kid in LA who tried to live up to superman's example. It be a new angle on the superboy concept and I would have brought him back for the Gods and monsters verse. Hernan would be more out of his depth trying to set a good example for him.

http://comicsalliance.com/superman-712-muslim/