Who Should Be More Powerful: Shazam or Superman?

[Timothy Hunter]

In Fawcett comics, Captain Marvel was considered the "Earth's Mightiest Mortal". However ever since he was integrated into the DC Universe, DC has progressively sidelined him and lessened his capacity as a character, mainly in order to make him inferior to their "Mightiest Mortal", Superman. (There is an exceedingly interesting article about this topic that I will give the link to below*)

Anyway, who should be considered more powerful, The Big Red Cheese or The Man of Steel?


*https://www.comicscube.com/2010/10/s...ed-to.html?m=1

[sifighter]

Honestly, I think it should be Shazam, but the reason he may not be able to best Superman is because his childlike nature or mind holds him back from being on Superman’s level. I mean he has all powers that make him equal to Superman including a few added benefits from the gods as well as magic which Superman is weak to. So again I say Shazam.

[JackDaw]

Superman.

He was the first of the mainstream comic book super heroes. And that real status in actual world should get some “acknowledgement” in the fictional world he inhabits...he should get something that makes him stand out from the crowd. If you make others more powerful..I struggle to see what that is.

Oh...and it’s DC comics, not Fawcett comics.

In many ways questions like this are a reflection I think of DC cramming too many ultra-powerful characters on same story telling world. And bizarrely bringing back multi-verse...which I thought would be used to put fewer characters on each Earth..has actually been used to cram more characters onto same Earth.

[Black Manta]

I'm going to say Shazam. He's an immortal wizard. He'd just turn Supes into a frog or something.

[KurtW95]

I'm going to say Shazam. He's an immortal wizard. He'd just turn Supes into a frog or something.

[SilverWarriorWolf]

Honestly, I think they should be equal, in the sense that Superman is a bit stronger, but Captain Marvel/Shazam has fewer weaknesses.

I am also sick of pitting them against each other.

[phantom1592]

I'm going to say Shazam. He's an immortal wizard. He'd just turn Supes into a frog or something.

Depending on the Superhero... Being turned into a Frog doesn't mean the fights over.




Now I want to see Super-frog!

[greatmetropolitan]

My own head canon is always that no matter how far you push him, Superman always has a little extra to give if it means saving the day. That's why he's Superman. He's the only character I don't put hard limits on in that sense. He almost never goes full out, and even if you THINK he's going full out, if he needs that 1% more to save lives, then he'll find it.

In universe, I'm fine with the status quo I think Judd Winnick set up in his First Thunder mini. He basically implied that Captain Marvel is a little slower, a liiiittle weaker or maybe on par in terms of raw strength. But while his invulnerability wasn't quite as good as Clark's, he had incredible magical resistance (you see him throwing off an attack that had Superman paralyzed, I think), and innate knowledge of magical matters thanks to Solomon.

Happy to land on this where I do with Clark and Diana - all three are 10/10, stat wise, but their "points" are allocated differently. But Clark can be an 11/10 if the situation reeeeeally calls for it.

[Robanker]

Honestly, I think it should be Shazam, but the reason he may not be able to best Superman is because his childlike nature or mind holds him back from being on Superman’s level. I mean he has all powers that make him equal to Superman including a few added benefits from the gods as well as magic which Superman is weak to. So again I say Shazam.

This is a really common misconception, but Superman isn't weak to magic per se. He's just no more invulnerable to it than anyone else. He's no more susceptible to it than Batman, The Flash or the like.

[Knightmare]

This is a really common misconception, but Superman isn't weak to magic per se. He's just no more invulnerable to it than anyone else. He's no more susceptible to it than Batman, The Flash or the like.

Yeah sorry... That's almost the textbook definition of a weakness.

If Superman is invulnerable to everything except Kyrptonite and Magic, then those two things are his weaknesses. The fact that his Magic resistance is not better of worse than a normal human is beside the point. If Lex Luthor can exploit Superman's weakness to kryptonite, then Shazam can exploit his weakness to Magic.

That being said weakness is probably the wrong word to use. I think resistance would be a more suitable, i.e. A Kryptonian from Krypton has the same Magic resistance as a Human from Earth. That is to say none at all!

[Kon93]

Didn't superman tank some magic during lobdells run,I think out in space?

[dancj]

This is a really common misconception, but Superman isn't weak to magic per se. He's just no more invulnerable to it than anyone else. He's no more susceptible to it than Batman, The Flash or the like.

I'd go one further. He's no more vulnerable to magic than J'onn J'onzz, Captain Atom, probably Wonder Woman and any other hero who doesn't have a specific defence against magic. And as far as I'm aware (though I could be wrong) this would include Captain Marvel.

Furthermore, if something is magically given the ability to hit really hard, it's still hitting and Superman is still invulnerable to that.

But as pointed out above, the wizard Shazam could probably turn him or anyone else into a frog.

[greatmetropolitan]

For what it's worth, I tend to go by the "magic not a weakness, just not an invulnerability" angle, too, but it has been presented as an explicit weakness before. I remember the JLA 10th Circle story, Claremont, I think, where they made reference to "Superman's unique vulnerability to magic." However, I think Kurt Busiek defined it thusly - someone uses magic to make themselves strong and punch Clark, he takes no more damage than from non-magical strength, however a "cut anything" spell would cut even Superman, he'd have no real defence.

Basically it's never been properly defined by DC editorial, and has been explained differently in different books.

[dancj]

For what it's worth, I tend to go by the "magic not a weakness, just not an invulnerability" angle, too, but it has been presented as an explicit weakness before. I remember the JLA 10th Circle story, Claremont, I think, where they made reference to "Superman's unique vulnerability to magic." However, I think Kurt Busiek defined it thusly - someone uses magic to make themselves strong and punch Clark, he takes no more damage than from non-magical strength, however a "cut anything" spell would cut even Superman, he'd have no real defence.

Basically it's never been properly defined by DC editorial, and has been explained differently in different books.

Yeah. Some writers get it wrong. Busiek gets it right. And I do wish editorial would be stricter on this.

[adkal]

I'd go one further. He's no more vulnerable to magic than J'onn J'onzz, Captain Atom, probably Wonder Woman and any other hero who doesn't have a specific defence against magic. And as far as I'm aware (though I could be wrong) this would include Captain Marvel.

- The Moly on the cape protects against certain kinds of enchantments;
- Solomon's Wisdom allows him to see through deceptions etc;
- Atlas' stamina allows him to instantly recover from harm (so even if he did get turned into a frog he would snap back to 'normal' straightaway).